Fire: Did you mean...?

Vesta was the goddess of the hearth, the home, and domestic life in the Roman religion (idenitified with the Greek goddess Hestia). She was the first-born of the titans Kronos and Rhea and, like the others, was swallowed by her father. When...

The Black Death is the 19th-century CE term for the plague epidemic that ravaged Europe between 1347-1352 CE, killing an estimated 30 million people there and many more worldwide as it reached pandemic proportions. The name comes from the...

In the year 330 BCE Alexander the Great (l. 356-323 BCE) conquered the Achaemenid Persian Empire following his victory over the Persian Emperor Darius III (r. 336-330 BCE) at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BCE. After Darius III's defeat...

De-Ka-Nah-Wi-Da and Hiawatha is the written account of the oral history of the origins of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, detailing how the great peacemaker Dekanawida (De-Ka-Nah-Wi-Da) met Chief Hiawatha and established peace between...

The Man Who Wrestled with a Ghost (also given as The Indian Who Wrestled with a Ghost) is a Teton Sioux tale on how one should interact with the spirits of the dead in circumstances where one cannot avoid them. It is one of the best-known...

In Greek mythology, the Titan Prometheus had a reputation as being something of a clever trickster and he famously gave the human race the gift of fire and the skill of metalwork, an action for which he was punished by Zeus, who ensured everyday...

The Supermarine Spitfire was a single-seater fighter plane, one of the most important aircraft of the Second World War (1939-45). Employed by the Royal Air Force in such crucial encounters as the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940, the...

The Battle of Bunker Hill (17 June 1775) was a major engagement in the initial phase of the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), fought primarily on Breed's Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts. The colonial troops successfully defended...

Turquoise was a highly-prized material in ancient Mesoamerica, perhaps the most valued of all materials for sacred and decorative art objects such as masks, jewellery, and the costumes of rulers and high priests. Turquoise was acquired through...

Religion and superstition went hand in hand in Colonial America, and one’s belief in the first confirmed the validity of the second. The colonists' worldview was completely informed by religion and so everything that happened - good or bad...