In antiquity, various inscriptions were placed on the projectiles fired from the throwing weapons. These could be the names of the artisans and soldiers who made them in the camp before the battle, or those who fired them to compete with each other and who wanted to demonstrate the accuracy of their hits on the target. There were also names of units to which the soldiers belonged or where they originated from. They also included information about the deities, the names of the leaders and the references to values that guided the fighters. Attempts were also made to exert psychological effects on opponents, the aim of which was to provoke and humiliate them. A significant number of glandes plumbeae with symbols and inscriptions placed on them dating back to the decline period of the Republic (133–30 BCE) have been preserved. The glandes from Asculum are also very interesting, as they further our knowledge about the siege of this city (90–89 BCE), which was located in the area of Picenum, where the battles were fought during the bellum Marsicum (91–87 BCE). The inscriptions placed on the projectiles provide us with extremely valuable data supplementing few accounts of ancient authors.

The article discusses the number, distribution, social status and legal position of the Jewish population living in the towns of Sanok region at the end of the 18th century. The basis of considerations were military censuses from 1772–1799 and descriptions of cities from 1789. Most Jews were in Lesko, Dobromil, Dynów, Rymanów, Baligród and Ustrzyki. Almost 3/4 of the total number of Jews living in all the cities of the Sanok region were concentrated in these cities. There was also a very high percentage of Jews in relation to the population of these cities, ranging from 30 to 50%. The social and legal status of Jews from the cities of Sanok region was the same as in the whole of Galicia. They had personal freedom, but were subject to numerous restrictions, including not being allowed to hold municipal offices. With a few exceptions, they were required to pay rent on their homes.

The departmental prefecture of Kraków was established in April 1810 on the basis of the Administrative Office of the Kraków Powiat, established by the provisional Polish authorities during the War of the Fifth Coalition (1809). The creation of the prefecture was preceded by a dispute over the scope of powers of this institution and an attempt to grant Kraków a special status outside the departmental structures in the Duchy of Warsaw. In political terms, the prefect of the department presented pro-Napoleonic views until May 1813. After the seizure of Kraków by the Russian army, he switched to pro-Russian positions, seeing Tsar Alexander as the protector of the Polish cause. The Kraków Department was managed efficiently by the prefecture. In some cases (Kraków’s local governance, limitation of Jewish economic activities), the prefect of the Department applied solutions that were inconsistent with the applicable law. For the next two prefects of the Kraków Department (Stanisław Wodzicki and Kasper Wielogłowski) this office was the first stage of their official career, which ended for them with the function of the president of the Senate of the Free City of Kraków.

The aim of this article is to explore the process of reorganisation and reinforcement of the cavalry branch of the Army of the Cumberland in the winter and spring of 1863. Initially weak and ineffective cavalry was one of the main reasons behind logistical difficulties encountered by the army commanded by general-major William S. Rosecrans. To diminish the impact of those difficulties Rosecrans reorganised his cavalry. The process was multi-faceted – he attempted to increase its numbers, improve the armament and create the mounted infantry as a supporting force. While his attempts were eventually successful his position as an army commander, due to his abrasiveness and constant telegrams to his superiors, became weaker.

In 1895 Stanisław Tarnowski – a one-man institution in Kraków at the time: a highly esteemed professor of history of literature at the Jagiellonian University; an author of numerous historical and critical works; and a prominent representative of the Wawel town’s “rulers of hearts and minds”, group of conciliatory conservatives called Stańczycy – published a book Nasze dzieje w ostatnich stu latach [Our History of the Last Hundred Years], later reissued twice, in 1896 and 1901 (the third edition appeared under a slightly modified title Nasze dzieje w XIX wieku [Our History in the 19th Century]). Stanisław Tarnowski’s critics alleged, and not without reason, that “he was just a politi- cian, both at the [university] department, and in the [Galician] Diet, and the [State] School Council and in the books themselves”. Therefore, it is worth asking about the vision of the post-partition his- tory that this leading ideologue of Stańczycy group drew. Such was the aim of the author in this text.

Hélène Sparrow-Germa (1891–1970) was a renowned French-Polish microbiologist, specialist in infectious diseases. Professor at the University of Warsaw, then member of the Pasteur Institute of Tunis, she was particularly dedicated to the struggle against typhus, having tried to get an effective vaccine to overcome the plague still deadly in the first years of the twentieth century. Hélène Sparrow devised an ambitious strategy, developing a sanitary fender on the eastern border of Poland against the spread of epidemics from Russia. The story of this French-Polish doctor is also repeatedly characterised by the ordeal of war. Willingly confronted with extreme and highly dangerous situations, Hélène Sparrow devoted herself to treating and helping wounded and sick soldiers, offering them protection and assistance. Often risking her own life, she showed a remarkable temerity reflecting her highly charismatic personality.

It is still unclear, who instigated the arrest of scholars at the Jagiellonian University and the Mining Academy, which occurred in Kraków on 6 November 1939 – two months after the beginning of German occupation of Poland. SS-Sturmbannführer Bruno Müller, the head of task force of German Security Police and Security Service (Einsatzkommando 2/I), who commanded this operation, had been definitely carrying out an order issued by his superiors. The content of this order and the identity of the person who issued it, remain unknown. Some new findings from the German Federal Military Archive in Freiburg im Breisgau let us suppose that the instigator of the arrest of scholars in Kraków was Otto von Wächter, who at that time was the governor of Kraków district, the highest representative of the German occupation authorities in the city, before Hans Frank, the head of the General Government, moved to Kraków on 7 November.

Kazimierz Stołyhwo (1880-1966) was an outstanding Polish anthropologist. On November 6, 1939, together with other professors of the Jagiellonian University, he was arrested by the Germans during the “Sonderaktion Krakau”, and then transported to the concentration camp in Sachsenhausen. Stołyhwo described his camp and wartime experiences in detail in a little-known, but valuable publication In captivity of the NSDAP. Biographical Summary in the Period from September 1, 1939 to January 18, 1945 (Kraków 1946). During this difficult time, he proved to be a righteous and uncompromising man. Sick and exhausted, he was finally released from the camp on April 23, 1940 – it was the result of pressure from European politicians and scientists. After the war, Stołyhwo  continued to work at the Jagiellonian University.

The text describes the post-war series of portrait sculptures by Xawery Dunikowski – which not often are a subject of substantial analysis – in which the artist refers to his pre-war Wawel Heads (1925–1928). The extended approach to the artistic merit of the work (style) has been augmented with its contextual setting (the circumstances of its creation, ideological references) to indicate the significant formal and thematic ambivalence of the cycle as well as its multifaceted quality. In his sculpted heads Dunikowski manifests his curiosity as to the human individual, artistically reinterpreting the peculiarly Olympian, deified representatives of communism. Above all, it confirms the stylistic autonomy of the Pantheon, which dominates over ideological dependencies. At the same time Dunikowski attests to his undisputed craftsmanship as the doyen of Polish sculpture – the insightful realist and muckraker.

Ramon Lull’s (c. 1232–1316) oeuvre occupies an important place in the history of the late medieval European thought and literature. He was the author of almost 260 writings concerning philosophy, theology and other fields of knowledge. Among them there are six crusade treaties. Liber de Acquisitione Terrae Sanctae (1309) is one of his last works on this subject. It reflects the most important crusading ideas of the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, but also contains an original postulate of combining the fighting against infidels with preaching. This article is the first Polish translation of the abovementioned treaty.