HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND PALESTINE

The Arab countries occupy 640 times the land mass as does Israel and outnumber the Jews of Israel by nearly fifty to one. Total area of Israel and Jordan. This was referred to as "Palestine" and mandated under British administration following World War I. How convenient that today's Arab propagandists forget that land east of the Jordan River was also part of "Palestine" and is, in fact, the Arab-Palestinian State!

From 1517-1917 Turkey's Ottoman Empire controlled a vast Arab empire, a portion of which is today Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. During World War I (1914-1918), Turkey supported Germany. When Germany was defeated, so were the Turks. In 1916 control of the southern portion of their Ottoman Empire was "mandated" to France and Britain under the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which divided the Arab region into zones of influence. Lebanon and Syria were assigned (mandated) to France... and "Palestine" (today's Jordan, Israel and "West Bank") was mandated to Great Britain.
Because no other peoples had ever established a national homeland in "Palestine" since the Jews had done it 2,000 years before, the British "looked favorably" upon the creation of a Jewish National Homeland throughout ALL of Palestine. The Jews had already begun mass immigration into Palestine in the 1880's in an effort to rid the land of swamps and malaria and prepare for the rebirth of Israel. This Jewish effort to revitalize the land attracted an equally large immigration of Arabs from neighboring areas who were drawn by employment opportunities and healthier living conditions. There was never any attempt to "rid" the area of what few Arabs there or those Arab masses that immigrated into this area along with the Jews!
In 1923, the British divided the "Palestine" portion of the Ottoman Empire into two administrative districts. Jews would be permitted only west of the Jordan river. In effect, the British had "chopped off" 75% of the originally proposed Jewish Palestinian homeland to form an Arab Palestinian nation called Trans-Jordan (meaning "across the Jordan River"). This territory east of the Jordan River was given to Emir Abdullah (from Hejaz, now Saudi Arabia) who was not even an Arab-"Palestinian!" This portion of Palestine was renamed Trans-Jordan. Trans-Jordan and would again be renamed "Jordan" in 1946. In other words, the eastern 3/4 of Palestine would be renamed TWICE, in effect, erasing all connection to the name "Palestine!" However, the bottom line is that the Palestinian Arabs had THEIR "Arab Palestinian" homeland. The remaining 25% of Palestine (now WEST of the Jordan River) was to be the Jewish Palestinian homeland. However, sharing was not part of the Arab psychological makeup then nor now.
Encouraged and incited by growing Arab nationalism throughout the Middle East, the Arabs of that small remaining Palestinian territory west of the Jordan River launched never-ending murderous attacks upon the Jewish Palestinians in an effort to drive them out. Most terrifying were the Hebron massacres of 1929 and later during the 1936-39 "Arab Revolt." The British at first tried to maintain order but soon (due to the large oil deposits being discovered throughout the Arab Middle East) turned a blind eye. It became painfully clear to the Palestinian Jews that they must fight the Arabs AND drive out the British.
The Palestinian Jews were forced to form an organized defense against the Arabs Palestinians.... thus was formed the Hagana, the beginnings of the Israeli Defense Forces [IDF]. There was also a Jewish underground called the Irgun led by Menachem Begin (who later became Prime Minister of Israel). Besides fighting the Arabs, the Irgun was instrumental in driving out the pro-Arab British. Finally in 1947 the British had enough and turned the Palestine matter over to the United Nations.
The 1947 U.N. Resolution 181 partition plan was to divide the remaining 25% of Palestine into a Jewish Palestinian State and a SECOND Arab Palestinian State (Trans-Jordan being the first) based upon population concentrations. The Jewish Palestinians accepted... the Arab Palestinians rejected. The Arabs still wanted ALL of Palestine... both east AND west of the Jordan River.
Our Palestinian Cousins started the '48 war, and in so doing released the warlike appetites of a nation of survivors, a people with no place to run, who had repressed their rage for millennia, and had now earned full title to it!
On May 14, 1948 the "Palestinian" Jews finally declared their own State of Israel and became "Israelis." On the next day, seven neighboring Arab armies... Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Yemen... invaded Israel. Most of the Arabs living within the boundaries of the newly declared "ISRAEL" were encouraged to leave by the invading Arab armies to facilitate the slaughter of the Jews and were promised to be given all Jewish property after the victorious Arab armies won the war. The truth is that 70% of the Arab Palestinians who left in 1948 – perhaps 300,000 to 400,000 of them – never saw an Israeli soldier! They did not flee because they feared Jewish thugs, but because of a rational and reasonable calculus: the Jews will be exterminated; we will get out of the way while that messy and dangerous business goes forward, and we will return afterwards to reclaim our homes, and to inherit those nice Jewish properties as well. They guessed wrong; and the Arab Palestinians are still tortured by the residual shame of their flight. Their shame is so great because in their eyes running from Jews was like running from women. So much for the blatant lie about Jews throwing out all the [Palestinian] Arabs!

The remaining 30% either (1) saw for themselves that these Jews would fight and die for their new nation and decided to pack up and leave or (2) were driven off the land as a normal consequence of war.
When the 19 month war ended, Israel survived despite a 1% loss of its entire population! Those Arabs who did not flee became today's Israeli-Arab citizens. Those who fled became the seeds of the first wave of "Palestinian Arab refugees."
The Arab propagandists and apologists almost never mentioned that in 1948, Arab armies launched a war against a one-day-old Israel. Instead he focused on the main consequence of that war: the creation of Arab refugees, stating that Israel "short of genocide" expelled 800,000 of them. This not only disagrees with UN estimates of a bit over 400,000 refugees but also ignores the fact that most of the Arabs/Palestinians were encouraged to leave by the Arab World itself!

The end result of the 1948-49 Israeli War of Independence was the creation of a Jewish State slightly larger than that which was proposed by the 1947 United Nations Resolution 181. What remained of that almost-created second Arab Palestinian State was gobbled up by (1) Egypt (occupying the Gaza Strip) and by (2) Trans-Jordan (occupying Judea-Samaria (a.k.a. the "West Bank" of the Jordan River) and Jerusalem. In the next year (1950) Trans-Jordan formally merged this West Bank territory into itself and granted all those "Palestinian" Arabs living there Jordanian citizenship. Since Trans-Jordan was then no longer confined to one side of the Jordan River, it renamed itself simply "Jordan." In the final analysis, the Arabs of Palestine ended up with nearly 85% of the original territory of Palestine... called Jordan but in reality their ARAB "Palestinian state! But that was still not 100% and thus the conflict between Arab and Jew for "Palestine" would continue through four more wars and continuous Arab terrorist attacks upon the Israeli citizenry. It continues to this very day.
From 1949-67 when all of Judea-Samaria [West Bank & Jerusalem] and Gaza ... were 100% under Arab [Jordanian & Egyptian] control, no effort was EVER made to create a second Palestinian State for the Arabs living there. Surely you do not expect Israel to now provide these same Arabs with their own country when their fellow Arabs failed to do so! And isn't it curious how Arafat and his PLO (formed in 1964) discovered their "ancient" identity and a need for "self-determination" and "human dignity" on this very same West Bank ONLY AFTER Israel regained this territory (three years later in 1967) following Jordan's attempt attempt to destroy Israel! Why was no request ever made upon King Hussein of Jordan by the Arabs living on the West Bank when he occupied it? Is it logical that the PLO was formed in 1964 to regain the lands they would lose three years later in 1967? This sort of logic makes sense only to those who who have not learned that the PLO was formed to DESTROY Israel. And that is STILL their goal! A cosmetic name change from PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) to PA (Palestinian Authority) does not change the stripes on THIS tiger!

