Thus, while it remains possible that the Babylonians and/or the Pythagoreans may perhaps have had the magic square of three before the Chinese did, more definite evidence will have to turn up from the Middle East or the Classical World before China can lose her claim to the earliest known magic square by more than a thousand years.

The earliest archaeological evidence for the use of the Greek abacus dates to the 5th century BC.

The earliest Mongolic language of which we have written evidence is known as Middle Mongol.

The Chāndogya Upaniṣad, dated to the 8th or 7th century BCE, one of the oldest Upanishads, has the earliest evidence for the use of the word ahimsa in the sense familiar in Hinduism ( a code of conduct ).

The earliest evidence of settlements in the area of today's Berlin are a wooden beam dated from approximately 1192 and leftovers of wooden houseparts dated to 1174 found in a 2012 digging in Berlin Mitte.

He argued that the term bretwalda " falls into line with the other evidence which points to the Germanic origin of the earliest English institutions ".

There is little evidence regarding the absolute earliest instant of the expansion.

The earliest and most direct kinds of observational evidence are the Hubble-type expansion seen in the redshifts of galaxies, the detailed measurements of the cosmic microwave background, the relative abundances of light elements produced by Big Bang nucleosynthesis, and today also the large scale distribution and apparent evolution of galaxies predicted to occur due to gravitational growth of structure in the standard theory.

The earliest evidence for fist fighting with any kind of gloves can be found on Minoan Crete ( c. 1500 – 900 BC ), and on Sardinia, if we consider the boxing statues of Prama mountains ( c. 2000 – 1000 BC ).

The earlier date, first proposed in modern times by John Robinson in a closely argued chapter of " Redating the New Testament " ( 1976 ), relies on the book's internal evidence, given that no external testimony exists earlier than that of Irenaeus, noted above, and the earliest extant manuscript evidence of Revelation ( P98 ) is likewise dated no earlier than the late 2nd century.

One of the earliest evidence of Hindu influence in Southeast Asia were stone pillars which bear inscriptions in the Pallava script found in Kutai along the Mahakam River in East Kalimantan, dating to around the second half of the 300s AD.

" The Acts of the Scilitan Martyrs ", one of the earliest texts which offer evidence of the development of " the Bible ", indicates that the leader of the Scilitan Martyrs possessed a " capsa ", or container for scroll-form books ( volumen, pl.

This then is our earliest evidence of monks praying the Psalms as the main part of their daily scripted and Scriptural prayer regimen: the Desert Fathers.

Traditionally, the extinct family Viverravidae ( viverravids ) had been thought to be the earliest carnivorans, with fossil records first appearing in the Paleocene of North America about 60 mya, but recently described evidence from cranial morphology now places them outside the order Carnivora.

Excavations in modern-day Iraq by Ernest de Sarzec in 1877 found evidence of the earliest known code of justice, issued by the Sumerian king Urukagina of Lagash ca 2300 BC.

Skeat “… in at least three cases and probably in all, in the form of codices " and he theorized that this form of notebook was invented in Rome and then “… must have spread rapidly to the Near East …” In his discussion of one of the earliest pagan parchment codices to survive from Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, Eric Turner seems to challenge Skeat ’ s notion when stating “… its mere existence is evidence that this book form had a prehistory ” and that “ early experiments with this book form may well have taken place outside of Egypt .” Early codices of parchment or papyrus appear to have been widely used as personal notebooks, for instance in recording copies of letters sent ( Cicero Fam.

Although the castrato ( or musico ) predates opera, there is some evidence that castrati had parts in the earliest operas.

The earliest evidence for acupuncture in this sense dates to the second or first century BCE.

The earliest inhabitants of the islands were probably Arabs and Africans, the latter probably Bantu-speaking ; the earliest evidence of settlement of the islands dates from the eighth century.

Other regions of the world, including India and China, also have early evidence of water clocks, but the earliest dates are less certain.

These provide some of the earliest evidence for Irish knowledge of Latin.

Sometimes the Doric order is considered the earliest order, but there is no evidence to support this.

