Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: Who was the King of Poland during the 1100's?
Duke Bolesław III the Wrymouth, who reigned from 1102 to 1138, tried to end the repeated struggles between various claimants by setting the government of Poland on a more formal footing. In his testament, he divided his lands into five Duchies and distributed them among his sons.
What followed was an "interregnum", a period of several decades during which the status of the country was disputed, and during which Frederick II's duchy fell victim to a prolonged power play between rival forces. During this time there were multiple claimants to the title, including Vladislaus, Margrave of Moravia son of King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia. King Wenceslaus aimed at acquiring the Duchy of Austria by arranging the marriage of Vladislaus to the last Duke's niece Gertrud, herself a potential heir and claimant.
Currently, despite formally being just one of the 460 MPs in the Polish Parliament's lower house (Sejm), Kaczyński is amongst the most influential politicians in Poland. He is considered the de facto ruler of Poland, from whom President and Prime Minister take orders. On 19 November 2017, President of the European Council Donald Tusk warned that Kaczyński's leadership played into the Kremlin's hands and endangered the independence of Poland.
The state of Lithuania formed in the 1230s, when threatened by the Livonian Order in the north and the Teutonic Knights in the west, the Baltic tribes united under the leadership of Mindaugas. He became the only crowned king of Lithuania. His state became known as Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After Grand Duke Jogaila became also king of Poland in 1386, the two states became closer connected and since 1440 both were ruled by a common ruler. In 1569 Union of Lublin was signed and a new entity—the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth—emerged. The commonwealth was partitioned in 1795 and Lithuania became part of the Russian Empire till 16 February 1918. The Council of Lithuania was able to establish the sovereignty only in 1919, after Germany lost World War I. The first republic of Lithuania existed until 1940 when it was occupied by the Soviet Union. During the Soviet-German War, Lithuania was occupied by Nazi Germany. In 1944, as Germany was losing the war, Russia re-occupied Lithuania and established the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. On 11 March 1990, Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare independence. The restored Republic of Lithuania is a democratic republic, a member of both the European Union and NATO.
The Polish People's Republic (, ) was a state in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989, and the predecessor of the modern democratic Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million inhabitants near the end of its existence, it was the most populous state of the Eastern Bloc after the Soviet Union. Having a unitary Marxist–Leninist communist government, it was also one of the main signatories of the Warsaw Pact. The official capital since 1947 and largest city was Warsaw, followed by industrial Łódź and cultural Kraków.
The split between the Albertinian and Leopoldinian lines of the Habsburg family and the Austrian lands enfeebled the dynasty's position. The Albertinian archduke Albert V of Austria was elected King of the Romans in 1438. Nevertheless, he died one year later and the line finally became extinct by the death of his son Ladislaus the Posthumous in 1457. The territories were inherited by the Leopoldian archduke Frederick V of Inner Austria, Albert's successor as King of the Romans and from 1452 also Holy Roman Emperor. Finally in 1490, all Habsburg territories were reunified, when Archduke Sigismund handed over the rulership of Tyrol and Further Austria ('Upper Austria') to Emperor Frederick's son King Maximilian I.
Being the last male member of the House of Árpád, Andrew was elected king after the death of King Ladislaus IV in 1290. He was the first Hungarian monarch to issue a coronation diploma confirming the privileges of the noblemen and the clergy. At least three pretenders—Albert of Austria, Mary of Hungary, and an adventurer—challenged his claim to the throne. Andrew expelled the adventurer from Hungary and forced Albert of Austria to conclude a peace within a year, but Mary of Hungary and her descendants did not renounce their claim. The Hungarian bishops and Andrew's maternal family from Venice were his principal supporters, but the leading Croatian and Slavonian lords were opposed to his rule.
Warsaw remained the capital of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1795, when it was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia to become the capital of the province of South Prussia. Liberated by Napoleon's army in 1806, Warsaw was made the capital of the newly created Duchy of Warsaw. Following the Congress of Vienna of 1815, Warsaw became the center of the Congress Poland, a constitutional monarchy under a personal union with Imperial Russia. During this period under the rule of the relatively liberal Russian Emperor Alexander I, Warsaw experienced much growth such as the founding of the Royal University of Warsaw was established (1816) and what is today's main street of the city—Aleje Jerozolimskie—was marked out. In 1818, the Town Hall on the Old Town Market was pulled down because it had become too small for the city, which had expanded after it incorporated the "jurydykas". The city's authorities moved to Jabłonowski's Palace (by the Great Theater), where it stayed until World War II.
