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James Edward Alexander
General Sir James Edward Alexander (16 October 1803 – 2 April 1885) was a Scottish traveller, writer and soldier in the British Army. Alexander was the driving force behind the placement of Cleopatra's Needle on the Thames Embankment. Background Born in Stirling, he was the eldest son of Edward Alexander of Powis, Clackmannanshire, and his second wife Catherine Glas, daughter of John Glas, Provost of Stirling. The family purchased Powis House near Stirling in 1808 from James Mayne (his uncle by marriage) for £26,500. His father, a banker, had to sell Powis House in 1827 on collapse of the Stirling Banking Company. He received his training in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. In 1837, he married Eveline Marie Mitchell (16 April 1821 – 1906), daughter of Colonel Charles Collier Michell, RA, surveyor general of Cape of Good Hope, in Cape Town on 25 October 1837. In 1853, he obtained Westerton House in Bridge of Allan, built in 1803 by Dr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Order Of The Lion And The Sun
The Imperial Order of the Lion and the Sun (Persian language, Persian: نشان سلطنتی شیر و خورشید) was instituted by Fat′h Ali Shah Qajar, Fat’h Ali Shah of the Qajar dynasty in 1808 to honour foreign officials (later extended to Iranians) who had rendered distinguished services to Iran. In 1925, under the Pahlavi dynasty the Order continued as the Order of Homayoun with new insignia, though based on the Lion and Sun motif. This motif was used for centuries by the rulers of Iran, being formally adopted under Mohammad Shah Qajar, Mohammad Shah. The order is abbreviated as KLS, for ''Knight of Lion and Sun''. The order was senior to the Order of the Crown (Iran), Order of the Crown. It was issued in five grades: * Grand Cross * Grand Officer * Commander * Officer * Knight. In literature * Anton Chekhov has a short story titled ''The Lion And The Sun''. The story is about a mayor who had "long been desirous of receiving the Persian order of The Lion and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xhosa Wars
The Xhosa Wars (also known as the Cape Frontier Wars or the Kaffir Wars) were a series of nine wars (from 1779 to 1879) between the Xhosa Kingdom and the British Empire as well as Trekboers from the Dutch colonial empire in what is now the Eastern Cape in South Africa. These events were the longest-running military resistance against European colonialism in Africa. The reality of the conflicts between the Europeans and Xhosa involves a balance of tension. At times, tensions existed between the various Europeans in the Cape region, tensions between Empire administration and colonial governments, and tensions within the Xhosa Kingdom, e.g. chiefs rivaling each other, which usually led to Europeans taking advantage of the situation to meddle in Xhosa politics. A perfect example of this is the case of chief Ngqika and his uncle, chief Ndlambe. The conflicts between the Xhosa and British were covered extensively in the metropolitan British press, generating increased demand a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silver Medal Of Military Valor
The Silver Medal of Military Valor () is an Italian medal for gallantry. Italian medals for valor were first instituted by Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia on 21 May 1793, with a gold medal, and, below it, a silver medal. These were intended for junior officers or common soldiers who had distinguished themselves in combat. These medals fell into disuse during the period of Napoleonic domination. They were reinstated on 1 April 1815, by Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia, who, however, abolished them only a few months later, on 4 August 1815, replacing them with the Military Order of Savoy (l'Ordine militare di Savoia), now known as the Military Order of Italy. However, in 1833, Charles Albert of Sardinia, recognizing that the Military Order was too exclusive in that it could only be awarded to persons of high rank, re-instituted the medals for valor (gold and silver) as awards for noble acts performed by soldiers in both war and peace. According to royal decree no. 753 of 24 May 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Army Of India Medal
The Army of India Medal (AIM) was a campaign medal approved in 1851 for issue to officers and men of the British Army and the Army of the Honourable East India Company. A retrospective award following the precedent set by the Naval General Service Medal and the Military General Service Medal, it served to reward service in various actions from 1803 to 1826. Criteria The Army of India Medal was approved on 21 March 1851 as a retrospective award by the Honourable East India Company, who bore the cost of the medal, to survivors of various actions during the period 1803–1826. This period encompassed four wars: the Second Mahratta War (1803–04), the Gurkha War (1814–16), the Pindaree or Third Mahratta War (1817–18), and the First Burmese War (1824–26), together with the siege of Bhurtpoor (1825–26).Mussell, p.135 Each battle or action covered by the medal was represented by a clasp on the ribbon and twenty-one were sanctioned.Joslin, Litherland & Simpkin, p. 96. While th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Order Of The Medjidie
Order of the Medjidie (, August 29, 1852 – 1922) was a military and civilian order of the Ottoman Empire. The order was instituted in 1851 by Sultan Abdulmejid I. History Instituted in 1851, the order was awarded in five classes, with the First Class being the highest. The order was issued in considerable numbers by Sultan Abdülmecid as a reward for distinguished service to members of the British Army and the Royal Navy and the French Army who came to the aid of the Ottoman Empire during the Crimean War against Russia and to British recipients for later service in Egypt and/or the Sudan. In Britain it was worn after any British gallantry and campaign medals awarded, but, as an order, before foreign medals like the Turkish Crimean War medal. The order was usually conferred on officers but a few enlisted soldiers and sailors also received it in a lower class. During World War I it was also awarded to a number of German, Austrian and Bulgarian officers. The order was often confe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Order Of The Crescent
