Images

A map illustrating the rise and evolution of the Achaemenid Persian Empire (from the name of Achaemenes, an ancestor of the empire's founder, Cyrus the Great) from its origins in around 550 BCE when Cyrus II of Persia conquered the Medes...

Brown grass on a body of water at Norden, Germany.

A beautiful pond emerges from the waterfall deriving from Mt. Saos, Samothrace.

Gold dinar of Shajara al-Durr, sultana of Egypt (r. 1250 CE). The British Museum, London.

Mausoleum of Shajara al-Durr, sultana of Egypt (r. 1250) in the al-Khalifa neighbourhood, Cairo.

A map illustrating the changing patterns of Christian pilgrimage during the Middle Ages - for the average European, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem was out of the question - a journey to the Holy Land was too far, dangerous, and forbiddingly expensive...

A map depicting the Viceroyalty of New Spain (the first of four viceroyalties that the Spanish Crown established to govern its conquests) which, at its height, comprised five royal audiencias and over twelve Catholic dioceses covering vast...

A modern statue in Panama City of Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1475-1519), the Spanish conquistador who famously discovered the Pacific Ocean after crossing the isthmus of Panama in 1513.

A 19th-century portrait of Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1475-1519), the Spanish conquistador who famously discovered the Pacific Ocean after crossing the isthmus of Panama in 1513. (Naval Museum of Madrid)

Statue of Pedro Álvares Cabral (1467/1468 to c. 1520) in Lisbon, Portugal.