The złoty (golden) is a traditional Polish currency unit dating back to the late Middle Ages. Initially, in the 14th and 15th centuries, the name was used for all kinds of foreign gold coins used in Poland, most notably Venetian and Hungarian ducats, (however, in provinces Volyn & Galych the name for them were the "золотий"(zolotyii) - golden). One złoty at the very beginning of their introduction cost 12–14 groszy; however, grosz had less and less silver as time passed. In 1496 the Sejm approved the creation of a national currency, the złoty, and its value was set at 30 groszy, a coin minted since 1347 and modelled on the Prague groschen, and a "ducat" ("florin"), whose value was złoty. The 1:30 proportion stayed ( of a kopa), but the grosz became cheaper and cheaper, because the proportion of silver in the coin alloy diminished over time. In the beginning of the 16th century, 1 złoty was worth 32 groszy; by the middle of the same century it was 50 groszy; by the reign of Sigismund III Vasa 1 złoty was worth 90 groszy, while a ducat was worth 180 groszy.
Polish landed gentry (, from "ziemia", "land") was a social group or class of hereditary landowners who held manorial estates. Historically, "ziemianie" consisted of hereditary nobles ("szlachta") and landed commoners (). The Statutes of Piotrków (1496) restricted the right to hold manorial lordships to hereditary nobility. The non-nobles thus had to either sell their estates to the lords or seek a formal ennoblement for themselves (not an easy task), or had their property taken away. A rare exception was the burgesses of certain specially privileged "ennobled" royal cities who were titled "nobilis" and were allowed to buy and inherit manorial estates and exercise their privileges (such as jurisdiction over their subjects) and monopolies (over distilleries, hunting grounds, etc.). Therefore, in the "szlachta"-dominated Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth there was almost no landed gentry in the English meaning of the term, i.e. commoners who owned landed estates. With the Partitions these restrictions were loosened and finally any commoner could buy or inherit land. This made the 20th-century Polish landed gentry consist mostly of hereditary nobles, but also of others.
On 1 February 1908, the king Dom Carlos I of Portugal and his heir apparent, Prince Royal Dom Luís Filipe, Duke of Braganza, were murdered in Lisbon. Under his rule, Portugal had twice been declared bankrupt – on 14 June 1892, and again on 10 May 1902 – causing social turmoil, economic disturbances, protests, revolts and criticism of the monarchy. Manuel II of Portugal became the new king, but was eventually overthrown by the 5 October 1910 revolution, which abolished the regime and instated republicanism in Portugal.
Paul I (; "Pavel Petrovich") ( – ) reigned as Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801. Officially, he was the only son of Peter III and Catherine the Great, though Catherine hinted that he was fathered by her lover Sergei Saltykov, who also had Romanov blood, being a descendant of the first Romanov tsar's sister, Tatiana Feodorovna Romanova.
Suleiman I ( "Süleymān", ; almost always "Kanuni Sultan Süleyman") (6 November 1494  – 5/6/7 September 1566), was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1520 to his death in 1566. Suleiman became a prominent monarch of 16th century Europe. Suleiman personally led Ottoman armies to conquer the Christian strongholds of Belgrade, Rhodes, and most of Hungary. In 1541 he annexed central Hungary while Transylvania became an Ottoman vassal. However rest of the Kingdom of Hungary including western and northern (Upper) Hungary and Croatia still were Habsburgs possessions. Suleiman also conquered Iraq in his conflict with the Safavid dynasty. Under his rule, the Ottoman fleet dominated the seas from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.
In 1807 Napoleon created a powerful outpost of his empire in Central Europe. Poland had recently been partitioned by its three large neighbours, but Napoleon created the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, which depended on France from the very beginning. The duchy consisted of lands seized by Austria and Prussia; its Grand Duke was Napoleon's ally the king of Saxony, but Napoleon appointed the intendants who ran the country. The population of 4.3 million was released from occupation and by 1814 sent about 200,000 men to Napoleon's armies. That included about 90,000 who marched with him to Moscow; few marched back. The Russians strongly opposed any move towards an independent Poland and one reason Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 was to punish them. The Grand Duchy was dissolved in 1815 and Poland did not become a state until 1918. Napoleon's impact on Poland was huge, including the Napoleonic legal code, the abolition of serfdom, and the introduction of modern middle class bureaucracies.
