Ancien Regime: Did you mean...?

German East Africa (Deutsch-Ostafrika) was a colony of Imperial Germany from 1885 until 1918. The territory, much larger than Germany itself, covered what is today Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and part of Mozambique. As in many other European...

Justinian I reigned as emperor of the Byzantine Empire from 527 to 565 CE. Born around 482 CE in Tauresium, a village in Illyria, his uncle Emperor Justin I was an imperial bodyguard who reached the throne on the death of Anastasius in 518...

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) was a Russian composer of operas, ballets, concertos, string quartets, and 15 symphonies. Shostakovich was frequently denounced by the repressive Soviet state, but in some periods, he also gained official favour...

The Gestapo was the secret political police organisation of Nazi Germany. Created in 1933, the Gestapo became one of the most feared instruments of state terror, its members having few or no legal restrictions to their actions. The Gestapo...

Xunzi (pronounced shund-zee, l. c. 310-c. 235 BCE) was a Confucian philosopher of the Warring States Period (c. 481-221 BCE) in China. He is also known as Hun Kuang, Hsun Tzu, Xun Tzu, and Xun Kuang. Xunzi translates as Master Xun and is...

Soviets, often called Soviets of Workers' Deputies, were worker councils first formed during the Russian Revolution of 1905 when a general strike was called against the Tsarist regime. Factory and other types of workers across the newly industrialised...

This article documents and elaborates on the many critical behind-the-scenes events, unknown to the public, before the history leaves us. The author The bulk of the “the land between the two rivers” lies in what we call today the Republic...

The Storming of the Bastille was a decisive moment in the early months of the French Revolution (1789-1799). On 14 July 1789, the Bastille, a fortress and political prison symbolizing the oppressiveness of France’s Ancien Régime was attacked...

The Hundred Days refers to the second reign of French Emperor Napoleon I, who unexpectedly returned from exile to reclaim the French throne. It encompasses Napoleon's triumphant return to Paris on 20 March 1815, his climactic defeat at the...

The meeting of the Assembly of Notables in 1787 was a last-ditch effort by the ministers of King Louis XVI of France (r. 1774-1792) to fix the disastrous condition of French finances. The assembly failed to agree on a series of radical financial...