The boundless blue air was stretched over the zenith like the skin of a drum.

Abd al-Rahman's alleged favorite son was his choice for successor, and would later be known as Hisham I. Abd ar-Rahman's progeny would continue to rule al-Andalus in the name of the house of Umayya for several generations, with the zenith of their power coming during the reign of Abd al-Rahman III.

This instrument had the advantage of a larger field of view and he was able to obtain precise positions of a large number of stars that transited close to the zenith over the course of about two years.

At the zenith of prosperity of the empire, the An Lushan Rebellion was a watershed event that devastated the population and drastically weakened the central imperial government.

By the end of Qianlong Emperor's long reign, the Qing Empire was at its zenith.

Western casuistry dates from Aristotle ( 384 – 322 BC ), yet the zenith of casuistry was from 1550 to 1650, when the Society of Jesus used case-based reasoning, particularly in administering the Sacrament of Penance ( or " confession ").

In the Dutch Golden Age, which had its zenith in 1667, there was a remarkable flowering of trade, industry ( especially shipbuilding ), the arts ( especially painting ) and the sciences.

At its zenith, perhaps in the first half of the 1st millennium CE, Teotihuacan was the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas.

At the end of the conservative reign of Nicolas I ( 1825 – 55 ) a zenith period of Russia's power and influence in Europe was disrupted by defeat in the Crimean War.

Concessions reached their zenith after a crucial rail link through Vichy France was severed in 1942, leaving Switzerland completely surrounded by the Axis.

This trend reached its zenith under Joseph Stalin with the ascendancy of Andrey Vyshinsky, when the administration of justice was carried out mainly by the security police in special tribunals.

The submachine gun was invented during World War I ( 1914 – 1918 ), but the zenith of its use was World War II ( 1939 – 1945 ) when millions of weapons of this type were manufactured.

In the Muslim World, however, it was a cultural zenith, especially in Spain under the Caliphate of Córdoba.

Additionally, the 10th century was the zenith for the Byzantine and Bulgarian Empires.

During the Zhou Dynasty, the use of iron was introduced to China, though this period of Chinese history produced what many consider the zenith of Chinese bronze-ware making.

By the mid-1930s as Japan's empire was reaching its zenith, the colonial government began a political socialization program designed to enforce Japanese customs, rituals and a loyal Japanese identity upon the aborigines.

Esoteric Mantrayana practices arrived from India just as Buddhism was reaching its zenith in China, and received sanction from the emperors of the Tang Dynasty.

It was in this document that Calvinist thought reached the zenith of its influence in the English Church.

The Dutch Republic was at the zenith of its power.

Aix, which during the Middle Ages was the capital of Provence, did not reach its zenith until after the 12th century, when, under the houses of Aragon and Anjou, it became an artistic centre and seat of learning.

At its zenith, perhaps in the first half of the 1st millennium AD, Teotihuacan was the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas, with a population of perhaps 125, 000 or more, placing it among the largest cities of the world in this period.

During this period, Sicyon reached its zenith as a centre of art: its school of painting gained fame under Eupompus and attracted the great masters Pamphilus and Apelles as students ; its sculpture was raised to a level hardly surpassed in Greece by Lysippus and his pupils.

A tradition was recorded by Juan de León that Q ' uq ' umatz assisted the sun-god Tohil in his daily climb to the zenith.

Even when the dust was at its worst, the transparency at the zenith was better than at Edinburgh.

Socialist parties in the United States reached their zenith in the early 20th century, but currently active parties and organisations include the Socialist Party USA, the Socialist Workers Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, the latter having approximately 10, 000 members.

The spiral of corruption reached its zenith in the early 1990s.

Domes in Western Europe became popular again during the Renaissance period, reaching a zenith in popularity during the early 18th century Baroque period.

By early 1973, the RLAF's strength reached its zenith, with 2, 150 personnel and 180 aircraft.

The early 1980s saw the golden age of video arcade games reach its zenith.

The Sydney movement has experienced various periods of expansion and contraction, reaching its zenith in the early 1990s.

At its zenith in the early 1980s, when it opened R & D centers in Mountain View, and later in Research Triangle Park and Richardson, Texas, BNR's notable American employees included Whitfield Diffie, a noted authority on cryptography, and Bob Gaskins, who invented PowerPoint at BNR, using new bit-mapped displays to make presentations to management.

Gestalt therapy reached a zenith in the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Korean celadon reached its zenith between the 12th and early 13th centuries, however, the Mongol invasions of Korea in the 13th century and persecution by the Joseon Dynasty government destroyed the craft.

During the Second Republic, the Second Empire and the early Third Republic the town saw its zenith.

As a result of the resurgence of these two early prototypes, the theories that proclaim the 20th-century variants to represent the zenith of sarod design, face a serious and credible challenge.

Valluvanad ( Malayalam: വള ് ള ു വന ാ ട ്) or Arangottu Swaroopam ( Velatra, Velnatera, Vellatiri's kingdom, Valluvanad Proper ) was an erstwhile late medieval feudal state in present state of Kerala in South India extending from the Bharathapuzha River in the south to the Pandalur Mala in the north during their zenith in the early Middle Ages.

The Underground State achieved its zenith of influence in early 1944.

At its zenith in the early 20th century, there were two major Wanamaker department stores, one in Philadelphia and one in New York City at Broadway and Tenth Street.

This original group of Souls reached its zenith in the early 1890s, and had faded out as a coherent clique by 1900.

Many of these were built in the second half of the 19th century to support small factories and later the large breweries that located there in the late 19th century and reached their zenith in the early 20th century.

As a result of this BVR-only mindset that reached its zenith in the early 1960s, nearly all USAF pilots and weapons system officers ( WSO ) of the period were unpracticed in maneuvering against dissimilar aircraft because of a concurrent Air Force emphasis on flying safety.

The Byzantine naval predominance lasted until the early 9th century, when a succession of disasters at the hands of the resurgent Muslim fleets spelled its end and inaugurated an era that would represent the zenith of Muslim ascendancy.

High-precision ( and fixed building ) zenith telescopes were also used until about early 1980s to track Earth's north pole position e. g. Earth's rotation axis position.

Popularity achieved its zenith in the late 1950s and early 1960s.