Showing results by author "Kelly Mass" in All Categories

The Shinto religion is a mystery to many. There is no real founder, there are many gods and deities that are worshipped, and something about spiritualism and spirits in nature (that most people can’t quite put their finger on). Today, many of those confusions will be cleared up, as you will explore the Shinto faith and all its most important rituals, gods and goddesses, symbolism, etc. A long list of divine beings and their purpose and tasks will be revealed, some background stories about the most famous ones, and the history and legends of Japan’s gigantic mountain: Mount Fuji.

Spartacus is the central figure in the first few chapters of this audiobook. He led the slaves to rebel against the Roman oppressors and made a significant impact. His name will be remembered in history because of his heroic deeds. This book is filled with historical facts, explanations, and situations to enjoy listening to.

Ivan IV Vasilyevich, referred to as Ivan the Terrible in English, was the Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547 and the very first Moscow ruler to declare himself Tsar of Russia from 1547 to 1584. Ivan's rule was marked by Russia's change from a Middle Ages state to an empire under the control of the tsar, but at a big cost to the people and the nation's long-lasting economy. Let’s talk about his life, his legacy, his evil deeds, and the way things occurred in history.

Picasso’s work is famous. His art is intricate, yet bizarre. His personal life was filled with struggles, and his children weren’t any better off, creating substance abuse and suicidal headlines. Despite the dysfunctionality in his personal and family life, his artwork reflected something new and fresh. And in a variety of paintings, an underlying rebel message against totalitarian regimes. Having lived through many horrors of the Spanish war, as well as other 20th-century conflicts, the painter showed both style and morale in his works, and left a legacy studied by the masses.

If you think that most of the world consists of unicorns and rainbows, think again. Perhaps you think that living in the West is particularly harsh and that the problems we face in the United States or Europe are more brutal than in other parts of the world. Again, think again.

From 1845 to 1852, the Great Hunger, also referred to as the "Potato Famine", was a period of a lot of starvation and illness in Ireland. The period was known in Irish at the time as a "Drochshaol"—loosely translated as "the hard days", or actually "the bad life"—with the most badly affected districts in the west and south of Ireland, where the Irish language was popular. The year 1847, at times called "Black '47", was the absolute worst year of the period. Around one million people died, and over a million left the nation throughout the Great Famine.

An important chapter in history is that in which the Catholic Church was being questioned by the commoners. People were standing up against tyranny and illogical rules. They had had it with hypocrisy and double standards. The abuse in the church wasn’t representing the text in the Bible. Too much corruption had crept into the clergy, or so the narrative went about across the entire European continent.

Oliver Cromwell was an English army and statesman who led Parliamentary armies against King Charles I throughout the English Civil War. Why was he so hated by so many? And is this image of him historically correct? The reason why people thought he was so evil is because of his brutality against the Irish at that time. Several Irish and English scholars agree that Cromwell was too cruel in Ireland. Other academics accuse him of "ethnic cleansing", or the systematic expulsion of a certain ethnic population from a territory. Is this true? And why did he do this?

Don't think that because it is such a small country with only about 17 million people, it should be neglected. The Netherlands has a long history, with a high influence on our cultures, trading routes, the stock market, business, and art. The Dutch were all over the world. They "owned" and colonized a big portion of what was then the known world. They were among the first settlers, had the biggest haven, and biggest fleet for some time. The Dutch East-Indian Trading Company, or VOC, is probably the biggest or at least one of the biggest companies that has ever existed.

This is an extensive guide to the world of Egyptian mythology. Both cultural background and historical events will help you understand the way the ancient Egyptians lived and the things they believed.

The Dutch East India Company, officially the United East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagnie; VOC), was a megacorporation created in the early 17th century by a government-directed merger of many competing Dutch trade services. You might think that Amazon or Google is big, but the VOC is still thought to be the world's biggest corporation in documented history.

There is no doubt that Michelangelo is one of the most influential artists of all time, together with some other Renaissance geniuses, such as Leonardo and Rafael. Michelangelo had a vision, a dream, and the talent to carry out those imaginations. His life, in our perspective, is a compilation of great works of art, architecture, sculptures, paintings, and intricate movements, contrast, colors, and anatomy of the human body. Religious and thematic symbolism are intertwined in his frescos and structures. Let us learn more about this great artist.

The following cruel dictators, mass murderers, torturers, and sadists from an extensive world history will be described and discussed in further detail: Adolf Eichmann, Benito Mussolini, Enver Pasha, Francisco Pizarro, Josef Mengele, Oliver Cromwell, Paul Joseph Goebbels, Pol Pot, Robespierre, Rudolf Hoess, and Torquemada.

The cult image, female divine being, and folk saint Nuestra Seora de la Santa Muerte (Spanish meaning: Our woman of the holy death) is a cult image, female divine being, and folk saint in Mexican Neopaganism and folk Catholicism. Her worshippers relate her with healing, security, and safe delivery to the afterlife simply because she's a personification of death. In spite of condemnation from Catholic Church leaders and, more just recently, evangelical movements, her following has grown substantially since the start of the 21st century.

The Crimean War was an army war between Russia and an alliance of France, the Ottoman Empire, the UK, and Sardinia that lasted from October 1853 to February 1856. The rights of the Christian minority in Palestine, which became part of the Ottoman Empire, were the immediate reason for the war. Longer-term elements included the Ottoman Empire's fall, the Russian Empire's development at the time of the preceding Russo-Turkish Wars, and the British and French desire to safeguard the Ottoman Empire to maintain the Concert of Europe's balance of power.

Mother Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu, typically referred to as Saint Teresa of Calcutta in the Catholic Church, was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary. She was born in Skopje (today the capital of North Macedonia), which was then part of the Ottoman Empire's Kosovo Vilayet. After 18 years in Skopje, she went to Ireland and ultimately to India, where she spent the remainder of her life. Teresa formed the Missionaries of Charity in the year 1950, a Roman Catholic spiritual order with about 4,500 nuns active in about 133 nations in the year 2012.

The infamous double murder that inspired elementary school rhymes is a controversial one: partially because of the insidious nature and grossness of the crime and on the other hand because some people still believe the defendant is innocent. There are many reasons to believe why Lizzie killed both her parents with an axe, and there are some that could be used to argue that she didn’t.

From 1924 to his death in 1953, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet politician who ruled the Soviet Union. He was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1952 and Chairman of the Soviet Union's Council of Ministers from 1941 to 1953. He obtained complete control of the party and the federal government by 1937. War atrocities and crimes against humanity have been committed by Stalin. If you want to know more about that, listen to the audiobook.

Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei, known just as Galileo, was an astronomer, physicist, and engineer from Pisa, modern-day Italy, who was regularly described as a polymath. Galileo has been called the "creator of observational astronomy," "father of modern-day physics," "father of the clinical technique," and "father of contemporary science," to name a few titles.

Mao Zedong has had a tremendous impact on the Chinese nation. During his Great Leap Forward, he was responsible for more deaths than both Hitler and Stalin, making him the biggest mass murderer in history. Mao Zedong, typically called Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who functioned as the starting dad of Peoples's Republic of China (PRC), judgment as the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from 1949 till his death in 1976. Maoism is a Marxist-Leninist dogma that includes his theories, army operations, and political programs.