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The Kingdom of Jerusalem was a state created in 1099 CE by Crusaders and western settlers after the First Crusade (1095-1102 CE). With Jerusalem as its capital, the kingdom was the most important of the four Crusader States...

Zheng Yi Sao (aka Ching Shih, Cheng I Sao, Ching Yih Saou or Mrs Cheng, d. 1844) was the chief of a massive pirate confederation which plundered the South China Sea in the early 19th century. She inherited the role from her late...

Marco Polo (1254-1324 CE) was a Venetian merchant and explorer who travelled to China and served the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan (l. 1214-1294 CE) between c. 1275 and 1292 CE. Polo's adventures are recounted in his own writings, The...

Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1475-1519) was a Spanish conquistador who famously discovered the Pacific Ocean after crossing the isthmus of Panama in 1513. An utterly ruthless adventurer and colonizer, Balboa was as much a danger...

Egyptian burial is the common term for the ancient Egyptian funerary rituals concerning death and the soul's journey to the afterlife. Eternity, according to scholar Margaret Bunson, “was the common destination of each man...

The rich lands of Egypt became the property of Rome after the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BCE, which spelled the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty that had ruled Egypt since the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE. After the murder...

The Mali Empire (1240-1645) of West Africa was founded by Sundiata Keita (r. 1230-1255) following his victory over the kingdom of Sosso (c. 1180-1235). Sundiata's centralised government, diplomacy and well-trained army permitted a...

The Crusader States (aka the Latin East or Outremer) were created after the First Crusade (1095-1102) in order to keep hold of the territorial gains made by Christian armies in the Middle East. The four small states were the Kingdom...

Kilwa, an island located off the coast of East Africa in modern-day southern Tanzania, was the most southern of the major Swahili Coast trading cities that dominated goods coming into and out of Africa from and to Arabia, Persia, and...

Parthian art flourished within the Eurasian cultural corridor from the late hundreds BCE to the early 1st and 2nd centuries CE. With the Parthian Empire (247 BCE - 224 CE) stretching from India and China in the east to the Mediterranean...