Natural history: Did you mean...?

Coins have been in use since their creation in ancient Lydia in the early 6th century BCE. Stamped by the state to guarantee value and be recognisable as genuine, coins allowed goods and services to be bought...

Plagues have swept through humanity ever since communities have gathered together in concentrated groups. In this collection of resources, we look at just some of the pandemics that raged throughout Antiquity and the Middle...

Although slaveholders in 19th century America regularly claimed their “property” was content with living in bondage, attempted or successful escapes by slaves were fairly common...

In this collection of resources we look at the origins of Christmas and the story of the Nativity, the pagan traditions that have influenced how the holiday has been celebrated ever since, and how different eras...

Ancient Chinese literature developed following the evolution of script which evolved from divination practices of the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE). The pictographs made on oracle bones by diviners became the script...

Hildegard of Bingen (also known as Hildegarde von Bingen, l. 1098-1179) was a Christian mystic, Benedictine abbess, and polymath proficient in philosophy, musical composition, herbology, medieval literature, cosmology, medicine...

Strabo of Amasia (c. (c. 64 BCE - c. 24 CE) was the author of Geography, a 17-book geography of the world as it was known to the Greeks and Romans of the time, extending from Iberia and Mauria (Mauretania...

Paulus Orosius (usually given as Orosius, 5th century) was a Christian theologian and historian who was also a friend and protege of Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430). He is best known for his...

Sima Qian (l. 145/135-86 BCE) was a court scribe, astrologer, and historian of the Han Dynasty (202 BCE - 220 CE) of ancient China, famous for his historical work Records of the Grand Historian for which he is remembered as the Father...

Lao-Tzu (l. c. 500 BCE, also known as Laozi or Lao-Tze) was a Chinese philosopher credited with founding the philosophical system of Taoism. He is best known as the author of the Laozi (later retitled the Tao-Te-Ching translated as “The...