Ethiopia: Did you mean...?

Monastery of Debre Libanos founded by Saint Tekla Haymanot in 1284. Photo by Walter Mittelholzer, published in his book Abessinienflug (Trip to Abysinnia), 1934. ETH Library, Zürich.

The government of ancient Persia was based on an efficient bureaucracy which combined the centralization of power with the decentralization of administration. The Achaemenid Empire (c. 550-330 BCE) founded by Cyrus the...

From the dawn of our species to the present day, stone-made artefacts are the dominant form of material remains that have survived to today concerning human technology. The term “Stone Age” was coined in the late 19th century CE by...

The Palaeolithic ('Old Stone Age') makes up the earliest chunk of the Stone Age – the large swathe of time during which hominins used stone to make tools – and ranges from the first known tool use roughly 2,6 million years ago to...

The Scramble for Africa describes the competition between European imperial powers to first control trade and then territory in Africa in the final two decades of the 19th century. The reasons...

Prince Henry the Navigator (aka Infante Dom Henrique, 1394-1460) was a Portuguese prince who famously helped capture the North African city of Ceuta, sponsored voyages of exploration with the aim of building colonies in...

The Berlin Conference, also known as the Berlin West Africa Conference, was held between November 1884 and February 1885. Imperial powers, notably Great Britain, France, Belgium...

Perseus is one of the greatest and oldest pan-Hellenic heroes of Greek mythology. Perseus famously killed the dreaded Medusa, a Gorgon with snakes as hair and whose stare turned men to stone. Perseus also carried out the daring rescue...

Helen of Troy (sometimes called Helen of Sparta) is a figure from Greek mythology whose elopement with (or abduction by) the Trojan prince Paris sparked off the Trojan War. Helen was the wife of Menelaus, the king of Sparta, and...

Muhammad ibn Abdullah (l. 570-632 CE) is venerated today as the Prophet of Islam and the “seal of Prophets” by his followers – the Muslims. Muslims believe that Muhammad was the last – hence the “seal” – of many prophets before...