Spice Trade: Did you mean...?

The English East India Company (EIC) was established by Royal Charter on 31 December 1600 under Queen Elizabeth I (reign 1558–1603), granting it a monopoly on English trade east of the Cape of Good Hope. Initially conceived as a commercial...

The ancient Mediterranean was a busy place with trading ships sailing in all directions to connect cities and cultures. The Greeks were so keen on the rewards of trade and commerce that they colonized large parts of the coastal Mediterranean...

The English East India Company (EIC or EEIC), later to become the British East India Company, was founded in 1600 as a trading company. With a massive private army and the backing of the British government, the EIC looted the Indian subcontinent...

This map illustrates the dynamic trade networks of the ancient Mediterranean between the 7th and 4th centuries BCE, highlighting the spheres of influence of the Phoenicians and Greeks as they established settlements, trading posts, and seafaring...

The Estado da India (1505-1961) was the name the Portuguese gave to that part of their empire which stretched from India to East Asia. However, in its widest sense, the name includes all Portuguese colonies east of the Cape of Good Hope and...

The Hanseatic League (c. 13th–17th centuries) was a powerful network of merchant guilds and cities that dominated trade across northern Europe for centuries. Emerging in the late Middle Ages, the League united towns from Lübeck, Hamburg...

Sir John Hawkins (1532-1595 CE) was an Elizabethan mariner, merchant and naval administrator who has the inglorious (if not wholly accurate) record of being England's first slave trader. In the 1560s CE Hawkins trafficked slaves from West...

Saba (also given as Sheba) was a kingdom in southern Arabia (region of modern-day Yemen) which flourished between the 8th century BCE and 275 CE when it was conquered by the neighboring Himyarites. Although these are the most commonly accepted...

The network popularly known as the Silk Road refers not to a single route but to a shifting constellation of overland and maritime pathways that connected East and West across more than a millennium. Long before the term was coined in the...

At its fullest extent, the Roman Empire stretched from around modern-day Aswan, Egypt at its southernmost point to Great Britain in the north but the influence of the Roman Empire went far beyond even the borders of its provinces as a result...