Clay tablet: Did you mean...?

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) was an American statesman and diplomat who served as the sixth president of the United States (1825-1829). The son of a former president, Adams had a long and distinguished political career both before and after...

The Compromise of 1850 was a series of five bills passed by the US Congress in September 1850 to diffuse a sectional crisis brewing between the 'free states' of the North and the 'slave states' of the South. The crisis was sparked by a disagreement...

Mesopotamian education was invented by the Sumerians following the creation of writing c. 3500 BCE. The earliest schools were attached to temples but later established in separate buildings in which the scribes of ancient Mesopotamia learned...

Portrait of a young Henry Clay, oil on canvas by Charles Bird King, 1821. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

The Enuma Elish (also known as The Seven Tablets of Creation) is the Babylonian creation myth whose title is derived from the opening lines of the piece, "When on High". The myth tells the story of the great god Marduk's victory over the...

The Petticoat affair, also called the Eaton affair, was a political scandal that rocked Washington, D.C., from 1829 to 1831, during the early years of Andrew Jackson's presidency. Revolving around the rumored sexual promiscuity of Peggy Eaton...

The Library of Ashurbanipal (7th century BCE) is the oldest known systematically organized library in the world, established in Nineveh by the Neo-Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (r. 668-627 BCE) to preserve the history and culture of Mesopotamia...

This clay document tells us how Nabonidus (the last king of Babylon) built and reconstructed the temple of Sin, the moon God, at Ur. It also mentions a prayer for the king and Beslshazzar, his son. From Ur, neo-Babylonian era, 555-539 BCE...

Henry Clay, toward the end of his long congressional career, photo by Julian Vannerson or Montgomery P. Simons, 1848.

Death of Henry Clay Jr., son of the 'Great Compromiser', at the Battle of Buena Vista. By N. Currier, 1847. Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University.