Spice Trade: Did you mean...?

Civilization (from the Latin civis=citizen and civitas=city) is a term applied to any society which has developed a writing system, government, production of surplus food, division of labor, and urbanization...

The Thirteen Colonies were a cluster of British colonies located along the Atlantic seaboard of North America. Founded for a variety of reasons – economic, political, and religious – the colonies emerged with their own distinct...

The prosperity of the majority of Greek city-states was based on agriculture and the ability to produce the necessary surplus which allowed some citizens to pursue other trades and pastimes and to create a quantity...

Admiral Zheng He (aka Cheng Ho, c. 1371-1433 CE) was a Chinese Muslim eunuch explorer who was sent by the Ming dynasty emperor Yongle (r. 1403-1424 CE) on seven diplomatic missions to increase trade and secure tribute...

"What, to the Slave, is the Fourth of July?" is Frederick Douglass' masterwork of oration, delivered on 5 July 1852 at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. Also sometimes...

The great cities of Mesopotamia ("the land between two rivers") developed prior to the late 4th millennium BCE along two rivers – the Tigris and Euphrates – and were...

Hernán Cortés (1485-1547) was a Spanish conquistador who led the conquest of the Aztec Empire in Mexico from 1519. Taking the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in 1521, Cortés plundered Mesoamerica as he became the first ruler of the...

Pedro de Alvarado (c. 1485-1541) was a Spanish conquistador who became the first governor of Guatemala in 1527. Living an extraordinary life of adventure, Alvarado participated in separate expeditions to Mexico, Central America...

The Romans assimilated earlier Greek science for their own purposes, evaluating and then accepting or rejecting that which was most useful, much as they did in other fields such as warfare, art, and theatre. This assimilation of...

The galleon (Spanish: galeón, French: galion) was a type of sailing ship used for both cargo carrying and as a warship. Galleons dominated the seas in the second half of the 16th century, and with their lower superstructures, they were...