For Poles living in Eastern Galicia, the victory of the Polish forces over the Ukrainian Galician Army and the prospect of the region once again becoming part of the newly reconstructed Polish Republic, after 123 years of foreign domination caused a great wave of excitement. In the years following the war, battles such as the Defense of Lwów were remembered as outstanding examples of Polish heroism and resilience. Young defenders of the Łyczakowski Cemetery, who lost their lives defending the city, such as Jerzy Bitschan became household names in Poland during the interwar period.
In 1917 new coins (1, 5, 10 and 20 fenigs) and banknotes (½, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 markas) were introduced and started to replace all the previously-used currencies. All the banknotes were white with the White Eagle of Poland on a red field. At the time of the Armistice of November 11, 1918, 880 million markas were already in circulation. The new Polish government decided to retain the "marka" as currency and to allow the Loan Bank to continue operating. The following year the German-made banknotes were replaced in circulation with new ones. These featured Polish historical motifs. The notes of 10 and 500 markas displayed a picture of Queen Jadwiga, the notes of 5, 10, 100 and 1000 markas showed Tadeusz Kościuszko. A silver coin of 50 markas was planned but never issued due to the galloping inflation. Only one such coin is known to exist today.
The sixth and current President of Poland Andrzej Duda (assumed office in August 2015) is regularly cited as being a leading figure in the new nationalist movement within Poland. Furthermore, the ruling Law and Justice party, led by Jarosław Kaczyński, promoted nationalist views to win an outright majority in the national elections of 2015 (a feat never before accomplished). Despite not holding a government office, Kaczyński has been described as the figure who makes the "final call" on all major political issues in Poland.
The Black Death, which wrought havoc throughout Europe during the 14th century, had decimated the ruling families of Scandinavia. King Olav of Denmark and Norway was the last native ruler in Scandinavia. When he died in 1387, his wife Margareta took over the rule of those two countries and then Sweden as well. In 1397 in the town of Kalmar in Sweden, the Union of the three lands under a single crown was made official and Erik of Pomerania was chosen as king. Erik fatefully chose to govern the three kingdoms from Denmark using the Danish aristocracy.
Emperor Renzong of Song (30 May 1010 – 30 April 1063, Chinese calendar: 14 April 1010（the 3rd year of Dazhongxiangfu, 大中祥符三年） - 29 March 1063 (the 8th year of Jiayou, 嘉祐八年)), personal name Zhao Zhen, was the fourth emperor of the Song dynasty in China. He reigned for about 41 years from 1022 to his death in 1063, and was the longest reigning Song dynasty emperor. He was the sixth son of his predecessor, Emperor Zhenzong, and was succeeded by his cousin's son, Zhao Shu who took the throne as Emperor Yingzong because his own sons died prematurely. His original personal name was Zhao Shouyi but it was changed by imperial decree in 1018 to "Zhao Zhen", which means 'auspicious' in Chinese.
From 1611 to 1721, Sweden was a European great power, becoming a dominant faction in the quest for control of the Baltic Sea and a formidable military power. During this period, known as "Stormaktstiden" (), the Swedish Empire held a territory more than twice the size of its modern borders and one of the most successful military forces at the time, proving itself on numerous occasions on battlefields such as Wallhof, Narva and Düna. The military of the Swedish empire is commonly (and wrongfully) recognized only as the Caroleans, which were in fact not in service until the late 17th century under Karl XI and his successor. The Swedish Empire and its modern military force was founded by Gustavus Adolphus, who inherited the throne in 1611 at age 17. He immediately reformed the common European military based on mercenaries to a professional national army. However, before completing his vision of conquering the Holy Roman Empire, the warrior king was killed in action in 1632. His daughter and successor did little to improve Sweden's military position and abdicated early, providing the Swedish Empire with a more warlike ruler. Karl X Gustav was only king for 5 years, but conquered large amounts of territory that still belong to Sweden today (including Blekinge, Bohuslän, Skåne and Halland). His son Karl XI would further strengthen the army by introducing the Caroleans, which were also used by Karl XII in the Great Northern War.
