Articles

Pirates in the Golden Age of Piracy (1690-1730) both dished out and received a wide range of imaginative punishments. Victims of piracy endured torture, floggings, and ceremonies of humiliation, but when...

Pliny the Younger's (61-112 CE) letter (Epistulae X.96) to Roman Emperor Trajan (r. 98-117 CE) is one of our earliest sources on Christianity from an outsider's point of view. It highlights the Christian movement's...

With 7600 perimeter miles (12,231 km), the Scythians roamed and ruled over an astonishing 1.5 million mi² (2.4 million km²) of territory between the 7th and 3rd centuries BCE. Although building an empire was never in...

The story of Ruth and Naomi is found in the book of Ruth in the Jewish Scriptures. The Scriptures are traditionally divided into three sections: Torah (the first five books assigned to Moses), the Prophets (Nevi’im), and Writings...

The buccaneers who roamed the Spanish Main and the pirates who plundered the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean during the Golden Age of Piracy (1690-1730) needed a place of refuge where they could share out and...

During the Golden Age of Piracy (1690-1730), pirates were first and foremost after gold, silver, and jewels, but if these could not be grabbed, then a ship’s cargo would be taken for resale at a pirate haven...

Paul was a member of the Jewish Pharisees in the 1st century CE, who experienced a revelation of the resurrected Jesus Christ. In this vision, Jesus commissioned him to be the apostle (herald) to the Gentiles...

Although the Vikings are routinely depicted as rough, grimy, and violent, they were actually quite refined, took personal hygiene seriously, and wore fine clothes ornamented by jewelry. Some Christian chroniclers...

Pirates have gained a reputation for wearing bright and distinctive clothing and accessories during the Golden Age of Piracy (1690-1730) even if, in reality, most of what we think they wore comes from works...

The first plantations in the Americas of sugar cane, cocoa, tobacco, and cotton were maintained and harvested by African slaves controlled by European masters. When African slavery was largely abolished in the mid-1800s...