Brazil: Did you mean...?

Cochin, located on the southwest coast of India, was a Portuguese colony from 1503 to 1663. Known to the Portuguese as Cochim, it was one of several important cities on India’s Malabar Coast and a great trade centre for spices...

Robert Clive (1725-1774), also known as 'Clive of India' and Baron Clive of Plassey, masterminded the expansion of the East India Company in India. Best known for his victory at Plassey in Bengal in 1757, Clive's reputation suffered...

Yaxchilan, located on the banks of the Usumacinta River in the Yucatán peninsula of Mexico, was an important Late Classic Maya centre. The Maya dated the founding of their city to 320 CE, but Yaxchilan flourished between c. 580 and...

The Spanish conquistadors might have gained a lasting reputation as the great gold-seekers of history, but they were actually far more successful in acquiring silver. Over 100 tons of gold were extracted from the Americas...

Agriculture arose independently at several locations across the world, beginning about 12,000 years ago. The first crops and livestock were domesticated in six rather diffuse areas including the Near East, China, Southeast...

Clove, nutmeg, and mace are native to only a handful of tiny islands in the middle of the vast Indonesian archipelago – cloves on five Maluku Islands (the Moluccas) about 1250 km (778 mi) west of New...

Pirates in the Golden Age of Piracy (1690-1730) both dished out and received a wide range of imaginative punishments. Victims of piracy endured torture, floggings, and ceremonies of humiliation, but when...

The Portuguese first took an interest in East Africa from the beginning of the 16th century as their empire spread eastwards across the Indian Ocean. Trade in the region was already well-established and carried out...

The Hindenburg disaster occurred on 6 May 1937 when the German Zeppelin airship LZ 129 Hindenburg attempted to land at Lakehurst, New Jersey, but burst into flames. The airship's gas cells were...

The discovery of diamonds in 1867 in Griqualand ultimately transformed the entire region of Southern Africa. Huge European financial investment and significant immigration followed...