Central Africa: Did you mean...?

Cassius Dio (c. 164 - c. 229/235 CE) was a Roman politician and historian. Although he held a number of political offices with distinction, he is best known for his 80-volume Roman History. The work took 22 years to complete, was...

Legio V Alaudae, referenced in early accounts only as the "Fifth", was one of the many legions of the Roman army that helped Julius Caesar (100-44 BCE) to achieve success as a military commander in Gaul, Spain, and Africa. Later...

In the late 6th century BCE, the small city-state of Rome overthrew the shackles of monarchy and created a republican government that, in theory if not always in practice, represented the wishes of its citizens. From this basis...

Taifas ("factions" or "camps") were small independent Muslim kingdoms and principalities that emerged after the fall of hegemonic Muslim caliphates in al-Andalus – the Muslim-controlled part of the Iberian peninsula – during the High...

Eratosthenes (l. c. 276-195 BCE) was a Greek astronomer, geographer, mathematician, and poet best known for being the first to calculate the circumference of the earth and its axial tilt. He is also recognized for his mathematical...

The Battle of Cannae (2 August 216 BCE) was the decisive victory of the Carthaginian army over Roman forces at Cannae, southeast Italy, during the Second Punic War (218-202 BCE). The Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca (l. 247-183...

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns organised by popes and Christian western powers to take Jerusalem and the Holy Land back from Muslim control and then defend those gains. There were eight major official crusades between...

The Golden Age of Piracy (1690-1730) refers to a period when robbery on the high seas and at colonial ports reached an unprecedented level. Although not all historians agree on the precise time frame, it is generally applied...

Henry Every (b. 1653), also known as Henry Avery, Benjamin Bridgeman, ‘Long Ben’ and (incorrectly) John Avery, was one of the most savage and successful pirates in the Golden Age of Piracy. Capturing a treasure ship of the Mughal...

From around 800 BCE, ancient Greek city-states, most of which were maritime powers, began to look beyond Greece for land and resources. As a consequence, they founded colonies across the Mediterranean. Trade was usually the...