Images

A map illustrating the situation in Europe as it teetered on the brink of World War I (1914-18). The political landscape was marked by intricate alliance systems and fierce imperial rivalries among European powers, especially between the...

The front and reverse of a Dutch East India Company duit - an old Dutch copper coin.

Dutch lawyer and statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (1547-1619). Considered the founding father of the Dutch East India Company. (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

Jan Pieterszoon Coen (1587-1629), an officer of the Dutch East India Company and twice the company's Governor-General in the Dutch East Indies, oil on wood portrait after Jacob Waben, 1629. Westfries Museum, Hoorn, The Netherlands.

An 1801 map of the East Indies and Southeast Asia ( Singapore, Borneo, Sumatra, Java, Philippines).

Believed to be a portrait of Dutch seafarer Willem de Vlamingh (1640-1698), who sailed for the Dutch East India Company. (Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney)

Dutch East India Company's warehouse and living quarters in Surat, India, as seen in April 1629 by Pieter van den Broecke (1585-1640), a Dutch cloth merchant in the service of the VOC.

Map of East India, taken from the Atlas van der Hagen, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague Part 4. This map of South East Asia was published by Nicolaas Visscher II (1649-1702). The map shows the entire trading region of the Dutch East India...

The riots in Boston, Massachusetts over the Stamp Act in August 1765. Illustration by John Cassell, from Cassell's Illustrated History of England, Volume 5, 1865.

A design for a pendulum clock made by Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) in the last year of his life. Galileo never made a working model of the clock (although his son did in 1649). Illustration by Vincenzo Viviani. (Science Museum, London)