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934

Year 934 (CMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.

Byzantine Empire

 * Spring and Summer – The Hungarians make an alliance with the Pechenegs, and fight their way through Thrace to Constantinople.
 * Battle of W.l.n.d.r: The Hungarians and Pechenegs kill Constantinople's inhabitants, inflict severe damage on the countryside, and defeat both the Byzantine Empire and Bulgaria, forcing them to pay tribute. Emperor Romanos I signs a peace treaty with the Hungarians.

Europe

 * King Henry I ("the Fowler") pacifies the territories to the north, where the Danish Vikings have been harrying the Frisians by sea. He defeats the Danes petty King Gnupa, and conquers Hedeby.
 * Summer – Caliph Abd-al-Rahman III invades Navarra and forces Queen Toda to submit to him. Her son the 15-year-old King García Sánchez I becomes a vassal of the Caliphate of Córdoba.
 * Haakon I ("the Good"), a son of the late King Harald Fairhair, once again reunites the kingdom after he has deposed his half-brother Eric Bloodaxe. Haakon is installed as king of Norway.
 * The Eldgjá volcanic eruption is the largest basalt flood in history (first documented).

England

 * King Tewdwr of Brycheiniog attends the court of King Æthelstan and signs the English Land Charters. Kings Hywel Dda of Deheubarth, Idwal Foel of Gwynedd and Morgan Mwynfawr ("the Old") of Morgannwg are compelled to accompany Æthelstan on his campaign against King Constantine II of Scotland.

Abbasid Caliphate

 * April 24 – Abbasid caliph al-Qahir is deposed and blinded; he is succeeded by his nephew ar-Radi.
 * Summer – Ali ibn Buya, a Samanid governor, takes advantage of the anarchy in Persia and conquers Fars (modern Iran). He founds the Buyid Dynasty, and makes Shiraz his capital. Ali seeks the recognition of the Abbasid caliph Ar-Radi, who confirms him later as his viceroy.

Asia

 * March 16 – Meng Zhixiang, a military governor (jiedushi), declares himself emperor (formally called "Gaozu") and establishes Later Shu as a new Chinese state, independent of Later Tang. He dies after a short-lived five-month reign and is succeeded by his son Meng Chang.
 * Goryeo forces push the army of Hubaekje back into its heartland and defeat them finally at Hongseong (modern South Korea).

Religion

 * Einsiedeln Abbey, a Benedictine monastery, is founded (modern Switzerland).

Births

 * Dong Yuan, Chinese painter (approximate date)
 * Wolfgang, bishop of Regensburg (approximate date)

Deaths

 * March 4 – Abdullah al-Mahdi Billah, Fatimid caliph (b. 873)
 * May 9 – Wang Sitong, Chinese general and governor (b. 892)
 * May 14
 * Feng Yun, Chinese chancellor (approximate date)
 * Zhu Hongzhao, Chinese general and governor
 * May 16 – Meng Hanqiong, eunuch official of Later Tang
 * September 7 – Meng Zhixiang, Chinese general (b. 874)
 * November 1 – Beornstan, bishop of Winchester
 * November 2 – Emma, queen of the West Frankish Kingdom
 * Abu Zayd al-Balkhi, Abbasid mathematician and physician
 * Gervadius, Irish hermit and saint (approximate date)
 * Gofraid ua Ímair, Viking leader and king of Dublin
 * Li Conghou, emperor of Later Tang (b. 914)
 * Li Renhan, Chinese general and governor
 * Melias, Byzantine general (strategos)
 * Olaf Haraldsson, son of Harald Fairhair
 * Sale Ngahkwe, king of Pagan (Burma)
 * Uallach ingen Muinecháin, Irish poet
 * Xu Zhixun, general of Wu (Ten Kingdoms)
 * Xue Wenjie, official of Min (Ten Kingdoms)

title: 934


text:
937

Year 937 (CMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.

Europe

 * A Hungarian army invades Burgundy, and burns the city of Tournus. Then they go southwards to Italy, pillaging the environs of Naples, Benevento and Monte Cassino. When the Hungarians return home, they are attacked in the Apennine Mountains by Lombard forces, losing their plunder (approximate date).
 * July 11 – King Rudolph II of Burgundy dies after a 25-year reign, and is succeeded by his 12-year-old son Conrad I ("the Peaceful"). His wife, Queen Bertha, takes effective control of unified Burgundy, transferring its capital to Arles (that Burgundian kingdom was later known from the 12th century as the Kingdom of Arles).
 * King Otto I refuses to give land to his older (illegitimate) half-brother Thankmar, who gains the support of Eberhard III (duke of Franconia) and Wichmann the Elder, and seizes the fortress of Eresburg. Otto assumes direct rule over Franconia, and dissolves it into smaller counties.
 * King Hugh of Arles (king of Italy) travels to Colombier (Switzerland) and marries Rudolph's widow Bertha. He takes Conrad I under his tutelage and betroths Rudolph's 6-year-old daughter Adelaide with his own son and co-ruler Lothair II.
 * Winter – Gero succeeds his brother Siegfried after his death. King Otto I appoints him as count and margrave of a vast border region around Merseburg that abuts the Wends on the River Saale (Lower Saxony).
 * Magdeburg becomes the capital of the East Frankish Kingdom, after a Diet held by King Otto I (approximate date).

England

 * Battle of Brunanburh: King Æthelstan defeats a combined Northern Army under the kings Olaf of Dublin, Constantine II of Scotland and Owain of Strathclyde. Though none of the British monarchs appear to have taken part, the people of Strathclyde were a major contingent under their Scottish king.

Asia

 * November 10 – Li Bian usurps the throne and deposes Emperor Yang Pu. The Wu State is replaced and Li (called "Xu Zhigao") becomes the first emperor of Southern Tang, one of the Ten Kingdoms in southern China.
 * Winter – The Later Tang falls to the Later Jin (during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period) founded by Emperor Shi Jingtang (posthumously known as "Gaozu of Jin").

Births

 * Attilanus, bishop of Zamora (d. 1007)
 * Bagrat II, king of Iberia and Kartli (d. 994)
 * Gu Hongzhong, Chinese painter (d. 975)
 * Haakon Sigurdsson, Viking ruler (d. 995)
 * Khalaf ibn Ahmad, Saffarid emir (d. 1009)
 * Li Yu, ruler of Southern Tang (approximate date)
 * Meng Xuanzhe, prince of Later Shu (d. 991)
 * William IV, duke of Aquitaine (d. 994)

Deaths

 * January 11
 * Cao, empress of Later Tang
 * Li Chongmei, prince of Later Tang
 * Li Congke, emperor of Later Tang (b. 885)
 * Liu, empress of Later Tang
 * January 14 – Zhang Yanlang, Chinese official
 * July 11 – Rudolph II, king of Burgundy
 * July 14 – Arnulf I, duke of Bavaria
 * October 10 – Wang Lingmou, chancellor of Wu
 * December 3 – Siegfried, Frankish nobleman
 * Ælfwine, bishop of Lichfield (approximate date)
 * Abbo, adviser and bishop of Soissons
 * Alphege, bishop of Wells (approximate date)
 * David II, king of Iberia/Kartli (Georgia)
 * David ibn Merwan, Jewish philosopher
 * Dubacan of Angus, Scottish nobleman
 * Ermengol, Frankish nobleman (b. 870)
 * Gebeachan, king of the Isles (Hebrides)
 * Liu Yanhao, general of Later Tang
 * Marozia, Roman noblewoman (b. 890)
 * Tidhelm, bishop of Hereford (approximate date)
 * Xu Jingqian, official and regent of Wu (b. 919)
 * Yang Meng, prince of Wu (Ten Kingdoms)
 * Yelü Bei, prince of the Liao Dynasty (b. 899)
 * Zhao Dejun, general of Later Tang

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: 937


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Counter-Earth

The Counter-Earth is a hypothetical body of the Solar System that orbits on the other side of the Solar System from Earth. A Counter-Earth or Antichthon (Ἀντίχθων) was hypothesized by the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Philolaus (c. 470) to support his non-geocentric cosmology, in which all objects in the universe revolve around a "Central Fire" (unseen from Earth and distinct from the Sun which also revolves around it).

In modern times a hypothetical planet always on the other side of the Sun from Earth has been called a "Counter-Earth", and has been a recurring theme in UFO claims, as well as in fiction (particularly science fiction).

Greek Pythagorean universe
An astronomical system positing that the Earth, Moon, Sun, planets and unseen "counter-earth" revolve around an unseen "Central Fire" was developed in the 5th century BC and attributed to the Pythagorean philosopher Philolaus. Philolaus' universe moved "the earth from the center of the cosmos," and provided the insight that "the apparent motion of the heavenly bodies" was (in large part) due to "the real motion of the observer"—i.e. Earth.

In Philolaus' system, the Earth and Counter-Earth revolved around the unseen Central Fire every 24 hours, while the Moon's revolution was monthly, and the Sun's yearly. It was the Earth's speedy travel past the slower moving Sun that resulted in the appearance on Earth of the Sun rising and setting. Further from the Central Fire, the Planets' movement was slower still, and the outermost "sky" (i.e. stars) probably fixed.

