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Bartholomew Roberts, aka 'Black Bart' Roberts (c. 1682-1722), was a Welsh pirate and one of the most successful villains of the Golden Age of Piracy. Roberts plundered over 400 ships on both sides of the Atlantic during his infamous three-year...

The Antikythera mechanism (also known as the Antikythera Device), dated to the late 2nd century/early 1st century BCE (roughly 205-60 BCE) is understood as the world's first analog computer, created to accurately calculate the position of...

Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540-1596 CE) was an English mariner, privateer and explorer who in 1588 CE helped defeat the Spanish Armada of Philip II of Spain (r. 1556-1598 CE) which attempted to invade the kingdom of Elizabeth I of England (r...

The Thirty Tyrants (οἱ τριάκοντα τύραννοι) is a term first used by Polycrates in a speech praising Thrasybulus (Arist. Rhet. 1401a) to describe the brief 8-month oligarchy which governed Athens after the Peloponnesian War – roughly late-summer...

The Amistad Seizure (also known as the Amistad Incident, the Amistad Rebellion, the Amistad Mutiny, and Amistad Revolt) was a conflict aboard the Spanish schooner La Amistad in July 1839, off the coast of Cuba, during which free Blacks, who...

Ptolemaic Egypt was a naval power that exerted influence throughout the Eastern Mediterranean from its foundation in 330 BCE until Cleopatra's defeat by Augustus at the Battle of Actium in 30 BCE. The Ptolemaic Kingdom produced some of the...

A c. 1910 painting by Ernest Board showing the English physician Edward Jenner (1749-1823), the vaccine pioneer, administering a vaccination against cowpox to James Phipps in 1796, which subsequently protected him from contracting smallpox...

Daily life in medieval Japan (1185-1606 CE) was, for most people, the age-old struggle to put food on the table, build a family, stay healthy, and try to enjoy the finer things in life whenever possible. The upper classes had better and more...

Although much of ancient Roman life revolved around negotium (work and business), there was also time available for otium (leisure). Ranging from swimming to playing board games to attending theatre performances, athletics and forms of entertainment...

The civil service examinations of Imperial China allowed the state to find the best candidates to staff the vast bureaucracy that governed China from the Han Dynasty onwards (206 BCE - 220 CE). The exams were a means for a young male of any...