France

Burgundy (/ˈbɜːrɡəndi/ BUR-gən-dee, French: Bourgogne [buʁɡɔɲ] ; Burgundian: Bregogne) is a historical region in France, encompassing the territory of the former administrative region of the same name, that existed from 1982 to 2015, and was merged since 1 January 2016 into the newly created administrative region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, encompassing its western half. In historical terms, that region was formed as the Duchy of Burgundy, which existed between the 10th and the 18th century. During the late medieval and early modern periods, the region was of great political importance, being the core of the Valois-Burgundian State, and also becoming a focal point of diplomacy and courtly culture that set the fashion for European royal houses and their courts. The regional capital, Dijon, was wealthy and powerful, being a major European centre of art and science, and of Western Monasticism.

The modern Burgundy encompasses only the north-western parts of the ancient Kingdom of the Burgundians, that had much wider territorial scope. In 843, under the Treaty of Verdun, old Burgundian lands were divided, with all of north-western regions being assigned to the West Frankish Kingdom. Since the beginning of the 10th century, those regions were organized as the Duchy of Burgundy, remaining under the sovereignty of the Kingdom of France. Since 1004, the House of Burgundy, a cadet branch of the French royal House of Capet, ruled over the Duchy, that roughly conformed to the borders and territories of the later administrative region of Burgundy. Upon the extinction of the Burgundian male line the duchy reverted to the King of France and the House of Valois.

Élan vital (French pronunciation: [elɑ̃ vital]) is a term coined by French philosopher Henri Bergson in his 1907 book Creative Evolution, in which he addresses the question of self-organisation and spontaneous morphogenesis of things in an increasingly complex manner. Élan vital was translated in the English edition as "vital impetus", but is usually translated by his detractors as "vital force". It is a hypothetical explanation for evolution and development of organisms, which Bergson linked closely with consciousness – the intuitive perception of experience and the flow of inner time.

Tin-glazed pottery is earthenware covered in lead glaze with added tin oxide which is white, shiny and opaque (see tin-glazing for the chemistry); usually this provides a background for brightly painted decoration. It has been important in Islamic and European pottery, but very little used in East Asia. The pottery body is usually made of red or buff-colored earthenware and the white glaze imitated Chinese porcelain. The decoration on tin-glazed pottery is usually applied to the unfired glaze surface by brush with metallic oxides, commonly cobalt oxide, copper oxide, iron oxide, manganese dioxide and antimony oxide. The makers of Italian tin-glazed pottery from the late Renaissance blended oxides to produce detailed and realistic polychrome paintings.

The earliest tin-glazed pottery appears to have been made in Iraq in the 9th century, the oldest fragments having been excavated during the First World War from the palace of Samarra about fifty miles north of Baghdad. From there it spread to Egypt, Persia and Spain before reaching Italy in mid-15th century, early Renaissance, Holland in the 16th century and England, France and other European countries shortly after.

The Musée Cernuschi (French pronunciation: [myze tʃɛʁnuski]; 'Cernuschi Museum'), officially also the Musée des arts de l'Asie de la Ville de Paris ('Asian Arts Museum of the City of Paris'), is an Asian art museum located at 7 avenue Vélasquez, near Parc Monceau, in Paris, France. Its Asian art collection is second in Paris only to that of the Musée Guimet.

The nearest Paris Métro stops to the museum are Villiers or Monceau on Line 2.

The Spanish Netherlands (Spanish: Países Bajos Españoles; Dutch: Spaanse Nederlanden; French: Pays-Bas espagnols; German: Spanische Niederlande; historically in Spanish: Flandes, the name "Flanders" was used as a pars pro toto) were a collection of States of the Holy Roman Empire in the Low Countries, held in personal union by the Spanish Habsburgs, but not annexed to the Spanish Crown, thus encompassing the second period in history of the Habsburg Netherlands, that lasted from 1556 to 1714. This region comprised most of the modern states of Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as parts of northern France, the southern Netherlands, and western Germany, with the capital being Brussels. The Army of Flanders was given the task of defending the territory.

