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The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (1850-1864) was part of the Compromise of 1850, drafted to diffuse tensions between Southern 'slave states' and Northern 'free states.' The...

Phoenician architecture is typified by large temples with double-columned facades approached by a short staircase, enclosed sacred spaces containing cube-like and open-fronted shrines, and such large-scale engineering projects...

James K. Polk (1795-1849) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the eleventh president of the United States. A protégé of Andrew Jackson (1767-1845), he was the dark-horse candidate of the...

Attila the Hun (r. 434-453 CE) was the leader of the ancient nomadic people known as the Huns and ruler of the Hunnic Empire, which he established. His name means "Little Father" and, according to some historians, may not have...

Patrick R. Cleburne (1828-1864) was an Irish-born Confederate general during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Having immigrated to Arkansas in 1850, Cleburne fell in love with his adopted state and volunteered...

The Amorites were a Semitic people who seem to have emerged from western Mesopotamia (modern-day Syria) at some point prior to the 3rd millennium BCE. In Sumerian they were known as the Martu or the Tidnum (in the Ur III Period), in...

The Constantinian Excerpts, or Excerpta Constantiniana is the conventional name given to the mid-10th Century Byzantine palace encyclopedia commissioned by the scholar emperor Constantine...

Maya religious beliefs are formed on the notion that virtually everything in the world contains k'uh, or sacredness. K'uh and k'uhul, similar terms which are used to explain the spirituality of all inanimate and animate things...

The January Uprising of 1863 was a conflict between Tsarist Russia and Polish insurgents striving for independence. The uprising continued until October 1864, when it was suppressed...

Marcus Porcius Cato, better known as Cato the Censor or Cato the Elder (234-149 BCE), was an influential political figure of the Roman Republic. Serving as quaestor, aedile, praetor, consul, and censor, he championed Roman virtues...