Throughout much of May 1967, the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian armies mobilized along Israel's narrow and seemingly indefensible borders in preparation for a massive invasion to eliminate the State of Israel. The battle cry heard throughout the Arab world was then, as it continues to be... "Slaughter the Jews" and "Throw the Jews into the Sea!" But the Jews of Israel, remembering 2,000 years of being butchered, gassed, burned and skinned (eg. The Crusades, The Spanish Inquisition, the Arab rampages of early Palestine and particularly the Holocaust), planned and executed a perfect pre-emptive strike against Egypt. Within two hours the Egyptian Air Force did not exist... most of its planes destroyed while still on the runways! Unaware that the Egyptians had no more air force, King Hussein of Jordan, launched his attack from the his West Bank into Israel's belly while Syrian troops prepared to descend down the Golan Heights high ground into northern Israel.

Now for some facts about "occupation." Firstly, the Egyptians, Jordanians and Syrians lost Gaza, the West Bank and Golan Heights (respectively) by participating in a failed attempt at genocide against the Children of Israel. Had Israel lost this 1967 defensive war, the Arab-Palestinians and their Arab allies would have raped, butchered or driven out every Israeli they could get their hands on and gobbled up all of Israel. Now, 35+ years later and despite the fact that Israel won a war BROUGHT UPON THEM, the Israelis are still willing to allow the Arab-Palestinians to have a state on much of the West Bank and Gaza if only they will stop sending their suicide/homicide bombers into the heart of Israel! (Talk about misplaced compassion!)
From 1948 to 1967, Egypt ruled Gaza, Syria ruled the Golan Heights, while Jordan ruled the West Bank. They could have set up independent Arab-Palestinian states in any or all of those territories, but they didn't even consider it. Instead, in 1967 they used the Golan Heights, Gaza and the West bank to launch a war that was unambiguously aimed at destroying Israel, which is how Israel came into possession of those territories in the first place.
After ONLY six days of air, sea and hand-to-hand ground warfare, Israel defeated all three Arab armies along three separate fronts, taking control of the entire Sinai Desert from Egypt, the 37mile x 12mile Golan Heights from Syria and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem and its Old City) from Jordan. The God of Israel was surely watching over His children! Most importantly was the return to Israel of its holy 3,000 year old capital city of Jerusalem along the western edge of the West Bank... the same Jerusalem from which all Jews had been denied access for the 19 years (1948-1967) following Jordan's seizure and control over it following the first Arab-Israeli War of 1948-9.
Unfortunately, the world saw things differently and considered Israel an "occupier" of this disputed "West Bank" and the Gaza Strip along with the 850,000 Palestinian Arabs living there. These Arabs would refer to themselves as "refugees" and joined the masses of refugees from the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948-9. Once again Israel was forced to fight a battle for survival and, sadly, once again Palestinian [in reality, Jordanian and Egyptian] Arabs becoming refugees by their own actions, the actions of their leaders and from the actions of fellow Arabs from neighboring states!

ISRAEL SCREWS UP TOO!
Israel was responsible for bringing about some of its own problems. The Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were packed and ready to leave following their 1967 defeat. Suddenly the victorious one-eyed IDF General Moshe Dayan persuaded them to stay. This singular act stunned no one more than the Arab enemy himself who could not believe such an incredible manifestation of Jewish madness! After all, the Arabs knew what THEY would have done to the Jews if they had won! Dayan's plan was to educate them, offer them modern medical treatment, provide them with employment both in the West Bank, Gaza AND inside Israel Proper itself ... living amongst each other in hopes of building bridges to the Arab world. Israel is now paying dearly for this typically naive "Leftist" gesture. That "bridge" led to two Intifadas and world-wide Arab-Palestinian terrorism. From a frightened and defeated enemy, these "Palestinian" Arabs under Israel's jurisdiction turned into a confident, hateful and dangerous enemy now on their way toward forming a terrorist state determined to destroy Israel!

Note: When people say Jordan (first called Trans-Jordan) is an Arab-"Palestinian" State, they are correct! Jordan accounts for 3/4 of Palestine's original land mass. Though they may call themselves "Jordanians," they are culturally, ethnically, historically and religiously no different than the Arab-"Palestinians" on the "West Bank." Even the flag of Jordan and the flag of the proposed 2nd Arab-Palestinian state on the West Bank / Gaza look almost identical. So, if the Arab-Palestinians and Jordanians think of themselves as one and the same, why should WE fall for the lie that the Arab Palestinians west of the Jordan River are any different from the Jordanian Arabs on its eastern shore?

Usually when one side starts a war and loses both the war AND some territory, no one on the planet would expect the winner to give back anything! This not only sounds preposterous, it IS preposterous! But the Jews (I hate to admit) had such an insane obsession of wanting the world to love them that they were willing to give back the entire Sinai Desert (oil fields, air bases and endless miles of security buffer) to Egypt for a piece of paper. Thus, in 1982 Egypt regained their Sinai and Israel lost a massive buffer against any future Egyptian aggression! Thus far, Egypt has not aggressed against Israel militarily; however, the basest, anti-Semitic vile to come out of Egypt is not unlike the worse of Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda! This 1982 Camp David Peace Accord has to be the coldest peace deal in history!
Israel still occupies Syria's Golan Heights which, prior to the 1967 war, had been by Syria used solely for terrorist incursions into and artillery bombardment upon Israel's northeastern settlements. The Golan should never be given back to Israel's most vicious enemy! And of course, Israel still "occupies" the West Bank with its ONE MILLION TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND and Gaza with its EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND "Palestinian" Arabs. Had Israel done to these Arabs what the Arabs would have done to the Jews had THEY won, she would have expelled these hostile Arabs and made it officially part of a Greater Israel! But by remaining an "occupier," Israel set herself up for a campaign of vicious propaganda, the scope and intensity of which the world has never before seen!..

More on "Palestinian Nationalism and the Real War Against Israel...
The Middle East war is not now and never was a conflict between Israelis/Jews on the one hand and Palestinians on the other. In fact, the Arab-"Palestinians", while currently the perpetrators of most of the anti-Jewish atrocities, were never a very important part of the conflict. In fact, before about 1970, virtually no one in the world considered the Middle East conflict to be one between Israelis and Palestinians.
The term "Palestinian" itself had referred to Israeli Jews back in the 1940s, and had been slowly deconstructed and redefined to refer to the Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza. The Middle East Conflict was always a war by Arabs against Jews, not a conflict between Israelis and "Palestinians." The war was repackaged as a conflict between Jews and Palestinians as a public relations gimmick by the Arab fascist regimes. These regimes had never had any interest in "Palestinians," in creating a "Palestinian" state, or in "Palestinian nationalism" before 1967. That is because Palestinian nationalism did not and DOES NOT exist. The Palestinians were a regional group of Arabs having virtually no cultural nor national distinctive traits separating them from Syrians, Lebanese, and Jordanians. They are all basically Arabs!.
The bulk of what are called "Palestinian Arabs" are members of families who migrated into the Land of Israel beginning in the late 19th century. Palestinian nationalism is a mislabeling of Arab nationalism. Arab nationalism exists, although it is closely bound up with Islamic nationalism and even Islamism. Palestinian nationalism, however, is a phantom. It is nothing more than genocidal hatred of Jews!
The Arab assaults and aggressions against Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1968, and 1973 had nothing to do with Palestinians. The Palestinian terror campaign would itself be easy to suppress today and eradicate if the Middle East conflict were really a Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israel would simply obliterate the terrorists and expel their supporters to Syria and Lebanon. The Middle East war continues because it is really an Arab-Israeli war, not an Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is also in large part a war between barbarism and civilization. In many ways an Islamic religious jihad against the Jews.