The Imperial Order of the Crescent () was a chivalric order of the Ottoman Empire. History The order was instituted in 1799 by Sultan Selim III when he wished to reward Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, Horatio Nelson, an Church of England, Anglican Christians, Christian, for his victory at the Battle of the Nile. None of the existing Ottoman Dynasty, Ottoman orders could be awarded to non-Muslims, so Selim specially created the Order of the Crescent for Nelson, making him its first Knight and sending him the insignia in August 1799. (He also rewarded Nelson with the separate award of the chelengk.) The Order was then extended to reward further British military successes on land and sea against Napoleon I, Napoleon's forces in Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean in 1801. Nelson was so proud of his award that he appended it to his name in the Articles of Capitulation with Denmark after the Battle of Copenhagen (1801), Battle of Copenhagen on 9 April 1801 (n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Order Of The Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by King George I of Great Britain, George I on 18 May 1725. Recipients of the Order are usually senior British Armed Forces, military officers or senior Civil Service (United Kingdom), civil servants, and the monarch awards it on the advice of His Majesty's Government. The name derives from an elaborate medieval ceremony for preparing a candidate to receive his knighthood, of which ritual bathing (as a symbol of Ritual purification, purification) was an element. While not all knights went through such an elaborate ceremony, knights so created were known as "knights of the Bath". George I constituted the Knights of the Bath as a regular Order (honour), military order. He did not revive the order, which did not previously exist, in the sense of a body of knights governed by a set of statutes and whose numbers were replenished when vacancies occurred. The Order consists of the Sovereign of the United King ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Order Of Saint John (chartered 1888)
The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (), commonly known as the Order of St John, and also known as St John International, is an order of chivalry constituted in 1888 by royal charter from Queen Victoria and dedicated to St John the Baptist. The order traces its origins back to the Knights Hospitaller in the Middle Ages, the oldest surviving Order of chivalry, chivalric order which is generally considered to be founded in Jerusalem in 1099, which was later known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Order of Malta. A faction of them emerged in France in the 1820s and moved to Britain in the early 1830s, where, after operating under a succession of grand priors and different names, it became associated with the founding in 1882 of the St John Ophthalmic Hospital near the Old City (Jerusalem), old city of Jerusalem and the St John Ambulance, St John Ambulance Brigade in 1887. The order is found throughout the Commonwealth of Nations, Hong Kong, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Knight Bachelor
The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised Order of chivalry, orders of chivalry; it is a part of the Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom, British honours system. Knights Bachelor are the most ancient sort of British knight (the rank existed during the 13th-century reign of Henry III of England, King Henry III), but Knights Bachelor rank below knights of chivalric orders. A man who is knighted is formally addressed as "Sir [First Name] [Surname]" or "Sir [First Name]" and his wife as "Lady [Surname]". The designation "Bachelor" in this context conveys the concept of "junior in rank". Criteria Knighthood is usually conferred for public service; amongst its recipients are all male judges of His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England. It is possible to be a Knight Bachelor and a junior member of an order of chivalry without being a knight of that or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Invasion Of The Waikato
The invasion of the Waikato became the largest and most important campaign of the 19th-century New Zealand Wars. Hostilities took place in the North Island of New Zealand between the military forces of the colonial government and a federation of Māori tribes known as the Kingitanga Movement. The Waikato is a territorial region with a northern boundary somewhat south of the present-day city of Auckland. The campaign lasted for nine months, from July 1863 to April 1864. The invasion was aimed at crushing Kingite power (which European settlers saw as a threat to colonial authority) and also at driving Waikato Māori from their territory in readiness for occupation and settlement by European colonists. The campaign was fought by a peak of about 14,000 Imperial and colonial troops and about 4,000 Māori warriors drawn from more than half the major North Island tribal groups. Plans for the invasion were drawn up at the close of the First Taranaki War in 1861 but the Colonial Of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Taranaki War
The First Taranaki War (also known as the North Taranaki War) was an armed conflict over land ownership and sovereignty that took place between Māori people, Māori and the Colony of New Zealand in the Taranaki region of New Zealand's North Island from March 1860 to March 1861. The war was sparked by a dispute between the colonial government and the Te Āti Awa people, led by Wiremu Kīngi Te Rangitāke, over the fraudulent sale of the Pekapeka land block at Waitara, New Zealand, Waitara. The deal was orchestrated by minor Te Āti Awa rangatira Te Teira Manuka over lands he had no authority to sell under Tikanga Māori, Māori law. Initially a conflict over Title (property), individual title and Customary law, collective land ownership, all-out war broke out and soon spread throughout the region. It was fought by more than 3,500 imperial troops brought in from Australia, as well as volunteer soldiers and militia, against Māori forces that fluctuated between a few hundred and a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand Wars
The New Zealand Wars () took place from 1845 to 1872 between the Colony of New Zealand, New Zealand colonial government and allied Māori people, Māori on one side, and Māori and Māori-allied settlers on the other. Though the wars were initially localised conflicts triggered by tensions over disputed land purchases (by European settlers from Māori), they escalated dramatically from 1860 as the government became convinced it was facing united Māori resistance to further land sales and a refusal to acknowledge The Crown, Crown sovereignty. The colonial government summoned thousands of British troops to mount major campaigns to overpower the Māori King Movement, Kīngitanga (Māori King) movement and also conquest of farming and residential land for British settlers. Later campaigns were aimed at quashing the Pai Mārire religious and political movement, which was strongly opposed to the conquest of Māori land and eager to strengthen Māori identity. Religion of Māori people ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