Counter-Earth
Along with the Central Fire, the "mysterious" Counter-Earth (Antichthon) was the other heavenly body not visible from Earth. Aristotle described it as "another Earth," from which Greek scholar George Burch infers that it must be similar in size, shape and constitution to Earth. Some (such as astronomer John Louis Emil Dreyer) have thought that Philolaus had it following an orbit such that it was always located between Earth and the Central Fire. However, Burch argues that Philolaus must have thought that it orbited on the other side of the Fire from Earth. Since "counter" means "opposite," and opposite could only be in respect to the Central Fire, it follows that the Counter-Earth must be orbiting 180 degrees from Earth.

According to Aristotle—a critic of the Pythagoreans—the function of the Counter-Earth was to explain "eclipses of the moon and their frequency", which could not be explained by Earth alone blocking the light of the Sun if Earth did not revolve around the Sun. Aristotle suggested that it was also introduced "to raise the number of heavenly bodies around the central fire from nine to ten, which the Pythagoreans regarded as the perfect number".

However, Burch believes Aristotle was having a joke "at the expense of Pythagorean number theory," and that the true purpose of the Counter-Earth was to "balance" Philolaus' cosmos—balance being needed because without a counter there would be only one dense, massive object in the system—Earth. Although his system had both the Earth and the Planets orbiting a single point, the ancient Greeks did not consider Earth a "planet." In the time before Galileo could observe from his telescope that planets were spheres like Earth, they were thought to be different from stars only in brightness and in their motion, and like stars composed of a fiery or ethereal matter having little or no density. However, the Earth was obviously made of the dense elements of earth and water. According to Burch, "If there was a single Earth revolving at some distance from the center of space, then the universe's center of gravity, located in the Earth as its only dense body, would not coincide with its spatial center ... The universe, consequently, would be off center, so to speak—lopsided and asymmetric—a notion repugnant to any Greek, and doubly so to a Pythagorean." This could be corrected by another body with the same mass as Earth, orbiting the same central point but 180 degrees from Earth—the Counter-Earth.

Later
In the 1st century AD, after the idea of a spherical Earth had gained more general acceptance, Pomponius Mela, a Latin cosmographer, developed an updated version of the idea, wherein a spherical Earth must have a more or less balanced distribution of land and water, even though all known continents were in the northern hemisphere. Mela drew a map which postulated a continental landmass in the unknown, southern half of Earth—the antipodes—below the equator and the tropics, climes which he believed uninhabitable and impassably hot. Mela ascribed the name "Antichthones" to the inhabitants of this continent.

Modern era
Philolaus's ideas were all eventually superseded by the modern realization that a spherical Earth rotating on its own axis was one of several spherical planets following the laws of gravity and revolving around a much larger Sun. The idea of a Counter-Earth waned after the heliocentric model of the solar system became widely accepted from the 16th century. In the contemporary world, "Counter-Earth" usually refers to a hypothetical planet with an orbit as Burch described, on the other side of the "Central fire"—i.e. the Sun. It cannot be seen from Earth, not because Earth faces away from the center, but because the Sun's great size blocks its view. It has been a recurring motif in fiction—often serving as an allegory for the real Earth—and UFO claims. The 1968 Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects headed by Edward Condon at the University of Colorado even included a "Numerical Experiment on the Possible Existence of an 'Anti-Earth as an appendix.

Detectability

A Counter-Earth could still be detected from the Earth for a number of reasons. Even if the Sun blocked its view from Earth, a Counter-Earth would have gravitational influence (perturbation) upon the other planets, comets and man-made probes of the Solar System. Researchers have detected no such influence, and indeed space probes sent to Venus, Mars and other places could not have successfully flown by or landed on their targets if a Counter-Earth existed, as the navigational calculations for their journeys did not take any putative Counter-Earth into account. Roughly speaking, anything larger than 100 mi in diameter should have been detected.

Any planetary sized body 180 degrees from Earth should also have been visible to some space probes, such as NASA's STEREO coronagraph probes (two spacecraft launched into orbits around the Sun in 2006, one farther ahead of and one behind the Earth's orbit) which would have seen the Counter-Earth during the first half of 2007. The separation of the STEREO spacecraft from Earth would give them a view of the L3 point during the early phase of the mission.

A Counter-Earth would also eventually be visible from Earth because the gravitational forces of the other planets on it would make its own orbit unstable. Venus has 82% of the mass of Earth and would come within 0.3 AU of the location of a Counter-Earth every 20 months, providing considerable gravitational pull that over the years would move its orbit into sight of observers on Earth.

For Counter-Earth orbiting the same path as Earth to always stay 180 degrees from Earth, the two planets would have to have circular orbits, but Earth's orbit is elliptical. According to Kepler's second law, a planet revolves faster when it is close to the star, so a Counter-Earth following the Earth on the same orbit with half a year of delay would sometimes not be exactly 180 degrees from Earth.

In fiction
Counter-Earth has made appearances in fiction since the late 1800s. It is variously depicted as very similar to Earth or very different, and often employed as a vehicle for satire. Counter-Earth being inhabited by counterparts of the people of Earth is a recurring theme. Variations on the concept also occasionally appear, including extrasolar equivalents, the Mars equivalent "Counter-Mars", and a planet hidden on the other side of the Moon rather than Sun.

title: Counter-Earth


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French colonization of the Americas

France began colonizing the Americas in the 16th century and continued into the following centuries as it established a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere. France established colonies in much of eastern North America, on several Caribbean islands, and in South America. Most colonies were developed to export products such as fish, rice, sugar, and furs.

The first French colonial empire stretched to over 10,000,000 km2 at its peak in 1710, which was the second largest colonial empire in the world, after the Spanish Empire.

As they colonized the New World, the French established forts and settlements that would become such cities as Quebec, Trois-Rivières and Montreal in Canada; Detroit, Green Bay, St. Louis, Cape Girardeau, Mobile, Biloxi, Baton Rouge and New Orleans in the United States; and Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haïtien (founded as Cap-Français) in Haiti, Saint-Pierre and Fort Saint-Louis (formerly as Fort Royal) in Martinique, Castries (founded as Carénage) in Saint Lucia, Cayenne in French Guiana and São Luís (founded as Saint-Louis de Maragnan) in Brazil.

Background
The French first came to the New World as travelers seeking a route to the Pacific Ocean and wealth. Major French exploration of North America began under the rule of Francis I, King of France. In 1524, Francis sent Italian-born Giovanni da Verrazzano to explore the region between Florida and Newfoundland for a route to the Pacific Ocean. He would find parts of New York Harbor. The French would take narrow land ports of the Boroughs Queens and Brooklyn from the upper and lower parts of the harbor until 1609 when the British and the Dutch came to take control of it from the French Verrazzano. He would later give the names Francesca and Nova Gall to that land between New Spain and English Newfoundland, thus promoting French interests.

Colonization
In 1534, Francis I of France sent Jacques Cartier on the first of three voyages to explore the coast of Newfoundland and the St. Lawrence River. He founded New France by planting a cross on the shore of the Gaspé Peninsula. The French subsequently tried to establish several colonies throughout North America that failed, due to weather, disease, or conflict with other European powers. Cartier attempted to create the first permanent European settlement in North America at Cap-Rouge (Quebec City) in 1541 with 400 settlers but the settlement was abandoned the next year after bad weather and attacks from Native Americans in the area. A small group of French troops were left on Parris Island, South Carolina in 1562 to build Charlesfort, but left after a year when they were not resupplied by France. Fort Caroline established in present-day Jacksonville, Florida, in 1564, lasted only a year before being destroyed by the Spanish from St. Augustine. An attempt to settle convicts on Sable Island off Nova Scotia in 1598 failed after a short time. In 1599, a sixteen-person trading post was established in Tadoussac (in present-day Quebec), of which only five men survived the first winter. In 1604 Pierre Du Gua de Monts and Samuel de Champlain founded a short-lived French colony, the first in Acadia, on Saint Croix Island, presently part of the state of Maine, which was much plagued by illness, perhaps scurvy. The following year the settlement was moved to Port Royal, located in present-day Nova Scotia.

Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec (1608) and explored the Great Lakes. In 1634, Jean Nicolet founded La Baye des Puants (present-day Green Bay), which is one of the oldest permanent European settlements in America. In 1634, Sieur de Laviolette founded Trois-Rivières. In 1642, Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, founded Fort Ville-Marie which is now known as Montreal. Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette founded Sault Sainte Marie (1668) and Saint Ignace (1671) and explored the Mississippi River. At the end of the 17th century, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle established a network of forts going from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River. Fort Saint Louis was established in Texas in 1685, but was gone by 1688. Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit (modern-day Detroit) in 1701 and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville founded La Nouvelle Orléans (New Orleans) in 1718. Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville founded Baton Rouge in 1719.

The European settlement of Mobile, Alabama began with French colonists, who in 1702 constructed Fort Louis de la Louisiane, at Twenty-seven Mile Bluff on the Mobile River, as the first capital of the French colony of La Louisiane. It was founded by French Canadian brothers Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, to establish control over France's claims to La Louisiane. Bienville was appointed as royal governor of French Louisiana in 1701. Mobile's Roman Catholic parish was established on July 20, 1703, by Jean-Baptiste de la Croix de Chevrières de Saint-Vallier, Bishop of Quebec. The parish was the first French Catholic parish established on the Gulf Coast of the United States.

