Search Results: Legal history

Roman laws covered all facets of daily life. They were concerned with crime and punishment, land and property ownership, commerce, the maritime and agricultural industries, citizenship, sexuality and prostitution, slavery and manumission...

Ancient Egyptian culture flourished through adherence to tradition and their legal system followed this same paradigm. Basic laws and legal proscriptions were in place in Egypt as early as the Predynastic Period (c. 6000- c. 3150 BCE) and...

The Justinian Code or Corpus Juris Civilis (Corpus of Civil Law) was a major reform of Byzantine law created by Emperor Justinian I (r. 527-565 CE) in 528-9 CE. Aiming to clarify and update the old Roman laws, eradicate inconsistencies and...

The culture of ancient Rome intricately blended laws, military values, and cultural innovations to lay the groundwork for a civilization that endured for centuries. In this gallery of infographics, we examine some of the specific aspects...

An infographic illustrating The Laws of the Twelve Tables were a set of ancient Roman laws put together and displayed in public around 450 BCE. These laws formed the core of the Roman legal system and provided a written code of conduct and...

Authority in ancient Rome was complex, and as one can expect from Rome, full of tradition, myth, and awareness of their own storied history. Perhaps the ultimate authority was imperium, the power to command the Roman army. Potestas was legal...

Although Thanksgiving celebrations dated back to the first European settlements in America, it was not until the 1860s that Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November to be a national holiday.

Marbury v. Madison (1803) was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that established the principle of judicial review. In the decision, written by Chief Justice John Marshall, the court struck down a congressional statute...

The history of tobacco use in the Americas goes back over 1,000 years when natives of the region chewed or smoked the leaves of the plant now known as Nicotiana rustica (primarily in the north) and Nicotiana tabacum (mostly in the south...

Among the most interesting and revealing artifacts discovered from ancient Mesopotamia are cylinder seals. These fairly small items may be seen today in museum exhibits around the world but, perhaps owing to their size, they are not given...