The fly: Did you mean...?

The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare (c. 1564-1616), written in 1610 or 1611, and first performed for the court of James I of England (r. 1603-1625) on 2 November 1611. Believed to be the last play...

Chocolate was one of the most desired foods of Mesoamerica and was consumed by the Olmec, Maya, and Aztec civilizations, amongst others. Its consumption even spread via trade routes to other parts of the Americas including...

Lear Green (circa 1839-1860) was an enslaved African American woman in Baltimore, Maryland, who had herself shipped in a chest to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to escape slavery. Her story is frequently compared...

Western Civilization is forever indebted to the people of ancient Greece and Rome. Among the numerous contributions these societies made are in the fields of art, literature and philosophy; however, perhaps their greatest gift...

Ben Jonson (1572-1637) was an English poet, playwright, and literary critic, whose influence on English Renaissance literature during the Jacobean Era (1603-1625) has been regarded as second...

Diomedes is the king of Argos and a hero in Greek mythology. He was one of the leading warriors in the Trojan War, with the reputation of being gifted and strong in combat. He contributed 80 ships to the Greek forces in the Trojan War...

Tsar Nicholas II (reign 1894-1917) was the last of the Romanov emperors, murdered along with his family during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution in 1917. Insisting on maintaining as far as possible the autocratic...

The Compromise of 1850 was a series of five bills passed by the US Congress in September 1850 to diffuse a sectional crisis brewing between the 'free states' of the North and the 'slave states' of the South. The crisis was sparked...

The Aeneid, written by the Roman poet Virgil (70-19 BCE), is a twelve-book-long epic poem that describes the early mythology of the founding of Rome. The eponymous hero Aeneas, a Trojan prince and son of Venus, faces trials and tribulations...

John Tyler (1790-1862) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the tenth president of the United States. His presidency was a tumultuous one – initially elected as vice president, he came to office...