Definitions

The Oradour-sur-Glane massacre in southwest France was the murder on 10 June 1944 of 643 civilian men, women, and children by the Waffen SS during the Second World War (1939-45). The massacre and the razing to the ground of the village was...

Twelfth Night, or What You Will is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare (l. c. 1564-1616), written between 1600 and 1601 and first performed on 2 February 1602. As suggested by the title's allusion to Twelfth Night – the night before...

The 1811 German Coast Uprising (8-11 January 1811) was the largest slave revolt in US history involving between 300-500 enslaved and free Blacks in the Louisiana parishes of St. John the Baptist, St. Charles, and Jefferson in the Territory...

Gabriel's Rebellion (30 August 1800) was a carefully planned slave revolt in Virginia orchestrated by the literate slave blacksmith Gabriel (l. c. 1776-1800), property of one Thomas Prosser, and so referred to as Gabriel Prosser. The plans...

The Stono Rebellion (also known as Cato's Rebellion or Cato's Conspiracy, 9 September 1739) was the largest slave revolt in the British colonies of North America. Led by an educated slave, Cato (also known as Jemmy), enslaved Black people...

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), leader of Nazi Germany, attacked the USSR on 22 June 1941 with the largest army ever assembled. The Axis offensive of June-December 1941 was code-named Operation Barbarossa ('Redbeard') after Frederick Barbarossa...

Romeo and Juliet is a romantic tragedy written by William Shakespeare. First printed in 1597, it remains one of the most famous works of Western literature and – alongside Hamlet – is one of Shakespeare's most oft-performed plays. The play...

Nat Turner's Rebellion (also known as the Southampton Insurrection) was a slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia, between 21 and 23 August 1831. Led by Nat Turner (l. 1800-1831), an educated slave, the insurrectionists killed at least...

The Webster-Hayne debate was a series of back-and-forth speeches between Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina in January 1830. What started as a debate over the sale of western lands blossomed...

The Petticoat affair, also called the Eaton affair, was a political scandal that rocked Washington, D.C., from 1829 to 1831, during the early years of Andrew Jackson's presidency. Revolving around the rumored sexual promiscuity of Peggy Eaton...