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Treaty of Tordesillas
The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas (Tordesilhas) was an agreement between the monarchs of Spain and Portugal to divide the world between them into two spheres of influence. The imaginary dividing line ran down the centre of the Atlantic Ocean...
Definition
Pawnee
The Pawnee are a Native American nation of the Plains Indians culture originally from the region of modern Nebraska. Prior to the European colonization of the Americas, they were among the most powerful of the Plains Indian tribes numbering...
Article
How the World Was Made: A Cherokee Creation Story
How the World Was Made is a creation story of the Cherokee nation, which, like many such tales of the Native peoples of North America, begins with a world covered by water from which dry land is formed and natural order created by beings...
Article
Eyes on the East: Chronicles of the Indian Ocean Spice Trade
As the 15th century ended, Europeans were still mostly in the dark about the Eastern world. Early travelers like Marco Polo had given the West tidbits of information, but these accounts were too highly colored and fragmentary to provide a...
Article
Making the Sacred Bundle
Making the Sacred Bundle is an origin story of the medicine bag from the Pawnee nation. A medicine bag is a pouch or bundle containing items of resonant spiritual power for an individual or the tribal community that symbolize and maintain...
Image
As-Saffah Being Proclaimed Caliph
Folio from a manuscript of the Tarikhnama (Persian: "Book of History") by Muhammad Bal'ami (10th Century CE). The folio depicts As-Saffah (r. 750 - 754 CE), founder of the Abbasid Caliphate, being proclaimed caliph. Likely made in Iraq...
Image
Battle of Siffin
Illustration of the Battle of Siffin (657 CE), from a 14th-century manuscript of the Tarikh-i Bal'ami.
Definition
Portuguese Cochin
Cochin, located on the southwest coast of India, was a Portuguese colony from 1503 to 1663. Known to the Portuguese as Cochim, it was one of several important cities on India’s Malabar Coast and a great trade centre for spices like pepper...
Definition
Portuguese Goa
Goa, located on the west coast of India, was a Portuguese colony from 1510 to 1961. The small coastal area was conquered by Afonso de Albuquerque (c. 1453-1515) and became an important trade hub for the Eastern spice trade. Goa was the capital...
Definition
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea is an eyewitness account of ancient travel to Africa and India via the Red Sea written by an unknown Greek-speaking Egyptian author in the 1st century CE. In this detailed account, the conditions of the...