Search
Search Results
Article
A Medieval Christmas
Christmas was one of the highlights of the medieval calendar, not only for the rich but also for the peasantry. For the longest holiday of the year, typically the full twelve days of Christmas, people stopped work, homes were decorated and...
Article
Exsurge Domine
Exsurge Domine (“Arise, O Lord” in Latin) is a papal bull issued 15 June 1520 by Pope Leo X (served 1513-1521) condemning Martin Luther’s 95 Theses as heresy along with any other works by Luther or those who supported him. Luther burned the...
Article
Ibn Sina, Biruni, and the Lost Enlightenment
Ibn Sina and Biruni were two of the most outstanding thinkers to have lived between ancient Greece and the European Renaissance. These two giants of a lost era of enlightenment were born in Central Asia about the year 980. For six hundred...
Article
Battle of Friedland
The Battle of Friedland (14 June 1807) was a decisive battle of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), fought by the armies of the French and Russian empires. A major French victory, Friedland caused the Russians to sue for peace, resulting in...
Article
The Infrastructure of Caesarea Maritima
Caesarea Maritima, an ancient metropolis in modern-day Israel, was a remarkable engineering accomplishment. Extending Rome's military and commercial presence in the eastern Mediterranean in the latter years of the 1st century BCE, Herod the...
Article
Polybius' Capture of Achaeus and Fall of Sardis
Polybius' Capture of Achaeus and Fall of Sardis is the account of the end of the Siege of Sardis (215-213 BCE) by Antiochus III (aka Antiochus the Great, r. 223-187 BCE) of the Seleucid Empire after the betrayal and capture of his cousin...
Article
The Battle of Cynossema
The battle of Cynossema, in 411 BCE, was an Athenian victory during the final years of the Peloponnesian War. It marked the resilience of the renowned Athenian democratic system after their major defeats in Sicily and also after a small civil...
Collection
The Architecture of Ancient Rome
Roman architecture was nothing if not eclectic. From ingenious underfloor heating to gravity-defying arches, the Romans added to the Classical repertoire such grandiose structures as the triumphal arch, basilica, amphitheatre, and city tower...
Image
Newcomen Steam Engine Diagram
A diagram showing the essential design features of the early atmospheric steam engine designed by Thomas Newcomen (1664-1729) during the Industrial Revolution. Heated water (blue) creates steam (pink) which has a much great volume. When the...
Image
Newton's Copy of Principia
The personal copy of Isaac Newton's (1642-1727) own work Principia in which he outlines his three laws of motion and universal law of gravity. (Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge)