Definitions

The Jameson Raid was an unofficial and failed attempt by the British to take over the Boer Republic of Transvaal in Southern Africa in December 1895. Masterminded by the millionaire imperialist Cecil Rhodes, the raid failed to gain support...

Edmund I ruled the Kingdom of the English from 939 to 946. In his youth, alongside his brother, King Aethelstan (reign 924-939), he defeated a Celtic-Viking alliance at the Battle of Brunanburh (937). Yet when Aethelstan died in 939 and Edmund...

The Code of Hammurabi was a set of 282 laws inscribed in stone by the Babylonian king Hammurabi (reign 1792-1750 BCE), who conquered and then ruled ancient Mesopotamia. Although his law code was not the first, it was the most clearly defined...

Margaret Thatcher served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 4 November 1979 to 28 November 1990. Although the United Kingdom emerged militarily victorious from World War II (1939-45), it was still struggling with debt and inflation...

Hammurabi (reign 1792-1750 BCE) was the sixth king of the Amorite First Dynasty of Babylon, best known for his famous law code, which served as the model for others, including the Mosaic Law of the Bible. He was the first ruler able to successfully...

The Fertile Crescent, often called the 'cradle of civilization', is the region in the Middle East that curves like a quarter-moon shape from the Persian Gulf through modern-day southern Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and northern Egypt...

The Mau Mau rebellion (1952-60), led by the Kikuyu people of Kenya, was a guerrilla war conducted against British colonial rule, motivated by anger at land confiscations and the threat to indigenous belief systems and cultural practices...

Shulgi of Ur (reign 2094 to circa 2046 BCE) is considered the greatest king of the Ur III period in Mesopotamia (circa 2112 to circa 2004 BCE). His father was Ur-Nammu (reign circa 2112-2094 BCE), who founded the Third Dynasty of Ur, and...

Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March (1287-1330) was an English nobleman who deposed King Edward II of England (reign 1307-1327) and then established himself as the kingdom's de facto ruler. Though he had initially been loyal to the king, Mortimer...

Piers Gaveston (lived circa 1284-1312) was a Gascon-born English nobleman, famous as the favorite of King Edward II of England (reign 1307-1327). Gaveston's humble origins and undue influence over the king caused jealousy and resentment among...