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The Difference Between the Mensheviks & Bolsheviks
The Mensheviks ('Minoritarians') and Bolsheviks ('Majoritarians') were two rival factions within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP...
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The Twelve Longest Discovery Expeditions in the Age of Sail - Exploration, Science, and the Expansion of Global Knowledge
The Age of Sail (c. 1400–1860 CE) witnessed a dramatic expansion of long-distance maritime exploration, driven by commercial ambitions, imperial competition...
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Definition
Doolittle Raid - The First Audacious US Strike on Tokyo in WWII
The Doolittle Raid saw 16 US B-25 bombers hit Tokyo and other targets in Japan on 18 April 1942. This was the first time that Japan's home islands had...
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The Song of the Hoe - Praise for an Ancient Mesopotamian Farming Tool
The Song of the Hoe is a Sumerian praise poem celebrating the hoe for its many uses and linking it to the creation of the world by the great god Enlil...
Definition
Battle of Fort Sumter - The First Shots Fired of the American Civil War
The Battle of Fort Sumter (12-13 April 1861), also known as the Attack on Fort Sumter and the Fall of Fort Sumter, was the opening engagement of the...
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The Attack on Pearl Harbor - Why the US Entered WWII
A Japanese carrier force attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, O'ahu, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941 and so brought the United States into the Second...
Definition
Homestead Act - Settling the American West
The Homestead Act was a policy enacted by the United States government on 20 May 1862 to encourage westward expansion. Passed during the American Civil...
Definition
Charvaka - The Ancient Indian Philosophy of Hedonism
Charvaka (also given as Carvaka) was a philosophical school of thought developed in ancient India circa 600 BCE, stressing materialism as the means...
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Why Did Japan Attack Pearl Harbor?
Without warning or even declaring war, Japan attacked the US naval fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941. Japan's military government, which...
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Doubleday's Account of Fort Sumter - He Aimed, Did Not Fire, the First Gun
Abner Doubleday (1819-1893), an officer in the US Army during the American Civil War, is famous today for two events – neither of which actually happened...
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The Nimrud Ivories - Their Discovery & History
The Nimrud Ivories are a vast collection of figures, panels, and plaques, carved from ivory, dated to the 9th to 7th centuries BCE, discovered in the...
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A Praise Poem of Lipit-Estar - A Popular Sumerian Song
A Praise Poem of Lipit-Estar is a Sumerian praise song honoring Lipit-Estar (also known as Lipit-Ishtar, reign circa 1935 to circa 1924 BCE), the fifth...
Definition
Eridu Genesis - The Oldest Mesopotamian Text on the Great Flood
The Eridu Genesis (also known as the Sumerian Flood Story, The Flood Story, Sumerian creation myth, Sumerian deluge myth) is the oldest Mesopotamian...
Definition
Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy (1868-1957) was a Hungarian admiral and statesman who served as regent for the Kingdom of Hungary from 1920 until his forced abdication...
Definition
North American P-51 Mustang - The Fighter that Changed Aerial Warfare
The North American P-51 Mustang was a long-range fighter aircraft used by the air forces of the United States and Great Britain during the Second World...
Definition
Calypso - The Nymph Who Kept Odysseus Prisoner
In Greek mythology, Calypso, whose name means "to hide" or "to conceal," is a nymph best known from Homer's (c.750 BCE) epic The Odyssey for falling...
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J. E. B. Stuart's Sabers and Roses Ball of 1862 - An Evening's Break from the War - Almost
In September 1862, while in Urbana, Maryland, on the Maryland Campaign, Confederate Cavalry General J. E. B. Stuart (1833-1864) decided to take a break...
Definition
Winfield Scott - The General Who Mapped the Union Victory
Winfield Scott (1786-1866) was an American military leader famous for his brilliant tactics in battle, for his insistence on the value of a highly trained...