The earliest textual evidence of the handheld crossbow used in battle dates to the 4th century BC.

* The earliest and best known manuscripts omit the words " in Ephesus ", rendering the phrase simply as " to the saints ... the faithful in Christ Jesus " ( NIV alternative translation ).

) The earliest use of the phrase seems to have been in an IBM advertising supplement to the New York Times published on April 30, 1961 and by Frank Fremont-Smith, Director of the American Institute of Biological Sciences Interdisciplinary Conference Program, in an April 1961 article in the AIBS Bulletin ( p.

The earliest use of the phrase is a quote from the Westminster Magazine of 1774: " He had no inclination for a Broomstick-marriage ", the person in question simply stating that he did not want to go through a ceremony that had no legal validity, it having been suggested to him that he would pretend to be marrying by having a French sexton read the marriage service to him and his young bride.

Although some books ( in particular guidebooks ) suggest that the mazes on cathedral floors served as substitutes for pilgrimage paths, the earliest attested use of the phrase " chemin de Jerusalem " ( path to Jerusalem ) dates to the late 18th century when it was used to describe mazes at Reims and Saint-Omer.

Some books ( guidebooks in particular ) suggest that mazes on cathedral floors originated in the medieval period as alternatives to pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but the earliest attested use of the phrase " chemin de Jerusalem " ( path to Jerusalem ) dates to the late 18th century when it was used to describe mazes at Reims and Saint-Omer.

The earliest recorded usage of the phrase is dated 1660.

" The earliest known use of the phrase was by Cicero in his speech Pro Milone.

Josephus records the earliest account of the false but understandable etymology that the Greek phrase Hyksos stood for the Egyptian phrase Hekw Shasu meaning the Bedouin-like Shepherd Kings, which scholars have only recently shown means " rulers of foreign lands.

The earliest known published use of the phrase in its current sense is from the July 1956 issue of Kentucky Happy Hunting Ground, where it appears in an article titled " Kentucky Afield Fishing Derbies Are Underway ".

The earliest known occurrence of the full phrase, in the form " There ain't no such thing as free lunch ", appears as the punchline of a joke related in an article in the El Paso Herald-Post of June 27, 1938, entitled " Economics in Eight Words ".

The earliest Latin example is by Tertullian ( c. 220 ), who used the phrase to describe a mixed substance with composite properties such as electrum, a somewhat different sense than the modern meaning.

The earliest attribution of the phrase " standing on the shoulders of giants " is to Bernard ( by John of Salisbury ):

The earliest known instance of the phrase Vicarius Filii Dei is in the Donation of Constantine, now dated between the eighth and the ninth centuries AD.

The earliest extant record of a Protestant writer on this subject and addressing the phrase Vicarius Filii Dei is Andreas Helwig in 1612.

One of the earliest records of this phrase in print was in the Maryland ( USA ) newspaper The Capital, January 1973, in the article " How To Be Liberated ":

" This is possibly the earliest documented application of the phrase " Father of His Country " to Washington.

The earliest mention of the phrase sustainable industries appeared in 1997 in a story about a Japanese group reforesting a tropical forest to help create sustainable industries for the local populace.

" However, the phrase is not found in any of Disraeli's works and the earliest known appearances were years after his death.

The earliest instance of the phrase found in print dates to a letter written June 8, 1891, published June 13, 1891, The National Observer p. 93 (- 94 ):

Saint Ignatius of Antioch, the earliest known writer to use the phrase " the catholic church ", excluded from the Church heterodox groups whose teaching and practice conflicted with those of the bishops of the Church, and considered that they were not really Christians.

" The earliest use of the phrase " public diplomacy " to surface is actually not American at all but in a leader piece from The Times in January 1856.

The earliest recorded use of the phrase as applied to New Zealand was as the title of a poem about New Zealand written by Thomas Bracken.

The Oxford English Dictionary has published references going back to 1718 for “ perfect storm ,” though the earliest citations use the phrase positively, as in a “ perfect storm ” of applause.