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Contact between Korea and China goes back to mythology and prehistory. Trade developed from the Bronze and Iron Ages with raw materials and manufactured goods going in both directions for centuries thereafter. In...

The Mongol Empire accepted and promoted many other cultures. Historians often talk about cultural exchange across Asia in the Mongol Empire as something that was just facilitated by peace and stability across such a huge...

Christianity arrived in Japan in 1549 when Jesuits first set foot in Kagoshima. Initial attempts to spread the religion were met with confusion; however, through employing various methods, they began to see success. However...

The monastic orders of the Middle Ages developed from the desire to live a spiritual life without the distractions of the world. Men and women who took religious vows were seeking a purity of experience they found...

The Celtic languages form a branch of the Indo-European (IE) language family. They derive from Proto-Celtic and are divided into Continental Celtic languages (Lepontic, Gaulish, Galatian, Noric, Celtiberian...

A small carved figurine sits high on a grand multi-tiered pedestal in a magnificent wat (temple) in Bangkok, Thailand. It has been sitting there since 1784 CE and was originally thought to be made of emerald. Hundreds...

Sometime in 1153 or 1154, the German nun Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) wrote a letter to the elderly Pope Anastasius IV (1073-1154). Her words were scathing. She called the pope tired and criticized...

Monasticism, that is individuals devoting themselves to an ascetic life in a monastery for devotional purposes, was an ever-present feature of the Byzantine empire. Monasteries became powerful landowners and a voice to be...

The samurai (also bushi) were a class of warriors that arose in the 10th century in Japan and which performed military service until the 19th century. Elite and highly-trained soldiers adept at using both the bow and sword, the samurai...

The Mauryan Empire (322 BCE - 185 BCE) supplanted the earlier Magadha Kingdom to assume power over large tracts of eastern and northern India. At its height, the empire stretched over parts of modern Iran and almost the entire...