At the tender age of 10, the boy who would become known as Peter the Great was made to watch as rampaging soldiers of the Moscow garrison, the Streltsy, hunted down and murdered some 40 of his relatives, friends and advisors inside the walls of the Kremlin. The year was 1682 and Peter’s eldest half-brother, Tsar Fedor II, had recently passed away without leaving a clear line of succession. Although Peter was the preferred choice of many within the Russian political elite, the men of the Streltsy, in league with the family of Peter’s other half-brother, Ivan, conspired to protect the rights of their candidate. While their actions proved successful in this particular episode, this event would never be forgotten by the man who would one day be their tsar.
The Streltsy were royal musketeers whose origins dated back to the reign of Ivan the Terrible in the mid-sixteenth century. Serving as the ceremonial palace guard of the Russian tsars and the core of their standing army, the Streltsy had acquired many privileges over the decades. Conservative, traditional and deeply suspicious of all things foreign, their resentment over Peter’s affinity for western ways in his early reign caused them to recoil in paranoia and fear when Peter embarked on his Great Embassy in 1697 to visit the kingdoms of Western Europe. They took it as an ill omen that Peter was the first Russian tsar to leave the country during his reign and many expected that their ruler would become hopelessly corrupted in his absence.
Peter had been gone from Russia for almost 18 months when news reached him in Vienna that four regiments of the Moscow Streltsy had risen in revolt. Hastily settling his affairs in the Austrian capital, Peter rushed home to find that the poorly organized uprising had already been crushed. However, unconvinced that the sedition had been fully squelched, Peter proceeded to have all of the rebellious Streltsy transferred to one of his suburban palaces for further interrogation. Fire and knout (a thick, hard leather whip) were the preferred instruments for compelling testimony in what became an orgy of violence and punishment.
The mid to late 15th century in Europe introduced a great age of travel and exchange, termed the Age of Exploration and Discovery. In the two centuries that followed, European merchants and explorers would travel the world in search of goods and lands and sheer discovery in unprecedented numbers. The Portuguese and the Spanish were the earliest adventurers, soon followed by the British, French and Dutch, each eager to acquire new lands and riches in their quest to become the supreme European power. A time of global expansion was upon them.
The interest in traveling beyond one’s own territory grew out of a change in mindset among Europeans. They began looking beyond their familiar lands with an appreciation for what new commerce and territorial expansion could do for them. New ideas and philosophies were stirring in Europe and a curiosity for new knowledge and new experience along with the promise of untold riches led monarchs of Europe to fund exploration. Famous European explorers that contributed to the changing world map included Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, Vasco da Gama, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, Hernando Cortes, John Cabot and Samuel de Champlain, among others.
The Portuguese were the first to send explorers to the East in search of spices and goods unavailable in Europe and as a result of this effort became a great sea-faring empire reliant on trade. Bartholomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama were the first Portuguese explorers to round Africa’s Cape of Good Hope in voyages that returned to Portugal loaded with foreign goods.
The Spanish, in their turn, also began explorations in their search for new lands that would yield a different form of wealth through the discovery and mining of gold and silver. The Spanish also sought routes to the East but discovered, instead, the lands of the New World. Christopher Columbus was commissioned by the Spanish monarchs, Isabella I and Ferdinand V, to sail East to India via a Western route. He discovered for the Europeans many of the Caribbean islands and on one of his last voyages touched Panama. Later Spanish explorers such as Vasco Nunez de Balboa, Ferdinand Magellan, Hernando de Soto, Juan Ponce de Leon and Francisco Pizarro would expand upon his initial explorations and eventually open the lands of North and South America to Spanish colonization.
The French, the British and the Dutch entered the race of discovery soon afterwards and began an era of expansion and conquest, as well as commerce, unseen in the West since the fall of the Roman Empire. English exploration began with the explorers John and Sebastian Cabot, funded by Henry VII, and yielded the islands of Labrador and Newfoundland in 1497. Following these discoveries and during the age of Queen Elizabeth I, explorers such as Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, and Sir John Hawkins, among others, embarked on their voyages of discovery during the Elizabethan reign of Queen Elizabeth I. They were referred to as pirates and privateers by their enemies, as other explorers were labeled conquistadors and exploiters by those whose lands they came upon. French explorers also made their contribution to the Age of Discovery, including Jacques Cartier, Jacques Marquette and Samuel de Champlain.
