Ban Chiang: Did you mean...?

Swords used by Japanese samurai were renowned for the craftsmanship which produced strong yet flexible curved steel blades with a single, super-sharp cutting edge. Produced from the 8th century CE onwards and symbolic of the samurai's elevated...

Taizong (birth name, Li-Shimin, l. 598-649 CE, r. 626-649 CE) was the second emperor of the Tang Dynasty and is considered one of the greatest rulers in Chinese history for his reforms of the government and the laws, his religious tolerance...

The Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368-1398 CE) was the founder of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644 CE) which took over from the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1276-1368 CE) as the rulers of China. Born a peasant with the name Zhu Yuanzhang, the future emperor led...

The 13 April 1919 Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (aka Amritsar Massacre) was an infamous episode of brutality which saw General Dyer order his troops to open fire on an unarmed crowd of men, women, and children trapped in an abandoned walled garden...

Justinian II “the Slit-nosed” ruled as emperor of the Byzantine Empire in two spells: from 685 to 695 CE and then again from 705 to 711 CE. It was after his first reign and prior to his exile that his nose was cut off by the usurper Leontios...

Publius Vergilius Maro (70-19 BCE), better known to most modern readers as Virgil, was one of the greatest poets of the early Roman Empire. His best-known work, the Aeneid, told of a Trojan prince, Aeneas, who escaped the burning of Troy...

Nagasaki, on the northwest coast of Japan’s Kyushu Island, was an important Portuguese trading base from c. 1571 to 1639, and the most eastern outpost of the Portuguese empire. The Portuguese presence transformed Nagasaki from a small fishing...

Pontius Pilate was the fifth magistrate to serve in the Roman province of Judea, created in 6 CE by Roman emperor Augustus (r. 27 BCE to 14 CE). His term of office was during the subsequent reign of Tiberius from 26-36 CE. He became famous...

Noah is considered one of the patriarchs in the Jewish Scriptures or one of the founding fathers of what became the religion of Judaism. His story begins in Genesis 6 and consists of three elements: the evil of the earth; the flood narrative...

King Taejong of Joseon (r. 1400-1418) was the third ruler of the Joseon Dynasty in Korea. Taejong was a driving force behind consolidating and strengthening the king’s power, and while he was an effective ruler, his violent means of winning...