(Source : http://www.masada2000.org/historical.html)

HISTORY OF PATONG BEACH (PHUKET ISLAND)

Phuket Island has a long recorded history, and remains dating back to A.D. 1025 indicate that the island's present day name derives in meaning from the Tamil manikram, or crystal mountain.For most of history, however, it was known as Junk Ceylon, which, with variations, is the name found on old maps. The name is thought to have its roots in Ptolemy's Geographia, written by the Alexandrian geographer in the Third Century A.D. He mentioned that in making a trip from Souwannapum to the Malay Peninsula it was necessary to pass the cape of Jang Si Lang.

Located on trading routes between India and China, Phuket was subjected to foreign influences long before many other parts of Thailand. Ships would anchor in the safe harbours of Phuket and wait for the northeast monsoon winds which would allow them to proceed to India.
The interior jungle was inhabited by indigenous tribes until they were displaced in the 19th century by tin miners. The coastal areas were inhabited by Chao Leh, sea-gypsies who made their living through piracy and fishing for pearls. Although threatened by development, Chao Leh villages can still be found along the coast of Phuket and neighbouring islands.
Phuket first became part of a Thai state during the thirteenth century when Thai armies from Sukhothai wrestled control of the island from the Sirivijaya Empire based in Sumatra.

Tin & Rubber
Phuket is first mentioned as a major source of tin in the sixteenth century when the island became an important source of revenue for the Thai kingdom at Ayuthaya, as well as an important trading post. It was also during this period that the first Europeans arrived on Phuket.
Due to Phuket's abundant supply of tin and its importance as a trading port, the island's economy continued to prosper. The British secured a tin mining concession and nearly claimed Phuket as part of the British Empire, opting instead for Penang due to its safer harbours. Phuket's streets were lined with handsome buildings constructed in the Sino-Portuguese style by the tin-barons, many of which can still be seen in older quarters of the town.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the island's interior still remained relatively untouched. Much of it was still covered in ancient rainforest. However, at the beginning of the twentieth century, large areas of the island were cleared to make way for rubber plantations, irreparably altering the landscape of the island.

Tourism
Tourism began on the island in the 1970s with the first beach bungalows at Patong beach. During this time Phuket was a haven for backpackers. Phuket's idyllic tropical beaches and clear warm waters attracted travellers from all over the world to the island. This was facilitated by the building of an airport in the mid-1970s.
Today, tourism is by far the island's biggest industry with over 3 million tourists visiting the island annually, making Phuket one of the most popular travel destinations in South-East Asia.

Origin of the Name “Phuket”
The name Phuket is derived from the Malay word bukit, meaning hill. The island was previously named Junk Ceylon on European charts, a corruption of the Malay Tanjung Salang meaning Cape Salang. Later it became known as Thalang, after the name of the main town on the island. The island did not come to be known as Phuket until quite late in its history when the administrative centre was moved to a mining town in the centre of the island called Phuket.

The Battle of Thalang
The most celebrated moment in Phuket's history is when the people of Phuket (then called Thalang), drove away Burmese invaders who were laying siege to the island.
In 1785, Phuket was attacked by the Burmese as part of a wider campaign to invade Thailand (then called Siam). The wife of the recently deceased governor, Lady Chan, along with her sister Lady Muk, rallied the people and broke the Burmese siege.
On hearing of these valiant deeds, the king bestowed honorific titles on these two heroines. Today, their statues can be seen atop a monument at the roundabout a few kilometres north of Phuket City

HISTORY OF HAWAII

During the 13th and 14th centuries, waves of immigrants from Tahiti overwhelmed and absorbed the original people of Hawaii. The first known settlers of the Hawaiian Islands were Polynesian voyagers. The islands were first visited by Europeans in 1778 by English explorer Captain James Cook, who named them the Sandwich Islands for the English Earl of Sandwich.
At that time, the islands were under the rule of warring native kings. Cook was received by the natives with demonstrations of astonishment. He was eventually killed when he landed in Kealakekua Bay in Hawaii. At the time of Cook’s visit, the archipelago seems to have been divided into three kingdoms: Hawaii, Oahu and Maui, and Lanai and Molokai.

Unifying the Islands
On the death of the chief who ruled Hawaii at that time, Kamehameha (1736-1819) became king. Ten or twelve years later, Kamehameha had 20 vessels, which traded among the islands. He purchased others from foreigners.
Having encouraged a warlike spirit and having introduced firearms, Kamehameha attacked the chiefs of other kingdoms, until he became master of the group in 1795. People living in many areas in Hawaii, never ceded sovereignty to the Hawaiian Kingdom established by Kamehameha.
The people in these areas were simply conquered. However, as the international community recognized the Hawaiian Kingdom’s ownership of the entire Hawaiian Islands, these other political entities passed.

The Missionaries
Missionaries arrived in 1820. Kamehameha III, who ruled from 1825 until his death in 1854, relied on the missionaries for advice and allowed them to preach Christianity. The missionaries established schools, developed the Hawaiian alphabet and used it for translating the Bible into Hawaiian. In 1839, Kamehameha III issued a guarantee of religious freedom, and the following year a constitutional monarchy was established.

The Monarchy
In 1874, backed by American influence, Kalakaua was elected king. He considered residents of European or American descent as alien invaders, and he aimed to restore largely the ancient system of personal government, under which he should have control of the public treasury.
This called forth the protest of the representatives of Great Britain, France and the United States and aroused such opposition on the part of both the foreigners and some natives that the king was obliged, after four days of popular excitement, to remove the minister.

The Sugar Industry
In 1848, the islands’ feudal land system was abolished, making private ownership possible and thereby encouraging capital investment in the land. By this time the sugar industry, which had been introduced in the 1830s, was well-established.
Threatened constantly by European nations eager to add Hawaii to their empires, sugar planters and American businessmen began to seek annexation by the United States. A treaty of reciprocity was negotiated in 1875.
The treaty was renewed in 1884 but not ratified. Ratification came in 1887 when an amendment was added giving the United States exclusive right to establish a naval base at Pearl Harbor. The amount of sugar exported to the U.S. increased greatly, and American businessmen invested in the sugar industry.