In 1704 the ship Pélican delivered 23 French women to the colony; passengers had contracted yellow fever at a stop in Havana. Though most of the "Pélican girls" recovered, numerous colonists and neighboring Native Americans contracted the disease in turn and many died. This early period was also the occasion of the importation of the first African slaves, transported aboard a French supply ship from the French colony of Saint-Domingue in the Caribbean, where they had first been held. The population of the colony fluctuated over the next few years, growing to 279 persons by 1708, yet shrinking to 178 persons two years later due to disease.

These additional outbreaks of disease and a series of floods resulted in Bienville ordering that the settlement be relocated in 1711 several miles downriver to its present location at the confluence of the Mobile River and Mobile Bay. A new earth-and-palisade Fort Louis was constructed at the new site during this time. By 1712, when Antoine Crozat was appointed to take over administration of the colony, its population had reached 400 persons.

The capital of La Louisiane was moved in 1720 to Biloxi, leaving Mobile to serve as a regional military and trading center. In 1723 the construction of a new brick fort with a stone foundation began and it was renamed Fort Condé in honor of Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon.

In 1763, the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Seven Years' War, which Britain won, defeating France. By this treaty, France ceded its territories east of the Mississippi River to Britain. This area was made a part of the expanded British West Florida colony. The British changed the name of Fort Condé to Fort Charlotte, after Queen Charlotte.

The French were eager to explore North America but New France remained largely unpopulated. Due to the lack of women, intermarriages between French and Indians were frequent, giving rise to the Métis people. Relations between the French and Indians were usually peaceful. As the 19th-century historian Francis Parkman stated:

"'Spanish civilization crushed the Indian; English civilization scorned and neglected him; French civilization embraced and cherished him.'"

To boost the French population, Cardinal Richelieu issued an act declaring that Indians converted to Catholicism were considered "natural Frenchmen" by the Ordonnance of 1627:

"'The descendants of the French who have accustomed to this country [New France], together with all the Indians who will be brought to the knowledge of the faith and will profess it, shall be deemed and renowned natural Frenchmen, and as such may come to live in France when they want, and acquire, donate, and succeed and accept donations and legacies, just as true French subjects, without being required to take no letters of declaration of naturalization.'"

Louis XIV also tried to increase the population by sending approximately 800 young women nicknamed the "King's Daughters". However, the low density of the population in New France remained a very persistent problem. At the beginning of the French and Indian War (1754–1763), the British population in North America outnumbered the French 20 to 1. France fought a total of six colonial wars in North America (see the four French and Indian Wars as well as Father Rale's War and Father Le Loutre's War).

French Florida
In 1562, Charles IX, under the leadership of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny sent Jean Ribault and a group of Huguenot settlers in an attempt to colonize the Atlantic coast and found a colony on a territory which would take the name of the French Florida. They discovered the sound and Port Royal Island, which would be called Parris Island in South Carolina, on which he built a fort named Charlesfort. The group, led by René Goulaine de Laudonnière, moved to the south where they founded the Fort Caroline on the Saint John's river in Florida on June 22, 1564.

This irritated the Spanish who claimed Florida and opposed the Protestant settlers for religious reasons. In 1565, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés led a group of Spaniards and founded Saint Augustine, 60 kilometers south of Fort Caroline. Fearing a Spanish attack, Ribault planned to move the colony but a storm suddenly destroyed his fleet. On 20 September 1565 the Spaniards, commanded by Menéndez de Avilés, attacked and massacred all the Fort Caroline occupants including Jean Ribault.

Canada and Acadia
The French interest in Canada focused first on fishing off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. However, at the beginning of the 17th century, France was more interested in fur from North America. The fur trading post of Tadoussac was founded in 1600. Four years later, Champlain made his first trip to Canada on a trade mission for fur. Although he had no formal mandate on this trip, he sketched a map of the St. Lawrence River and in writing, on his return to France, a report entitled Savages (relation of his stay in a tribe of Montagnais near Tadoussac).

Champlain needed to report his findings to Henry IV. He participated in another expedition to New France in the spring of 1604, conducted by Pierre Du Gua de Monts. It helped the foundation of a settlement on Saint Croix Island, the first French settlement in the New World, which would be given up the following winter. The expedition then founded the colony of Port-Royal.

In 1608, Champlain founded a fur post that would become the city of Quebec, which would become the capital of New France. In Quebec, Champlain forged alliances between France and the Huron and Ottawa against their traditional enemies, the Iroquois. Champlain and other French travelers then continued to explore North America, with canoes made from birch bark, to move quickly through the Great Lakes and their tributaries. In 1634, the Normand explorer Jean Nicolet pushed his exploration to the West up to Wisconsin.

Following the capitulation of Quebec by the Kirke brothers, the British occupied the city of Quebec and Canada from 1629 to 1632. Samuel de Champlain was taken prisoner and there followed the bankruptcy of the Company of One Hundred Associates. Following the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France took possession of the colony in 1632. The city of Trois-Rivières was founded in 1634. In 1642, the Angevin Jérôme le Royer de la Dauversière founded Ville-Marie (later Montreal) which was at that time, a fort as protection against Iroquois attacks (the first great Iroquois war lasted from 1642 to 1667).

Despite this rapid expansion, the colony developed very slowly. The Iroquois wars and diseases were the leading causes of death in the French colony. In 1663 when Louis XIV provided the Royal Government, the population of New France was only 2,500 European inhabitants. That year, to increase the population, Louis XIV sent between 800 and 900 'King's Daughters' to become the wives of French settlers. The population of New France reached subsequently 7,000 in 1674 and 15,000 in 1689.

From 1689 to 1713, the French settlers were faced with almost incessant war during the French and Indian Wars. From 1689 to 1697, they fought the British in the Nine Years' War. The war against the Iroquois continued even after the Treaty of Rijswijk until 1701, when the two parties agreed on peace. Then, the war against the English took over in the War of the Spanish Succession. In 1690 and 1711, Quebec City had successfully resisted the attacks of the English navy and then British army. Nevertheless, the British took advantage of the second war. With the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, France ceded to Britain Acadia (with a population of 1,700 people), Newfoundland and Hudson Bay. Under the Sovereign Council, the population of the colony grew faster. However, the population growth was far inferior to that of the British Thirteen Colonies to the south. In the middle of the 18th century, New France accounted for 60,000 people while the British colonies had more than one million people. This placed the colony at a great military disadvantage against the British. The war between the colonies resumed in 1744, lasting until 1748. A final and decisive war began in 1754. The Canadiens and the French were helped by numerous alliances with Native Americans, but they were usually outnumbered on the battlefield.

Louisiana
On May 17, 1673, explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette began exploring the Mississippi River, known to the Sioux as does Tongo, or to the Miami-Illinois as  missisipioui (the great river). They reached the mouth of the Arkansas and then up the river, after learning that it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico and not to the California Sea (Pacific Ocean).

In 1682, the Normand Cavelier de la Salle and the Italian Henri de Tonti came down the Mississippi to its Delta. They left from Fort Crevecoeur on the Illinois River, along with 23 French and 18 Native Americans. In April 1682, they arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi; they planted a cross and a column bearing the arms of the king of France. In 1686 de Tonti left 6 men near the Quapaw village of Osotouy, creating the settlement of Arkansas Post. De Tonti's Arkansas Post would be the first European settlement in the Lower Mississippi River valley. La Salle returned to France and won over the Secretary of State of the Navy to give him the command of Louisiana. He believed that it was close to New Spain by drawing a map on which the Mississippi seemed much further west than its actual rate. He set up a maritime expedition with four ships and 320 emigrants, but it ended in disaster when he failed to find the Mississippi Delta and was killed in 1687.

In 1698, Pierre LeMoyne d'Iberville left La Rochelle and explored the area around the mouth of the Mississippi. He stopped between Isle-aux-Chats (now Cat Island) and Isle Surgeres (renamed Isle-aux-Vascular or Ship Island) on February 13, 1699, and continued his explorations to the mainland, with his brother Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville to Biloxi. He built a precarious fort, called 'Maurepas' (later 'Old Biloxi'), before returning to France. He returned twice in the Gulf of Mexico and established a fort at Mobile in 1702.

From 1699 to 1702, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville was governor of Louisiana. His brother succeeded him in that post from 1702 to 1713. He was again governor from 1716 to 1724 and again 1733 to 1743. In 1718, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville commanded a French expedition in Louisiana. He founded the city of New Orleans, in homage to Regent Duke of Orleans. The architect Adrian de Pauger drew the orthogonal plane of the Old Square.

Louisiana immigration

In 1718, there were only 700 Europeans in Louisiana. The Mississippi Company arranged for ships to bring 800 more, who landed in Louisiana in 1718, doubling the European population. John Law encouraged Germans, particularly Germans of the Alsatian region who had recently fallen under French rule, and the Swiss to emigrate.

Prisoners were set free in Paris in September 1719 onwards, under the condition that they marry prostitutes and go with them to Louisiana. The newly married couples were chained together and taken to the port of embarkation. In May 1720, after complaints from the Mississippi Company and the concessioners about this class of French immigrants, the French government prohibited such deportations. However, there was a third shipment of prisoners in 1721.

The Mississippi Company arranged for hundreds of German immigrants to move to Louisiana by ships in 1721. Charles Frederick d'Arensbourg was a leader of the settlement called the German Coast. By the end of 1720, the Mississippi Company failed. Later, more Germans immigrated to Louisiana during the 1750s and 1770s.

