Pope Innocent III: Did you mean...?

The Cathars (also known as Cathari from the Greek Katharoi for “pure ones”) were a dualist medieval religious sect of Southern France which flourished in the 12th century and challenged the authority of the Catholic Church. They were also...

King John of England (aka John Lackland) ruled from 1199 to 1216 CE and he has gone down in history as one of the very worst of English kings, both for his character and his failures. He lost the Angevin-Plantagenet lands in France and so...

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns organised by Christian powers in order to retake Jerusalem and the Holy Land back from Muslim control. There would be eight officially sanctioned crusades between 1095 CE and 1270 CE and many...

The medieval indulgence was a writ offered by the Church, for money, guaranteeing the remission of sin, and its abuse was the spark that inspired Martin Luther's 95 Theses. Luther (l. 1483-1546) claimed the sale of indulgences was unbiblical...

Assyria was the region located in the ancient Near East which, under the Neo-Assyrian Empire, reached from Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) through Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and down through Egypt. The empire began modestly at the city of Ashur...

The Neo-Assyrian Empire (912-612 BCE) was the final stage of the Assyrian Empire, stretching throughout Mesopotamia, the Levant, Egypt, Anatolia, and into parts of Persia and Arabia. Beginning with the reign of Adad Nirari II (912-891 BCE...

The First Crusade (1095-1102) was a military campaign by western European forces to recapture the city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslim control. Conceived by Pope Urban II following an appeal from the Byzantine emperor Alexios I...

The Ptolemaic dynasty was a Macedonian royal family that ruled Ptolemaic Egypt from 323 to 30 BCE. It was founded by Ptolemy I, a general and successor of Alexander the Great. They built Alexandria, including the Lighthouse of Alexandria...

John Balliol ruled as the king of Scotland from 1292 to 1296 CE. He was supported by Edward I of England (r. 1272-1307 CE) in the competition to find the successor to the heirless Alexander III of Scotland (r. 1249-1286 CE), a process known...

The Narmer Palette, an ancient Egyptian ceremonial engraving, depicts the great king Narmer (c. 3150 BCE) conquering his enemies with the support and approval of his gods. This piece, dating from c. 3200-3000 BCE, was initially thought to...