Search Results: Board games

This article documents and elaborates on the many critical behind-the-scenes events, unknown to the public, before the history leaves us. The author The bulk of the “the land between the two rivers” lies in what we call today the...

The civil service examinations of Imperial China allowed the state to find the best candidates to staff the vast bureaucracy that governed China from the Han Dynasty onwards (206 BCE - 220 CE). The exams were a means for a young male of any...

The ancient Olympic Games were a sporting event held every four years at the sacred site of Olympia, in the western Peloponnese, in honour of Zeus, the supreme god of the Greek religion. The games, held from 776 BCE to 393 CE, involved participants...

The Conway Cabal was a movement undertaken by American military officers and political leaders to remove General George Washington from command of the Continental Army during the winter of 1777-78. These Patriot leaders had lost confidence...

In the ancient Greek world, the word stadium or stadion referred to a measurement of distance, a foot-race, and the place where the race was held and observed by spectators. The Great Games Greek sporting events were closely connected...

The Gymnasium was a Greek building originally used for athletic activities but which came, over time, to be used also as a place of study and philosophical discussion. In the Hellenistic Period, gymnasia became highly standardized both in...

John Harrison (1693-1776) invented an accurate marine chronometer after several decades of research and development. While the pendulum clock had already been invented in the 17th century, a clock that could withstand the vagaries of the...

The British East India Company (1600-1874) was the largest and most successful private enterprise ever created. All-powerful wherever it colonised, the EIC's use of its own private army and increasing territorial control, particularly in...

Pherenike (l. c. 388 BCE, also known as Kallipateira) was an athlete from Rhodes who, because she was a woman, could not compete in the Olympic Games and, as a married woman, was not allowed to even watch them. Defying these rules and risking...

Cynisca of Sparta (b. c. 440 BCE) was a Spartan royal princess who became the first female Olympic champion. Defying the traditional role of women in ancient Greece, she competed in the Olympic Games alongside the men and won. Her triumph...