Canal: Did you mean...?

With thousands of square feet of canvas capturing every breath of the trade winds, a 19th-century tea clipper was the absolute pinnacle of sailing evolution. The Cutty Sark was just such a ship, carrying tea and then wool across the far-flung...

Hadrian’s Villa near Tivoli, Italy, is an opulent, sprawling garden-villa covering some 120 hectares (296 acres). It was built by Emperor Hadrian (76-138 CE) between 125-134 CE for use as his country estate, although the land may have originally...

DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828), US politician and naturalist, oil on canvas portrait by Rembrandt Peale, 1823. Clinton served in several political roles, including Mayor of New York City and Governor of New York. As the latter, he presided over...

The Berlin Conference, also known as the Berlin West Africa Conference, was held between November 1884 and February 1885. Imperial powers, notably Great Britain, France, Belgium, and Germany, met to thrash out their competing claims for control...

Ancient Persian culture flourished between the reign of Cyrus II (The Great, r. c. 550-530 BCE), founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and the fall of the Sassanian Empire in 651 CE. Even so, the foundations of Persian culture were already...

Shi Huangdi (l.259-210 BCE/r.221-210 BCE, also known as Qin Shi Huang, Qin Shih Huandi, Shi Huangti or Shih Huan-ti) was the first emperor of a unified China. Shi Huangdi means `First Emperor' and is a title, not a proper name. The Qin Dynasty...

John Brown (1800-1859) was a militant abolitionist best known for the part he played in the violence of Bleeding Kansas (1854-1859) and his raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now in West Virginia) in October 1859. Brown developed an intense...

Operation Compass (9 Dec 1940 to 7 Feb 1941) was an Allied offensive in North Africa, which pushed Italian forces out of Egypt and then Cyrenaica (Eastern Libya). The Allied Western Desert Force, led by Lieutenant-General Richard O'Connor...

The Battle of Gaixia (202 BCE, also known as Kai-Hsia) was the decisive engagement of the Chu-Han Contention (206-202 BCE) at which Liu Bang (l. c. 256-195 BCE), from the State of Han, defeated Xiang Yu (l. 232-202 BCE) of the State of Chu...

Kalhu (also known as Caleh, Calah, and Nimrud, in modern-day northern Iraq) was a city in ancient Mesopotamia that became the capital of the Assyrian Empire under Ashurnasirpal II (r. 884-859 BCE) who moved the central government there from...