Wagner: Did you mean...?

Artist imagination of Valhalla, Odin's hall of fallen warriors (Einherjar). Unlike Hel that was a rather gloomy and dark place, Valhalla was a blissful after-life location. Here souls were looked after by Valkyries who served them mead...

A c. 1910 postcard showing the interior of the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, Germany. It was completed in 1876. It was designed with input from the composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883) to ensure good acoustics, a clear audience view of the stage...

The Indus Valley Civilization was a cultural and political entity which flourished in the northern region of the Indian subcontinent between c. 7000 - c. 600 BCE. Its modern name derives from its location in the valley of the Indus River...

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933. He gained power by making popular promises like improving Germany's economy and status in Europe, but when he took these policies too far, he was responsible more than anything...

Elizabethan theatre, sometimes called English Renaissance theatre, refers to that style of performance plays which blossomed during the reign of Elizabeth I of England (r. 1558-1603) and which continued under her Stuart successors. Elizabethan...

The American Civil War (1861-1865) was the pivotal event in United States history and the largest armed conflict in the Western world following the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815) and prior to the beginning of the First World War (1914...

Ragnar Lothbrok (Old Norse Ragnarr Loðbrók, also anglicised as Ragnar Lodbrok), whose epithet means 'Hairy-breeches' or 'Shaggy-breeches', was a legendary Viking king, with Old Norse sagas, poetry, and medieval Latin sources telling of his...

Ivar the Boneless (Old Norse Ívarr hinn Beinlausi) is known from Old Norse and medieval Latin sources as the son of the legendary Viking king Ragnar Lothbrok, in these stories raiding alongside his father and brothers and becoming the ruler...

Bjorn Ironside (also spelt Björn Ironside; Old Norse Bjǫrn Járnsíða) is a legendary Viking who in the stories surrounding him raids alongside his brothers and his father, the Viking chieftain Ragnar Lothbrok. While the legends mentioning...

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) was a Russian composer most famous for his symphonies, the ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker, and the operas Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades. A composer of innovative and...