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Interview
Interview: Living in Silverado: Secret Jews in the Silver Mining Towns of Colonial Mexico
Professor Emeritus David Gitlitz is one of the world’s leading experts on Jewish-Catholic interactions in Iberia and the Americas. While initially drawn to the literature of the Spanish Golden Age as a student at Oberlin and Harvard, the...

Article
First Battle of El Alamein
The First Battle of El Alamein (1-27 July 1942) was a series of encounters during the Second World War (1939-1945) in Egypt between Allied and Axis forces. The battle, focussed around the El Alamein defensive line, ended without a decisive...

Article
First Battle of Newbury
The First Battle of Newbury on 20 September 1643 was a major engagement between Royalist and Parliamentarian armies during the English Civil Wars (1642-1651). The Royalist forces loyal to Charles I of England (r. 1625-1649) were led by Prince...

Definition
Martyr
A martyr is someone who voluntarily dies for either a religious or secular cause. The word originates from "witness" in Greek and is related to a witness in court testifying to one's beliefs or truth, despite the risk involved. As such, it...

Video
Ten Minute History - The Dutch Revolt (Short Documentary)
This episode of Ten Minute History (like a documentary, only shorter) covers the rise of Calvinism in the Spanish Seventeen Provinces and the subsequent outbreak of the Dutch Revolt/Eighty Years' War. William the Silent led the United Provinces'...

Definition
Zealots
The Zealots were a group of Jews who began to emerge as a religious/political movement around the beginning of the 1st century CE. They strongly opposed Roman rule and turned on everyone, including other Jews, who cooperated with Rome. A...

Definition
Ark of the Covenant
The Ark of the Covenant refers to the box-like container that held the tablets of the Law received by Moses on Mount Sinai. Tradition claimed that it contained two stone tablets, carved by God, listing the first ten commandments given to...

Article
Christian Antisemitism in the Middle Ages & during the Reformation
Antisemitism is a modern term that describes prejudice and hostility to Jews and Judaism. The origins of Christian antisemitism in the gospels are based on the story of a 1st-century itinerant Jewish preacher, Jesus of Nazareth, in the Roman...

Definition
Essenes
The Essenes were a Jewish sect that emerged in the 2nd century BCE and established the community at Qumran. They emphasized ritual purity, copied books of the Jewish Scriptures, and wrote commentaries on the Books of the Prophets. They believed...

Article
Ten Great Slave Revolts in Colonial America and the United States
There were 250-311 slave revolts in Colonial America and the United States between c. 1663 and c. 1860 as defined by scholar Herbert Aptheker (l. 1915-2003), but, almost certainly, many more that were not reported, as news of an uprising...