158 



Tin: STANDARD DICTIONARY OF FACTS 



August 12th Procotols agreeing as to the pre- 

 liminaries for a treaty of peace were -. 



h ambas- 



sador. United States military and 

 commanders were ordered to cease hostili- 

 ties. The blockades of Cuba. Porto Kin.. 

 and Manila were lifted and \\ -.ded. 



Augu endered after a corn- 



ed assault army under General 



ritt and Dewey's fit 



or Laced IP nn m. A celebrated 

 '.recce; capital of Laconia and 

 of the Spartan state, and the chief city in the 

 Peloponnesus; on the west bank of the Kurotas 

 and embraced a circuit of six miles. 

 Sparta was a scattered city consisting of five 

 separate quarters. I'nlike Athens, it was 

 plainly built, and had few notable public build- 

 ings; consequently, there are no imposing ruins 

 to be seen here as in Athens, and the modern 

 Sparta is only a village of some 4,000 inhabitants. 

 Spartan state was founded, according to 

 tradition, by Lacedaemon, son of Zeus. The 

 most celebrated of its legendary kings was 

 Menelaus. Shortly after their settlement in the 

 PeloponneM robable that the Spartans 



extended their sway over all the territory of 

 Laconia, a portion of the inhabitants of which 

 "duced to the condition of slaves. They 

 also waged war with the Messenians, the Arca- 

 dians, and the Argives, against whom they were 

 so successful that before the close of the Sixth 

 Century B. C. they were recognized as the 

 leading people in all Greece. 



Early in the following century began the Per- 

 sian wars, in which a rivalry grew up between 

 LI and Sparta. This rivalry led to the 

 PeloponiH -ian War. in which Athens was humil- 

 iated and the old ascendency of Sparta regained. 

 Soon a he Spartans became involved in 



a war with Persia, and Athens, Thebes, Corinth, 

 and some of the Peloponnesian States took this 

 opportunity to declare war against them. This 

 war. known a> the Hoeotian or Corinthian War, 

 lasted eight years and increased the reputation 

 and power of Athens. To break the alliance of 

 h Persia, Sparta, in 387 B. C., con- 

 cluded with the latter power the peace known 

 name of Antalcidas; and tne designs of 

 Sparta became apparent when she occupied, 

 .t provocation, the city of Thebes, and 

 introduced an aristocratical constitution there. 

 Pelopidas delivered Thebes, and the celebrated 

 Theban War followed, in which 



Sparta was much enfeebled. During the fol- 

 lowing century Sparta steadily declined, though 

 one or two isolated attempts were made to 

 restore its former greatness. 



Miiilthnldcr Dutch, Stadhouder\ the 

 name formerly trivcn to t lie chief magistrate of 

 the United Provinces of Holland. The last 

 Stadtholder was William V.. who had to fly to 

 England in 1795, at the invasion of the French 

 Republican army. After the Congress of 

 Vienna (1815), Holland, with Belgium, was 

 erected into a kingdom, and William V., was 

 the t .rider the name of William I. 



"Mar-Chamber, an ancient English tribu- 

 nal, said to have existed from a very early period, 



but revived during the reign of Henry VII. One 

 derivation of the name is from the star-covered 

 roof or ceiling of the room in which the tribunal 

 assembled; but this derivation is at least doubt- 

 ful. The tribunal consisted of privy councillors, 

 and of certain judges, who acted without the 

 intervention of a jury. As this was a violation 

 of Magna Charta, and as the tribunal had been 

 guilty of the most grave excesses, especially in 

 the time of Charles I., the Star Chamber was 

 abolished by the Long Parliament in 1641, at 

 the same time as the High Commission Court. 



Sumter, Fort (named after General 

 Thomas Sumter, 1734-1832), an American fort 

 associated with both the beginning and the end 

 of the Civil War; built of brick, in the form of 

 a truncated pentagon thirty-eight feet high, on 

 a shoal partly artificial, in Charleston Harbor, 

 three and one-half miles from the city. On 

 the withdrawal of South Carolina from the 

 Union in December, 1860, Major. Anderson, in 

 command of the defenses of the harbor, aban- 

 doned the other forts, and occupied Fort Sumter, 

 mounting sixty-two guns, with a garrison of 

 some eighty men. The attack on the fort was 

 opened by General Beauregard April 12, 1861, 

 and it surrendered on the 14th; this event 

 marked the beginning of the war. The Confed- 

 erates strengthened it, and added ten guns and 

 four mortars. In April, 1863, an attack by a 

 fleet of monitors failed. In July batteries were 

 erected on Morris Island, about 4,000 yards off, 

 from which in a week 5,000 projectiles, weighing 

 from 100 to 300 pounds, were hurled against the 

 fort ; at the end of that time it was silenced and 

 in part demolished. Yet the garrison held on 

 amid the ruins and in September beat off a naval 

 attack; and in spite of a forty days' bombard- 

 rrxent in October-December, 1863, and for still 

 longer in July and August, 1864, it was not till 

 after the evacuation of Charleston itself, owing 

 to the operations of General Sherman, that the 

 garrison retired, and the United States flag was 

 again raised April 18, 1865; an event soon fol- 

 lowed by the evacuation of Richmond and the 

 Confederate surrender. 



Sweden. When we first hear of Sweden 

 the country was inhabited by numerous tribes, 

 kindred in origin, but politically separate. Two 

 principal groups are recognizable, Goths in the 

 South and Swedes in the North. Ingiald Hrada, 

 the last ruler of the old royal family of the 

 Ynglingar, who drew their origin from Njord, 

 sought to establish a single government in Swe- 

 den and perished in the attempt. To the 

 Ynglingar followed, in the Upland, the dynasty 

 of the Skioldungar. Erik Edmundsson acquired 

 the sovereignty of the whole of Sweden about the 

 end of the Ninth Century. The dawn of Swedish 

 history now begins. Efforts to introduce 

 Christianity were made as early as 829 A. D., 

 but it was not till 1000 A. D., that Olaf Skotkp- 

 nung, the Lap King, was baptized. Erik 

 undertook a crusade against the pagan Finns, 

 and having compelled them to submit to bap- 

 tism, and established Swedish settlements 

 among them, he laid the foundation of the union 

 of Finland with Sweden. Erik's murder in 1160 

 by the Danish prince, Magnus Henriksen, who 

 had made an unprovoked attack upon the Swe- 



