Definitions

The War in the Vendée was a counter-revolutionary uprising that took place in the Vendée department of France from 1793 to 1796, during the French Revolution (1789-99). In response to the French Republic's attempts to impose conscription...

A ziggurat is a form of monumental architecture originating in ancient Mesopotamia which usually had a rectangular base and was built in a series of steps up to a flat platform upon which a temple was raised. The ziggurat was an artificial...

Warren Hastings (1732-1818) was appointed the Governor of Bengal by the British East India Company (EIC) in 1772 and became its first Governor-General in India from 1774 to 1785. Under his tenure, the EIC ruthlessly expanded its territory...

The Edo period refers to the years from 1603 until 1868 when the Tokugawa family ruled Japan. The era is named after the city of Edo, modern-day Tokyo, where the Tokugawa shogunate had its government. It is also sometimes referred to as the...

The Black Hole of Calcutta refers to a prison cell which was used to hold 146 mostly British prisoners captured after the Nawab of Bengal had taken over the city from the East India Company. Interred on 20 June 1756 in a tiny cell in Fort...

The Battle of Neerwinden saw the major defeat of a French republican army by an allied force of Austrians and Dutch during the War of the First Coalition (1792-97), part of the broader French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802). The battle drove...

Neptune is the Roman god of the sea and the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Poseidon. He was originally a god of fresh water and became associated with Poseidon early on in Roman history. He lives in a golden palace at the bottom of the...

The Battle of Jemappes was a decisive battle in the War of the First Coalition (1792-97), part of the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802). On 6 November 1792, a French army under General Charles-François Dumouriez defeated an Austrian force...

Robert Clive (1725-1774), also known as 'Clive of India' and Baron Clive of Plassey, masterminded the expansion of the East India Company in India. Best known for his victory at Plassey in Bengal in 1757, Clive's reputation suffered in his...

Zakutu (l. c. 728 - c. 668 BCE) was the Akkadian name of Naqi’a, a secondary wife of Sennacherib of Assyria (r. 705-681 BCE). Though she was not Sennacherib's queen, she bore him a son, Esarhaddon, who would succeed him. She may have ruled...