|
The age of exploration and discovery transformed the continental powers of Europe into world powers. With the exploration of these newly discovered lands, the European powers accumulated wealth, economic influence and global aspirations through the subjugation of the native people and the exploitation of the natural resources of their newfound colonial territories. Though it would take centuries of European infighting and two world wars to weaken the European stranglehold on their former colonies in Africa, Asia, The Pacific Islands and Latin America, the effects of the European exploration and colonization continues to define the struggle that these | |||||||||||
| former colonies face in their attempt to establish a modern nation state. | ||||||||||||
Tags: 1492, 1497, age of discovery, age of exploration, Authentic African Slave Bracelets, Bartholomeu Dias, Christopher Columbus, Colonial Store, discovery of Africa, discovery of Caribbean islands, discovery of Labrador, discovery of Mexico, discovery of Newfoundland, discovery of North America, discovery of South America, discovery of the new world, Dutch explorers, East Indies, English explorers, european explorers 15th century, exploitation of colonies, Ferdinand Magellan, Ferdinand V, Francisco Pizarro, French explorers, Henry VII and exploration, Hernando Cortes, Isabella I, Jacques Cartier, Jacques Marquette, John Cabot, Juan Ponce de Leon, pirates, Portugues explorers, privateers, Queen Elizabeth I and exploration, Samuel de Champlain, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, slavery of colonies, Spanish 17th Century Flintlock Pistol, Spanish explorers, Spanish Galleon Museum Quality Replica Ship, subjugation of colonies, The Age of Exploration and Discovery, the conquistadors, Torino Rapier Antiqued, Vasco da Gama, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, West Indies, Western route to India
Considering the ubiquity of pants in contemporary costume throughout the West and more and more visibly in the East, it is interesting to note that they were not a staple in men’s fashion until very late in recorded history. Pants or trousers really only became a feature of fashion after developing from the hose and breeches of the 15th through 18th centuries. What we see men and women wearing today is a variation of something quite different that evolved in men’s costume as tunic’s became shorter in the medieval period. 
In the 12th century the tunic dropped to about knee-length and men would wear often loose-fitting hose underneath. The hose would rise above the knee and would fasten to drawers (called braies) or be held in place by leg bands, thus providing warmth and coverage but still not considered a separate garment. By the middle of the 1300s hose were made of progressively tighter knits and as they became more fitted they also rose in length to compensate for the shortening of the tunic. As the tunic shortened and gave way to the more form-fitted doublet (that initially was worn under the tunic but soon dominated as a form) the hose gained in length and would be fastened to the doublet. The doublet narrowed at the waist and flared slightly at the hips to accentuate a certain ideal of figure and the well-fitted hose complemented this. By the 14th century it was typical for hose to form a single garment (as opposed to the separate pieces for each leg) and since the doublet had become even shorter with time the hose would be refitted for modesty by the attachment of a codpiece.
Towards the 1500’s the hose again transformed and evolved to become a single garment that ended at the knee and which the wearer would complement with separate stockings held up over the knee with garters. This shorter version of the hose would lead to the padded hose which would express, in their girth, a flamboyance and degree of excess compatible with the spirit of Western Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. The padded hose then gave way to rich silk and satin breeches that would dominate until the period of the French Revolution and the dissolution of certain class ideals and distinctions. 
After the literal rise of shoe heels in the form of wood- or cork-soled chopines, popularized by Venetian fashion, high heels for both men and women of the European aristocracy were widely adopted throughout the 1600 and 1700’s. Most noteworthy for further enhancing the style of the high-heeled shoe was King Louis XIV of France, whose court at Versaille epitomized a period renowned for exorbitant trends in fashion.
It was during his reign that trends in fashion really established themselves in terms of seasonal fluctuation and it was the glamour of presentation at powerful Versailles that made following a particularly French style imperative to the aristocracy in France and throughout Western Europe. Typical of French fashion for men (men’s fashions at this time being more extravagant than women’s) during the Sun King’s reign was flare and pomp. Men wore their hair long and curled (usually in wigs), and trimmed their fitted jackets with wide-set lace collars and bow accessories, wore wide brimmed hats decorated with feathers, adorned their legs with lace stockings and full breeches and finished off their flamboyant style with the famously high-heeled shoes, tied with ribbons or clasped with rosettes.
A good cup of tea has always been a British favorite. At one time it was extremely popular among the royal colonies in America. Perhaps that is why it became a weapon, a symbol of power, control and rebellion culminating on December 16, 1773 at a harbor in Boston.
The colonists were unhappy with all the new taxes as they meant paying the debts of another country which not actually representing the people of the American colonies. The phrase ‘no taxation without representation’ stems from this time. By making the imported tea cheaper than it had ever been and simultaneously placing an import tax on the cargo, the British government, namely King George III, tried to bribe the colonists into accepting British rule. Paying the tax would admit the crown had authority.
A sort of stalemate ensued, until a cool night in December when approximately 116 Bostonians, frustrated by failed meetings and apathetic customs officers, descended on three ships docked at Boston harbor. Dressed in Native American costume and donned with war paint, the men illegally boarded the ships and dumped the tea chests into the harbor.
The ring leaders of this historic act of rebellion had been planning the sedition since the end of November when news of the ships arrival was proclaimed. The ships sat in harbor at Griffin’s Wharf for two weeks where they were guarded by a volunteer force of sentries. Their job was enforcing the resolutions made at meetings of the Boston Sons of Liberty group which stated that the tea would not touch land.
