Ancien Regime: Did you mean...?

Emperor Taizu (960-976 CE), formerly known as Zhao Kuangyin, was the founder of the Song (aka Sung) dynasty which ruled China from 960 to 1279 CE. Taizu settled for a territorially smaller but more unified and prosperous China than was seen...

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) was a Russian composer (born in Ukraine) who was at the forefront of the Modernist music movement. His symphonies, orchestral suites, and ballets display endless variety and complexity. His most famous works today...

William III of England (also William II of Scotland, r. 1689-1702) became king of England, Scotland, and Ireland after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Protestant William, Prince of Orange, was invited to rule jointly with his wife Mary II...

The Thirty Tyrants (οἱ τριάκοντα τύραννοι) is a term first used by Polycrates in a speech praising Thrasybulus (Arist. Rhet. 1401a) to describe the brief 8-month oligarchy which governed Athens after the Peloponnesian War – roughly late-summer...

The Reichstag fire of 27 February 1933 was a possible arson attack on the German parliament building. The fire was blamed on a communist anarchist Marinus van der Lubbe (1909-1934), but it may have been the work of the Nazi party's paramilitary...

Joséphine de Beauharnais (1763-1814) was a French noblewoman who was the first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821). She was therefore Empress of the French from 18 May 1804 until the annulment of her marriage on 10 January 1810, as well...

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...

Suppiluliuma I (1344-1322 BCE) is considered the most powerful and impressive king of the Hittite Empire. He was the son of Tudhaliya II (also known as Tudhaliya III) and is credited with founding the New Kingdom of the Hittites (also called...

The Second Anglo-Sikh War (1848-9) once again saw the British East India Company defeat the Sikh Empire in northern India. The war, which started off as a rebellion against British colonial rule, included the high-casualty Battle of Chillianwala...

The Battle of Jemappes was a decisive battle in the War of the First Coalition (1792-97), part of the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802). On 6 November 1792, a French army under General Charles-François Dumouriez defeated an Austrian force...