The marka (, Polish mark, abbreviated "mp", Polish-language plural declensions: "marki, marek") was the currency of the Kingdom of Poland and of the Republic of Poland between 1917 and 1924. It was subdivided into 100 "fenigs" (a Polish spelling of German "pfennig"), much like its German original after which it was modelled (see "German mark).
The first king of the new dynasty was Jogaila, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, who was known as Władysław II Jagiełło in Poland. He was elected king of Poland in 1386 after his marriage to Jadwiga of Anjou, the Queen of Poland in her own right, and his conversion to Roman Catholicism. The Christianization of Lithuania in the Latin Rite followed. Jogaila's rivalry in Lithuania with his cousin Vytautas the Great, who was opposed to Lithuania's domination by Poland, was settled in 1392 in the Ostrów Agreement and in 1401 in the Union of Vilnius and Radom: Vytautas became the Grand Duke of Lithuania for life under Jogaila's nominal supremacy. The agreement made possible a close cooperation between the two nations necessary to succeed in struggles with the Teutonic Order. The Union of Horodło of 1413 defined the relationship further and granted privileges to the Roman Catholic (as opposed to Eastern Orthodox) segment of the Lithuanian nobility.
Augustus II of Saxony, who had also ruled as King of Poland for most of the years since 1697, died on February 1, 1733, sparking a struggle over his successor to the Polish throne. Stanisław I Leszczyński, who had briefly ruled as king during the Great Northern War (his reign was from 1705 to 1709), was elected king by an election sejm held on September 10, 1733, with broad support from the Polish nobility and population, as well as support from France (where his daughter was married to Louis XV), and Sweden (where Charles XII had supported him during his earlier reign). Russia, the Habsburgs, and Saxony, desiring a monarch over whom they would have more influence, opposed his election. Russia sent troops into Poland in August 1733, at first in an attempt to influence the election, but then forcing Stanisław, who had only 2,000 troops in Warsaw, to retreat to Danzig, where he entrenched with his partisans (including the Primate of Poland Teodor Potocki and the French and Swedish ministers) to await support that had been promised by France. On September 30 a Russian army of 20,000 under Peter Lacy arrived in Warsaw, and on October 6 a second sejm (composed of a smaller number of electors who had dissented from the previous election) proclaimed Augustus III king.
Good relations between Poland and Hungary date back to the Middle Ages. The Polish and Hungarian noble houses (as Piast dynasty or House of Árpád) often intermarried with each other. Louis the Great was king of Hungary and Croatia from 1342 and king of Poland from 1370 until his death in 1382. He was his father’s heir, Charles I of the House of Anjou-Sicily (King of Hungary and Croatia) and his uncle’s heir, Casimir III the Great (king of Poland - last of the Piast dynasty). King Casimir had no legitimate sons. Apparently, in order to provide a clear line of succession and avoid dynastic uncertainty, he arranged for his nephew, King Louis I of Hungary, to be his successor in Poland. Louis' younger daughter Saint Jadwiga of Poland inherited the Polish throne, and became one of the most popular monarchs of Poland. In the 15th century, the two countries briefly shared the same king again, Poland's Władysław III of Varna, who perished, aged barely twenty, fighting the Turks at Varna, Bulgaria. In the 16th century, Poland elected as her king a Hungarian nobleman, Stephen Báthory, who is regarded as one of Poland's greatest rulers.
Bolesław I the Brave ( , ; 967 – 17 June 1025), less often known as Bolesław I the Great (), was Duke of Poland from 992 to 1025, and the first King of Poland in 1025. As Boleslav IV, he was also Duke of Bohemia between 1002 and 1003. He was the son of Mieszko I of Poland by his wife, Dobrawa of Bohemia. According to a scholarly theory, Bolesław ruled Lesser Poland already during the last years of his father's reign. Mieszko I, who died in 992, divided Poland among his sons, but Bolesław expelled his father's last wife, Oda of Haldensleben, and his half-brothers and reunited Poland between 992 and 995.