Disease: Did you mean...?

In ancient Egypt, if a woman were having difficulty conceiving a child, she might spend an evening in a Bes Chamber (also known as an incubation chamber) located within a temple. Bes was the god of childbirth, sexuality...

St. Anthony's Fire (SAF) is an illness brought on by the ingestion of fungus-contaminated rye grain causing ergot poisoning (ergotism). The disease's common name derives from the medieval Benedictine monks dedicated to that...

The Pilgrim-Wampanoag Peace Treaty is the document drafted and signed on 22 March 1621 CE between governor John Carver (l. 1584-1621 CE) of the Plymouth Colony and the sachem (chief) Ousamequin (better known by his...

Western astrology refers to a form of divination based on the motion of astronomical objects such as stars or planets. The belief that astronomical objects are divine or influence events on Earth is found in many cultures, but...

The outbreak of plague in Europe between 1347-1352 – known as the Black Death – completely changed the world of medieval Europe. Severe depopulation upset the socio-economic feudal system of the time but the experience...

A famous story from Greece relates how a young woman named Agnodice wished to become a doctor in Athens but found this forbidden. In fact, a woman practicing medicine in Athens in the 4th century BCE faced the death...

Since the return to democracy in Chile in 1990 CE, the new governments have dealt with one of the great historical debts of the Chilean state, its relationship with the indigenous peoples. These peoples have...

At the height of the COVID-19 lockdown in October 2020, Brown University hosted the Pandemics and Plagues in Antiquity webinar lecture series. Kyle Harper, Professor of Classics at the University...

Vasco da Gama (c. 1469-1524) was a Portuguese navigator who, in 1497-9, sailed around the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa and arrived at Calicut (now Kozhikode) on the south-west coast of India. This was the first direct voyage...

The Army of Northern Virginia was the main field army of the Confederate States in the eastern theater of the American Civil War (1861-1865). Famously led by General Robert E. Lee for most of its existence...