History
Lake Baikal was known as the "North Sea" in historical Chinese texts. It was situated in the then Xiongnu territory that stretched from the empire of the Han Dynasty in the south, to the Siberian taiga north of the lake, and saw military excursions led by the army of the Han Dynasty engaging the Xiongnu during the Han-Hun Wars. Little was known to Europeans about the lake until Russia expanded into the area in the 17th century. The first Russian explorer to reach Lake Baikal was Kurbat Ivanov in 1643.
Read more about this topic: Lake Baikal
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“I saw the Arab map.
It resembled a mare shuffling on,
dragging its history like saddlebags,
nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.”
—Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)
“Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)