The House of Habsburg, also officially called the House of Austria, was one of the most influential and distinguished royal houses of Europe. The throne of the Holy Roman Empire was continuously occupied by the Habsburgs from 1440 until their extinction in the male line in 1740 and after the death of Francis I from 1765 until its dissolution in 1806.
The current coat of arms of the Republic of Austria has been in use in its first forms by the First Republic of Austria since 1919. Between 1934 and the German annexation in 1938, the Federal State used a different coat of arms, which consisted of a double-headed eagle. The establishment of the Second Republic in 1945 saw the return of the original arms, with broken chains added to symbolise Austria's liberation. In 1981 the Wappen der Republik Österreich (Bundeswappen) described the blazon in the Federal Constitutional Law (Bundes-Verfassungsgesetz, B-VG). With this change of law it was defined that the specific drawing is to codificate in an own statute law and that all other versions of the coat of arms of Austria were no longer in law. In accordance to this the Wappengesetz from 1984 and the drawing of the actual Wappen der Republik Österreich is in Austrian law. The often used ″Bundesadler″ is only a synonymous term in colloquially language.
The Distinguished Order of the Golden Fleece is a Catholic order of chivalry founded in Bruges by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, in 1430, to celebrate his marriage to Isabella of Portugal. Today, two branches of the order exist, namely the Spanish and the Austrian Fleece; the current grand masters are Felipe VI, King of Spain and Karl von Habsburg, head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, respectively. The Grand Chaplain of the Austrian branch is Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna.
Albert VI, a member of the House of Habsburg, was Duke of Austria from 1424, elevated to Archduke in 1453. As a scion of the Leopoldian line, he ruled over the Inner Austrian duchies of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola from 1424, from 1457 also over the Archduchy of Austria until his death, rivalling with his elder brother Emperor Frederick III. According to tradition, Albert, later known as the Prodigal, was the exact opposite of Frederick: energetic and inclined to thoughtlessness.
The Austrian nobility is a status group that was officially abolished in 1919 after the fall of Austria-Hungary. The nobles are still part of Austrian society today, but they no longer retain any specific privileges. Austria's system of nobility was very similar to Germany's, as both countries were previously part of the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806).
The Reichsadler is the heraldic eagle, derived from the Roman eagle standard, used by the Holy Roman Emperors and in modern coats of arms of Germany, including those of the Second German Empire (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) and the Third Reich.
Hugo Gerard Ströhl was an Austrian heraldist.
Johann Andreas Streicher was a German pianist, composer and piano maker. In 1793 he married Nannette Streicher (1769–1833), another piano maker and the daughter of Augsburg piano maker Johann Andreas Stein. In 1794 they moved to Vienna. From that time Streicher worked as a piano teacher and became increasingly known for his compositions. The Streicher piano-making business provided at least one fortepiano to Beethoven in his early years, of which the composer was fond, writing that it was "too good for me ... because it robs me of the freedom to produce my own tone".
Franckenstein is the name of a feudal, Franconian noble family in Germany, descendants from the Lords of Lützelbach from Höchst im Odenwald, respectively their offsprings, the Dynasts of the Breuberg family.
Rudolf von Tiefenbach was a German military commander who served the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War.
Eleanor of Austria, was an Austrian archduchess and a member of the House of Habsburg.
Baron Alexander Wassilko von Serecki, descendant of an old Moldavian boyar family, was an Austro-Hungarian ethnic Romanian statesman, Landeshauptmann of the Duchy of Bukovina and member of the Herrenhaus, the Upper House of the Imperial Council of Austria.
[Johann] Ignaz Albrecht was an Austrian engraver active from ca. 1789. He is listed as an engraver in the various Viennese Kommerzialschematismen until 1814. The "Verlassenschaftsabhandlungen" and the "Totenbeschauprotokolle" in the Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv reveal that two of Albrecht's children died in 1791 and a third died in 1796. During this period the residence of this "Kupferstecher" is given as "auf der Wieden No. 312."
The House of Rapperswil respectively Counts of Rapperswil ruled the upper Zürichsee and Seedamm region around Rapperswil and parts of, as of today, Swiss cantons of St. Gallen, Glarus, Zürich and Graubünden when their influence was most extensive around the 1200s until the 1290s. They acted also as Vogt of the most influential Einsiedeln Abbey in the 12th and 13th century, and at least three abbots of Einsiedeln were members of Rapperswil family.
Johann II von Habsburg-Laufenburg was the Count of Habsburg-Laufenburg and later Count of the House of Rapperswil.
The Appalt was involved in the leasing of state revenue, legal monopolies, crown lands, Droit de régale and indirectly charges of any kind in Habsburg Austria during the Baroque period. The Appalt is thus closely related to the financial politics of Mercantilism.
Hans Hermann Adler was a German professor of journalism at the University of Heidelberg.
The Francis Stephen Award is an international scientific honor given to researchers in the humanities and social sciences. It is awarded every two or three years by the Österreichische Gesellschaft zur Erforschung des 18. Jahrhunderts.
Erich Schenk was an Austrian musicologist and music historian.
Tamara Scheer is an Austrian Historian. Scheer studied history at the University of Vienna and achieved her doctorate in 2006 at the same university. Since then she taught and worked at several institutions: from 2010 to 2012 Post-Doc-Head of the Doctoral School and ÖAD-Fellow at Andrássy University Budapest, FWF-Hertha-Firnberg-Fellow at Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Historical Social Science (2013-2017). Short-Term Fellowships brought her to Trinity College Dublin (2014), Czech Academy of Sciences (2016) European University Institut Florence (2017/18), and the University of Oslo (2018).
