The First Book of Factoids | Page 3

Armenians perished. The Armenians were also raided by
Kurdish tribesmen on a regular basis. An Ottoman military tribunal,
convened between 1919-21, even convicted for the crimes members of
the administration of the Young Turks, including cabinet ministers.
Many of the perpetrators fled the country only to return, triumphant,
after the establishment of modern Turkey in 1923. The Turkish
government today denies that an organized, premeditated genocide ever
took place and pegs the number of Armenian fatalities at 200-300,000
at the most.
Towards the end of the 19th century, the Armenians formed guerrilla
movements in eastern Van (the Armenakans, in 1885) and in Russia.
Radical nationalist parties were established by Russian-Armenian
emigrants in 1887 (Hunchak or Henchak, "The Bell") and in 1890 in
Georgia (Dashnak or Dashnaktsutyun, "Union"). Mass demonstrations
in the Turkish capital (in 1890 and 1895) and armed uprisings followed
(in 1894-5). The Dashnaks even invaded Turkey from Russia in 1896 -
a demonstrative act which resulted in the slaughter of 50,000
Armenians.
The suppression of these revolts claimed 200,000 Armenian lives. In
1909, in Adana, more than 23,000 Armenians were massacred as the
warships of the Great Powers stood idly by. In 1912-3 the Great

Powers, led by Russia, pressured Turkey to cease its mistreatment of
the Armenians. This intervention was resented by the Ottoman
authorities. By 1915, Armenian calls for autonomy were deemed a
danger to the disintegrating realm, now at war with Russia.
When the first world war broke, Turkey allied itself with the Germans.
All Armenian men aged 20-45 were conscripted to the army as soldiers,
soon to be disarmed and serve as pack animals or in menial jobs. When
Russian Armenians recruited Turkish Armenians for the anti-Turkish
Russian Army of the Caucasus, in April 1915, the elite of the Armenian
community was arrested and executed. Between May and June 1915
the Armenian population was deported to Mesopotamia. The
deportation followed mass executions.
Many more died from starvation, exposure, dehydration, abuse and
outright torture. The survivors - less than 300,000 - were subjected to
additional slaughter in Syria. People were beaten with blunt
instruments, burnt alive or drowned forcibly. The massacres were
carried out by military officers with dictatorial powers, aided by
criminals especially released from jails and assigned to their gruesome
duties.
Armed resistance in Van province, Mussa Dagh, Shabin Karahisar and
Urfa - as well as setbacks in the war - prevented the Turks for deporting
the urban Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire's major cities.
Today there are less than 60,000 Armenians in Turkey compared to at
least 1.8 million in 1910.
http://www.armenian-genocide.org/
http://www.cilicia.com/armo10.html
Art, Modern
We are all acquainted with the tales - many apocryphal, some real - of
how art critiques, curators, collectors and buyers were fooled into
purchasing "works of art" created by monkeys. The animals "painted"
by dipping their paws in pigments and running to and fro over empty
canvasses.
There are numerous such striking examples of the fluidity of what
constitutes art and the dubious expertise of art "professionals".
There is no other masterpiece so studied, analyzed and scrutinized as
Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Yet, when it was stolen from the
Louvre in Paris in 1912, forgers passed 6 replicas as the original,

selling them for a fortune. The painting was rediscovered in 1915.
Henri Matisse is revered as the father of Fauvism and of modern
painting in general. Yet, one of his more famous tableaux, Le Bateau
(The Boat), hung upside down for 2 months in 1961 in the Museum of
Modern Art in New York. Not one of the art critics, journalists,
116,000 visitors, or curators has noticed it.
Perhaps the most famous case of artistic misjudgment involves Vincent
van Gogh whose work has hitherto fetched the highest prices ever paid
in auctions. Despite his connections with leading painters, gallery
owners, art professors and critics - his brother owned a successful art
dealership in Paris - van Gogh sold only one piece while alive: "Red
Vineyard at Arles." His brother bought it from him. By the time he died
he had painted 750 canvasses and 1600 drawings.
http://www.geocities.com/illonaz/ArtHistory.htm
Atlantis
Atlantis (or Atlantica) was described in antiquity as a large island in the
sea to the west of the known world (the Western Ocean), near the
Pillars of Hercules (the Gibraltar Straits?). It was not, therefore, a part
of the known geography of the period. An earthquake was said to have
submerged it in the ocean.
It is first mentioned in the dialogs Timaeus and Critias written by the
Greek philosopher Plato (428-347 BC). An Egyptian priest was
supposed to have described it to the Greek statesman Solon (638-559
BC).
The priest insisted that Atlantis was enormous - bigger than Asia Minor
(today, a part of Turkey) and Libya combined. It harbored a
technologically advanced civilization, recounted