Digitized images of the drawings by J.C. Staudacher were used to determine sunspot positions for the period of 1749–1796. From the entire set of drawings, 6285 sunspot positions were obtained for a total of 999 days. Various methods have been applied to find the orientation of the solar disk which is not given for the vast majority of the drawings by Staudacher. Heliographic latitudes and longi...

practice dating from medieval times) with increasingly concentrated and accurate firepower from rifled musketry and cannon. Thus Napoleon Bonaparte would lose over 40,000 dead and wounded in 2 days at the battle of Wagram (1809) while the murderous engagement at Antietam in the American civil war in September 1862 produced 1-day losses of 25,000 men, which rivaled even the fatalities of the Bri...

The evolution of infrastructure networks such as roads and streets are of utmost importance to understand the evolution of urban systems. However, datasets describing these spatial objects are rare and sparse. The database presented here represents the road network at the french national level described in the historical map of Cassini in the 18th century. The digitization of this historical ma...

The article focuses on the process, events and attempts from the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century to unite the romanian orthodox Church or rather a part of it belonging to the orthodox Metropolitan of Transylvania with the roman Catholic Church. The author analyzes the challenges and consequences of such a union for the romanian identity. To overcome the controversies and s...

It is believed that spectacles were discovered in the early 14th century, most probably by Armati of Florence. The testing spectacles illustrated were the property of Pierre de Sales La Terriere of Trois Riviers, Quebec, Canada. He studied medicine in Canada and subsequently at St Thomas’s Hospital, where he became MRCS. He previously served as a Surgeon in the Voltigeure Canadiens, during the ...

nals, the Soviet Union’s Luna 2 became the first manmade object to reach the Moon. The intentional crash landing of the spacecraft on 13 September 1959 once again demonstrated Soviet technological superiority over the US. That event can be regarded as the trigger of the so-called race to the Moon, initiated by President John F. Kennedy in May 1961. As the much-broadcast commemoration of Apollo ...