HMS Bounty: Did you mean...?

The central cultural value of ancient Egypt was ma'at – harmony and balance – which maintained the order of the universe and the lives of the people. Keeping balance in one's life encouraged the same in one's family and, by extension outward...

The Protestant Reformation in the Netherlands was among the most violent and destructive of any region during the first 50 years of the movement, ultimately informing the Eighty Years' War (1568-1648), but causing massive destruction and...

The gods of ancient Egypt freely gave their bounty to the people who worked the land, but this did not exempt those farmers from paying taxes on that bounty to the government. Egypt was a cashless society until the Persian Period (c. 525...

The Debate Between Sheep and Grain (c. 2000 BCE) is one of the best-known Sumerian literary debates in a genre that was popular entertainment by the late 3rd millennium BCE. In this piece, personifications of grain and sheep argue which is...

A photograph of HMS Dorsetshire picking up survivors after the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941 in the Atlantic. Only 110 men survived from a crew of over 2,000. (Imperial War Museums, London)

A c. 1672 painting by Henri Gascar of James, Duke of York, (1633-1701). James is shown in characteristic martial pose - specifically the Roman god of war Mars - and drawing on classical imagery. James served as Lord High Admiral, hence the...

Portrait of Admiral Sir John Berry, oil on canvas, Michael Dahl, c. 1689, painted a few years after the sinking of the Gloucester, by which time Sir John Berry had been made vice admiral of the red squadron. The ship in the background flying...

The Wreck of the 'Gloucester' off Yarmouth, 6 May 1682, oil on canvas, by Johan Danckerts, c. 1682. The painting shows James in the stern of a small boat being rowed away from the sinking Gloucester, while red-coated soldiers take an axe...

Captain Christopher Gunman, oil on canvas, by an unknown artist, c. 1670–5. Gunman's right hand rests on the muzzle of a cannon, establishing him as the captain of a man-of-war. The loss of his left hand is discreetly hidden by his sleeve...

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), oil on canvas by Godfrey Kneller, 1689, a superb portrait that reveals both the truculence and intelligence of Samuel Pepys. His life-long friend, William Hewer, also had his portrait done by Sir Godfrey Kneller...