Libya: Did you mean...?

Olives and olive oil were not only an important component of the ancient Mediterranean diet but also one of the most successful industries in antiquity. Cultivation of the olive spread with Phoenician and Greek colonization from Asia Minor...

History (from the Greek ἱστορία, meaning 'a learning or knowing by inquiry') can be broadly taken to indicate the past in general but is usually defined as the study of the past from the point at which there were written sources onwards...

The Second Battle of El Alamein (Oct-Nov 1942) was a major battle in North Africa during the Western Desert Campaigns of the Second World War (1939-45). The British Eighth Army led by General Bernard Montgomery (1887-1976) won a decisive...

The estimated expanse of the Achaemenid Empire at its height c. 500 BCE was two million square miles. Most of this territory was conquered by Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Empire, who reigned from 559 to 530 BCE, the fourth king in...

The silphium plant of Cyrene, valued as a seasoning, aromatic, and for its medicinal properties, is referenced by several notable ancient writers, but two of the best-known descriptions come from Theophrastus (l. c. 371 to c. 287 BCE) and...

The Italian Colonial Empire emerged during the period of New Imperialism (late 19th–early 20th centuries) as the recently unified Kingdom of Italy sought to secure its place among the European great powers. Motivated by a combination of economic...

A photo of the leader of fascist Italy Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) at the gates of Tripoli, Libya, raising the "sword of Islam" and proclaiming himself the "protector of Islam" (20th of May 1937). The photo was retouched: the groom holding...

Umar al-Mukhtar (1858-1931), a leader of the resistance to the Italian colonisation of Libya, arrested and transferred to the Palazzo del Littorio in Benghazi to be tried on 15 September 1931.

This prehistoric Saharan rock carving from Wadi Mathendous in the Fezzan, Libya depicts two cats fighting. Similar petroglyphs can be found in rock escarpments throughout the Sahara, providing valuable clues to the people who inhabited and...

A photograph showing Free French troops digging an artillery emplacement at Bir Hakeim, Libya prior to the battle of Gazala in June 1942. (Imperial War Museums)