Messiah: Did you mean...?

The Battle of Omdurman on 2 September 1898 saw General Kitchener lead an Anglo-Egyptian-Sudanese army to victory over 50,000 Mahdists in Sudan. The death of General Gordon during the...

As a youngster, David (the later king of Israel), slew Goliath, a giant, who was the champion of Israel’s enemy, the Philistines. "David and Goliath" became a metaphor for an underdog who nevertheless is victorious over a more...

Titus Flavius Josephus (36-100 CE), the Jewish historian, is the main source for understanding Second Temple Judaism in the 1st century CE. In the last decades of the 1st century CE, he wrote The Jewish War, the Antiquities...

The siege of Damascus in 1148 CE was the final act of the Second Crusade (1147-1149 CE). Lasting a mere four days from 24 to 28 July, the siege by a combined western European army was not successful, and the Crusade...

Martyrologies, a unique genre of Christian literature, appeared from the 2nd century CE. A martyrology tells the story of the suffering and ordeals of a Christian martyr and details their trial and execution. A shared...

The ideal of Christendom in antiquity joined separate nations into one single community carrying out the precepts of the God of Israel. Constantine's conversion to Christianity resulted in the merging...

Shabbatai Tzvi enthroned. Image from the Amsterdam Jewish publication Tikkun, depicting Sabbatai Zevi (Shabtai Tzvi) crowned as the messiah. Amsterdam, 1666 CE. Published in the 1901-1906 CE Jewish Encyclopedia.

Simon Reeve begins in Istanbul, Turkey, a busy medieval staging post for pilgrims to the Holy Land. Before falling to the Ottoman Empire, it was the centre of Roman Christianity under Emperor...