Francis crick: Did you mean...?

The Portuguese colonised Malacca (modern Melaka) on the southwest coast of the Malay peninsula from 1511 and kept it until 1641 when the Dutch took over. The port controlled the Malay Straits which lead from the Indian Ocean...

Giotto di Bondone (b. 1267 or 1277 - d. 1337 CE), usually referred to as simply Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect whose work was hugely influential in the history of Western art. Giotto is most famous today for the cycle of...

Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (1459-1519), belonged to the imperial House of Habsburg, and the imperial electors made him King of the Romans in 1486 during his father's lifetime, thus establishing...

William the Silent (l. 1533-1584, also known as William of Orange) was the leader of the Dutch Revolt (the Eighty Years' War) in the Netherlands; first politically (between 1559-1568) then militarily (between 1568-1584). He...

Marguerite de Navarre (l. 1492-1549) was a writer, philosopher, diplomat, and Queen of Navarre, sister of King Francois I (Francis I of France, r. 1515-1547), mother of Jeanne d’Albret (l. 1528-1572) and grandmother of Henry...

Edward 'Ned' Low was an English pirate active in the Caribbean and eastern Atlantic from 1721 to 1724 during the Golden Age of Piracy (1690-1730). Probably the most sadistic and cruelest of all pirate captains, Low was said to have...

Mary II of England (r. 1689-1694) ruled jointly with her husband William III of England (r. 1689-1702) until her death from smallpox. While William suffered a xenophobic reaction to his rule, Mary represented the continuity...

Anne reigned as Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1702 and then, following the 1707 Act of Union, over a united kingdom as Queen of Great Britain until her death in 1714. The last of the Stuart monarchs, Anne's...

The Château de Chenonceau, picturesquely located astride the river Cher, in the Loire Valley town of Chenonceaux, France is a magnificent Renaissance-style building also known as le "Château des Dames" (the Ladies' Castle...

James V of Scotland ruled as king from 1513 to 1542. He succeeded his father James IV of Scotland (r. 1488-1513), one of the country's most popular Stuart kings, but as he was still a child, the early part of his reign was...