Freemasonry or Masonry consists of fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local fraternities of stonemasons that from the end of the fourteenth century regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities and clients. The degrees of Freemasonry retain the three grades of medieval craft guilds, those of Apprentice, Journeyman or fellow, and Master Mason. The candidate of these three degrees is progressively taught the meanings of the symbols of Freemasonry, and entrusted with grips, signs and words to signify to other members that he has been so initiated. The degrees are part allegorical morality play and part lecture. Three degrees are offered by Craft Freemasonry, and members of any of these degrees are known as Freemasons or Masons. There are additional degrees, which vary with locality and jurisdiction, and are usually administered by their own bodies.
Count Gyula Andrássy de Csíkszentkirály et Krasznahorka was a Hungarian statesman, who served as Prime Minister of Hungary (1867–1871) and subsequently as Foreign Minister of Austria-Hungary (1871–1879). Andrássy was a conservative; his foreign policies looked to expanding the Empire into Southeast Europe, preferably with British and German support, and without alienating Turkey. He saw Russia as the main adversary, because of its own expansionist policies toward Slavic and Orthodox areas. He distrusted Slavic nationalist movements as a threat to his multi-ethnic empire.
Francis I was Holy Roman Emperor and Grand Duke of Tuscany, though his wife Maria Theresa effectively executed the real powers of those positions. They were the founders of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty. From 1728 until 1737 he was Duke of Lorraine. Francis traded the duchy to the ex-Polish king Stanisław Leszczyński in exchange for the Grand Duchy of Tuscany as one of the terms ending the War of the Polish Succession in November 1738. The duchy and the ducal title to Lorraine and Bar passed to King Louis XV of France upon Leszczynski's death in 1766, though Francis and his successors retained the right to style themselves as dukes of Lorraine and Bar.
Henry Cabot Lodge was an American Republican Senator and historian from Massachusetts. A member of the prominent Lodge family, he received his PhD in history from Harvard University. As an undergraduate at Harvard, he joined Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity. He is best known for his positions on foreign policy, especially his battle with President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 over the Treaty of Versailles. The failure of that treaty ensured that the United States never joined the League of Nations.
Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., sometimes referred to as Henry Cabot Lodge II, was a Republican United States Senator from Massachusetts and a United States ambassador. He was the Republican nominee for Vice President in the 1960 presidential election alongside incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon. The Republican ticket lost to Democrats John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
In Freemasonry, regularity is the process by which individual Grand Lodges recognise one another for the purposes of allowing formal interaction at the Grand Lodge level and visitation by members of other jurisdictions. The United Grand Lodge of England is not the governing body a Masonry, as each individual Grand Lodge determines who it considers Regular by its standards.
Baroness Maria Augusta von Trapp DHS was the stepmother and matriarch of the Trapp Family Singers. She wrote The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, which was published in 1949 and was the inspiration for the 1956 West German film The Trapp Family, which in turn inspired the Broadway musical The Sound of Music (1959) and its 1965 film version.
Heinrich Lammasch was an Austrian jurist. He was a professor of criminal and international law, a member of the Hague Arbitration Tribunal, and served as the last Minister-President of Austria for a few weeks in October and November 1918. He was the first and only non-noble to serve as Minister-President in the Austrian half of the Habsburg Monarchy.
A marriage of state is a diplomatic marriage or union between two members of different nation-states or internally, between two power blocs, usually in authoritarian societies and is a practice which dates back into ancient times, as far back as early Grecian cultures in western society, and of similar antiquity in other civilizations. The fable of Helen of Troy may be the best known classical tale reporting an incidence of surrendering a female member of a ruling line to gain peace or shore up alliances of state between nation-states headed by small oligarchies or acknowledged royalty.
The Treaty of Breslau was a preliminary peace agreement signed on 11 June 1742 following long negotiations at the Silesian capital Wrocław by emissaries of Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria and King Frederick II of Prussia ending the First Silesian War.
Admiral The Hon. George Townshend was a British naval commander.
Prince Franz Anton von Thun und Hohenstein, Czech: kníže František Antonín z Thunu a Hohensteina was an Austro-Hungarian noble and statesman.
The Siege of Bergen op Zoom took place during the Austrian War of Succession, when a French army, under the command of Lowendal and the overall direction of Marshal Maurice de Saxe, laid siege and captured the strategic Dutch border fortress of Bergen op Zoom on the border of Brabant and Zeeland in 1747. The fortress was defended by Dutch, Austrians, British, Hanoverians and Hessians that supported the Pragmatic Sanction.
Jagdschloss is the German term for a hunting lodge. It is a schloss set in a wildlife park or a hunting area that served primarily as accommodation for a ruler or aristocrat and his entourage while hunting in the area.
The Siege of Genoa took place in 1746 during the War of the Austrian Succession when an Allied force of Austrians, Sardinians soldiers and British sailors besieged the capital of the Republic of Genoa. The city ultimately surrendered to commander Antoniotto Botta Adorno, after being abandoned by its principal allies France and Spain. The manner in which Austria had negotiated a separate surrender that didn't include Britain or Sardinia angered their allies, and for a while the British fleet under George Townshend were instructed by Arthur Villettes to continue their blockade of the city in protest until ordered to cease it by the Duke of Newcastle in London.
Ulrich Friedrich Woldemar Graf von Löwendal was a German officer and statesmen.
Green's Lodge Battery is an artillery battery in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It is located on the North Face of the Rock of Gibraltar at the northern end of the Upper Rock Nature Reserve, above Farringdon's Battery. Also known as the Superior Battery, it was named after General Sir William Green, who served in Gibraltar for twenty-two years, most of them as the chief engineer of Gibraltar. In 1776, guns were first mounted on the battery, which also saw action during the Great Siege of Gibraltar. The emplacement also underwent reconstruction in the early and mid twentieth century. Green's Lodge Battery is listed with the Gibraltar Heritage Trust.
Freemasonry in Luxembourg traces its local origins to the 18th century. Though the practice of Freemasonry was suppressed by the reigning Austrian Habsburg dynasty, it enjoyed a revival under Napoleonic rule that persisted after the close of his reign. After their initial founding, Masonic lodges in Luxembourg rapidly developed strong ties with their French and Belgian counterparts. While suppressed again under Nazi rule, postwar Freemasonry forged stronger ties with the Anglo-American extension of the brotherhood, though the oldest lodges still use the French form of Masonic ritual.
Freemasonry in Croatia may be traced to the second half of the 18th century when it was introduced by the officers that came back from the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). However, the fraternity has been repeatedly banned and re-founded since then.
The Convention of Alessandria was a treaty signed on 15 June 1800 between the French First Republic led by Napoleon and Austria during the War of the Second Coalition. Following the Austrian defeat at the Battle of Marengo, they agreed to evacuate Italy as far as the Mincio and abandon strongholds in Piedmont and Milan. Great Britain and Austria were allies and hoped to negotiate a peace treaty with France, but Napoleon insisted on separate treaties with each nation. The negotiations failed, and fighting resumed on 22 November 1800.