Liliuokalani’s Rise to Power
Queen Liliuokalani took the oath to maintain the constitution of 1887. The legislative session of 1892, during which four changes of ministry took place, was protracted to eight months chiefly by her determination to carry through the opium and lottery bills and to have a pliable cabinet.
She had a new constitution drawn up, providing for an absolute monarchy and disfranchising a large class of citizens who had voted since 1887. A Committee of Safety was appointed at a public meeting, which formed a provisional government and reorganized the volunteer military companies, which had been disbanded in 1890.
The provisional government, called a mass meeting of citizens, met and ratified its action. The Committee of Safety took possession of the government building and issued a proclamation declaring a monarchy to be abrogated and establishing a provisional government.
Meanwhile, two companies of volunteer troops arrived and occupied the grounds. By the advice of her ministers, the queen surrendered under protest, appealing to the United States to reinstate her authority.

The Republic
A treaty of annexation was negotiated with the United States during the next month, just before the close of President Benjamin Harrison’s administration, but it was withdrawn in March 1893 by President Harrison’s successor, President Cleveland.
A constitution for the Republic of Hawaii was framed not long after, with S. B. Dole as its first president. A plot was formed to overthrow the republic and to restore the monarchy. A premature encounter with a squad of police alarmed the town and broke up their plans.
The ex-queen, on whose premises arms and ammunition and a number of incriminating documents were eventually found, was arrested and was imprisoned for nine months in the former palace. In January 1895, she formally renounced all claim to the throne and took the oath of allegiance to the republic.

The “Modern Era”
On the inauguration of President McKinley in March 1897, negotiations with the United States were resumed. Hawaii was formally annexed by a joint resolution of Congress shortly thereafter. The formal transfer of sovereignty took place in August 1898, when the U.S. flag was raised over the Executive Building.
An attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, by Japan was a trigger for America’s entry into World War II. Hawaii served as an important base for operations in the Pacific and it helped America to win the Pacific War.
The citizens of Hawaii voted in favor of becoming a state in 1958. President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill in March 1959, which allowed for statehood. Hawaii formally became the 50th state on August 21, 1959.
In September 1992, the island of Kauai was devastated by Hurricane Iniki, the strongest hurricane to hit the islands in the century. Hawaii, which had enjoyed sustained economic and population growth since the end of World War II, saw both slow in the 1990s. Hawaii’s tourism economy was hit by the tragic events of September 11, 2001, but has fully recovered today.

source : http://www.to-hawaii.com/

HISTORY OF GREAT PYRAMID

The Great Pyramid of Giza was built for King Khufu (known to the Greeks as Cheops) some four and a half thousand years ago. It is a structure of such awe-inspiring dimensions that many people across the centuries have found it hard to credit its creation to human beings. And even harder to realise that these human beings had not fully mastered the use of, say, the simple rope pulley, let alone explosives, mechanical diggers, power drills, cranes and helicopters.

Quite apart from its sheer size (until the construction of the Eiffel Tower at the end of the 19th century, it was by far the tallest building in the world), the Great Pyramid is also an astonishing feat of geometrical accuracy. And there is evidence to suggest that its builders had a remarkably precise knowledge of astronomy, too.
Today, thanks to the labours of generations of scholars, we have constructed a pretty clear account of how this remarkable work was achieved. Archaeologists have traced the technical development of the pyramid form from earlier types of Egyptian tombs; uncovered the quarries from which its stones were cut and hauled; located the remains of the barracks complex in which the work force was housed; calculated and painstakingly re-enacted the process of its construction.

A few minor points of ambiguity remain: for example, though all the experts agree that some form of giant ramp must have been used in building the higher levels, it has not been settled what kind of ramp this was. For the most part, though, everyone who has studied the matter seriously now agrees that the Pyramid was built over the course of some 20 or so years by a work force of some 20,000 people, of whom 4,000 were the hard core of labourers. And despite the familiar Hollywood image, it is also known that the workers were not slaves, but short-term conscripts, performing a kind of National Service.
This account of the making of the Great Pyramid, although rich and coherent, does not satisfy everyone, and there are many who persist in attributing the Great Pyramid to some agency outside the human race. There is a whole branch of the publishing industry devoted to meeting this hunger for pyramidical mysteries, which is sharpened by movies such as Stargate and The Fifth Element, and shows no sign of tapering off in the 21st century.
This accumulation of fringe beliefs is sometimes known as 'pyramidology'; some of its major tendencies are described here, with catch-all names for the sake of brevity.

Occultists
Looking into the early days of investigation and enquiry into the Great Pyramid, it is hard to separate the genuine scholars from those who would now be regarded as cranks, since the radical split between scientific method and religious faith that characterises modern societies had not yet taken place.
Sir Isaac Newton, for example, himself a keen pyramidologist, notoriously spent as much time on alchemical experiments and biblical interpretation as he did on the work in mathematics and physics for which he is now honoured.
Many of those inquisitive Europeans who made the trip to Giza in the 17th and 18th centuries were drawn by the promise that it in some way embodied mysterious ancient wisdom; and though modern Egyptology, born of Napoleon's invasion of the country at the end of the 18th century, gradually became more scientific as time passed, even a reputable scientist such as Scotland's Astronomer Royal, Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819-1900), working in the 19th century, was convinced that the structure's proportions were inspired by the Christian God.
Others, like the sometime structural engineer David Davidson, went still further. Davidson persuaded himself that the Pyramid demonstrated a knowledge of the structure of the universe vastly superior to that of 19th-century science: 'the whole empirical basis of civilisation', he wrote, 'is a makeshift collection of hypotheses compared with the Natural Law basis of that civilisation of the past'.
Egyptology came of scientific age with the accurate and painstaking excavations of Sir Flinders Petrie and others from the late 19th century onwards. At the same time 'pyramidiocy', as it is sometimes called, reached epidemic proportions, with countless cranks purporting to explain just how the Giza structure predicted the First World War, the Second Coming of Christ, the Third Reich and what have you.
Not surprisingly, the Pyramid was also seized on by just about every one of the mystical cults that thrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - above all by the Theosophists, an influential group founded by one Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-91). In her widely read, if all-but-unreadable, books, The Secret Doctrine (1888) and Isis Unveiled (1877), she explained to her followers that the Pyramid was 'the everlasting record and the indestructible symbol of the Mysteries and Initiations on Earth'.
Thanks to Mme Blavatsky, the Pyramid became an essential point of pilgrimage for all self-respecting occultists. Among the notable necromancers and magi who made the journey were the Russian mathematician and mystic PD Ouspensky, whose cult is still alive in various forms today; the largely innocuous self-appointed guru 'Dr' Paul Brunton, who wrote a bestselling book, A Search in Secret Egypt (1935), where he recalled his conference with weird spirits inside the Pyramid; and the most famous of all Black Magicians, Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), who claimed to have spent his honeymoon in the Pyramid, bathed in supernatural light.

Atlanteans
Occultists of all stripes continue to be keen on the Pyramid as a place of spirits and demons, but the traditional belief that it was the product of some 'lost wisdom' from ancient times took on a new wrinkle round about 1923, when a poorly educated American by the name of Edgar Cayce (1877-1945), who had already made something of a name for himself as a trance medium, began to tell his listeners that they had lived previous lives in the lost, sunken continent of Atlantis. He claimed that he too had lived on Atlantis, and had been a high priest there.
Cayce told his believers that the most enlightened members of the population of Atlantis had fled the coming deluge and set up home in Egypt around 10,500 BC. (Some eight millennia, that is, before the construction of Khufu's Pyramid). Cayce insisted that it was the refugee Atlanteans who had constructed, or at least designed, the Pyramid around 10,400 BC. What's more, he said, they had built somewhere close by it a Hall of Records, crammed with their most marvellous secrets; and he predicted that this Hall would be uncovered in the last 20 years of the millennium. Fringe Egyptological circles were in a state of excitement throughout the 1990s, expecting an announcement any day. None came.

