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But Charles XII was not enough for a long diplomacy. Having settled in, the guest turned into a capricious and demanding freeloader. He tried to interfere in the military affairs of the Turks and quarreled with the Grand Vizier. Sultan Ahmed III finally could not stand it and ordered the Iron Head to be sent home. The Turks awarded Charles with such an unflattering nickname for his irresistible stubbornness. The Swedish king was forced out of the country. Charles was left without an army, funds and allies. Dressed in someone else's dress, overgrown with a beard and unrecognizable, he crossed Europe on horseback and appeared in Stockholm.

Sweden met its king ruined and depopulated. Finances were depleted by military spending. I had to issue "coins of need" - copper money. The population was crushed by taxes. In addition to all the troubles in the country, there was a crop failure and a plague. Karl began to look for a way out of this situation in utopian projects. An even bigger dreamer turned out to be a certain Baron von Hertz, the real evil genius of Karl, a man who was hated by all of Sweden. Seeing that Charles was absorbed in the obsession with getting rid of Peter I, Hertz, in order to please the ruler, came up with a way to get funds for the war. He offered to replace the king of England so that the new king would support the Swedes in gratitude. The result of this remarkable plan was an international scandal. The second "brilliant" idea was the conclusion of peace with Peter I. Then, at the head of the Russian army, Norway should be recaptured from Denmark.

In the autumn of 1718 Charles XII indeed invaded the Norwegian lands. He commanded, of course, not the Russian army, but the reserve Swedish troops. The daredevil king never got rid of the habit of risking his life and continued to amaze his subjects with his prowess. On November 30, 1718, Charles XII, "by the grace of God the king of the Swedes, the Goths and the Vandals," was killed in a trench near the fortress of Fredrikshalde under unclear circumstances.

Charles XII died when the forces of Sweden were running out. But the patience of the Swedes proved to be limitless. The king, who brought Sweden the short glory of the greatest European power, a terrible defeat and many years of disaster, remained in the memory of his people as a national hero.

This story is told in different ways, and it is already difficult to determine what is true and what is fiction in it.

In the German city of Freiburg at the beginning of the XIV century. there lived a monk named Berthold Schwartz. This monk was engaged in a business that, in general, he should not have been engaged in - alchemy. It seems that he had some trouble because of this - in any case, according to one of the legends, he made his amazing discovery in prison. And the discovery was really amazing and impossible to explain at the then level of science.

Get gold paint - that's what Bertold Schwartz wanted. On that day, he mixed powders of various chemicals and heated them in a copper mortar standing on fire, covered with a stone instead of a lid. Apparently, this stone did not close the neck of the stupa too tightly: how else could a spark get into it? A terrible roar shook the walls of the room, which instantly filled with acrid black smoke. A stone thrown by an unknown force crashed into the ceiling. What happened to Schwartz himself is not exactly known: either he died, or this incident prompted him to further study the composition he made. Such is the medieval legend about the invention of gunpowder. Of course, in fact, real discoveries are made differently - after a long search, in which more than one generation of people takes part. And with the invention of gunpowder, not everything was as simple and accidental as in the legend of Berthold Schwartz.

The Europeans knew the secret of making gunpowder much earlier - in any case, the coded by the famous scientist of the XIII century is known. Roger Bacon entry with his recipe. Even earlier, the Byzantines used compositions similar to gunpowder for military purposes. But they, apparently, were not pioneers.

Gunpowder (a mixture of saltpeter, sulfur and coal) was apparently invented by the Chinese and used by them both for fireworks and for military operations. The Chinese possessed the secrets of many such means, but gunpowder had two properties that were of great importance: rapid combustion in air and the ability to explode in a confined space.

Media, News, Publishing

вторник, 2 июня 2020 г.

News update 28/05/2020 (00877)

четверг, 28 мая 2020 г.

News update 27/05/2020 (883215)

вторник, 2 июня 2020 г.

News update 28/05/2020 (00877)

четверг, 28 мая 2020 г.

News update 27/05/2020 (883215)

вторник, 2 июня 2020 г.

четверг, 28 мая 2020 г.