Bread: Did you mean...?

The First World War (1914-18) saw fighting on an unprecedented scale but also involved civilians as never before. For the first time, people hundreds of miles from the fighting front...

Ancient Roman culture affected vast numbers of people across the known world of its time, beginning with the rise of the Roman Republic (509-27 BCE) and throughout the duration of the Roman Empire (27 BCE -...

The Instructions of Shuruppag (circa 2500/2000 BCE) is the most famous work of the genre of Sumerian wisdom literature whose purpose was to encourage proper behavior in conformity with cultural...

Diogenes of Sinope (c. 404-323 BCE) was a Greek Cynic philosopher best known for holding a lantern to the faces of the citizens of Athens claiming he was searching for an honest man. He was most likely...

Joseph Stalin's gulag system was a network of labour camps across the USSR, which were, from 1930, used to detain criminals and anyone considered enemies of the state. A wide spectrum of Soviet society...

The Hittites occupied the ancient region of Anatolia (also known as Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey) prior to 1700 BCE, developed a culture apparently from the indigenous Hatti (and possibly the Hurrian) people, and expanded their...

Guilds of merchants and craft workers were formed in medieval Europe so that their members could benefit from mutual aid. Guilds ensured production standards were maintained and that competition was reduced. In addition, by members...

Alfred the Great (r. 871-899) was the king of Wessex in Britain but came to be known as King of the Anglo-Saxons after his military victories over Viking adversaries and later successful negotiations with them. He is the best-known...

The Revolt of 13 Vendémiaire Year IV (5 October 1795) was a royalist uprising in Paris during the French Revolution (1789-1799). In response to the anti-royalist policies of the Thermidorian Reaction, 25,000 Parisians rose in revolt...

The Hussite Wars (1419 to c. 1434) were a series of conflicts fought in Bohemia (modern-day Czech Republic) between followers of the reformer Jan Hus and Catholic loyalists toward the end of the Bohemian Reformation (c. 1380 to c...