Genius: Did you mean...?

On the evening of 30 May 1593, the sounds of a heated argument could be heard emanating from a boarding house in Deptford, a district of London on the south bank of the River Thames. Two of the boarders were quarreling over which of them...

Hatshepsut, whose name means "Foremost of Noble Women" or "First Among Noble Women" (royal name, Ma'at-ka-re, translated as "spirit of harmony and truth") was the fifth ruler of the 18th Dynasty (r. 1479-1458 BCE). She was the daughter of...

Achilles The hero of the Trojan War, leader of the Myrmidons, slayer of Hector and Greece's greatest warrior, who sadly came unstuck when Paris sent a flying arrow guided by Apollo, which caught him in his only weak spot, his heel. Adonis...

History is not predictable; in many ways it can take on a life of its own. But sometimes, an individual's sheer presence is enough to bend history to his will. One such individual was Alexander the Great. Through his conviction, vision, mental...

The thermometer was invented in the mid-17th century during the Scientific Revolution when scientists began to search for an accurate instrument to measure a wide range of temperatures using a scale that could be compared with other readings...

The Battle of Kiev (Kyiv) in July-September 1941 was a major Axis victory in Operation Barbarossa, Adolf Hitler's attack on the USSR during the Second World War (1939-45). Hitler wanted the resources of Ukraine since these would allow the...

The idea that Cleopatra VII (69-30 BCE), the famous last queen of ancient Egypt, owed her powerful position to her beauty persists. “The nose of Cleopatra: if it had been shorter, the whole face of the earth would have changed,” the French...

Hannibal Barca (l. 247-183 BCE), the brilliant Carthaginian general of the Second Punic War (218-202 BCE), had the military talent, expertise, and skill to have won the conflict but was denied the resources by his government. The Carthaginian...

The Arch of Titus is a Roman Triumphal Arch which was erected by Domitian in c. 81 CE at the foot of the Palatine hill on the Via Sacra in the Forum Romanum, Rome. It commemorates the victories of his father Vespasian and brother Titus in...

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 a student of the philosopher Antisthenes...