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The Jomon Period is the earliest historical era of Japanese history which began around 14500 BCE, coinciding with the Neolithic Period in Europe and Asia, and ended around 300 BCE when the Yayoi Period began. The name Jomon, meaning 'cord...

Valhalla ("Hall of the Slain") is the afterlife realm in Norse mythology for fallen heroes selected by Odin’s Valkyrie to become members of the army that will fight against the forces of chaos at Ragnarök. The concept of Odin’s Hall seems...

Ryujin (aka Ryu-o) is the dragon king, sea god, and master of serpents in Japanese mythology. With his magic jewels he is responsible for the tides, and he represents both the perils and bounty of the sea and so was especially relevant to...

Orpheus is a figure from ancient Greek mythology, most famous for his virtuoso ability in playing the lyre or kithara. His music could charm the wild animals of the forest, and even streams would pause and trees bend a little closer to hear...

Cynisca of Sparta (b. c. 440 BCE) was a Spartan royal princess who became the first female Olympic champion. Defying the traditional role of women in ancient Greece, she competed in the Olympic Games alongside the men and won. Her triumph...

The Tarascan civilization (aka the Purépecha, after their language) dominated western Mexico and built an empire that would bring it into direct conflict with that other great Mesoamerican civilization of the Post-classic period, the Aztecs...

The Wounded Knee Massacre of 29 December 1890 was the slaughter of over 250 Native Americans, mostly of the Miniconjou people of the Lakota Sioux nation, by the US military at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota. Although the US government defined...

Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) was a planter, soldier, and politician from Mississippi, who served as the first and only president of the Confederate States during the American Civil War (1861-1865). A veteran of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848...

Captain Benjamin Hornigold was a British pirate active in the Caribbean and North Atlantic from 1716 to 1717. Hornigold’s greatest claim to fame (or infamy) is that he taught the pirating ropes to Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard (d. 1718). Giving...

Alexander Selkirk (or Selcraig, 1676-1721) was a Scotsman famously marooned for four years and four months on a desert island in the Pacific Ocean until his rescue by a passing British ship in February 1709. His story inspired the title character...