Acre - the walled city

http://www.ceepackaging.com http://www.pbn.com.pl http://www.youtube.com/alanheath Acre is a town steeped in history. The earliest records of the city go back 4,500 years when it is mentioned as a town paying tribute to Egypt. It is mentioned only once in the Bible, in the book of Judges as being one of the cities in which the inhabitants were not expelled by Asher. It changed hands several times, Pompey capturing the city for the Romans around 61BCE. Julius Caesar visited the city as did Paul of Tarsus. Although Caesarea to the south was the capital of the Roman province of Judea, Acre was an important city in the Roman Empire. Acre was inherited by the Byzantine Empire once the Roman Empire was split in two in the fourth century. The city was taken by the Moslems in the eighth century. It was captured by the Crusaders in 1104. The Crusaders initially bipassed Acre on their march from Antioch to Jerusalem and Acre, alongside many other coastal cities was caputred in 'cleaning up' operations. Saladin retook Acre in 1187 after the Battle of Hattin which saw the total collapse of the crusader state of Jerusalem. The Crusaders were left only with the town of Tyre but they decided to besiege Acre in a siege that lasted for two years and ended with a Crusader victory in 1191 during the Third Crusade with the aid of the English king Richard I and French king Phillip Augustus. Although the two were said to have had a homosexual relationship, by this time it was over and the two hated each other. During the siege of Acre, Phillip Augustus returned to France and Richard had to consider what was happening at home more than what was going on during the Crusade. Richard caputred Acre and after failing to come to an agreement with Saladin on the price for the 3,000 defenders, he then murdered them by beheading. As Richard failed to take Jerusalem, the crusader state now focussed on Acre. In 1292 it was captured by Baybars and the Mamelukes showed the same barbarism as that shown by the Crusaders and butchered any Christian they could lay their hands on. In the sixteenth century the city was captured by the Ottomans. During World War One, it was taken by the British who incorporated it into the mandate for Palestine. Acre was handed over to a Palestinian state by the United Nations in the division of the mandate - a decision not accepted by the Arab states who invaded Israel. Israel however managed to counter attack and captured Acre. As can be seen in this film, the population in the Old Town is today largely Arab and the beautiful eighteenth century green mosque dominates the city. My channel on you tube : http://www.youtube.com/alanheath is one of the most prolific from Poland, although unfortunately not the most visited. With almost one film per day, one may be forgiven for thinking I do nothing else but I do have a day job as well. I have produced more than 400 original films, most in English but also in Polish, French, Italian, Spanish and the occassional hint of German and Hebrew. My big interest in life is travel and history but I have also placed films on other subjects Please feel free to ask questions in the public area or to comment on things you disagree with. Sometimes there are mistakes because I speak without preparation. If I see the mistakes myself, I make this clear in the text. Please also leave a star rating! There are a number of films here on the packaging industry. This is because I am the publisher of Central and Eastern European Packaging -- http://www.ceepackaging.com - the international platform for the packaging industry in this region focussing on the latest innovations, trends, design, branding, legislation and environmental issues with in-depth profiles of major industry achievers. Most people may think packaging pretty boring but it possibly effects your life more than you really imagine! Central and Eastern European Packaging examines the packaging industry throughout this region, but in particular in the largest regional economies which are Russia, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Ukraine and Austria. That is not to say that the other countries are forgotten, they are not, but obviously there is less going on. However the fact that there are so many travel related films here is not from holidays but from business trips attending trade fairs around the region and the sites http://www.ceepackaging.com/articles/... and http://www.ceepackaging.com/articles/... give a pretty good idea where future films are going to come from! Every packaging trade fair is a new excuse to make another film! In 1997 I founded Polish Business News http://www.pbn.com.pl .There are a number of business related films here and I intend to do many more on CRM (customer relations management). My blog can be found via http://www.ceepackaging.com and http://www.pbn.com.pl and contains background information and more details of many of my films. This information is in English.