Dissolution
The last French and Indian War resulted in the dissolution of New France, with Canada going to Great Britain and Louisiana going to Spain, although mainly absent. French colonists descendants or "Canadiens" that had settled in the Valley of Ohio, migrated into the Spanish territory West of the Mississippi and were instrumental in pushing further West toward the Pacific through their longer experience of the new continent and its native inhabitants. Only the islands of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon are still in French hands.

In 1802 Spain returned Louisiana to France, but Napoleon sold it to the United States in 1803. The French and their descendants left many toponyms (Illinois, Vermont, Bayous...) and ethnonyms (Sioux, Coeur d'Alene, Nez Percé...) in North America along with a rich and complex History as well as proud descendants far beyond Québec and Acadia original heartlands.

West Indies
A major French settlement lay on the island of Hispaniola, where France established the colony of Saint-Domingue on the western third of the island in 1664. Nicknamed the "Pearl of the Antilles", Saint-Domingue became the richest colony in the Caribbean due to slave plantation production of sugar cane. It had the highest slave mortality rate in the western hemisphere. A 1791 slave revolt, the only ever successful slave revolt, began the Haitian Revolution, led to freedom for the colony's slaves in 1794 and, a decade later, complete independence for the country, which renamed itself Haiti. France briefly also ruled the eastern portion of the island, which is now the Dominican Republic.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, France ruled much of the Lesser Antilles at various times. Islands that came under French rule during part or all of this time include Dominica, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Marie-Galante, Martinique, St. Barthélemy, St. Croix, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Martin, St. Vincent and Tobago. Control of many of these islands was contested between the French, the British and the Dutch; in the case of St. Martin, the island was divided in two, a situation that persists to this day. Great Britain captured some of France's islands during the Seven Years' War and the Napoleonic Wars. Following the latter conflict, France retained control of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Marie-Galante, St. Barthélemy, and its portion of St. Martin; all remain part of France today. Guadeloupe (including Marie-Galante and other nearby islands) and Martinique each is an overseas department of France, while St. Barthélemy and St. Martin each became an overseas collectivity of France in 2007.

1. Brazil
France Antarctique (formerly also spelled France antartique) was a French colony south of the Equator, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which existed between 1555 and 1567, and had control over the coast from Rio de Janeiro to Cabo Frio. The colony quickly became a haven for the Huguenots, and was ultimately destroyed by the Portuguese in 1567.

1555 First settlement
On November 1, 1555, French vice-admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon (1510–1575), a Catholic knight of the Order of Malta, who later would help the Huguenots to find a refuge against persecution, led a small fleet of two ships and 600 soldiers and colonists, and took possession of the small island of Serigipe in the Guanabara Bay, in front of present-day Rio de Janeiro, where they built a fort named Fort Coligny. The fort was named in honor of Gaspard de Coligny (then a Catholic statesman, who about a year later would become a Huguenot), an admiral who supported the expedition and would use the colony in order to protect his fellow believers. To the still largely undeveloped mainland village, Villegaignon gave the name of Henriville, in honour of Henry II, the King of France, who also knew of and approved the expedition, and had provided the fleet for the trip. Villegaignon secured his position by making an alliance with the Tamoio and Tupinambá Indians of the region, who were fighting the Portuguese.

1557 Calvinist arrival
Unchallenged by the Portuguese, who initially took little notice of his landing, Villegaignon endeavoured to expand the colony by calling for more colonists in 1556. He sent one of his ships, the Grande Roberge, to Honfleur, entrusted with letters to King Henry II, Gaspard de Coligny and according to some accounts, the Protestant leader John Calvin.

After one ship was sent to France to ask for additional support, three ships were financed and prepared by the king of France and put under the command of Sieur De Bois le Comte, a nephew of Villegagnon. They were joined by 14 Calvinists from Geneva, led by Philippe de Corguilleray, including theologians Pierre Richier and Guillaume Chartrier. The new colonists, numbering around 300, included 5 young women to be wed, 10 boys to be trained as translators, as well as 14 Calvinists sent by Calvin, and also Jean de Léry, who would later write an account of the colony. They arrived in March 1557. The relief fleet was composed of: Doctrinal disputes arose between Villegagnon and the Calvinists, especially in relation to the Eucharist, and in October 1557 the Calvinists were banished from Coligny island as a result. They settled among the Tupinamba until January 1558, when some of them managed to return to France by ship together with Jean de Léry, and five others chose to return to Coligny island where three of them were drowned by Villegagnon for refusing to recant.
 * 1) The Petite Roberge, with 80 soldiers and sailors was led by Vice Admiral Sieur De Bois le Comte.
 * 2) The Grande Roberge, with about 120 on board, captained by Sieur de Sainte-Marie dit l'Espine.
 * 3) The Rosée, with about 90 people, led by Captain Rosée.

Portuguese intervention
In 1560 Mem de Sá, the new Governor-General of Brazil, received from the Portuguese government the command to expel the French. With a fleet of 26 warships and 2,000 soldiers, on 15 March 1560, he attacked and destroyed Fort Coligny within three days, but was unable to drive off their inhabitants and defenders, because they escaped to the mainland with the help of the Native Brazilians, where they continued to live and to work. Admiral Villegaignon had returned to France in 1558, disgusted with the religious tension that existed between French Protestants and Catholics, who had come also with the second group (see French Wars of Religion). Urged by two influential Jesuit priests who had come to Brazil with Mem de Sá, named José de Anchieta and Manuel da Nóbrega, and who had played a big role in pacifying the Tamoios, Mem de Sá ordered his nephew, Estácio de Sá to assemble a new attack force. Estácio de Sá founded the city of Rio de Janeiro on March 1, 1565, and fought the Frenchmen for two more years. Helped by a military reinforcement sent by his uncle, on January 20, 1567, he imposed final defeat on the French forces and decisively expelled them from Brazil, but died a month later from wounds inflicted in the battle. Coligny's and Villegaignon's dream had lasted a mere 12 years.

2. Equinoctial France
Equinoctial France was the contemporary name given to the colonization efforts of France in the 17th century in South America, around the line of Equator, before "tropical" had fully gained its modern meaning: Equinoctial means in Latin "of equal nights", i.e., on the Equator, where the duration of days and nights is nearly the same year round. The French colonial empire in the New World also included New France (Nouvelle France) in North America, particularly in what is today the province of Quebec, Canada, and for a very short period (12 years) also Antarctic France (France Antarctique, in French), in present-day Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. All of these settlements were in violation of the papal bull of 1493, which divided the New World between Spain and Portugal. This division was later defined more exactly by the Treaty of Tordesillas.

History of France équinoxiale

France équinoxiale started in 1612, when a French expedition departed from Cancale, Brittany, France, under the command of Daniel de la Touche, Seigneur de la Ravardière, and François de Razilly, admiral. Carrying 500 colonists, it arrived in the Northern coast of what is today the Brazilian state of Maranhão. De la Ravardière had discovered the region in 1604 but the death of the king postponed his plans to start its colonization. The colonists soon founded a village, which was named "Saint-Louis", in honor of the French king Louis IX. This later became São Luís in Portuguese,[1] the only Brazilian state capital founded by France. On 8 September, Capuchin friars prayed the first mass, and the soldiers started building a fortress. An important difference in relation to France Antarctique is that this new colony was not motivated by escape from religious persecutions to Protestants (see French Wars of Religion). The colony did not last long. A Portuguese army assembled in the Captaincy of Pernambuco, under the command of Alexandre de Moura, was able to mount a military expedition, which defeated and expelled the French colonists in 1615, less than four years after their arrival in the land. Thus, it repeated the disaster spelt for the colonists of France Antarctique, in 1567. A few years later, in 1620, Portuguese and Brazilian colonists arrived in number and São Luís started to develop, with an economy based mostly in sugar cane and slavery.

French traders and colonists tried again to settle a France Équinoxiale further North, in what is today French Guiana, in 1626, 1635 (when the capital, Cayenne, was founded) and 1643. Twice a Compagnie de la France équinoxiale was founded, in 1643 and 1645, but both foundered as a result of misfortune and mismanagement. It was only after 1674, when the colony came under the direct control of the French crown and a competent Governor took office, that France Équinoxiale became a reality. To this day, French Guiana is a department of France.

In French

 * Balvay, Arnaud. L'épée et la plume: Amérindiens et soldats des troupes de la marine en Louisiane et au Pays d'en Haut (1683-1763) (Presses Université Laval, 2006)
 * Balvay, Arnaud. La Révolte des Natchez (Editions du Félin, 2008)
 * Halford, Peter Wallace, and Pierre-Philippe Potier. Le français des Canadiens à la veille de la conquête: témoignage du père Pierre Philippe Potier, SJ. (Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa, 1994)
 * Moussette, Marcel & Waselkov, Gregory A.: Archéologie de l'Amérique coloniale française. Lévesque éditeur, Montréal 2014. ISBN 978-2-924186-38-1 (print); ISBN 978-2-924186-39-8 (eBook)

title: French colonization of the Americas


text:
938

Year 938 (CMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.

