Definitions

The War of the Fourth Coalition (October 1806 to June 1807) was a major conflict during the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815). The Fourth Coalition consisted of Russia, Prussia, Saxony, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, against the First French Empire...

Ancient Greek science is a modern term for the application of systematic inquiry into the individual, the world, and the universe, which began in Ionia in the 6th century BCE with Thales of Miletus (l. c. 585 BCE) and continued through the...

Marcus Porcius Cato (95-46 BCE), better known as Cato the Younger or Cato of Utica, was an influential politician of the Roman Republic. As the great-grandson of Cato the Elder and a dedicated student of Stoicism, he believed in traditional...

The Greek Dark Age (c. 1200 to c. 800 BCE, overlapping with the Iron Age, c. 1200-550 BCE) is the modern-day term for the period in Greek history following the Bronze Age Collapse when the Mycenaean Civilization fell and the Linear B writing...

The Treaties of Tilsit were two peace treaties signed in July 1807 by Emperor Napoleon I of France (r. 1804-1814; 1815) and the monarchs of Russia and Prussia in the aftermath of the Battle of Friedland. The treaties ended the War of the...

Phaedra is a princess of Crete and the wife of the Greek hero Theseus in Greek mythology. She is one of the main characters in Euripides' (c. 484-407 BCE) Greek tragedy Hippolytus, which recounts how her love for Thesesus' son Hippolytus...

The Library of Alexandria was established under the Ptolemaic Dynasty of Egypt (323-30 BCE) and flourished under the patronage of the early kings to become the most famous library of the ancient world, attracting scholars from around the...

The germ theory, which emerged in the late 19th century, demonstrated that microscopic germs caused most human infectious diseases. The germs involved included bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoa, and prions. Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), a French...

Cadmus is a Phoenician-born prince and the founder and king of Thebes in Boeotia in Greek mythology. He travelled to Greece from his home in Tyre in search of his sister Europa who had been kidnapped by Zeus. His rescue mission was abandoned...

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) was a composer of baroque music who was born in Germany but became an English citizen. His most famous works include his Messiah, Water Music, baroque Italian operas, and English oratorios. A hugely successful...