Mandate of Heaven

Examples of Mandate of Heaven in the following topics:

• The Mandate of Heaven

  • The Zhou Dynasty overthrew the Shang Dynasty, and used the Mandate of Heaven as justification.
  • Under the Zhou Dynasty, China moved away from worship of Shangdi ("Celestial Lord") in favor of worship of Tian ("heaven"), and they created the Mandate of Heaven.
  • The Mandate of Heaven did not require a ruler to be of noble birth, and had no time limitations.
  • The Zhou claimed that their rule was justified by the Mandate of Heaven.
  • However, the Mandate of Heaven philosophy carried on throughout ancient China.

• Society Under the Zhou Dynasty

  • Under the initial period of the Zhou Dynasty (called the Western Zhou period), a number of innovations were made, rulers were legitimized under the Mandate of Heaven, a feudal system developed, and new forms of irrigation allowed the population to expand.
  • A number of important innovations took place during this period: the Zhou moved away from worship of Shangdi, the supreme god under the Shang, in favor of Tian ("heaven"); they legitimized rulers, through the Mandate of Heaven (divine right to rule);  they moved to a feudal system; developed Chinese philosophy; and made new advances in irrigation that allowed more intensive farming and made it possible for the lands of China to sustain larger populations.
  • These include The Book of History and The Book of Diviners, which was used by fortune tellers.
  • While many of these writings have been destroyed over time, their lasting impression on history is evidence of the strength of Zhou culture.
  • At the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty's rule, the Duke of Zhou, a regent to the king, held a lot of power, and the king rewarded the loyalty of nobles and generals with large pieces of land.

• The Xia Dynasty

  • The final part of the Mythical Period was under the rule of the legendary Xia Dynasty, which may have been mythological.
  • The earliest comprehensive history of China is the Historical Records, written by Sima Qian, a renowned Chinese historiographer of the 2nd century BCE.
  • This history begins around 3600 BCE, with an account of the Five Emperors.
  • The Zhou created the idea of the "Mandate of Heaven," which stated that there could be only one legitimate ruler of China at any given time.
  • If he was a good ruler, he would have the support of heaven; if he was despotic, he would be overthrown.

• The Mongol Invasions

  • It was the khanate ruled by the successors of Möngke Khan after the division of the Mongol Empire.
  • In official Chinese histories, the Yuan dynasty bore the Mandate of Heaven, following the Song dynasty and preceding the Ming dynasty.
  • The Rise of Kublai Khan and the the Mongol Invasions of China
  • In 1271, Kublai formally claimed the Mandate of Heaven and declared that 1272 was the first year of the Great Yuan in the style of a traditional Chinese dynasty.
  • A portrait of the founder of Yuan dynasty, the Mongolian Kublai Khan.

• The Fall of the Han and the Three Kingdoms Period

  • After the death of Emperor Zhang (of the Eastern Han period's Rule of Ming and Zhang) in 88 CE, corrupt officials increasingly gained control of the state, while family feuds tore the dynasty apart.
  • Xian would be the last emperor of the Han Dynasty.
  • When Cao Cao died in 220 CE, Emperor Xian abdicated the throne, claiming that he had failed to keep the Mandate of Heaven.
  • This portrait of Dong Zhuo dates from a Qing Dynasty edition of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
  • Demonstrate the significance of the Battle of the Red Cliffs and the Three Kingdoms Period

• The Qin Dynasty

  • When the Qin state emerged victorious from the Warring States period in 221 BCE, the state's leader, King Zheng, claimed the Mandate of Heaven and established the Qin Dynasty.
  • The Qin Dynasty was one of the shortest in all of Chinese history, lasting only about 15 years, but it was also one of the most important.
  • This burning of books and execution of philosophers marked the end of the Hundred Schools of Thought.
  • Finally, Qin Shi Huang began the building of the Great Wall of China, one of the greatest construction feats of all time, to protect the nation against barbarians.
  • Sections of the Great Wall of China, from the part known as Jinshanling.

• France at the End of the Interwar Period

  • Peace terms were imposed by the Big Four, meeting in Paris in 1919: David Lloyd George of Britain, Vittorio Orlando of Italy, Georges Clemenceau of France, and Woodrow Wilson of the United States.
  • Clemenceau demanded the harshest terms and won most of them in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.
  • The German African colonies were put under League of Nations mandates, and were administered by France and other victors.
  • From the remains of the Ottoman Empire, France acquired the Mandate of Syria and the Mandate of Lebanon.
  • As a response to the failure of the Weimar Republic to pay reparations in the aftermath of World War I, France occupied the industrial region of the Ruhr as a means of ensuring repayments from Germany.

• Astronomy

  • While astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, dating back to antiquity, its development during the period of the Scientific Revolution entirely transformed the views of society about nature.
  • His observations challenged Aristotle’s claim that the moon was a perfect sphere and the larger idea that the heavens were perfect and unchanging.
  • Although the motions of celestial bodies had been qualitatively explained in physical terms since Aristotle introduced celestial movers in his Metaphysics and a fifth element in his On the Heavens, Johannes Kepler was the first to attempt to derive mathematical predictions of celestial motions from assumed physical causes (which led to the discovery of the three laws of planetary motion that carry his name).
  • By deriving Kepler's laws of planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, and then using the same principles to account for the trajectories of comets, the tides, the precession of the equinoxes, and other phenomena, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the cosmos.
  • Oil painting by the Polish artist Jan Matejko depicting Nicolaus Copernicus observing the heavens from a balcony by a tower near the cathedral in Frombork.

• Arts and Sciences

  • The renaissance of the 12th century was a period of many changes at the outset of the High Middle Ages.
  • The rediscovery of the works of Aristotle allowed the full development of the new Christian philosophy and the method of scholasticism.
  • In his turn, Nicole Oresme showed that the reasons proposed by the physics of Aristotle against the movement of Earth were not valid, and adduced the argument of simplicity for the theory that Earth moves, and not the heavens.
  • Despite this argument in favor of Earth's motion, Oresme fell back on the commonly held opinion that "everyone maintains, and I think myself, that the heavens do move and not the Earth."
  • He is considered one of the major figures of medieval thought and was at the center of the major intellectual and political controversies of the 14th century.

• Renaissance Writers

  • Love is a divine gift that redeems man in the eyes of God, and the poet's mistress is the angel sent from heaven to show the way to salvation.
  • The revival of classical antiquity became a foundation of the Renaissance, and his defense of the importance of ancient literature was an essential requirement for its development.
  • Dante's significance also extends past his home country; his depictions of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven have provided inspiration for a large body of Western art, and are cited as an influence on the works of John Milton, Geoffrey Chaucer and Lord Alfred Tennyson, among many others.
  • One of Bruni's most famous works is New Cicero, a biography of the Roman statesman Cicero.
  • He was also the author of biographies in Italian of Dante and Petrarch.