Europe

 * Summer – The Hungarian army invades Northern Italy with the permission of King Hugh of Arles. They cross the Apennines, and sack the Lombard lands in Tuscany, Lazio and Campania. Finally, the Hungarians are defeated at Wolfenbüttel by a Saxon army.
 * July – King Otto I besieges the fortress of Eresburg. He defeats his half-brother Thankmar and kills him as he tries to find sanctuary. Eberhard III, duke of Franconia, is banished and replaced by his uncle Berthold.
 * Fall – Otto I defeats in two campaigns a series of uprisings in Saxony, Franconia and Lotharingia. He signs a "friendship pact" with King Louis IV ("d'Outremer") of the West Frankish Kingdom.

Asia

 * Battle of Bach Dang: Vietnamese forces defeat an invading force of the Southern Han state at the Bach Dang River. This put an end to Chinese imperial domination in Vietnam after nearly 1,000 years.
 * The Sixteen Prefectures, which includes the area around modern-day Beijing, are absorbed in the Khitan Empire.

Births

 * September 14 – Sahib ibn Abbad, Buyid grand vizier (d. 995)
 * Almanzor, Umayyad vizier and de facto ruler (approximate date)
 * Beatrice of France, duchess regent of Upper Lorraine (approximate date)
 * García Fernández, count of Castile and Álava (approximate date)
 * Olaf the Peacock, Icelandic merchant and chieftain (approximate date)
 * Romanos II, Byzantine emperor (d. 963)
 * Sancho II, king of Navarre (approximate date)

Deaths

 * February 3 – Zhou Ben, general of Wu (b. 862)
 * July 28 – Thankmar, half-brother of Otto I (during the Siege of Eresburg)
 * Lady Ise, Japanese noblewoman and poet (b. 875) (approximate date)
 * Lady Peng, noblewoman of Chu (Ten Kingdoms)
 * Muhammad ibn Ja'far al-Khara'iti, Abbasid theologian
 * Shen Song, chancellor of Wuyue (b. 863)

title: 938


text:
Observational learning

Observational learning is learning that occurs through observing the behavior of others. It is a form of social learning which takes various forms, based on various processes. In humans, this form of learning seems to not need reinforcement to occur, but instead, requires a social model such as a parent, sibling, friend, or teacher with surroundings. Particularly in childhood, a model is someone of authority or higher status in an environment. In animals, observational learning is often based on classical conditioning, in which an instinctive behavior is elicited by observing the behavior of another (e.g. mobbing in birds), but other processes may be involved as well.

Human observational learning
Many behaviors that a learner observes, remembers, and imitates are actions that models display and display modeling, even though the model may not intentionally try to instill a particular behavior. A child may learn to swear, smack, smoke, and deem other inappropriate behavior acceptable through poor modeling. Albert Bandura claims that children continually learn desirable and undesirable behavior through observational learning. Observational learning suggests that an individual's environment, cognition, and behavior all incorporate and ultimately determine how the individual functions and models.

Through observational learning, individual behaviors can spread across a culture through a process called diffusion chain. This basically occurs when an individual first learns a behavior by observing another individual and that individual serves as a model through whom other individuals learn the behavior, and so on.

Culture plays a role in whether observational learning is the dominant learning style in a person or community. Some cultures expect children to actively participate in their communities and are therefore exposed to different trades and roles on a daily basis. This exposure allows children to observe and learn the different skills and practices that are valued in their communities.

Albert Bandura, who is known for the classic Bobo doll experiment, identified this basic form of learning in 1961. The importance of observational learning lies in helping individuals, especially children, acquire new responses by observing others' behavior.

Albert Bandura states that people's behavior could be determined by their environment. Observational learning occurs through observing negative and positive behaviors. Bandura believes in reciprocal determinism in which the environment can influence people's behavior and vice versa. For instance, the Bobo doll experiment shows that the model, in a determined environment, affects children's behavior. In this experiment Bandura demonstrates that one group of children placed in an aggressive environment would act the same way, while the control group and the other group of children placed in a passive role model environment hardly shows any type of aggression.

In communities where children's primary mode of learning is through observation, the children are rarely separated from adult activities. This incorporation into the adult world at an early age allows children to use observational learning skills in multiple spheres of life. This learning through observation requires keen attentive abilities. Culturally, they learn that their participation and contributions are valued in their communities. This teaches children that it is their duty, as members of the community, to observe others' contributions so they gradually become involved and participate further in the community.

Influential stages and factors
The stages of observational learning include exposure to the model, acquiring the model's behaviour and accepting it as one's own.

Bandura's social cognitive learning theory states that there are four factors that influence observational learning:

 * 1) Attention: Observers cannot learn unless they pay attention to what's happening around them. This process is influenced by characteristics of the model, such as how much one likes or identifies with the model, and by characteristics of the observer, such as the observer's expectations or level of emotional arousal.
 * 2) Retention/Memory: Observers must not only recognize the observed behavior but also remember it at some later time. This process depends on the observer's ability to code or structure the information in an easily remembered form or to mentally or physically rehearse the model's actions.
 * 3) Initiation/Motor: Observers must be physically and/intellectually capable of producing the act. In many cases, the observer possesses the necessary responses. But sometimes, reproducing the model's actions may involve skills the observer has not yet acquired. It is one thing to carefully watch a circus juggler, but it is quite another to go home and repeat those acts.
 * 4) Motivation: The observer must have motivation to recreate the observed behavior.

Bandura clearly distinguishes between learning and performance. Unless motivated, a person does not produce learned behavior. This motivation can come from external reinforcement, such as the experimenter's promise of reward in some of Bandura's studies, or the bribe of a parent. Or it can come from vicarious reinforcement, based on the observation that models are rewarded. High-status models can affect performance through motivation. For example, girls aged 11 to 14 performed better on a motor performance task when they thought it was demonstrated by a high-status cheerleader than by a low-status model.

Some have even added a step between attention and retention involving encoding a behavior.

Observational learning leads to a change in an individual's behavior along three dimensions:
 * 1) An individual thinks about a situation in a different way and may have incentive to react to it.
 * 2) The change is a result of a person's direct experiences as opposed to being in-born.
 * 3) For the most part, the change an individual has made is permanent.

Effect on behavior
According to Bandura's social cognitive learning theory, observational learning can affect behavior in many ways, with both positive and negative consequences. It can teach completely new behaviors, for one. It can also increase or decrease the frequency of behaviors that have previously been learned. Observational learning can even encourage behaviors that were previously forbidden (for example, the violent behavior towards the Bobo doll that children imitated in Albert Bandura's study). Observational learning can also influence behaviors that are similar to, but not identical to, the ones being modeled. For example, seeing a model excel at playing the piano may motivate an observer to play the saxophone.

Age difference
Albert Bandura stressed that developing children learn from different social models, meaning that no two children are exposed to exactly the same modeling influence. From infancy to adolescence, they are exposed to various social models. A 2013 study found that a toddlers' previous social familiarity with a model was not always necessary for learning and that they were also able to learn from observing a stranger demonstrating or modeling a new action to another stranger.

It was once believed that babies could not imitate actions until the latter half of the first year. However, a number of studies now report that infants as young as seven days can imitate simple facial expressions. By the latter half of their first year, 9-month-old babies can imitate actions hours after they first see them. As they continue to develop, toddlers around age two can acquire important personal and social skills by imitating a social model.

Deferred imitation is an important developmental milestone in a two-year-old, in which children not only construct symbolic representations but can also remember information. Unlike toddlers, children of elementary school age are less likely to rely on imagination to represent an experience. Instead, they can verbally describe the model's behavior. Since this form of learning does not need reinforcement, it is more likely to occur regularly.

As age increases, age-related observational learning motor skills may decrease in athletes and golfers. Younger and skilled golfers have higher observational learning compared to older golfers and less skilled golfers.

Observational causal learning
Humans use observational Moleen causal learning to watch other people's actions and use the information gained to find out how something works and how we can do it ourselves.

A study of 25-month-old infants found that they can learn causal relations from observing human interventions. They also learn by observing normal actions not created by intentional human action.

Comparisons with imitation
Observational learning is presumed to have occurred when an organism copies an improbable action or action outcome that it has observed and the matching behavior cannot be explained by an alternative mechanism. Psychologists have been particularly interested in the form of observational learning known as imitation and in how to distinguish imitation from other processes. To successfully make this distinction, one must separate the degree to which behavioral similarity results from (a) predisposed behavior, (b) increased motivation resulting from the presence of another animal, (c) attention drawn to a place or object, (d) learning about the way the environment works, as distinguished from what we think of as (e) imitation (the copying of the demonstrated behavior).

Observational learning differs from imitative learning in that it does not require a duplication of the behavior exhibited by the model. For example, the learner may observe an unwanted behavior and the subsequent consequences, and thus learn to refrain from that behavior. For example, Riopelle (1960) found that monkeys did better with observational learning if they saw the "tutor" monkey make a mistake before making the right choice. Heyes (1993) distinguished imitation and non-imitative social learning in the following way: imitation occurs when animals learn about behavior from observing conspecifics, whereas non-imitative social learning occurs when animals learn about the environment from observing others.

Not all imitation and learning through observing is the same, and they often differ in the degree to which they take on an active or passive form. John Dewey describes an important distinction between two different forms of imitation: imitation as an end in itself and imitation with a purpose. Imitation as an end is more akin to mimicry, in which a person copies another's act to repeat that action again. This kind of imitation is often observed in animals. Imitation with a purpose utilizes the imitative act as a means to accomplish something more significant. Whereas the more passive form of imitation as an end has been documented in some European American communities, the other kind of more active, purposeful imitation has been documented in other communities around the world.

