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The Holy Roman Empire officially lasted from 962 to 1806. It was one of Europe’s largest medieval and early modern states, but its power base was unstable and continually shifting. The Holy Roman Empire was not a unitary state, but a confederation...

Elizabeth I reigned as queen of England from 1558 to 1603. Her 44-year reign was so long and packed with momentous events that the second half of the 16th century is now known as the Elizabethan era and still regarded as a 'Golden Age' for...

The transatlantic slave trade (also given as the Atlantic slave trade, circa 1492 to 1860) was the practice of enslaving the citizens of African states and transporting them across the Atlantic Ocean to the "New World" of the Americas. Although...

Kievan Rus (862-1242) was a medieval political federation located in modern-day Belarus, Ukraine, and part of Russia (the latter named for the Rus, a Scandinavian people). The name Kievan Rus is a modern-day (19th century) designation but...

Louis XIV (1638-1715) reigned as King of France from 1643 to 1715. Known as Le Roi Soleil ('the Sun King'), he fervently believed in the concept of the 'divine right' of kings and is remembered for ruling as an absolute monarch. His 72-year...

A Valkyrie is a figure in Norse mythology depicted as a warrior woman on horseback, a wolf or boar, and armed with a spear, who decides the fate of warriors in battle and carries the dead to Odin’s Valhalla. Valkyrie means "chooser of the...

René Descartes (1596-1650) was a French mathematician, natural scientist, and philosopher, best known by the phrase 'Cogito ergo sum' ('I think therefore I am'). He published works on optics, coordinate geometry, physiology, and cosmology...

The French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802) were a series of conflicts that arose from the tensions surrounding the French Revolution (1789-1799). The wars were fought between Revolutionary France and several European powers, most notably Austria...

Napoleon's invasion of Russia, also known as the Second Polish War or, in Russia, as the Patriotic War of 1812, was a campaign undertaken by French Emperor Napoleon I (r. 1804-1814; 1815) and his 615,000-man Grande Armée against the Russian...

Thor (Old Norse: Þórr) is the Norse god of thunder, the sky, and agriculture. He is the son of Odin, chief of the gods, and Odin's consort Jord (Earth) and husband of the fertility goddess Sif, who is the mother of his son Modi and daughter...