Relics: Did you mean...?

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns organised by popes and Christian western powers to take Jerusalem and the Holy Land back from Muslim control and then defend those gains. There were eight major official crusades between 1095...

The Byzantine Empire existed from 330 to 1453. It is often called the Eastern Roman Empire or simply Byzantium. The Byzantine capital was founded at Constantinople by Constantine I (r. 306-337). The Byzantine Empire varied in size over the...

Built in the seventh century BCE, the ancient city of Byzantium proved to be a valuable city for both the Greeks and Romans. Because it lay on the European side of the Strait of Bosporus, the Emperor Constantine understood its strategic importance...

RMS Lusitania was a British transatlantic liner infamously sunk by a German U-boat on 7 May 1915 during the First World War (1914-18). Struck off the coast of southern Ireland, the ship sank in less than 20 minutes, and nearly 1,200 passengers...

The Ark of the Covenant refers to the box-like container that held the tablets of the Law received by Moses on Mount Sinai. Tradition claimed that it contained two stone tablets, carved by God, listing the first ten commandments given to...

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...

In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas is a Trojan prince and the legendary founder of the Romans. He is the son of Anchises, a member of the Trojan royal family, and the goddess Aphrodite/Venus. Aeneas was one of the few Trojan heroes who escaped...

The English Reformation began with Henry VIII of England (r. 1509-1547 CE) and continued in stages over the rest of the 16th century CE. The process witnessed the break away from the Catholic Church headed by the Pope in Rome. The Protestant...

Alexandria is a port city on the Mediterranean Sea in northern Egypt founded in 331 BCE by Alexander the Great. It was the site of the Pharos (lighthouse), one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and the legendary Library of Alexandria...

The Second Crusade (1147-1149) was a military campaign organised by the Pope and European nobles to recapture the city of Edessa in Mesopotamia which had fallen in 1144 to the Muslim Seljuk Turks. Despite an army of 60,000 and the presence...