Extra-terrestrials
With the 1960s came something a little more space age. In 1969 - not so coincidentally, the year of the Apollo 11 mission that first put men on the moon - there appeared the first English-language version of the book Chariots of the Gods? The author of this curiously written and much publicised work was a Swiss hotelier, Erich von Daniken, and its theme passed into popular consciousness, borne along by serialisation in tabloid newspapers.
Briefly, von Daniken contended that the earth had long ago been visited by superior beings from other worlds, whose technology appeared to our distant ancestors as a form of magic; that our most ancient monuments, including the Great Pyramid (von Daniken maintains that its construction by existing earthly methods would have taken at least 664 years, although the evidence he gives for this is not clear), are the material evidence of that visit; and that the world's religions and mythologies reflect garbled memories of the culture shock it engendered.
Although it is sometimes hard to penetrate von Daniken's prose, he also appears to contend that the Pyramid was a sort of freezing chamber, in which the significant dead could be preserved until such time as the sun god Ra (an astronaut, naturally) returned to revive them. Despite widespread derision, the refutations of scientists, and the promptings of plain old common sense, von Daniken's writings remain in print to this day, and help perpetuate one of the leading folk myths of our time.

New Agers
The 1960s and 70s also saw the rise of that loose coalition of unorthodox and far-fetched beliefs known as New Age philosophy. The Pyramid plays as lively a role in this philosophical fashion as it did a hundred years ago in the heyday of Theosophy, and the mania for all things 'pyramidical' burns as ardently as ever.
One of the more novel aspects of the craze took off in the mid-1960s, when attention shifted from the physical presence of the Giza structure to its proportions. A Czech radio engineer, Karel Dribal, heard rumours of the remarkable preservative powers of tiny model pyramids, made some tests of his own, and then announced to the world that a used razor blade, placed inside a cardboard replica of the pyramid just 15 inches high, would miraculously regain its original sharpness. Before long, the media rang with reports of people using mini-pyramids to keep milk fresh, and to sharpen not only blades but also brainpower.
That particular fad appears to have died away; but others have taken its place. For every reader who is interested in the true story of Khufu's Pyramid, there appear to be hundreds who wish to read only of its mystical secrets, its occult alignment with the heavens, its connection with the so-called 'Face on Mars' (a fuzzy photograph of a rock form taken by the space craft Viking II, in which some people believe they can make out an approximately human profile, somewhat akin to that of the Sphinx), and a supposed 'hidden chamber', the 'door' to which was recently found by a remote-controlled camera.
These unorthodox theories are the stuff of many present-day bestsellers - some relatively sober and moderately well researched, others opportunistic or simply zany. Belief in them is harmless enough, no doubt, and may lead on to a further interest in matters Egyptological. But just as astronomers bemoan the persistence of belief in astrology, professional Egyptologists are exasperated by people's willingness to buy into fantasies about the Pyramid when the unadorned truth of the matter is so endlessly fascinating, and so easy to uncover.

SOURCE :
Kevin Jackson

HISTORY OF HOLLYWOOD

Hollywood is a district in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., situated west-northwest of Downtown. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and stars, the word "Hollywood" is often used as a metonym for the American film and television industry. Today much of the movie industry has dispersed into surrounding areas such as Burbank and the Westside, but significant ancillary industries (such as editing, effects, props, post-production, and lighting companies) remain in Hollywood.
Many historic Hollywood theaters are used as venues to premiere major theatrical releases, and host the Academy Awards. It is a popular destination for nightlife and tourism, and home to the Walk of Fame.

There is currently no official boundary of Hollywood (Los Angeles does not have official districts), but the 2002 secession movement and the current Neighborhood Council boundaries can serve as guides. There is a sign at the northeast corner of Fairfax Avenue and Melrose Avenue indicating that one is entering Hollywood. Generally, Hollywood's southern border follows Melrose Avenue from Vermont Avenue west to Fairfax Avenue. From there, the boundary continues north on Fairfax, wrapping east around the separate City of West Hollywood along Willoughby Avenue then wrapping around on La Brea and heads west along Fountain Avenue before turning north again on Laurel Canyon Boulevard into the Hollywood Hills. The eastern boundary follows Vermont Avenue north from Melrose past Hollywood Boulevard to Franklin Avenue. From there, the border travels west along Franklin to Western Avenue, and then north on Western into Griffith Park. Most of the hills between Laurel Canyon and Griffith Park are part of Hollywood. The commercial, cultural, and transportation center of Hollywood is the area where La Brea Avenue, Highland Avenue, Cahuenga Boulevard, and Vine Street intersect Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard. The population of the district is estimated to be about 300,000. As a portion of the City of Los Angeles, Hollywood does not have its own municipal government, but does have an appointed official that serves as "honorary mayor" for ceremonial purposes only. Currently, the "mayor" is Johnny Grant.

History
In 1853, one adobe hut stood on the site that became Hollywood. By 1870, an agricultural community flourished in the area with thriving crops. In the 1880s, Harvey Henderson Wilcox of Kansas, who made a fortune in real estate even though he had lost the use of his legs due to typhoid fever, and his wife, Daeida, moved to Los Angeles from Topeka. In 1886, Wilcox bought 160 acres (0.6 km²) of land in the countryside to the west of the city at the foothills and the Cahuenga Pass.
Accounts of the name, Hollywood, coming from imported English holly then growing in the area are incorrect. The name in fact was coined by Hobart Johnstone Whitley, the Father of Hollywood. He and his wife Gigi came up with the name in 1886 while on their honeymoon. They were standing on the hill overlooking the valley which is now Whitley Heights. It is part of the California Historic Preservation Overlay Zone. With a hand shake a deal was secured to purchase 500 acres from Mr. Hurd whom they shared the name of their new town. Over the years Whitley had established more than 140 towns. (from Margaret Virginia Whitley's memoir) A locally popular etymology is that the name Hollywood traces to the ample stands of native Toyon, or "California Holly," that cover the hillsides with clusters of bright red berries each winter.

