City walls: Did you mean...?

A detail of the roof of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, part of the Temple of Heaven in the Forbidden City, Beijing. The temple and the Forbidden City were first built in the reign of Yongle Emperor of the Ming...

The reign of Assyrian king Sennacherib (705-681 BCE) was chiefly characterized by his difficulties with Babylon. Throughout the history of the Assyrian Empire, Babylon had caused problems and had even...

Kapilavastu (“Place of Kapila”) is the name of the city where Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha, l. c. 563-483 BCE) grew up and lived for the first 29 years of his life before leaving to pursue the spiritual path which led to his enlightenment...

Alaric I (r. 394-410 CE) was a Gothic military commander who is famous for sacking Rome in 410 CE, which was the first time the city had been sacked in over 800 years. Although little of his family is known, we do know that he became...

Jordan is a country in the Near East bordered by Israel, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. The country's name comes from the Arabic Al Urdun, referencing a fortified site but also meaning "prominence", though various sources also...

Herod the Great was the king of Judea from 37-4 BCE. As a client king of Rome, Herod's moniker as "Great" was due more to his grand building program throughout the eastern Mediterranean world. Herod's building program...

The siege of Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) began during Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the USSR launched by the leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), during the Second World War (1939-45). The siege or blockade...

Erebuni was an Urartian fortress and city, located between the Nor Aresh District and the Vardahsen District on the outskirts of present-day Yerevan, Armenia, and situated on top of Arin Berd hill. In Armenian, the fortress and archaeological...

Knossos (pronounced Kuh-nuh-SOS) is the ancient Minoan palace and surrounding city on the island of Crete, sung of by Homer in his Odyssey: “Among their cities is the great city of Cnosus, where Minos reigned when nine years old, he...

The Chauvet Cave (also known as the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave) is a Palaeolithic cave situated near Vallon-Pont-d'Arc in the Ardèche region of southern France that houses impeccably preserved, exquisite examples of prehistoric art...