Images

A 1729 oil painting by William Hogarth showing Woodes Rogers (seated), 1679-1732, and his family. Rogers was a former privateer, navigator and writer who was appointed Governor of the Bahamas in 1718. He was instrumental in stamping out piracy...

Patrick Lyster as the English pirate Captain Benjamin Hornigold (d. 1719) in the TV series Black Sails. © 2014 Starz

An illustration portraying Sif, a golden-haired goddess in the Norse pantheon. She was associated with earth but was married to Thor, the god of the sky and thunder. Sif is a relatively little-known figure who appears mainly in the Poetic...

An illustration portraying Sif, a goddess in the Norse pantheon. She was associated with earth but was married to Thor, the god of the sky and thunder. Sif is a relatively little known figure who appears mainly in the Poetic Edda from the...

Simon Forman (1552-1611), Elizabethan doctor and astrologist. Engraving by Richard Godfrey was published in 1776 and was based on a portrait of Forman by John Bulfinch (active 1680-1728). Wellcome Collection, London.

Simon Forman (1552 -1611), Elizabethan astrologer and doctor, oil on wood painting by an unknown artist, c. 1900, likely based on the earlier portrait by John Bulfinch, later engraved by Richard Godfrey in 1776. Wellcome Collection...

A 'zodiac man' woodcut from the almanacs of Petrus Slovacius, published by Johan Scharffenberg, Breslau, 1580. Wellcome Collection, London. The zodiac man regularly appeared in astrological and medical texts throughout the 16th...

Nancy Marie Brown, author of The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women.

Cover of The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women by Nancy Marie Brown.

Idun and Brage, oil on canvas painting by the Swedish artist Nils Blommér, 1846. Malmö Art Museum. Bragi was the Norse god of poetry and Idunn, his wife, a fertility goddess who kept the apples the gods needed to retain their...