Harvey Wilcox drew up a grid map for a town, which he filed with the county recorder's office on February 1, 1887, the first official appearance of the name Hollywood. With his wife as a constant advisor, he carved out Prospect Avenue (later Hollywood Boulevard) for the main street. Whitley lined it and the other wide dirt avenues with pepper trees, and paved them. Whitley then had the name changed to Hollywood Boulevard. By 1900, Hollywood also had a post office, a newspaper, a hotel and two markets, along with a population of 500 people. Los Angeles, with a population of 100,000 people at the time, lay seven miles (11 km) east through the citrus groves. A single-track streetcar line ran down the middle of Prospect Avenue from Los Angeles, but service was infrequent and the trip took two hours. The old citrus fruit packing house would be converted into a livery stable, improving transportation for the inhabitants of Hollywood. The first section of the famous Hollywood Hotel, the first major hotel in Hollywood, was opened in 1902 by H. J. Whitley, a subdivider, eager to sell residential lots among the lemon ranches then lining the foothills. Flanking the west side of Highland Avenue, the structure fronted on Prospect Avenue. Still a dusty, unpaved road, it was regularly graded and graveled.
Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. Among the town ordinances was one prohibiting the sale of liquor except by pharmacists and one outlawing the driving of cattle through the streets in herds of more than two hundred. In 1904, a new trolley car track running from Los Angeles to Hollywood up Prospect Avenue was opened. The system was called "the Hollywood boulevard." It cut travel time to and from Los Angeles drastically. By 1910, because of an ongoing struggle to secure an adequate water supply, the townsmen voted for Hollywood to be annexed into the City of Los Angeles, as the water system of the growing city had opened the Los Angeles Aqueduct and was piping water down from the Owens River in the Owens Valley. Another reason for the vote was that Hollywood could have access to drainage through Los Angeles' sewer system. With annexation, the name of Prospect Avenue was changed to Hollywood Boulevard and all the street numbers in the new district changed. For example, 100 Prospect Avenue, at Vermont Avenue, became 6400 Hollywood Boulevard; and 100 Cahuenga Boulevard, at Hollywood Boulevard, changed to 1700 Cahuenga Boulevard.

Hollywood and the motion picture industry
The famous Hollywood Sign originally read "Hollywoodland". It was erected in 1923 to advertise a new housing development in the hills above Hollywood. For several years, the sign was left to deteriorate. In 1949, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce stepped in and offered to remove the last four letters and repair the rest. The shape of the text on the sign, which is located near the top of Mount Lee, has been registered as a trademark by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce for certain uses, including cosmetics, clothing, and souvenirs. The same organization also manages the venerable Walk of Fame.
In the early 1900s, motion picture production companies from New York and New Jersey started moving to California because of the reliable weather. Although electric lights existed at that time, none were powerful enough to adequately expose film; the best source of illumination for movie production was natural sunlight. Besides the moderate, dry climate, they were also drawn to the state because of its open spaces and wide variety of natural scenery which could, of course, come in handy during film-making. Another factor in Hollywood's development was its great distance from New Jersey, which made it more difficult for Thomas Edison to enforce his motion picture patents. At the time, Edison owned almost all of the patents relevant to motion picture production and, in the East, movie producers acting independently of Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company were often sued or enjoined by Edison and his agents. Thus, movie makers working on the West Coast could work unencumbered by Edison's control. If Edison sent agents to California, word would usually reach Los Angeles before the agents' arrival and the movie makers could simply escape to nearby Mexico.
In early 1910, director D. W. Griffith was sent by the Biograph Company to the west coast with his acting troop consisting of actors Blanche Sweet, Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, and others. They started filming on a vacant lot near Georgia Street in Downtown Los Angeles. The Company decided to explore new territories and traveled several miles north to a little village that was friendly and enjoyed the movie company filming there. This place was called "Hollywood". D. W. Griffith then filmed the first movie ever shot in Hollywood called In Old California, a Biograph melodrama about Latino/Mexican-occupied California in the 1800s. Biograph stayed there for months and made several films before returning to New York. After hearing about this wonderful place, in 1913 many movie-makers headed west. With this film, the movie industry was "born" in Hollywood which soon became the movie capital of the world.
The first motion picture studio in the region was built in 1909 by the Selig Polyscope Company. The Selig studio was located in Edendale, just east of Hollywood. The first studio in Hollywood proper was Nestor Studios, founded in 1911 by Al Christie for David Horsley in an old building on the southeast corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street. The first motion picture to be filmed in Hollywood was filmed at the Whitley home located on the corner of Prospect (now Hollywood Blvd) and Wilcox. In the same year, another fifteen Independents settled in Hollywood. Creators of dreams began arriving by the thousands; cameras cranked away, capturing images of custard pies, bathing beauties, comedy and tragedy, villains leering, heroines with long curls and heroes to save the day; and they built a new world to replace the lemon groves. Thus, the fame of Hollywood came from its identity with the movies and movie stars; and the word "Hollywood," a word that, when spoken in any country on Earth, evokes worlds, even galaxies of memories, came to be colloquially used to refer to the motion picture industry.
In 1913, Cecil B. DeMille, in association with Jesse Lasky, leased a barn with studio facilities on the southeast corner of Selma and Vine Streets from the Burns and Revier Studio and Laboratory, which had been established there. DeMille then began production of The Squaw Man (1914). It became known as the Lasky-DeMille Barn and is currently the location of the Hollywood Heritage Museum.
The Charlie Chaplin Studios, on the northeast corner of La Brea and De Longpre avenues just south of Sunset Boulevard, was built in 1917. It has had many owners after 1953, including Kling Studios, who produced the Superman TV series with George Reeves; by Red Skelton, who used the sound stages for his CBS TV variety show; and by CBS, which filmed the TV series Perry Mason with Raymond Burr there. It has also been owned by Herb Alpert's A&M Records and Tijuana Brass Enterprises. It is currently The Jim Henson Company, home of the Muppets. In 1969, The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Board named the studio an historical cultural monument.
The first Academy Awards presentation ceremony took place on May 16, 1929 during a banquet held in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. Tickets were $10.00 and there were 250 people in attendance.
Hollywood and the movie industry of the 1930s are described in P. G. Wodehouse's novel Laughing Gas (1936) and in Budd Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run? (1941), and is parodied in Terry Pratchett's novel Moving Pictures (1990), which is a takeoff of Singin' in the Rain.
From about 1930, five major "Hollywood" movie studios from all over the Los Angeles area, Paramount, RKO, 20th Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Warner Bros., owned large, grand theaters throughout the country for the exhibition of their movies. The period between the years 1927 (the effective end of the silent era) to 1948 is considered the age of the "Hollywood studio system", or, in a more common term, the Golden Age of Hollywood. In a landmark 1948 court decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled that movie studios could not own theaters and play only the movies produced by their studios and only with their movie stars. With that, an era of Hollywood history had unofficially ended. By the mid-1950s, when television proved a profitable enterprise that was here to stay, movie studios started to produce programming in that TV, which is still the norm today.

