Prussia: Did you mean...?

Sometime in 1153 or 1154, the German nun Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) wrote a letter to the elderly Pope Anastasius IV (1073-1154). Her words were scathing. She called the pope tired and criticized his rule, describing him as too accepting...

The crusades of the 11th to 15th century CE have become one of the defining events of the Middle Ages in both Europe and the Middle East. The campaigns brought significant consequences wherever they occurred but also pushed changes within...

The knights of medieval Europe were meant to be the finest fighting men of their age, even more important, they were expected to be pure in thought and deed, as exemplified in the chivalrous code which they (usually) followed. Here are the...

The salon was a notably French cultural event, a private social gathering where a mixture of guests openly discussed art, literature, philosophy, music, and politics. Salons were particularly but not exclusively associated with Paris and...

The Battle of Waterloo (18 June 1815) was the last major engagement of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), fought by a French army under Emperor Napoleon I (r. 1804-1814; 1815) against two armies of the Seventh Coalition. Waterloo resulted in...

In his epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Greek poet Homer (c. 750 BCE) told the story of the Trojan War, a ten-year siege of the city of Troy by an alliance of Greek city-states. Troy was also known by its Latinised name of Ilium...

The armies of the Crusades (11th-15th centuries CE), which saw Christians and Muslims struggle for control of territories in the Middle East and elsewhere, could involve over 100,000 men on either side who came from all over Europe to form...

The Battle of Austerlitz (2 December 1805), or the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of the most significant battles of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815). It saw French Emperor Napoleon I (r. 1804-1814; 1815) and his Grande Armée decisively...

The Siege of Toulon (29 August to 19 December 1793) was a decisive military operation during the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802), conducted by a French Republican army to retake the port city of Toulon from rebels, who were supported...

"I come to ask, not the gods, but legislators…to erase from the code of the French the blood laws that command judicial murders" (Robespierre, 6). These impassioned words, spoken by Maximilien Robespierre before France's National Constituent...