Isidore of seville: Did you mean...?

From the 16th to 18th centuries, two treasure fleets sailed each year, one to Mexico and the other to Central America, then part of the Spanish Empire. There they collected precious eastern goods and the riches of the Americas...

Cochineal is a brilliant red dye extracted from the crushed bodies of parasitic insects which prey on cacti in the warmer parts of the Americas. The dye was an important part of trade in ancient Mesoamerica and South America and throughout...

Taifas ("factions" or "camps") were small independent Muslim kingdoms and principalities that emerged after the fall of hegemonic Muslim caliphates in al-Andalus – the Muslim-controlled part of the Iberian peninsula – during the High...

Money may take many forms, from the digital code of cryptocurrency to the woodpecker scalps favoured in early California. People have also used cattle, cacao beans, cowrie shells, chewing gum, grain...

Engraving depicting the execution of King Louis XVI of France by guillotine on 21 January 1793, in the Place de la Revolution, Paris. The executioner displays his severed head to the crowd. Engraving by Isidore Stanislas...

The opening of the Estates-General of 1789, on 5 May, in the Salle des Menus Plaisirs in Versailles, engraving by Isidore-Stanislas Helman, 1789. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

Festival of the Federation (14 July 1790) on the Champ de Mars, from a perspective close to the king's pavilion, engraving by Isidore Stanislas Helman, after a painting by Charles Monnet, 1790. Bibliothèque nationale...

Glazed blue ceramic tiles or azulejos are everywhere in Portugal. They decorate the winding streets of the capital, Lisbon. They cover the walls of train stations, restaurants, bars, public murals, and fountains...

Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (1758-1794) was a French lawyer who became one of the primary leaders of the French Revolution (1789-1799). From his initial rise to stardom in the Jacobin Club, Robespierre...

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) was a French neo-impressionist painter whose vivid paintings with their flat, bold colours and use of mystical and ambiguous symbols revolutionised art. Never quite gaining success in his own...