The Imperial fiefs in the former Burgundian Netherlands had been inherited by the House of Habsburg from the extinct House of Valois-Burgundy upon the death of Mary of Burgundy in 1482. The Seventeen Provinces formed the core of the Habsburg Netherlands, which passed to the Spanish Habsburgs upon the abdication of Emperor Charles V in 1556. Spanish hegemony in Netherlands was solidified following their victory in the Fall of Antwerp during the Eighty Years' War. When part of the Netherlands separated to form the autonomous Dutch Republic in 1581, the remainder of the area stayed under Spanish rule until the War of the Spanish Succession.

Cro-Magnon (/kroʊˈmænjɒn/ kroh-MAN-yon or /kroʊˈmæɡnən/ kroh-MAG-nən; French: abri de Cro-Magnon [abʁi d(ə) kʁomaɲɔ̃]; Occitan: abric de Cròsmanhon) is an Aurignacian (Upper Paleolithic) site, located in a rock shelter in the commune of Les Eyzies, Dordogne, southwestern France.

Most notably, it is the site of the discovery of anatomically modern human remains, apparently buried at the site, dated to about 28,000 years ago. The find is also called Cro-Magnon after the name of the rock shelter. Because of its archeological importance, Abri de Cro-Magnon was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Prehistoric Sites and Decorated Caves of the Vézère Valley site.

The Aurignacian (/ɔːrɪɡˈneɪʃən/) is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with Early European modern humans (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the Levant, where the Emiran period and the Ahmarian period form the first periods of the Upper Paleolithic, corresponding to the first stages of the expansion of Homo sapiens out of Africa. They then migrated to Europe and created the first European culture of modern humans, the Aurignacian.

The Proto-Aurignacian and the Early Aurignacian stages are dated between about 43,000 and 37,000 years ago. The Aurignacian proper lasted from about 37,000 to 33,000 years ago. A Late Aurignacian phase transitional with the Gravettian dates to about 33,000 to 26,000 years ago.The type site is the Cave of Aurignac, Haute-Garonne, south-west France. The main preceding period is the Mousterian of the Neanderthals.

Magdalenian cultures (also Madelenian; French: Magdalénien) are later cultures of the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic in western Europe. They date from around 17,000 to 12,000 years before present. It is named after the type site of Abri de la Madeleine, a rock shelter (abri) located in the Vézère valley of Tursac in Dordogne, France.

Édouard Lartet and Henry Christy originally termed the period L'âge du renne "the age of the reindeer". They conducted the first archaeological excavation of the type site, publishing in 1875. The Magdalenian is associated with reindeer hunters. Magdalenian sites contain extensive evidence for the hunting of red deer, wild horses, and other megafauna present in Europe toward the end of the Last Glacial Period. The culture was geographically widespread, and later Magdalenian sites stretched from Portugal in the west to Poland in the east, and as far north as France, the Channel Islands, England, and Wales. Besides la Madeleine, the chief stations of the Magdalenian are Les Eyzies, Laugerie-Basse, and Gorges d'Enfer in the Dordogne; Grotte du Placard in Charente and others in Southwest France.

Atlantic Europe encompasses the western portion of Europe which borders the Atlantic Ocean. The term may refer to the idea of Atlantic Europe as a cultural unit and/or as a biogeographical region.

It comprises Ireland, Great Britain, Iceland, Belgium, the Netherlands, the central and northern regions of Portugal, northwestern and northern Spain (including Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Southern Basque Country, and some portions of Castile and León), the southwestern and western portion of France (Northern Basque Country), western Scandinavia as well as western and northern Germany.

The Universal White Brotherhood (UWB) is a religious movement founded in Bulgaria in 1897 by Peter Dunov. It was later established in France in 1937 by Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov, one of Deunov's followers.

Their teachings are also known as "Dunovism", after the founder. The group proposes a Christian esoterism, characterized by a number of practices, including prayers, meditation, breathing exercises, yoga of nutrition and paneurhythmy. A person can be both a member of the group and of another religion. It has two centers located in Sèvres and Fréjus and 2,000 followers in France. It is present in many countries, including Canada, Switzerland and Belgium.