Albrecht von Wallenstein: Did you mean...?

The Night of the Long Knives (aka Blood Purge or Röhm-Putsch) of 30 June 1934 was a purge of the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) paramilitary group which continued through 1 and 2 July. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), wary of the growing power of the...

Franz Schubert (1797-1828) was an Austrian composer of Romantic music best known for his songs, symphonies, piano music, and chamber music. Schubert's career lasted only 15 years, but he was a prolific composer. Neither a conductor or virtuoso...

Richard Strauss (1864-1949) was a German conductor and composer of both innovative late-Romantic and Modernist music. He is best known for his symphonic poems and operas like Salome and Elektra, both of which caused a sensation. Strauss gained...

Martin Bucer (l. 1491-1551) was a German reformer and theologian who had been a Dominican friar and priest until converted to the Protestant vision by Martin Luther (l. 1483-1546) c. 1518. Bucer is best known for his focus on unity among...

The Baroque era, which lasted from roughly 1580 and 1780, was a time of enormous contrasts: Opulence and innovation, on the one hand; death and crises, on the other. Ongoing religious wars and the opening of global trade networks led to mass...

The Battle of Waterloo (18 June 1815) was the last major engagement of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), fought by a French army under Emperor Napoleon I (r. 1804-1814; 1815) against two armies of the Seventh Coalition. Waterloo resulted in...

WWI saw the birth of an entirely new form of combat: lone men engaging the enemy in aerial dogfights. The victors became heroes back home, but this was as deadly an occupation as it was an exhilarating one. One bullet, an engine or structural...

The Eastern Front (1941-5), called the Western Front or Great Patriotic War by the Soviets, was by far the bloodiest of the Second World War (1939-45). In this article, the memories of those who experienced the conflict firsthand are presented...

In this gallery, we present 50 of the most important Renaissance paintings created by the greatest artists from Jan van Eyck (c. 1390-1441) to Tintoretto (1518-1594). The paintings are presented in chronological order of artists and their...

The origins of the First World War (1914-18) are many and varied, with some even dating back several decades, but a political assassination in the Balkans in the summer of 1914 was the spark that blew up Europe's political powder keg, that...