East Asia: Did you mean...?

One of the major motivating factors in the European Age of Exploration was the search for direct access to the highly lucrative Eastern spice trade. In the 15th century, spices came to Europe via the Middle East land and sea routes, and spices...

Goa, located on the west coast of India, was a Portuguese colony from 1510 to 1961. The small coastal area was conquered by Afonso de Albuquerque (c. 1453-1515) and became an important trade hub for the Eastern spice trade. Goa was the capital...

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 Asia, and Africa...

Map showing some of the major regional resouces of the eastern Mediterranean, the Near East, East Africa, and Central and South Asia.

This collection focuses on providing supplementary materials to students who want to enhance their school history studies and to teachers who want a more concise coverage of each lesson that they deliver. This chapter examines the economic...

Cyrus the Great (558-530 BCE) built the first universal empire, stretching from Greece to the Indus River. This was the famous Achaemenid Empire of Persia. An inscription at Naqsh-i-Rustam, the tomb of his able successor Darius I (521-486...

The Mongol Empire (1206-1368) was founded by Genghis Khan (r. 1206-1227), first Great Khan or 'universal ruler' of the Mongol peoples. Genghis forged the empire by uniting nomadic tribes of the Asian steppe and creating a devastatingly effective...

Around c. 1700 BCE, the Ancient Near East was a politically fragmented but highly interconnected region, shaped by shifting alliances, commercial networks, and emerging territorial states. This period corresponds to the Old Assyrian era and...

In this interview, James Blake Wiener, Co-Founder and Communications Director at Ancient History Encyclopedia (AHE), speaks to Emeritus Professor James H. Grayson, Professor of Korean Studies at the University of Sheffield, about the historical...

The English East India Company (EIC) was established by Royal Charter on 31 December 1600 under Queen Elizabeth I (reign 1558–1603), granting it a monopoly on English trade east of the Cape of Good Hope. Initially conceived as a commercial...