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Halloween is the most popular holiday in the world, after Christmas (based on level-of-celebration and consumer spending) and, increasingly, the most lucrative. According to the National Retail Federation, Americans are expected to spend...

The Vindication and Refutation of Thomas Müntzer (l. c. 1489-1525) is a 1524 open letter to Jesus Christ, Martin Luther (l. 1483-1546), and the Christian community charging Luther with hypocrisy, betraying his original vision to win support...

The 1905 Law of Separation of Church and State was enacted as the climax of decades of conflict between monarchists and anticlerical Republicans who viewed Christianity as a permanent obstacle to the social development of the Republic. The...

Zeno of Citium (c. 336 – 265 BCE) was the founder of the Stoic School of philosophy in Athens, which taught that the Logos (Universal Reason) was the greatest good in life and living in accordance with reason was the meaning of life. He was...

For the ancient Greeks, the quality of arete (personal excellence) and the concept of eusebia (social duty) were most important. Aristotle discusses both of these at length in his Nichomachean Ethics and relates arete to eudaimonia - translated...

The Debate Between Sheep and Grain (c. 2000 BCE) is one of the best-known Sumerian literary debates in a genre that was popular entertainment by the late 3rd millennium BCE. In this piece, personifications of grain and sheep argue which is...

Racialized chattel slavery developed in the English colonies of North America between 1640-1660 and was fully institutionalized by 1700. Although slavery was practiced in the New England and Middle colonies, and Massachusetts Bay Colony passed...

The Little Girl and the Ghost is a legend of the Cheyenne nation concerning a young girl abducted by a spirit after she is cast out by her mother. The story explores many themes common in Cheyenne literature, including the importance of following...

Balthasar Hubmaier (l. 1480-1528) was a Catholic theologian who converted to the Protestant Anabaptist sect in 1525. His Concerning Heretics and Those Who Burn Them (1524) was a plea for religious tolerance written prior to his conversion...

The trial and execution of Marie Antoinette (1755-1793), formerly the queen of France, was among the opening events of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution (1789-1799). Accused of a series of crimes that included conspiring with...