Potato: Did you mean...?

Frederick II of Prussia (1712-1786), better known as Frederick the Great, was one of the most consequential rulers of 18th-century Europe. A scion of the House of Hohenzollern, he came to power in 1740 at the age of 28 and, over the course...

Papyrus is a plant (cyperus papyrus) which once grew in abundance, primarily in the wilds of the Egyptian Delta but also elsewhere in the Nile River Valley, but is now quite rare. Papyrus buds opened from a horizontal root growing in shallow...

The Paris Peace Conference, held from January 1919 to January 1920 and attended by the victorious Allied powers, debated and agreed the terms of the peace settlement that formally ended the First World War (1914-18). As four empires were...

Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1552-1618 CE) was an English courtier, soldier, mariner, explorer, and historian. A one-time favourite of his queen, Elizabeth I of England (r. 1558-1603 CE), Raleigh organised three expeditions to form a colony on...

The Derrynaflan Hoard is a collection of Irish altar vessels dating between the 8th and 9th centuries CE. Discovered on the island of Derrynaflan, in the townland of Lurgoe, Co. Tipperary in 1980 CE, the pieces are now on display at the National...

Patrick R. Cleburne (1828-1864) was an Irish-born Confederate general during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Having immigrated to Arkansas in 1850, Cleburne fell in love with his adopted state and volunteered to fight for the Confederate...

Food and drink in the Elizabethan era was remarkably diverse with much more meat and many more varieties of it being eaten by those who could afford it than is the case today. Storage of food was still a problem and so fresh produce was grown...

The Inca empire controlled four climate zones and, consequently, their agricultural produce was diverse. Ancient Andean people were largely vegetarian, supplementing their diet with camelid meat and seafood if they could. The Incas developed...

Polynesian navigation of the Pacific Ocean and its settlement began thousands of years ago. The inhabitants of the Pacific islands had been voyaging across vast expanses of ocean water sailing in double canoes or outriggers using nothing...

The First World War (1914-18) saw fighting on an unprecedented scale but also involved civilians as never before. For the first time, people hundreds of miles from the fighting front were vulnerable to air attacks. The war at sea dramatically...