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The Negative Confession (also known as The Declaration of Innocence) is a list of 42 sins which the soul of the deceased can honestly say it has never committed when it stands in judgment in the afterlife. The soul would recite these in the...

Baba Yaga (Baba Jaga) is a witch or ogress from Slavic folklore who lives in a magical hut in the forest and either helps, imprisons, or eats people (usually children). She is among the most famous figures from Slavic folklore as guardian...

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was an English philosopher who famously summarised his pessimistic view of human nature in his greatest work, Leviathan, published in 1651. Hobbes believed that the life of humanity in the state of nature is short...

The Goths were a Germanic tribe who are frequently referenced for their part in the fall of the Roman Empire and their subsequent rise to power in the region of northern Europe, initially in Italy. Prior to their contact with Rome they must...

The Council of Trent (1545-1563) was a meeting of Catholic clerics convened by Pope Paul III (served 1534-1549) in response to the Protestant Reformation. In three separate sessions, the council reaffirmed the authority of the Catholic Church...

Sushruta (c. 7th or 6th century BCE) was a physician in ancient India known today as the “Father of Indian Medicine” and “Father of Plastic Surgery” for inventing and developing surgical procedures. His work on the subject, the Sushruta Samhita...

The Secret History of the Mongols is a chronicle written in the 13th century CE (with some later additions) and is the most important and oldest medieval Mongolian text. The book covers the origins of the Mongol people, the rise to power...

The Upanishads are the philosophical-religious texts of Hinduism (also known as Sanatan Dharma meaning “Eternal Order” or “Eternal Path”) which develop and explain the fundamental tenets of the religion. The name is translated as to “sit...

The Florentine Codex is an encyclopedic accounting of life in 16th-century Mexico and an invaluable resource for understanding the exchange between European and Indigenous cultures during the Spanish conquest. Emerging from a time of societal...

The Puritans were English Protestant Christians, primarily active in the 16th-18th centuries CE, who claimed the Anglican Church had not distanced itself sufficiently from Catholicism and sought to 'purify' it of Catholic practices. The term...