Observation may take on a more active form in children's learning in multiple Indigenous American communities. Ethnographic anthropological studies in Yucatec Mayan and Quechua Peruvian communities provide evidence that the home or community-centered economic systems of these cultures allow children to witness first-hand, activities that are meaningful to their own livelihoods and the overall well-being of the community. These children have the opportunity to observe activities that are relevant within the context of that community, which gives them a reason to sharpen their attention to the practical knowledge they are exposed to. This does not mean that they have to observe the activities even though they are present. The children often make an active decision to stay in attendance while a community activity is taking place to observe and learn. This decision underscores the significance of this learning style in many indigenous American communities. It goes far beyond learning mundane tasks through rote imitation; it is central to children's gradual transformation into informed members of their communities' unique practices. There was also a study, done with children, that concluded that Imitated behavior can be recalled and used in another situation or the same.

Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship can involve both observational learning and modelling. Apprentices gain their skills in part through working with masters in their profession and through observing and evaluating the work of their fellow apprentices. Examples include renaissance inventor/painter Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo; before succeeding in their profession, they were apprentices.

Learning without imitation
Michael Tomasello described various ways of observational learning without the process of imitation in animals (ethology):
 * Exposure – Individuals learn about their environment through close proximity to other individuals that have more experience. For example, a young dolphin learning the location of a plethora of fish by staying near its mother.
 * Stimulus enhancement – Individuals become interested in an object from watching others interact with it. Increased interest in an object may result in object manipulation, which facilitates new object-related behaviors by trial-and-error learning. For example, a young killer whale might become interested in playing with a sea lion pup after watching other whales toss the sea lion pup around. After playing with the pup, the killer whale may develop foraging behaviors appropriate to such prey. In this case, the killer whale did not learn to prey on sea lions by observing other whales do so, but rather the killer whale became intrigued after observing other whales play with the pup. After the killer whale became interested, then its interactions with the sea lion resulted in behaviors that provoked future foraging efforts.
 * Goal emulation – Individuals are enticed by the end result of an observed behavior and attempt the same outcome but with a different method. For example, Haggerty (1909) devised an experiment in which a monkey climbed up the side of a cage, stuck its arm into a wooden chute, and pulled a rope in the chute to release food. Another monkey was provided an opportunity to obtain the food after watching a monkey go through this process on four separate occasions. The monkey performed a different method and finally succeeded after trial and error.

Peer model influences
Observational learning is very beneficial when there are positive, reinforcing peer models involved. Although individuals go through four different stages for observational learning: attention; retention; production; and motivation, this does not simply mean that when an individual's attention is captured that it automatically sets the process in that exact order. One of the most important ongoing stages for observational learning, especially among children, is motivation and positive reinforcement.

Performance is enhanced when children are positively instructed on how they can improve a situation and where children actively participate alongside a more skilled person. Examples of this are scaffolding and guided participation. Scaffolding refers to an expert responding contingently to a novice so the novice gradually increases their understanding of a problem. Guided participation refers to an expert actively engaging in a situation with a novice so the novice participates with or observes the adult to understand how to resolve a problem.

Cultural Variation
Cultural variation can be seen by the extent of information learned or absorbed by children in non-Western cultures through learning by observation. Cultural variation is not restricted only to ethnicity and nationality, but rather, extends to the specific practices within communities. In learning by observation, children use observation to learn without verbal requests for further information, or without direct instruction. For example, children from Mexican heritage families tend to learn and make better use of information observed during classroom demonstration than children of European heritage. Children of European heritage experience the type of learning that separates them from their family and community activities. They instead participate in lessons and other exercises in special settings such as school. Cultural backgrounds differ from each other in which children display certain characteristics in regards to learning an activity. Another example is seen in the immersion of children in some Indigenous communities of the Americas into the adult world and the effects it has on observational learning and the ability to complete multiple tasks simultaneously. This might be due to children in these communities having the opportunity to see a task being completed by their elders or peers and then trying to emulate the task. In doing so they learn to value observation and the skill-building it affords them because of the value it holds within their community. This type of observation is not passive, but reflects the child's intent to participate or learn within a community.

Observational learning can be seen taking place in many domains of Indigenous communities. The classroom setting is one significant example, and it functions differently for Indigenous communities compared to what is commonly present in Western schooling. The emphasis of keen observation in favor of supporting participation in ongoing activities strives to aid children to learn the important tools and ways of their community. Engaging in shared endeavors – with both the experienced and inexperienced – allows for the experienced to understand what the inexperienced need in order to grow in regards to the assessment of observational learning. The involvement of the inexperienced, or the children in this matter, can either be furthered by the children's learning or advancing into the activity performed by the assessment of observational learning. Indigenous communities rely on observational learning as a way for their children to be a part of ongoing activities in the community (Tharp, 2006).

Although learning in the Indigenous American communities is not always the central focus when participating in an activity, studies have shown that attention in intentional observation differs from accidental observation. Intentional participation is "keen observation and listening in anticipation of, or in the process of engaging in endeavors". This means that when they have the intention of participating in an event, their attention is more focused on the details, compared to when they are accidentally observing.

Observational learning can be an active process in many Indigenous American communities. The learner must take initiative to attend to activities going on around them. Children in these communities also take initiative to contribute their knowledge in ways that will benefit their community. For example, in many Indigenous American cultures, children perform household chores without being instructed to do so by adults. Instead, they observe a need for their contributions, understand their role in their community, and take initiative to accomplish the tasks they have observed others doing. The learner's intrinsic motivations play an important role in the child's understanding and construction of meaning in these educational experiences. The independence and responsibility associated with observational learning in many Indigenous American communities are significant reasons why this method of learning involves more than just watching and imitating. A learner must be actively engaged with their demonstrations and experiences in order to fully comprehend and apply the knowledge they obtain.

Indigenous communities of the Americas
Children from indigenous heritage communities of the Americas often learn through observation, a strategy that can carry over into adulthood. The heightened value towards observation allows children to multi-task and actively engage in simultaneous activities. The exposure to an uncensored adult lifestyle allows children to observe and learn the skills and practices that are valued in their communities. Children observe elders, parents, and siblings complete tasks and learn to participate in them. They are seen as contributors and learn to observe multiple tasks being completed at once and can learn to complete a task while still engaging with other community members without being distracted.

Indigenous communities provide more opportunities to incorporate children in everyday life. This can be seen in some Mayan communities where children are given full access to community events, which allows observational learning to occur more often. Other children in Mazahua, Mexico are known to observe ongoing activities intensely. In native northern Canadian and indigenous Mayan communities, children often learn as third-party observers from stories and conversations by others. Most young Mayan children are carried on their mother's back, allowing them to observe their mother's work and see the world as their mother sees it. Often, children in Indigenous American communities assume the majority of the responsibility for their learning. Additionally, children find their own approaches to learning. Children are often allowed to learn without restrictions and with minimal guidance. They are encouraged to participate in the community even if they do not know how to do the work. They are self-motivated to learn and finish their chores. These children act as a second set of eyes and ears for their parents, updating them about the community.

Children aged 6 to 8 in an indigenous heritage community in Guadalajara, Mexico participated in hard work, such as cooking or running errands, thus benefiting the whole family, while those in the city of Guadalajara rarely did so. These children participated more in adult regulated activities and had little time to play, while those from the indigenous-heritage community had more time to play and initiate in their after-school activities and had a higher sense of belonging to their community. Children from formerly indigenous communities are more likely to show these aspects than children from cosmopolitan communities are, even after leaving their childhood community

Within certain indigenous communities, people do not typically seek out explanations beyond basic observation. This is because they are competent in learning through astute observation and often nonverbally encourage to do so. In a Guatemalan footloom factory, amateur adult weavers observed skilled weavers over the course of weeks without questioning or being given explanations; the amateur weaver moved at their own pace and began when they felt confident. The framework of learning how to weave through observation can serve as a model that groups within a society use as a reference to guide their actions in particular domains of life. Communities that participate in observational learning promote tolerance and mutual understand of those coming from different cultural backgrounds.

Other human and animal behavior experiments
When an animal is given a task to complete, they are almost always more successful after observing another animal doing the same task before them. Experiments have been conducted on several different species with the same effect: animals can learn behaviors from peers. However, there is a need to distinguish the propagation of behavior and the stability of behavior. Research has shown that social learning can spread a behavior, but there are more factors regarding how a behavior carries across generations of an animal culture.

Learning in fish
Experiments with ninespine sticklebacks showed that individuals will use social learning to locate food.

Social learning in pigeons
A study in 1996 at the University of Kentucky used a foraging device to test social learning in pigeons. A pigeon could access the food reward by either pecking at a treadle or stepping on it. Significant correspondence was found between the methods of how the observers accessed their food and the methods the initial model used in accessing the food.

Acquiring foraging niches
Studies have been conducted at the University of Oslo and University of Saskatchewan regarding the possibility of social learning in birds, delineating the difference between cultural and genetic acquisition. Strong evidence already exists for mate choice, bird song, predator recognition, and foraging.

