Yu the Great: Did you mean...?

A section of the Great Enclosure of Great Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe. Built in the 13-14th century CE using granite, the wall is 5.5 metres (18 ft.) thick in places and 9.7 metres (32 ft.) high.

The age-old concept of the “divine right of kings” allowed that a country's ruler received his or her power or authority from God. However, few, if any, were delusional enough to actually believe themselves to be a god. An exception to this...

Herod the Great was the king of Judea from 37-4 BCE. As a client king of Rome, Herod's moniker as "Great" was due more to his grand building program throughout the eastern Mediterranean world. Herod's building program generally ran from 35...

The Grand Embassy was the name given to the long Western European tour that Tsar Peter I of Russia (aka Peter the Great, r. 1682-1725) undertook during 1697-1698. Peter was joined by hundreds of people, including noblemen, his friends, volunteers...

Peter I of Russia (Peter the Great, l. 1672-1725) was the Tsar of Russia from 1682 to 1721 and the Emperor of Russia from 1721-1725. The lasting impression of Peter's long reign is the significant changes he brought to Russia due to his various...

Once the largest library in the ancient world, and containing works by the greatest thinkers and writers of antiquity, including Homer, Plato, Socrates and many more, the Library of Alexandria, northern Egypt, is popularly believed to have...

The great cities of Mesopotamia ("the land between two rivers") developed prior to the late 4th millennium BCE along two rivers – the Tigris and Euphrates – and were fully established by the Early Dynastic period (circa 2900 to circa 2350/2334...

Catherine II of Russia (Catherine the Great) was the empress regent of Russia from 1762 to 1796. During the mid-18th century, Russia was still regarded as culturally behind compared to Western European countries. However, during her reign...

History is not predictable; in many ways it can take on a life of its own. But sometimes, an individual's sheer presence is enough to bend history to his will. One such individual was Alexander the Great. Through his conviction, vision, mental...

The estimated expanse of the Achaemenid Empire at its height c. 500 BCE was two million square miles. Most of this territory was conquered by Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Empire, who reigned from 559 to 530 BCE, the fourth king in...