Modern Hollywood
On January 22, 1947, the first commercial TV station west of the Mississippi River, KTLA, began operating in Hollywood. In December of that year, the first Hollywood movie production was made for TV, The Public Prosecutor. And in the 1950s, music recording studios and offices began moving into Hollywood. Other businesses, however, continued to migrate to different parts of the Los Angeles area, primarily to Burbank. Much of the movie industry remained in Hollywood, although the district's outward appearance changed. In 1952, CBS built CBS Television City on the corner of Fairfax Avenue and Beverly Boulevard on the former site of Gilmore Stadium. CBS's expansion into the Fairfax District pushed the unofficial boundary of Hollywood further south than it had been. CBS's slogan for the shows taped there was "From Television City in Hollywood..." The famous Capitol Records building on Vine Street just north of Hollywood Boulevard was built in 1956. It is a recording studio not open to the public, but its unique circular design looks like a stack of old 45rpm vinyl records. The now derelect lot at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Serrano Avenue was once the site of the illustrious Hollywood Professional School whose alumni reads like a Hollywood who's who of household "names".
The Hollywood Walk of Fame was created in 1958 and the first star was placed in 1960 as a tribute to artists working in the entertainment industry. Honorees receive a star based on career and lifetime achievements in motion pictures, live theatre, radio, television, and/or music, as well as their charitable and civic contributions.
In 1985, the Hollywood Boulevard commercial and entertainment district was officially listed in the National Register of Historic Places protecting important buildings and ensuring that the significance of Hollywood's past would always be a part of its future. In June 1999, the long-awaited Hollywood extension of the Metro Red Line subway opened, running from Downtown Los Angeles to the Valley, with stops on Hollywood Boulevard at Western Avenue, at Vine Street and at Highland Avenue.
The Kodak Theatre, which opened in 2001 on Hollywood Boulevard at Highland Avenue, where the historic Hollywood Hotel once stood, has become the new home of the Oscars.
While motion picture production still occurs within the Hollywood district, most major studios are actually located elsewhere in the Los Angeles region. Paramount Studios is the only major studio still physically located within Hollywood. Other studios in the district include the aforementioned Jim Henson (formerly Chaplin) Studios, Sunset Gower Studios, and Raleigh Studios. Several local broadcasters such as KTLA also maintain studios there, while ABC still has a studio facility on Hollywood's east side; but most of that network's programming is now produced out of the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank. The Los Angeles ABC affiliate, KABC also moved to a new studio in Glendale, California.

In 2002, a number of Hollywood citizens began a campaign for the district to secede from Los Angeles and become, as it had been a century earlier, its own incorporated municipality. Secession supporters argued that the needs of their community were being ignored by the leaders of Los Angeles. In June of that year, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors placed secession referendums for both Hollywood and the Valley on the ballots for a "citywide election." To pass, they required the approval of a majority of voters in the proposed new municipality as well as a majority of voters in all of Los Angeles. In the November election, both referendums failed by wide margins in the citywide vote.

Runaways
A serious problem for Hollywood since the 1960s has been its attractiveness for desperate runaways. Every year, hundreds of runaway adolescents flee broken homes across North America and flock to Hollywood hoping to become movie stars, as portrayed by the lyrics of the 1960s Burt Bacharach song "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" whose lyrics include the words: "All the stars / That never were / Are parking cars / And pumping gas." Such individuals soon discover that they have extremely slim chances of competing against professionally trained actors. Many of them end up sinking into homelessness, which is a problem in Hollywood for adults as well as youth. Some return home, while others linger in Hollywood and join the prostitutes and panhandlers lining its boulevards; others go to Skid Row in Downtown Los Angeles; and yet others end up in the large pornography industry in the San Fernando Valley. This side of Hollywood was portrayed in Jackson Browne's 1980 song, "Boulevard", whose lyrics include reference to a notorious hustler hangout of the 1970s, with the words: "Down at the Golden Cup / They set the young ones up / Under the neon lights / Selling day for night." This phenomenon is also portrayed in the books of Charles Bukowski and pop artist Katy Rose additionally references it in the song "Overdrive" with the words: "They all come here to find a scene / But end up girls on methedrine / Naked on a TV screen." This is also expressed in a song by the band System of a Down, titled "Lost in Hollywood" It deals with the fact that people run away to Hollywood looking for fame, but end up being tricked by someone trying to get them to do work in the porn industry. "They find you / Two time you / You should have never gone to Hollywood."


Source : http://www.wikipedia.org/

HISTORY OF BOROBUDUR TEMPLE

Overlooking the fertile valley of Magelang and facing the volcano Merapi, 40 km north from the province of Jogjakarta, stands a breathtaking monument that was built during the 8th century by the Bouddhist dynasty of Sailendra.
This is the most prestigious monument in Indonesia, and the world’s largest Buddhist temple. The different levels of the monument symbolizes the different levels of wisdom we have to go through during life until reaching the enlightenment of Buddha, symbolized by the spectacular upper terraces.
The Borobudur Temple is considered as one of the seven wonders of the world. This temple is located at Borobudur District, South of Magelang, Central Java.

The expression of experts who had been studying Borobudur Temple varied someway. Bernet Kempers' expression was: “Borobudur is Borobudur”, meaning that Borobudur Temple is very unique in her own way. Nieuwenkamp (an artist) imaginated Borobudur as “a big lotus flower bud ready to bloom” which was “floating” on a lake. Nieuwenkamp’s imagination was supported by N. Rangkuti (1987) that from the air, the Borobudur Temple looks floating. From the geological studies, experts were able to prove that Borobudur area was one time a big lake. Most of the villages around Borobudur Temple were at the same altitude, 235 meters above the sea-level. The same altitude included the Pawon and Mendut temples. Thus the area under 235 meter altitude was below the lake water level.

Based on the inscription dated 842 AD, Casparis suggested that Borobudur was one time a place for praying. The inscription stated a phrase such as: “Kawulan i Bhumi Sambhara”. Kawulan means the origin of holiness, “bhumi sambhara” is a name of a place in Borobudur. Paul Mus stated that Borobudur Temple had the structure of stupa (conical form) with double expression. As a whole, the Borobudur Temple was an open-flat stupa, but on the other hand, the temple expressed the idea of a “closed world”. The latter expression could be felt when one is already inside the temple. Whenever person is inside the temple, his or her view will be limited to high walls full on relieves, the verandah is always squared in such a way that one could not see other parts of the temple, even in a same floor. The same feeling happened if one stood on arupadhatu round platform, he or she will have a wider view only on that level, but are not able to see the lower level nor the upper level like the one on rupadhatu and kamandhatu. It could be said that Borobudur is a symbol of cosmic mountain covered by the sky roof, a specific world that could be reached through isolated alleys as stages. The closed structural design of the temple expressed the concept of a closed world, not just a technical reasons as had been suggested by other experts ( Daud AT, 1987)

Borobudur was built by Sanmaratungga in the 8th century, and belongs to Buddha Mahayana. Borobudur was revealed by Sir Thomas Stanford Raffles in 1814. The temple was found in ruined condition and was buried.

The overall height was 42 meters, but was only 34.5 meters after restoration, and had the dimension of 123 x 123 meters (15,129 square meters). There were 10 floors. The first floor up to the sixth floor was square form, the seventh to the tenth floor were round form.

Borobudur is facing to the East with a total of 1460 panels (2 meters wide each). Total size of the temple walls was 2500 square meters, full of relief. The total number of panels with relief was 1212. According to investigations, the total number of Buddha statue was 504 including the intact and damaged statues. The temple undergone restoration from 1905 to 1910, and the last restoration was done in 1973 to 1983.

HISTORY OF COLOSSEUM

Even today, in a world of skyscrapers, the Colosseum is hugely impressive. It stands as a glorious but troubling monument to Roman imperial power and cruelty. Inside it, behind those serried ranks of arches and columns, Romans for centuries cold-bloodedly killed literally thousands of people whom they saw as criminals, as well as professional fighters and animals.
The Colosseum was originally called the Flavian Ampitheatre after its builders, the emperors Vespasian and Titus, both of the Flavian family. Construction began around 70 AD in a low lying area between the Palatine, Esquiline, and Caelian hills that had once formed the pond of Nero's Domus Aureus. The ampitheatre probably came to be called the "Colosseum" because a colossal statue of Nero once stood near it.