Researchers cross-fostered eggs between nests of blue tits and great tits and observed the resulting behavior through audio-visual recording. Tits raised in the foster family learned their foster family's foraging sites early. This shift—from the sites the tits would among their own kind and the sites they learned from the foster parents—lasted for life. What young birds learn from foster parents, they eventually transmitted to their own offspring. This suggests cultural transmissions of foraging behavior over generations in the wild.

Social learning in crows
The University of Washington studied this phenomenon with crows, acknowledging the evolutionary tradeoff between acquiring costly information firsthand and learning that information socially with less cost to the individual but at the risk of inaccuracy. The experimenters exposed wild crows to a unique "dangerous face" mask as they trapped, banded, and released 7-15 birds at five different study places around Seattle, WA. An immediate scolding response to the mask after trapping by previously captured crows illustrates that the individual crow learned the danger of that mask. There was a scolding from crows that were captured that had not been captured initially. That response indicates conditioning from the mob of birds that assembled during the capture.

Horizontal social learning (learning from peers) is consistent with the lone crows that recognized the dangerous face without ever being captured. Children of captured crow parents were conditioned to scold the dangerous mask, which demonstrates vertical social learning (learning from parents). The crows that were captured directly had the most precise discrimination between dangerous and neutral masks than the crows that learned from the experience of their peers. The ability of crows to learn doubled the frequency of scolding, which spread at least 1.2 km from where the experiment started to over a 5-year period at one site.

Propagation of animal culture
Researchers at the Département d’Etudes Cognitives, Institut Jean Nicod, Ecole Normale Supérieure acknowledged a difficulty with research in social learning. To count acquired behavior as cultural, two conditions need must be met: the behavior must spread in a social group, and that behavior must be stable across generations. Research has provided evidence that imitation may play a role in the propagation of a behavior, but these researchers believe the fidelity of this evidence is not sufficient to prove the stability of animal culture.

Other factors like ecological availability, reward-based factors, content-based factors, and source-based factors might explain the stability of animal culture in a wild rather than just imitation. As an example of ecological availability, chimps may learn how to fish for ants with a stick from their peers, but that behavior is also influenced by the particular type of ants as well as the condition. A behavior may be learned socially, but the fact that it was learned socially does not necessarily mean it will last. The fact that the behavior is rewarding has a role in cultural stability as well. The ability for socially-learned behaviors to stabilize across generations is also mitigated by the complexity of the behavior. Different individuals of a species, like crows, vary in their ability to use a complex tool. Finally, a behavior's stability in animal culture depends on the context in which they learn a behavior. If a behavior has already been adopted by a majority, then the behavior is more likely to carry across generations out of a need for conforming.

Animals are able to acquire behaviors from social learning, but whether or not that behavior carries across generations requires more investigation.

Hummingbird experiment
Experiments with hummingbirds provided one example of apparent observational learning in a non-human organism. Hummingbirds were divided into two groups. Birds in one group were exposed to the feeding of a knowledgeable "tutor" bird; hummingbirds in the other group did not have this exposure. In subsequent tests the birds that had seen a tutor were more efficient feeders than the others.

Bottlenose dolphin
Herman (2002) suggested that bottlenose dolphins produce goal-emulated behaviors rather than imitative ones. A dolphin that watches a model place a ball in a basket might place the ball in the basket when asked to mimic the behavior, but it may do so in a different manner seen.

Rhesus monkey
Kinnaman (1902) reported that one rhesus monkey learned to pull a plug from a box with its teeth to obtain food after watching another monkey succeed at this task.

Fredman (2012) also performed an experiment on observational behavior. In experiment 1, human-raised monkeys observed a familiar human model open a foraging box using a tool in one of two alternate ways: levering or poking. In experiment 2, mother-raised monkeys viewed similar techniques demonstrated by monkey models. A control group in each population saw no model. In both experiments, independent coders detected which technique experimental subjects had seen, thus confirming social learning. Further analyses examined copying at three levels of resolution.

The human-raised monkeys exhibited the greatest learning with the specific tool use technique they saw. Only monkeys who saw the levering model used the lever technique, by contrast with controls and those who witnessed poking. Mother-reared monkeys instead typically ignored the tool and exhibited fidelity at a lower level, tending only to re-create whichever result the model had achieved by either levering or poking.

Nevertheless, this level of social learning was associated with significantly greater levels of success in monkeys witnessing a model than in controls, an effect absent in the human-reared population. Results in both populations are consistent with a process of canalization of the repertoire in the direction of the approach witnessed, producing a narrower, socially shaped behavioral profile than among controls who saw no model.

Light box experiment
Pinkham and Jaswal (2011) did an experiment to see if a child would learn how to turn on a light box by watching a parent. They found that children who saw a parent use their head to turn on the light box tended to do the task in that manner, while children who had not seen the parent used their hands instead.

Swimming skill performance
When adequate practice and appropriate feedback follow demonstrations, increased skill performance and learning occurs. Lewis (1974) did a study of children who had a fear of swimming and observed how modelling and going over swimming practices affected their overall performance. The experiment spanned nine days, and included many steps. The children were first assessed on their anxiety and swimming skills. Then they were placed into one of three conditional groups and exposed to these conditions over a few days.

At the end of each day, all children participated in a group lesson. The first group was a control group where the children watched a short cartoon video unrelated to swimming. The second group was a peer mastery group, which watched a short video of similar-aged children who had very good task performances and high confidence. Lastly, the third group was a peer coping group, whose subjects watched a video of similar-aged children who progressed from low task performances and low confidence statements to high task performances and high confidence statements.

The day following the exposures to each condition, the children were reassessed. Finally, the children were also assessed a few days later for a follow-up assessment. Upon reassessment, it was shown that the two model groups who watched videos of children similar in age had successful rates on the skills assessed because they perceived the models as informational and motivational.

Do-as-I-do Chimpanzee
Flexible methods must be used to assess whether an animal can imitate an action. This led to an approach that teaches animals to imitate by using a command such as "do-as-I-do" or "do this" followed by the action that they are supposed to imitate. Researchers trained chimpanzees to imitate an action that was paired with the command. For example, this might include a researcher saying "do this" paired with clapping hands. This type of instruction has been utilized in a variety of other animals in order to teach imitation actions by utilizing a command or request.

Observational learning in Everyday Life
Observational learning allows for new skills to be learned in a wide variety of areas. Demonstrations help the modification of skills and behaviors.

Learning physical activities
When learning skills for physical activities can be anything that is learned that requires physical movement, this can include learning a sport, learning to eat with a fork, or learning to walk. There are multiple important variables that aid in modifying physical skills and psychological responses from an observational learning standpoint. Modeling is a variable in observational learning where the skill level of the model is considered. When someone is supposed to demonstrate a physical skill such as throwing a baseball the model should be able to execute the behavior of throwing the ball flawlessly if the model of learning is a mastery model. Another model to utilize in observational learning is a coping model, which would be a model demonstrating a physical skill that they have not yet mastered or achieved high performance in. Both models are found to be effective and can be utilized depending on the what skills is trying to be demonstrated. These models can be used as interventions to increase observational learning in practice, competition, and rehabilitation situations. Observational learning is also dependent on the learner's intentions and goals where performance can be enhanced by increasing instruction and beneficial feedback depending on the individual's age, personality, and abilities.

Neuroscience
Recent research in neuroscience has implicated mirror neurons as a neurophysiological basis for observational learning. Mirror neurons were first discovered in 1991 by researchers led by Giacomo Rizzolatti. The scientists had a device connected to a monkey to monitor brain activity. When the scientists came into the lab eating ice cream, the device buzzed. This accidental finding led them to mirror neurons which are an essential part in imitation and observational learning. These specialized visuomotor neurons fire action potentials when an individual performs a motor task and also fire when an individual passively observes another individual performing the same motor task. In observational motor learning, the process begins with a visual presentation of another individual performing a motor task, this acts as a model. The learner then needs to transform the observed visual information into internal motor commands that will allow them to perform the motor task, this is known as visuomotor transformation. Mirror neuron networks provide a mechanism for visuo-motor and motor-visual transformation and interaction. Similar networks of mirror neurons have also been implicated in social learning, motor cognition and social cognition.

Autism Spectrum Disorder
Discrete trial training (DTT) is a structured and systematic approach utilized in helping individuals with autism spectrum disorder learn. Individuals with autism tend to struggle with learning through observation, therefore something that is reinforcing is necessary in order to motivate them to imitate or follow through with the task. When utilizing DTT to teach individuals with autism modeling is utilized to aid in their learning. Modeling would include showing how to reach the correct answer, this could mean showing the steps to a math equation. Utilizing DTT in a group setting also promotes observational learning from peers as well.

Further reading on animal social learning

 * Zentall, T.R. (2006). Imitation: Definitions, evidence, and mechanisms. Animal Cognition, 9 335–353. (A thorough review of different types of social learning) Full text
 * Zentall, T.R. (2006). Imitation: Definitions, evidence, and mechanisms. Animal Cognition, 9 335–353. (A thorough review of different types of social learning) Full text

title: Observational learning


text:
942

Year 942 (CMXLII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.

