Articles

Julius Caesar (100-44 BCE) often appears as a flawed genius. A genius, he dominated his generation. Flawed, he was murdered for the way in which he did so. Caesar changed Rome, destroying the centuries-old Republican form...

The Polish-Lithuanian Republic (1569-1795) was one of the largest and most populous states in Early Modern Europe, yet in 1795, its last remnants were partitioned between Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Here we take...

Transatlantic Zeppelins carried passengers in relative luxury between Germany and New York or Rio de Janeiro during the 1920s and 1930s. The airships Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg crossed the Atlantic...

Zeppelin airships were used by Germany to attack its enemies on all fronts during the First World War (1914-18). Bombing raids, usually conducted at night, targeted key infrastructure like railways and docks, dropping...

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...

The Battle of New Orleans (8 January 1815) was the final major battle of the War of 1812, in which a ragtag American army under Major General Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) beat back a superior British force...

Wallis Simpson (1896-1986) is often remembered as the wife of King Edward VIII, the Duke of Windsor. British monarch for less than a year in 1936, Edward preferred to abdicate the throne to be free...

The brutal murder of the entire Romanov family was the culmination of deep discontent across the Russian Empire with the persistently autocratic rule of Tsar Nicholas II (reign 1894-1917). Following the disaster of...

Sometime in 1153 or 1154, the German nun Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) wrote a letter to the elderly Pope Anastasius IV (1073-1154). Her words were scathing. She called the pope tired and criticized...

When Sojourner Truth (circa 1797-1883) escaped from slavery, she later said, "I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right" (Delbanco, 142...