Did You Know? – The History
By scrolling down, you can read little-known facts about history.
Metz, city, Moselle département, Grand Est région, northeastern France, situated at the confluence of the Moselle and Seille rivers, northwest of Strasbourg and south of the Luxembourg frontier. It was partly rebuilt and its suburbs considerably extended after World War II.
Metz derives its name from the Mediomatrici, a Gallic tribe who made it their capital. It was fortified by the Romans. In the 3rd century it was evangelized, and it became a bishopric in the 4th century. After being plundered by the Huns in the 5th century, the city passed under Frankish domination. In 843, at the partition of the Carolingian empire, Metz became the capital of Lorraine. During the Middle Ages it became a free city within the Holy Roman Empire and grew prosperous.
After the Reformation in the 16th century, when Metz became Protestant and was in danger of being subjected to persecution, Henry II of France (reigned 1547–59), though a Roman Catholic, offered to defend it, successfully withstanding a siege by Charles V, the Holy Roman emperor, in 1552. The French continued to occupy the city, and in 1648, at the Peace of Westphalia, it was ceded to France with Toul and Verdun.
A visit to Troy January 2022 as part of our project:
Troy (Greek: Τροία) or Ilion (Greek: Ίλιον) was an ancient city located at Hisarlik in present-day Turkey, 30 kilometres (19 mi) south-west of Çanakkale. It is known as the setting for the Greek myth of the Trojan War.
In Ancient Greek literature, Troy is portrayed as a powerful kingdom of the Heroic Age, a mythic era when monsters roamed the earth and gods interacted directly with humans. The city was said to have ruled the Troad until the Trojan War led to its complete destruction at the hands of the Greeks. The story of its destruction was one of the cornerstones of Greek mythology and literature, featuring prominently in the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as numerous other poems and plays. Its legacy played a large role in Greek society, with many prominent families claiming descent from those who had fought there. In the Archaic era, a new city was built at the site where legendary Troy was believed to have stood. In the Classical era, this city became a tourist destination, where visitors would leave offerings to the legendary heroes.
Until the late 19th century, scholars regarded the Trojan War as entirely legendary. However, starting in 1871, Heinrich Schliemann and Frank Calvert excavated the site of the classical era city, under whose ruins they found the remains of numerous earlier settlements. Several of these layers resemble literary depictions of Troy, leading some scholars to conclude that there is a kernel of truth to the legends. Subsequent excavations by others have added to the modern understanding of the site, though the exact relationship between myth and reality remains unclear.
The archaeological site of Troy consists of nine major layers, the earliest dating from the Early Bronze Age, the latest from the Byzantine era. The mythic city is typically identified with one of the Late Bronze Age layers, such as Troy VI, Troy VIIa, or Troy VIIb. The archaeological site is open to the public as a tourist destination, and was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1998. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy)
Bath, the famous spa town in Somerset England, has attracted people from near and far for centuries to its healing springs and baths. Today the city is known for its beautiful Georgian architecture and as the destination for the wealthy elite of the 18th and 19th centuries CE. The rich and powerful visited the beautiful city to drink the warm, strange tasting water, but the use of the hot spring water also has a much older history.
In the center of the UNESCO world heritage city, you can visit the Romans Baths. Here you can learn about how the hot spring was worshiped and utilized by the Romans who conquered Britain in 43 CE. The Romans constructed a temple and bath complex in honor of Sulis Minerva, a Romano-Celtic composite of Sulis, the Celtic goddess of the healing and sacred water, and Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom. In a few decades, the city of Aquae Sulis emerged around the bath complex as one of the most important spa and pilgrimage sites in the western part of the Roman Empire. Visiting the once-forgotten Roman Baths will give you insight into the ancient city’s long history, and it is also one of the places in England where you can learn a lot about life, religion, and changes in the society of Roman Britain.
