Being a powerful ruler is not easy: reforms, wars, conspiracies. We say that we read about the five leaders of world history on the Post-Science.
Gilgamesh
The famous hero Gilgamesh's Sumerian name was Bilga Mes, which means either "the offspring of the hero" or "the hero's ancestor". He is traditionally considered to be the fifth ruler of the first solar dynasty in Uruk, and his historical existence falls in the second half of the XXVII century BC. It was this time that the first references to it in clay tablets were made. According to Sumerian sources, he is known as the son of the goddess Ninsun. A man who was considered to be a descendant of a sacred marriage had very big rights in Sumerian city-states and could claim the throne. Bilga-Mesa's historicity is in question, but there is reason to believe that this man really existed.
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It's believed that Bilga Mesa has done two deeds. First, he moved the royal power from the city of Kisha to the city of Uruk, defeating the local, Kishian ruler. It was a very large political act. The second feat of Bilga-Mesa, described in the Sumerian anthem "Shulgi O", is the victory over Huvavava, the guard of the cedar forest, in the mountains. The hero is also attributed to the construction of the city wall of Uruk and the restoration of the temple of Tummal, the temple of the goddess Ninlil in Nippur. The stories of other exploits of Bilga Mesa gradually begin to appear, and it grows into a halo of the mythological hero. Moreover, there is a cult value: since the XXIV century Bilga Mesa has been revered as the patron god of memorial places and cemeteries. In order for the deceased to take a good place in the world of the dead, relatives made a special sacrifice for Bilga Mesa. He was also treated as an exorcist who drove out demons from sick people. Since the end of III - beginning of II millennium in honor of Bilga-mes in the city of Nippur sports games are founded, and he becomes the patron of sports, to it was devoted the fifth month of the Sumerian-Babylonian cult calendar. In Akkadian time, Bilga-Mes, who became known as Gilgamesh, became the hero of the twelve-part calendar and the zodiac.
In the middle of the 5th century B.C., Athens, which became the main city of classical Greece, underwent great social changes: the struggle for the expansion of democracy. The struggle is led by Athenian aristocrat Pericles, son of Xantippa, who sought to expand the rights of the demos, that is, the main part of the Athenian civilian population. Pericles is carrying out important reforms: the introduction of pay for public office, a jury (helium), for which people were paid a small fee. Athens' allies had to pay a rather high tribute (foros) and more or less important court cases to be heard not at home but in Athens. Under Pericles in the 440s B.C., a new port of Piraeus was built in Athens, which became the port of Franco - the most popular port in the Eastern Mediterranean thanks to a very small customs duty. In the Athens Acropolis unfolds a grandiose construction: Propylei - the main entrance to the Acropolis, the Temple of Beskryla Nika and the beautiful Parthenon - the temple of the Virgin Mary, which was erected on top of the Acropolis and became a symbol of the city.
Pericles enjoyed great popularity among the people: he was elected a strategist for 14 years in a row. As a result of his work Athens became the most important political, economic and cultural center of all Greece, gained great international prestige. Athens' coins, the so-called owls - so called Athens' silver tetradrachms - spread throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. But its strengthening Athens began to irritate its enemies - Sparta, Corinth and other Greek policies, which eventually led to the Peloponnesian War, which ended the power of the policy.
Spanish monarch Philip II, son and heir of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, was called the "paper king" because he preferred to lead through the papers: he looked through hundreds of documents in his office every day and only after that made decisions. By the end of his reign, Spain had lost the Northern Netherlands, but over the years it had acquired something much more important. After the suppression of the ruling dynasty of Portuguese kings, Philip II, as a grandson of a female king of the previous Portuguese king, defended his rights by force of arms against his competitors and in 1580 also became king of Portugal. The power controlled by Philip II was probably the largest power that history knew by then: it included giant possessions in America, Africa, Asia, including the Philippines, and Portuguese enclaves.
This giant empire, spread over four parts of the world, posed huge management problems: there were no exact maps of the territory, there was no data on the population, obtaining information even from close proximity to the Netherlands took a very long time. Therefore, in January 1570, King Philip II signed three documents on scientific expeditions