The Nativity Story 10/10

Byzantium 330-1453

History has painted a gloomy picture of the Byzantine empire. A new exhibition suggests otherwise, writes Robin Cormack

The Roman Emperor Constantine the Great made two extraordinary decisions which changed the world.

	Think again: enamel icon with the archangel Michael

The first, in 313, was to end the persecution of Christians and to declare Christianity a legal religion in the Roman empire. The second, in 324, was to found a new city on the site of Byzantium, which he dedicated in 330 and called Constantinople. Today it is the vast city of Istanbul.

Constantinople flourished and by the reign of Emperor Justinian the Great (527-65) it was the Christian capital of a reduced Roman empire. Its rulers aspired to preside over a unified Mediterranean state with a common faith and a humane law code. We call this the Byzantine empire - though they still called it the Roman empire. It survived until 1453 when the city fell to the Ottoman Turks.

Byzantium 330-1453, a new exhibition at the Royal Academy, assesses the effects of Constantine's decisions. It brings back together many of the widely scattered objects which are the visual legacy of this empire. But it also poses two important questions. What is the real legacy of Byzantium? And is the picture of doom and gloom painted by the Enlightenment historian Edward Gibbon more rhetoric than fact?

Read it all HERE

Annotated Justinian Code

Planets and Stars

How - For more of the funniest videos, click here

3rd grade: History of the World - #1c creation and the beginning of time

God Moved

When God moves his law is applied to all things. His law defined time. When he moved he started time. This was the beginning of History.

God moved, resonance, and when he moved, with his plan and law, and started time so many things happened!

BBC Skillswise has nice lessons, games and worksheets on time:

12-hour and 24-hour time

• am is morning time (all times between 12 midnight and
  12 midday).
• pm is afternoon and evening time (all times between 12
  midday and 12 midnight).
• This is an analogue or a 12-hour clock. An analogue clock
  is one with a face and hands. It is showing the time
  twenty past five.
  
  If it were twenty past five in the morning, it would
  be written as 5:20 am.
  If it were twenty past five in the afternoon, it would
  be written as 5:20 pm.
• These are digital or 24-hour clocks. They are also
  showing the times twenty past five.
  
• The 24-hour time is the same as the analogue time in the
  morning (except for the 0 at the beginning for numbers
  under 10). So 8:45 am becomes 08:45.
• But in the afternoon, you need to add 12 to convert an
  analogue time to a 24-hour time. So 8.45 pm
  becomes 20.45.
• Midday on a 24-hour clock is shown as 12:00.
• Midnight on a 24-hour clock is shown as 00:00.

Units of time

• 1 minute = 60 seconds
• 1 hour = 60 minutes
• 1 day = 24 hours
• 1 week = 7 days
• 1 fortnight = 14 days
• 1 year = 12 months = 52 weeks = 365 days
• 1 leap year = 366 days
• Remember "30 days has September, April, June and
  November. All the rest have 31. Except for February
  alone, which has 28 days clear but 29 each leap year."

Genesis 1

1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Noah: 2348 BC - Deluge