It is said that history is an unrolled scroll of prophecy, and that without study and recognition, it unravels itself and we play out our fates unknowingly. But in learning our past—the seminal historical and impactful events throughout history, in recognizing the emergence of powerful civilizations and individuals, empires, tyrants, revolutionaries, and profound achievements—we can move forward with clarity and wisdom. Tradition helps us by keeping alive the old rituals and ancient understandings of the world around us. According to composer Gustav Mahler, “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.”
Here we feature History and Tradition:
In 1219, Genghis Khan led his armies into the mighty Khwarazmain Empire (present-day Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran) and smashed it. The provocation of this attack was due to the mistreatment of ambassadors and merchants. The Mongols had sen...
The word ‘siege‘ conjures up imagery of high wooden towers attacking thick stone castle walls, but in the ancient world sieges also required extreme engineering prowess. Innovations in attack catapult technology and in the building of milita...
In ancient India, legendary King Udayana was a king of the city of Kaushambi in the north-central India as well as a patron of Shakyamuni Buddha. The Buddhist scripture Samyutta Nikaya records Udayana’s conversion to Buddhism after his...
In the 19th century a Hindu priest introduced British army Colonel James Churchward to ancient tablets, revealing the existence of a primordial lost civilization, which led to Churchward’s lifetime quest, spanning several continents and islands...
Traditional religious literature affirms that the Heilige Lanze (Sacred Lance), also called Spear of Destiny, Longinus Spear, Maurice’s Spear and a myriad of other names, was the weapon with which the Roman centurion Gaius Cassius Lo...
For millennia the phenomenon of lightning has been shrouded in mystery, inspiring much fascination by humans, who for the longest time lived outdoors in the shadows of these cosmic blasts of light. Modern humans have knowledge of lighting’s tru...
Before the invention of the Gutenberg printing press in Mainz, Germany, around 1440 AD, recognizable systems of writing had developed in three major ancient cultures: around 3000 BC Mesopotamian cuneiform featured in Sumerian, Akkadian and Elamit...
"Penitenzàgite! (Do penance)", shouted Gherardo Segarelli, a young and eccentric peasant, with flaming, hallucinated eyes and a long beard, as he wandered barefoot, wrapped only in a cloak, in the streets of Parma, Italy in 1260. The ...
The modern-day Java Island of Indonesia now boasts diverse ethnic and religious communities, but the island was once divided by the bitter Battle of Bubat, when a royal wedding turned into a blood bath. The island is traditionally dominated by tw...
On July 12, 2020, Pope Francis stood silently in a pulpit placed in the large window overlooking St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican in Rome. He had just delivered the weekly Angelus prayer given each Sunday, which had lifted up those wh...
