Pepin the Short: Did you mean...?

The language of the Etruscans, like the people themselves, has remained somewhat mysterious and has yet to be fully understood. The alphabet used a western Greek script, but the language has presented difficulties to scholars because it is...

The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction by Professor Amanda H. Podany is a concise, but very comprehensive, work on the history of Mesopotamia. Part of the Very Short Introduction series from Oxford University Press, the book is...

Cologne (Köln) was the first German city to experience a "1,000-bomber raid" by the Royal Air Force during the Second World War (1939-45). The attack took place on the night of 30 May 1942 and was planned as a demonstration of the destruction...

Located at the crossroads of many ancient civilizations, Turkey is a haven for archaeology lovers. Over the centuries, a succession of empires and kingdoms – Hittite, Lydian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and, finally, Ottoman – ruled...

The English East India Company (EIC or EEIC), later to become the British East India Company, was founded in 1600 as a trading company. With a massive private army and the backing of the British government, the EIC looted the Indian subcontinent...

The Second Crusade (1147-1149) was a military campaign organised by the Pope and European nobles to recapture the city of Edessa in Mesopotamia which had fallen in 1144 to the Muslim Seljuk Turks. Despite an army of 60,000 and the presence...

The Narmer Palette, an ancient Egyptian ceremonial engraving, depicts the great king Narmer (c. 3150 BCE) conquering his enemies with the support and approval of his gods. This piece, dating from c. 3200-3000 BCE, was initially thought to...

Ancient Egyptian literature comprises a wide array of narrative and poetic forms including inscriptions on tombs, stele, obelisks, and temples; myths, stories, and legends; religious writings; philosophical works; wisdom literature; autobiographies...

Claudius Ptolemy (c. 100 to c. 170 CE) was an Alexandrian mathematician, astronomer, and geographer. His works survived antiquity and the Middle Ages intact, and his theories, particularly on a geocentric model of the universe with planets...

Grace O'Malley (l. c. 1530-1603) was an Irish chieftain and seafarer who became famous as a pirate and rebel during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England (1558-1603) who was trying to increase her control of Irish lands. O'Malley's exploits...