The Colosseum was completed in 80 AD and seated more than 50,000 spectators. Its opening was celebrated with 100 days of games in which thousands of animals and gladiators were killed. Occasionally the Colosseum was flooded in order to stage small naval battles, though these more commonly took place in large basins, called naumachias, that were specially dug for that purpose. The emperor had his own entrance to the Colosseum, and from his private "box seat" he decided the fate of defeated gladiators.
The floor of the arena was wood covered with sand. Beneath the floor was a maze of passageways, and temporary holding pens for the animals. A hand-operated elevator was used to raise the animals from the basement up to the arena floor. The walls of the subterranean passeways can still be seen today, although the Italian government has decided to refloor the Colosseum.

For all its beauty, the Colosseum is also a marvel of ergonomics and efficiency. It is estimated that 50,000 people could enter and be seated in 15 minutes. The reason for this is that the Romans invented tickets and assinged seating. Before a game, a spectator would pick up a ticket which had a number that corresponded to one of the 79 entrance arches which all had numbers above them (the 80th arch was for the emperor). The ticket also had a level, and a seat number. Senators had reserved seats with their names carved in the base--some of these can still be seen today. The basic structure of the Colosseum and the ticket system is still used today for many gaming events, from bullfights in Spain to baseball games in America.

The Colosseum was used regularly for almost 400 years, and has suffered through earthquakes, neglect, and the pillaging of popes who took its marble for their own buildings.
Architecture: The Colosseum is eliptical, sitting on a NW to SE axis. The building's core is constructed of brick and a relatively soft, porous rock called tufa. The exterior is clothed in travertine marble, a brilliant white stone that was later favored by Michelangelo for his sculptures. Originally the Colosseum had three stories, but a fourth was added by Alexander Severus when he refurbished the building around 230 AD.

The bottom three stories have 80 arches each; the stories are separated by a thin archetrave (a horizontal band running around the entire Colosseum). The columns in one story line up exactly with those in the story above it. The bottom story has 80 entrance arches, each of which is separated by a Doric column (the columns are engaged, which means the column shafts are actually part of the wall making it impossible to walk behind the columns). The second story has engaged Ionic columns, and the third has Corinthian. The fourth story is a solid wall with thin Corinthian pilasters (rectangular columns that are also engaged). The space between the pilasters is filled alternately with 40 small, recatangular windows and 40 bucklers (now lost).

The unique combination of strong support columns with airy arches and thin archetraves makes the Colosseum look sturdy, yet open and soaring. The Doric column is the oldest type--it is strong, simple, and even severe in appearance, making the first story appear to be a strong foundation. Moving up the building, the columns become progressively "newer" and more refined, lending a lightness to the upper stories.

There was no roof on the Colosseum, but in the summer great canvas sheets were rigged to the top to form awnings that kept the sun off everyone inside. These sheets were so large and unwieldy that sailors from the the nearby port of Ostia were brought in to manage them. With the awnings attached, the Colosseum must have looked something like a grand barge that could sail away.

HISTORY OF TAJ MAHAL

For centuries, the Taj Mahal has inspired poets, painters and musicians to try and capture its elusive magic in word, colour and song. It is one of the most flawless architectural creations of the world. Since the 17th century, travellers have crossed continents to come and see this ultimate memorial to love, and few have been unmoved by its incomparable beauty.

Taj Mahal stands in the city of Agra, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, on the banks of the Yamuna River. It was built in the memory of the beautiful Arjumand Bano Begum, who won the heart of a Mughal prince. She was married at 21 to Emperor Jahangir’s third son Prince Khurram and stayed loyally by his side through good times and bad: in the luxurious royal palaces of Agra as well as the transient tents of war camps.

In AD 1628, Khurram became king after a bloody battle of succession: he took the name Shahjahan or “King of the World” and showered his beloved begum with the highest titles. She became Mumtaz Mahal, the exalted of the palace and Mumtaz-ul-Zamani, the exalted of the Age. But Mumtaz Mahal was not destined to be queen for long.

In 1631, Shahjahan went on an expedition to the south and, as always, Mumtaz Mahal accompanied him. But she died in childbirth at Burhanpur. She had borne Shahjahan fourteen children, of whom four sons and three daughters survived. When Mumtaz Mahal died, she was just 39 years old. Shahjahan was inconsolable and contemporary chronicles tell of the royal court mourning for two years. there was no music, no feasting, and no celebration of any kind.

Epitome Of Love -Taj Mahal
Shahjahan, who was a passionate builder, now decided to erect a memorial to his queen in pristine marble that the world would never forget. The site selected for the tomb was a garden by the Yamuna river, unshadowed by any other structure. The garden had been laid by Raja Man Singh of Amber and now belonged to his grndson, Raja Jai Singh. By a royal firman, Shahjahan gave Jai Singh four havelis in exchange for the garden. The site was also chosen because it was located on a bend in the river, and so could be seen from Shahjahan’s personal palace in Agra Fort, further upstream.

Construction Of The Mausoleum - Taj Mahal
Work on the mausoleum began in 1633 and 20,000 workers laboured for 17 years to build it. The most skilled architects, inlay craftsmen, calligraphers, stone-carvers and masons came from all across Indian and lands as distant as Persia and Turkey. The master mason was from Baghdab, an expert in building the double dome from Persia, and an inlay specialist from Delhi.

Yemen sent agates, the corals came from Arabia, the garnets from Bundelkhand, onyx and amethyst from Persia. Mumtaz Mahal’s final resting-place was ornamented like a queen’s jewel-box.
By the late 19th century, parts of the Taj Mahal had fallen badly into disrepair. During the time of the Mutiny, the Taj faced defacement by British soldiers, sepoys and government officials who chiselled out precious stones and lapis lazuli from its walls.
At the end of the 19th century, British viceroy Lord Curzon ordered a massive restoration project, completed in 1908. He also commissioned the large lamp in the interior chamber (modeled on one hanging in a Cairo mosque, when local craftsmen failed to provide adequate designs). It was during this time that the garden was remodeled with the more English-looking lawns that are visible today. By the 20th century the Taj Mahal was being better taken care of. In 1942, the British Raj erected a behemoth scaffolding over it in anticipation of an air attack on it by the German Luftwaffe and later by the Japanese Air Force (see photo). During the India-Pakistan wars of 1965 and 1971, scaffoldings were erected by the Government of India to mislead would-be bomber pilots.
Its most recent threats came from environmental pollution on the banks of the Yumna river, including acid rain occurring due to the Mathura oil refinery (something opposed by Supreme Court of India directives).
The Taj Mahal, as of 1983, is an UNESCO World Heritage Site and a major tourist destination.
Recently, the Taj Mahal was declared Sunni Wakf property, on the grounds that it is the grave of a woman whose husband, Emperor Shah Jahan was a Sunni. The Indian government has dismissed claims by the Muslim trust to administer the property, saying that their claims were baseless and the Taj Mahal is Indian national property.
The Taj is often described as one of the seven wonders of the modern world. Millions of tourists have visited the site -- more than three million in 2004, according to the BBC -- making it one of the most popular international attractions in India.