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James III of Scotland reigned as king from 1460 to 1488. He succeeded his father James II of Scotland (r. 1437-1460) at the age of eight, which led to some nobles taking advantage of the king's minority and even abducting him. James was also...

Louis XIV (1638-1715) reigned as King of France from 1643 to 1715. Known as Le Roi Soleil ('the Sun King'), he fervently believed in the concept of the 'divine right' of kings and is remembered for ruling as an absolute monarch. His 72-year...

A 1619 portrait by Michiel Jansz of Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg (l.1599-1655) who married the king of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus (r. 1611-1632) in 1620. (Gripsholm Castle, Södermanland, Sweden)

The alliance system in Europe was one of the causes of the First World War (1914-18), although it did not make war inevitable. In the first decade of the 20th century, the Triple Entente powers of Great Britain, France, and Russia stood against...

Norse cosmology divided the universe into nine realms. The center of the universe was the great world-tree Yggdrasil and the nine realms either spread out from the tree or existed in levels stretching from the roots down and, marginally...

West Africa was one of the world's greatest producers of gold in the Middle Ages. Trade in the metal went back to antiquity but when the camel caravans of the Sahara linked North Africa to the savannah interior, the trade really took off...

Women scientists during the Scientific Revolution (1500-1700) were few in number because male-dominated educational institutions, as well as scientific societies and academies, barred women entry, meaning that few had the education or opportunity...

The production of steel during the British Industrial Revolution became cheaper and more reliable thanks to the Bessemer converter, a type of blast furnace that removed undesirable impurities from pig iron. The superior strength and durability...

The Danish conquest of England was not a singular event, but a series of large Viking invasions of England between 1013 and 1016, which eventually overthrew the native English dynasty. As a result, four kings from the House of Denmark ruled...

The stories that make up what is known today as Norse mythology once informed the religious beliefs of the people of regions including Scandinavia and Iceland. To the Norse, the world was an enchanted place of gods, spirits, and other entities...