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Alexander Selkirk - The Inspiration For Robinson Crusoe
Alexander Selkirk (or Selcraig, 1676-1721) was a Scotsman famously marooned for four years and four months on a desert island in the Pacific Ocean until his rescue by a passing British ship in February 1709. His story inspired the title character...

Definition
Lear Green - Escaping Slavery in a Chest
Lear Green (circa 1839-1860) was an enslaved African American woman in Baltimore, Maryland, who had herself shipped in a chest to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to escape slavery. Her story is frequently compared to that of Henry Box Brown (circa...

Article
The Mongol Invasion of Europe
The Mongol invasions of Russia and Eastern Europe occurred first with a brief sortie in 1223 CE and then again in a much larger campaign between 1237 CE and 1242 CE. The Mongols, seemingly coming from nowhere and quickly gaining a reputation...

Article
Sugar & the Rise of the Plantation System
From a humble beginning as a sweet treat grown in gardens, sugar cane cultivation became an economic powerhouse, and the growing demand for sugar stimulated the colonization of the New World by European powers, brought slavery to the forefront...

Interview
Interview: American School of Classical Studies at Athens
The American School of Classical Studies in Greece has been running its operations since the 19th century CE, with excavations across the country and an academic program that runs throughout the summer and fall. They are arguably the most...

Interview
Interview: Jeanne Reames on Dancing with the Lion
Dr. Jeanne Reames' Dancing with the Lion: Becoming and Dancing with the Lion: Rise follow an epic tale of Alexander before he was “The Great.” In this interview, Dylan Campbell inquires about her passion for history and the development of...

Video
Penicillin: From Fleming to the Pharmacy
Penicillin's discovery by Alexander Fleming in 1929 gets a lot of hype as the advent of antibiotics. But in reality, Fleming was just one part of the story. A team from Oxford University led by Howard Florey, in partnership with the Northern...

Definition
Achaemenid Empire
East of the Zagros Mountains, a high plateau stretches off towards India. While Egypt was rising up against the Hyksos, a wave of pastoral tribes from north of the Caspian Sea was drifting down into this area and across into India. By the...

Definition
Trojan War
The Trojan War was fought between Greeks and the defenders of the city of Troy in Anatolia sometime in the late Bronze Age. The story has grabbed the imagination for millennia but a conflict between Mycenaeans and Hittites may well have occurred...

Definition
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was a Swiss philosopher whose work both praised and criticised the Enlightenment movement. Although a believer in the power of reason, science, and the arts, Rousseau was convinced that a flourishing culture...