Images

An 18th-century illustration showing a Mesoamerican using the traditional method of collecting insects to make the prized cochineal dye. (The Newberry Library)

What is the Third Estate? was a seminal pamphlet written by Abbé Emmanuel-Joseph Sièyes (1748-1836) in the months preceding the Estates-General of 1789. The pamphlet argues that the Third Estate (commoners) constitutes an entire nation itself...

A 19th-century painting by Pedro Lira Rencoret showing the foundation of Santiago de Chile in 1541 by the Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia. (National History Museum, Santiago)

An image illustrating the progression of periods in ancient Japanese civilization from its pre-historic settling by paleolithic migrants from northeast Asia. Through profound domestic evolution and constant international exchange during the...

Abbé Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (1748-1836) as a member of the National Convention during the French Revolution (1789-99), engraving by François Bonneville, 1797. Bibliotheque nationale de France, Paris.

Posthumous portrait of French revolutionary leader Antoine Barnave (1761-93) by Victor Cassien, c. 1836.

Antoine Barnave (1761-1793) during his imprisonment in 1792-93, just before his execution. Image by Alexandre Lacauchie, from the Galerie historique de la révolution française (1787-1799), vol. 1, 1849.

Presumed portrait of Antoine Barnave (1761-1793), orator and one-time president of the National Assembly during the French Revolution (1789-99). Pastel on paper by Joseph Boze, 1791. Musée Carnavalet, Paris.

Portrait of the Abbé Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (1748-1836), a leading figure of the Third Estate during the Estates-General of 1789 and the subsequent formation of the National Assembly. Oil on canvas by Jacques-Louis David, 1817. Fogg Museum...

An infographic illustrating the exchange of diseases, animals, plants, populations, and technology between the Americas, Africa, and Eurasia in the wake of Christopher Columbus' 1492 voyage across the Atlantic, known as the "Columbian Exchange"...