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Interview: Her Lotus Year. Wallis Simpson in China
Article

Interview: Her Lotus Year. Wallis Simpson in China

Wallis Simpson (1896-1986) is often remembered as the wife of King Edward VIII, the Duke of Windsor. British monarch for less than a year in 1936, Edward...
Henry Clay
Definition

Henry Clay - The Great Compromiser

Henry Clay (1777-1852) was an American lawyer and statesman, one of the defining political figures of his age. Over the course of his several decades...
The Murder of the Romanov Family
Article

The Murder of the Romanov Family

The brutal murder of the entire Romanov family was the culmination of deep discontent across the Russian Empire with the persistently autocratic rule...
Dred Scott Decision
Definition

Dred Scott Decision - Worst Supreme Court Ruling in US History

The Dred Scott Decision (Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857) was the infamous ruling of the United States Supreme Court that, according...
12 Famous Ships in History
Collection

12 Famous Ships in History

In this collection, we look at 12 of the most famous ships that have ever sailed the high seas. From antiquity to the 20th century, these ships were...
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
Definition

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 - Northern Resistance and Tubman's Rescue of Charles Nalle

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (1850-1864) was part of the Compromise of 1850, drafted to diffuse tensions between Southern 'slave states' and Northern...
Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language and Unknown Letters
Article

Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language and Unknown Letters

Sometime in 1153 or 1154, the German nun Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) wrote a letter to the elderly Pope Anastasius IV (1073-1154). Her words were...
Compromise of 1850
Definition

Compromise of 1850

The Compromise of 1850 was a series of five bills passed by the US Congress in September 1850 to diffuse a sectional crisis brewing between the 'free...
Harriet Tubman's Escape from Slavery
Article

Harriet Tubman's Escape from Slavery - Bound for the Promised Land

When Sojourner Truth (circa 1797-1883) escaped from slavery, she later said, "I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing...
The Stolypin Reforms
Article

The Stolypin Reforms - Tsar Nicholas II's Attempt to Stave off Revolution

Pyotr Stolypin (1862-1911) was a Russian politician who served as prime minister to Tsar Nicholas II (reign 1894-1917). Stolypin ruthlessly quashed...
Harriet Tubman
Definition

Harriet Tubman - Visionary American Hero

Harriet Tubman (circa 1822-1913) was a former slave, abolitionist, women's rights activist, and famous conductor on the Underground Railroad. She served...
Missouri Compromise
Definition

Missouri Compromise

The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was an effort by the US Congress to resolve a sectional dispute between the 'free states' of the North and the 'slave...
RMS Lusitania
Definition

RMS Lusitania - Tragic Victim of WWI

RMS Lusitania was a British transatlantic liner infamously sunk by a German U-boat on 7 May 1915 during the First World War (1914-18). Struck off the...
Albert Sidney Johnston
Definition

Albert Sidney Johnston - The Highest-Ranking General Killed in the US Civil War

Albert Sidney Johnston (1803-1862) was the commander of the Confederate western armies in the early months of the American Civil War (1861-1865). Over...
J. E. B. Stuart
Definition

J. E. B. Stuart - The Cavalier of the Confederacy

James Ewell Brown Stuart (1833-1864), better known by his initials as J. E. B. Stuart, was a Confederate cavalry general during the American Civil War...
Emperor Titus' Sole Mistake
Article

Emperor Titus' Sole Mistake - A Mysterious Deathbed Confession

A little over two years into his imperial administration, the Roman emperor Titus (r. 79-81 CE) and a retinue of followers traveled to the Sabine countryside...
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