An extensive collection of information covering all historical states, including comprehensive features, highly detailed maps, and lists of rulers for each state. To submit your own features, king list data, photos, audio files, or video files for inclusion, please visit the 'Contact us' page on the web site. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk History Kessler Associates and respective contributors and original sources. All rights reserved. en-gb http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/images/rss/historyFilesTitle_rss.jpg http://www.historyfiles.co.uk Lancashire's history in the ninth and tenth centuries is very murky, and it is generally assumed that the region around Liverpool was part of the Scandinavian kingdom of York. Now a genetic study of men living in the area may be able to back up that assumption, claiming that the Liverpool area was once a major Viking settlement. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesBritain/EnglandLiverpool01.htm In 1772, Calcutta was named the capital of British India by the East India Company, and the first governor-general was appointed. This marked the official start of British governance in areas of India, although some historians use the aftermath of the Battle of Plassey in 1757 as the start. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsFarEast/IndiaStates.htm#Governors-General St Alphege is located in Seasalter, which has a long history as a centre of salt production. After Christ Church Priory was founded in Canterbury, the village of Seasalter and its lands were taken into the priory's possession, and at the time of Domesday Book, in 1087, the region was noted as belonging 'to the kitchen of the archbishop'. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/ChurchesBritain/SouthEast/Kent_Canterbury02.htm The Church of St Michael in the village of Beer, on the south Devonshire coast, faces out from a very narrow plot on Fore Street. On the site where the church currently stands, there was a chapel from at least 1600 until 1876. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/ChurchesBritain/SouthWest/Devon_EastDevon01.htm The Isle of Man (or Ynys Manau to the Post-Roman Britons and later Welsh) was taken by the Irish in the sixth century. Before that, for a short time, it governed the southern Picts of Galwyddel. Then the island was conquered during the ninth century wave of Viking attacks, with local Viking rulers vying for control of the island against stronger forces from Viking Dublin. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsBritain/GaelsMan.htm Following the 1979 revolution in Iran, the 'Grand Ayatollah' became the supreme leader in the new Islamic Republic of Iran, with the position being embodied by the leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini. However, in 2009, the position looked to be under threat as protests against alleged voting irregularities gained increasing levels of support. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/EasternPersia.htm#Modern Faversham's grandly magnificent almshouses are considered to be one of the largest and finest schemes of their type in the country, and this 1863 building replaced a number of scattered almshouses in the town, while in the sleepy manorial farming community of Luddenham lies St Mary's Church, with a congregation of around a hundred people, both covered in two pages of photos and text. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/ChurchesBritain/SouthEast/Kent_Swale01.htm In 840-841 the entire area around the Irish village of Dubh Linn was invaded by Norsemen from Scandinavia. They established the fledgling settlement of Dyflin or Dyflyn, somewhere near the confluence of the rivers Poddle and Liffey, in an area that formed a dark pool or Dubh Linn which provided a safe harbour for Viking longships. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsBritain/GaelsDublin.htm Two gallery pages of photos and historical notes on six of the churches of Faversham in Kent, including the remarkable St Mary of Charity, one of the town's surviving links with Faversham Abbey. The great abbey was built by King Stephen and his wife during the twelfth century, and the parish church fell on its southern boundary, but after Stephen's reign, the abbey fell from favour and was eventually demolished. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/ChurchesBritain/SouthEast/Kent_Swale01.htm While the Scandinavian kingdom of York governed the vast majority of the former territory of Northumbria in the tenth century, the high reeves of Bamburgh may have started to lay a quiet claim to the Northumbrian crown. They may also have ruled the area north of the Tees (former Bernicia) almost as an independent kingdom. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsBritain/EnglandBernicia.htm#Bamburh From 1041, Siward, the Scandinavian earl of York who had arrived in England following Canute's capture of the throne, managed to remove his rivals in Bamburgh in northern Northumbria and unite the two regions under his control, creating a powerful earldom of Northumbria. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsBritain/EnglandBernicia.htm#Earls Between 865-874, groups of Vikings and Danes under Ivarr the Boneless and his brother, Halfdan, swept across England from the north and east, conquering Northumbria and East Anglia, and large swathes of eastern Mercia. Not long afterwards, the acknowledged Danish leader, Guthrum, assumed the title of king of East Anglia. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsBritain/EnglandYork.htm The Danish kingtom was founded as the southern half of the Danish conquests in England, and much extended from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom to cover a sizeable proportion of the eastern midlands and all of Essex. Guthrum accepted baptism as part of the Peace of Wedmore, taking the Christian name of Æthelstan with Alfred the Great as his godfather. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsBritain/EnglandEastAnglia.htm#Danish Kingdom St Botolph without Bishopsgate is one of the parish churches of the City of London. Botolph was a seventh century Saxon noble who built a monastery in the kingdom of East Anglia and was later revered as a saint while his relics were carried throughout England, including into London. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/ChurchesBritain/London/Central_CityEast01.htm The tiny parish of Brook is one of eight Kentish parishes which make up the Ashford ward known as the Saxon Shore, the other seven being Aldington, Bilsington, Bonnington, Brabourne, Hastingleigh, Ruckinge and Smeeth. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/ChurchesBritain/SouthEast/Kent_Ashford01.htm Prior to the advent of the Mughals, India was a sprinkling of independent kingdoms governed by Muslim and Hindu rulers alike. Babar, descendant of Genghis Khan, was the first Mughal to invade, and he swiftly conquered half of northern India, creating an empire that would last for centuries. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesFarEast/India_EarlyModern_Mughals01.htm In the first part of a major new series covering the wonders of history in India, a place which has seen a longer period of human habitation than almost anywhere else in the world outside Africa, the Moghul era is explored, the start of Early Modern India. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/indexLists.htm The island of Hiiumaa lies off the western coast of Estonia, with the smaller island of Vormsi in between the two. The first church of four in this release, Paluküla, is near a village on the northern part of the island, about two kilometres inland from the north-east coast. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/ChurchesEurope/Estonia/Hiiumaa_Palukula01.htm The wooden church of St John's Seek, or Jaani Seegi kirik, is located outside Tallinn's ancient city walls, and served the madhouse or hospital which treated plague sufferers and lepers. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/ChurchesEurope/Estonia/Harju_Tallinn03.htm St John's Methodist Church on Argyle Road in Whitstable was completed in 1868 and opened by the president of the Wesleyan Conference. This building replaced earlier wooden and brick buildings on Middle Wall which were built in 1819 and 1857 respectively. http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/ChurchesBritain/SouthEast/Kent_Canterbury02.htm