Europe

 * Summer – The Hungarians invade Al-Andalus (modern Spain) and besiege the fortress city of Lerida. They devastate Cerdanya and Huesca, and capture Yahya ibn Muhammad ibn al Tawil, Umayyad governor (wali) of the town of Barbastro. Lacking food stores and sufficient forage, the Hungarians retreat to the Gothic March.
 * Battle of Fraxinet: King Hugh of Provence launches an attack on Fraxinet, the Moorish fortress on the Côté d'Azur that had taken control of the Piedmontese valleys. With the assistance of a Byzantine fleet sent by Emperor Romanos I, Hugh lays siege to the Moorish fortress with the help of Hungarian auxiliary troops (Kabars).
 * Fall – Hugh of Provence makes a truce with the Moors of Fraxinet, after hearing the news that a Swabian army is about to descend on Italy. He allows the Moors to attack the Alpine passes for his own political ends in his struggle with Berengar of Ivrea. The Byzantines cry foul and end their alliance with Hugh.
 * December 17 – William I ("Longsword"), duke of Normandy, is ambushed and assassinated by supporters of Arnulf I ("the Great"), count of Flanders, while the two are at a peace conference at Picquigny (on an island on the Somme) to settle their differences. William is succeeded by his 9-year-old son Richard.
 * Winter – The Hungarians raid Friuli and descend into central Italy. Hugh of Provence grants them a large sum of tribute if they return to the Gothic March or Spain. The Hungarians refuse the offer and raid the countryside of Lazio, destroying the region of Sabina.

England

 * King Edmund I moves with his army north to reconquer the Five Boroughs (the five main towns of Danish Mercia) in modern-day East Midlands from the Norse-Irish king Olaf Sigtryggsson.
 * Idwal Foel, king of Gwynedd, openly rebels against the overlordship of Edmund I. He and Llywelyn ap Merfyn, king of Pows, are killed fighting the English forces.
 * Hywel Dda, king of Deheubarth, annexes Gwynedd and Powys, to become the sole ruler of most of Wales.

Asia

 * Mularaja, founder of the Chaulukya Dynasty, supplants the last Chavda ruler, Samanta-Simha, in Gujarat (modern India). He founds an independent kingdom with his capital in Anahilapataka (approximate date).

Religion

 * Fall – Pope Stephen VIII tries to negotiate a peace that will end the feud between Alberic II, de facto ruler of Rome, and Hugh of Provence (his stepfather) but he dies after a 3-year reign. Stephen is succeeded by Marinus II as the 128th pope of the Catholic Church.

Births

 * March 7 – Mu'ayyad al-Dawla, ruler of the Buyid Dynasty (d. 983)
 * Fujiwara no Tamemitsu, Japanese statesman (d. 992)
 * Genshin, Japanese Tendai scholar (d. 1017)
 * Liu Chang, emperor of Southern Han (d. 980)
 * Sabuktigin, emir of Ghazna (approximate date)
 * Sabur ibn Ardashir, Persian statesman (d. 1025)
 * Sŏ Hŭi, Korean politician and diplomat (d. 998)
 * Sviatoslav I, Grand Prince of Kiev (approximate date)
 * Wang, empress of the Song Dynasty (d. 963)

Deaths

 * January 21 – An Chongrong, Chinese general (Five Dynasties)
 * February 13 – Muhammad ibn Ra'iq, Abbasid de facto regent
 * June 10 – Liu Yan, emperor of Southern Han (b. 889)
 * July 28 – Shi Jingtang, emperor of Later Jin (b. 892)
 * August 24 – Liu, empress dowager of Later Jin
 * November 18 – Odo of Cluny, Frankish abbot
 * December 17 – William I, duke of Normandy (b.c. 893)
 * An Congjin, Chinese general and governor
 * Fulk I, Frankish nobleman (approximate date)
 * Idwal Foel, king of Gwynedd (Wales)
 * Llywelyn ap Merfyn, king of Powys (Wales)
 * Pietro Participazio, doge of Venice (Italy)
 * Saadia Gaon, Jewish philosopher and exegete
 * Stephen VIII, pope of the Catholic Church
 * Theobald the Elder, Frankish nobleman (b. 854)
 * Wigred, bishop of Chester-le-Street (approximate date)
 * Wynsige, bishop of Dorchester (approximate date)

title: 942


text:
445

Year 445 (CDXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Valentinianus and Nomus (or, less frequently, year 1198 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 445 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Europe

 * Emperor Valentinian III issues an imperial edict against Manichaeism. Heavy penalties are decreed against those who do not denounce the religion, and retain Manichaean books.
 * Petronius Maximus, prominent aristocrat, is given the title of Patrician. He becomes the most honored of all non-imperial Romans, and political rival of Flavius Aetius.
 * Bleda, co-ruler of the Huns, dies in a hunting accident. He is possibly murdered at the instigation of his younger brother Attila, with whom he has ruled since 434. Now about 39, Attila takes the throne for himself, and becomes king of the Hunnic Empire.

Religion

 * Domnus II, Patriarch of Antioch, summons a synod of Syrian bishops to confirm the deposition of Athanasius of Perrha.
 * Ireland: The Diocese of Armagh is created.

Deaths

 * Arsenius the Great, Desert Father
 * King Bleda of the Huns (approximate date)
 * Fan Ye, Chinese historian (b. 398)
 * Nath Í mac Fiachrach, High King of Ireland

title: 445


text:
444

Year 444 (CDXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Theodosius and Aginatius (or, less frequently, year 1197 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 444 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Europe

 * Flavius Aetius, Roman general (magister militum), settles the Alans around Valence and Orléans, to contain unrest in Brittany.
 * Eudocia, eldest daughter of Emperor Valentinian III, is betrothed to Huneric, son of Vandal King Genseric (hostage in Italy).
 * Attila the Hun establishes his residence along the Tisza River (modern Hungary), and plans the coming campaign in the Balkans.
 * The Irish city of Armagh is founded by Saint Patrick the Great.

Religion

 * Pope Leo I extinguishes the Gallican vicariate.
 * Dioscorus I becomes Patriarch of Alexandria.

Births

 * Xiao Ni, prince of Southern Qi (d. 492)

Deaths

 * Bricius, bishop of Tours
 * Cyril of Alexandria, patriarch and theologian
 * Juqu Wuhui, prince of Northern Liang

title: 444


text:
446

Year 446 (CDXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Aetius and Symmachus (or, less frequently, year 1199 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 446 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Europe

 * Bishop Germanus of Auxerre visits Ravenna, seeking to soften imperial hostility towards the Bagaudae. On his arrival at the capital, empress-mother Galla Placidia sends him a silver dish with a choice selection of prepared dainties—all vegetarian, out of respect for the bishop's strict diet. Germanus petitions the Senate for leniency for the citizens of Armorica (Brittany).
 * The Britons and Anglo-Saxon mercenaries, under King Vortigern, appeal to Flavius Aetius (magister militum of Gaul) for military assistance in their struggle against the Picts and Irish. Aetius has enough problems with Attila the Hun and is unable to send any help (according to Groans of the Britons).
 * The Cor Tewdws (College of Theodosius), Llantwit Major (Wales), is supposedly burned down by Irish pirates.

China

 * Three Disasters of Wu: The Northern Wei dynasty begins persecuting Buddhists, having heretofore encouraged them. The drain of manpower and tax money to temples and monasteries has threatened the secular government, and the reaction is fierce: monks and nuns are murdered, temples and icons destroyed. All men under age 50 are prohibited from joining any monastic order in a program that will continue until 450, helping the Confucianist philosophy of the Han dynasty to gain dominance over Buddhism.

Religion

 * A local synod is held by Turibius of Astorga.
 * Flavian becomes patriarch of Constantinople.

Deaths

 * February 19 – Leontius of Trier, Bishop of Trier
 * Mac Cairthinn mac Coelboth, king of Leinster (Ireland)
 * Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople (approximate date)

title: 446


text:
AD 442

Year 442 (CDXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Dioscorus and Eudoxius (or, less frequently, year 1195 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 442 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Europe

 * Valentinian III forms a marriage proposal for his eldest daughter Eudocia and Genseric's son Huneric. He is already married to a Visigoth princess, and Genseric decides to free him of his obligations by accusing her of trying to poison him. He leaves her mutilated - her ears and nose are cut off - and sends her back to her father Theodoric I, in Toulouse (Gaul).
 * The Huns, on a military campaign along the Danube and the Great Morava, destroy the city of Naissus (modern Serbia). They have mastered siege technology and are able to capture fortified cities. The Roman Senate agrees to pay Attila a tribute of 700 pounds of gold per year.

Africa

 * End of the Vandal War (439-442): Emperor Valentinian III signs a peace treaty with King Genseric, and recognises the Vandal Kingdom. He grants him sovereignty over most of Africa. Genseric gives back Sicily and Mauretania (Algeria and Morocco). This marks the end of the Vandal migrations; they settle in North Africa, with Carthage as their capital.

Religion

 * The Monastery of St. Shenouda the Archimandrite (White Monastery) near Sohag (Egypt) is built.

Births

 * Feng, Chinese empress and regent of the Northern Wei dynasty (d. 490)
 * Isidore of Miletus, Byzantine architect and mathematician (d. 537)
 * Placidia, Roman empress and daughter of Valentinian III (approximate date)
 * Angelus Daemonicus, Roman general (d. ?)

Deaths

 * Veh Mihr Shapur, Sasanian military officer and Marzban of Armenia

title: AD 442