Western sahara: Did you mean...?

Gordium was the capital of ancient Phrygia, modern Yassihüyük. It is situated on the place where the ancient Royal road between Lydia and Assyria/Babylonia crosses the river Sangarius, which flows from central Anatolia to the Black Sea...

Justinian II “the Slit-nosed” ruled as emperor of the Byzantine Empire in two spells: from 685 to 695 CE and then again from 705 to 711 CE. It was after his first reign and prior to his exile that his nose was cut off by the usurper...

Mongke Khan was ruler of the Mongol Empire (1206-1368 CE) from 1251 to 1259 CE. As the third Great Khan or 'universal ruler' of the Mongols, Mongke would oversee administrative reforms that continued to centralise government and ensure...

The government of ancient Persia was based on an efficient bureaucracy which combined the centralization of power with the decentralization of administration. The Achaemenid Empire (c. 550-330 BCE) founded by Cyrus the...

Caliphate (“Khilafat” in Arabic) was a semi-religious political system of governance in Islam, in which the territories of the Islamic empire in the Middle East and North Africa and the people within were ruled by a supreme...

The Cimbri were a tribe who lived in northern Jutland during the Roman era. Their ethnicity is enigmatic; scholars generally believe that the Cimbri were Germans, though others maintain that they were Celts. The late 2nd-century BCE migration...

The French Revolution (1789-1799) was a period of major societal and political upheaval in France. It witnessed the collapse of the monarchy, the establishment of the First French Republic, and culminated in the rise of Napoleon...

Henry Every (b. 1653), also known as Henry Avery, Benjamin Bridgeman, ‘Long Ben’ and (incorrectly) John Avery, was one of the most savage and successful pirates in the Golden Age of Piracy. Capturing a treasure ship of the Mughal...

Matthew Flinders (1774-1814) was an English navigator and hydrographer. He was the first person to map the coastal outline of Australia in 1801-1803, following his circumnavigation of the 7.692 million square kilometres (2.96...

The Storming of the Bastille was a decisive moment in the early months of the French Revolution (1789-1799). On 14 July 1789, the Bastille, a fortress and political prison symbolizing the oppressiveness of France’s Ancien...