Pepin the Short: Did you mean...?

The first page of the manuscript of Jeanne de Jussie's Short Chronicle. Library of Geneva

The Merovingian Dynasty was the ruling family of the Franks from roughly 481 when Clovis I ascended the throne of the Salian Franks until 751 when Childeric III was deposed and the Merovingians were supplanted by the Carolingian Dynasty as...

The Battle of Poitiers aka the Battle of Tours took place over roughly a week in early October of 732. The opposing sides consisted of a Frankish army led by Charles Martel (r. 718-741) against an invading Muslim army under the nominal sovereignty...

The Franks were a Germanic people who originated along the lower Rhine River. They moved into Gaul during the Migration Age, where they established one of the largest and most powerful kingdoms in Europe after the fall of the Western Roman...

Mesopotamia is an ancient region in the Middle East, east of the Mediterranean by the Zagros mountains, between the two rivers Tigris and Euphrates. The name ‘Mesopotamia’ comes from the Greek meaning ‘between two rivers’. The region is now...

Illuminated manuscripts are handwritten books that are highly decorated in precious materials like gold or silver. The use of metallic materials like gold and silver is what gives these texts their name ‘illuminated’, as they reflect the...

Assyria has a long history, beginning in northern Mesopotamia and then expanding during the Neo-Assyrian Empire from Mesopotamia through Asia Minor, and down through Egypt. The empire began in the city of Ashur and went through many different...

The Sumerians flourished in Mesopotamia between c. 4100 – 1750 BCE in the region of Sumer which was not a country, but a region made up of a number of walled city-states, each with its own king. The Sumerian civilization developed the first...

The Inca civilisation flourished in Peru and surrounding areas between 1400 and 1533 CE. Prior to the Inca being dominant in Western South America, the Chimu occupied the area until 1470 when the Inca defeated them. The Inca, which started...

You'll notice that many ex-British Colonies, like Australia, Canada and New Zealand don't use pounds like their former British overlords but instead use dollars. Why? What caused these nations to switch currencies and why did they prefer...