Latin: Did you mean...?

The Pull of the Monroe Magnet, illustration by Udo J. Keppler, 1913. In this cartoon depiction of the Monroe Doctrine, a colossal Uncle Sam, a national personification of the United States, forcibly draws toward himself figures representing...

Johannes Gutenberg (l. c. 1398-1468) was the inventor of the printing press (c. 1450) who seems to have developed the device from wine and oil presses of the time. Gutenberg’s printing press not only revolutionized book making but literally...

Hildegard of Bingen (also known as Hildegarde von Bingen, l. 1098-1179) was a Christian mystic, Benedictine abbess, and polymath proficient in philosophy, musical composition, herbology, medieval literature, cosmology, medicine, biology...

The Counter-Reformation (also known as the Catholic Reformation, 1545 to c. 1700) was the Catholic Church's response to the Protestant Reformation (1517-1648). It is usually dated from the Council of Trent in 1545 to the end of the Great...

Alchemy is an ancient practice aimed at recreating precious substances using recipes and transformative materials such as the philosopher's stone. Alchemists believed that materials like gold, silver, gems, and purple dye could be recreated...

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) was an Italian poet and politician most famous for his Divine Comedy (c. 1319) where he descends through Hell, climbs Purgatory, and arrives at the illumination of Paradise. Dante meets many historical characters...

Saladin (1137-93) was the Muslim Sultan of Egypt and Syria (r. 1174-1193) who shocked the western world by defeating an army of the Christian Crusader states at the Battle of Hattin and then capturing Jerusalem in 1187. Saladin all but destroyed...

The Book of Kells (c. 800) is an illuminated manuscript of the four gospels of the Christian New Testament, currently housed at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. The work is the most famous of the medieval illuminated manuscripts for the...

Ivar the Boneless (Old Norse Ívarr hinn Beinlausi) is known from Old Norse and medieval Latin sources as the son of the legendary Viking king Ragnar Lothbrok, in these stories raiding alongside his father and brothers and becoming the ruler...

Excalibur is the sword of King Arthur in Sir Thomas Malory's iconic work Le Morte D'Arthur published in in 1485 CE. The sword was originally introduced in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain (1136 CE) as Caliburnus (or...