Polytheism: Did you mean...?

Cyprus is a large island located in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, east of Greece, south of Asia Minor, west of the Levant, and north of Egypt. The naming of the island is a matter of dispute amongst historians. One theory suggests...

Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604-1651) governed Japan as the third shogun of the Edo period. He implemented a number of important policies that not only consolidated his family's hold on power but also greatly impacted Japanese society...

Mauretania was an ancient kingdom in northwest Africa, encompassing regions of modern-day Morocco and Algeria. Although it shares a name with the modern country of Mauritania, they do not overlap. Ancient Mauretania was named after...

Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (1646-1709) governed Japan as the fifth shogun of the Edo period (1603-1876). He has often been ridiculed as the 'dog shogun' because of the laws he enacted to protect the lives of animals. Economically...

Ereshkigal (also known as Irkalla and Allatu) is the Mesopotamian Queen of the Dead, who rules the underworld. Her name translates as "Queen of the Great Below" or "Lady of the Great Place." She was responsible...

Kanadehon Chushingura (A Treasury of Loyalty of Loyal Retainers or The Story of the Forty-Seven Samurai) is the most popular play in the history of Japanese theatre, first performed in 1748. It is a work of fiction, but the details...

Aurelian was Roman emperor from 270 to 275 CE. He was one of the so-called Barracks Emperors, chosen by the Roman army during the turbulent period known as the Crisis of the Third Century (235-284 CE). Besides victories against various...

The Black Hole of Calcutta refers to a prison cell which was used to hold 146 mostly British prisoners captured after the Nawab of Bengal had taken over the city from the East India Company. Interred on 20 June 1756 in a...

Gortyn is located on the Mesara plain of central Crete and was an important settlement throughout antiquity from the Minoan to Hellenistic periods. In Roman times the city went on to gain even more importance as the capital of the Roman...

The Reign of Terror, or simply the Terror (la Terreur), was a climactic period of state-sanctioned violence during the French Revolution (1789-99), which saw the public executions and mass killings of thousands of counter-revolutionary...