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While there have been pirates and privateers of all nationalities, some Dutch mariners were particularly troublesome in the early modern period, targeting, in particular, the Spanish Main but also shipping in the eastern Atlantic and the...

The alliance system in Europe was one of the causes of the First World War (1914-18), although it did not make war inevitable. In the first decade of the 20th century, the Triple Entente powers of Great Britain, France, and Russia stood against...

Transatlantic Zeppelins carried passengers in relative luxury between Germany and New York or Rio de Janeiro during the 1920s and 1930s. The airships Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg crossed the Atlantic in two or three days, faster than contemporary...

The pre-First World War arms race between Britain and Germany was fuelled by Britain's desire to protect its empire, Germany's desire to build an empire, and a general atmosphere of suspicion amongst the great powers, which led to the formation...

The age of antibiotics began in September 1928, with the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming (1881-1955), then a professor of bacteriology at St. Mary's Hospital in London. Previously there were no effective treatments against a...

The Suez Canal in Egypt, which links the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, was taken over by the British in 1882 and was only reluctantly released 75 years later. The seizure in the 19th century caused an international furore every bit as damaging...

The Arch of Titus is a Roman Triumphal Arch which was erected by Domitian in c. 81 CE at the foot of the Palatine hill on the Via Sacra in the Forum Romanum, Rome. It commemorates the victories of his father Vespasian and brother Titus in...

The Portuguese first took an interest in East Africa from the beginning of the 16th century as their empire spread eastwards across the Indian Ocean. Trade in the region was already well-established and carried out by Africans, Indians, and...

Zeppelin airships were used by Germany to attack its enemies on all fronts during the First World War (1914-18). Bombing raids, usually conducted at night, targeted key infrastructure like railways and docks, dropping both explosive and incendiary...

The sea dogs, as they were disparagingly called by the Spanish authorities, were privateers who, with the consent and sometimes financial support of Elizabeth I of England (r. 1558-1603 CE), attacked and plundered Spanish colonial settlements...