Genius: Did you mean...?

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a French scientist, mathematician, and philosopher whose work influenced both the Scientific Revolution and later European thought. Pascal is known for his practical achievements in science, such as...

Polybius (l. c. 208-125 BCE) was, whilst a Greek historian, a Roman historian, in that his work dealt with explaining how Rome came to be so great. Like the three Classical Greek Historians, Polybius himself had personal experiences...

The Thames Tunnel was completed in 1843 and connects the two banks of the River Thames at Rotherhithe and Wapping in London. The 20-year project was masterminded by Marc Isambard Brunel (1769-1849) and was both the first tunnel...

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) was an Italian composer best known for operas such as Rigoletto, La traviata, and Aida. Verdi is noted for his powerful scores and strong characters where anti-heroes lead the dramatic action through...

Omar Khayyam (also given as Umar Khayyam, l. 1048-1131 CE) was a Persian polymath, astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher but is best known in the West as a poet, the author of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. His famous work has...

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was a Hungarian composer of Romantic Music. Liszt first gained international fame as a piano virtuoso, an activity in which he was a pioneer, and then as a composer of piano works and symphonic poems, a form...

Johann Strauss II (1825-1899), aka Strauss the Younger, was an Austrian composer best known for his waltzes such as The Blue Danube. Famed throughout Europe and the United States in his own lifetime, Strauss was known as the...

Helen is a Greek tragedy by Euripides (c. 484-407 BCE). It is usually thought to have first been performed at the Great Dionysia of 412 BCE and was part of the trilogy that included Euripides' lost Andromeda. Helen recounts an unusual...

The Château d'Amboise, located in the Loire Valley, in central France, was built over several centuries and was the centre of royal power during the Renaissance (from the 15th to the early 17th century). Witness to the heyday...

Miltiades (c. 555-489 BCE) was the Athenian general who defeated the Persians at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE. The Greeks faced a Persian force of superior numbers led by the commanding admiral Datis, who had been sent by their...