Articles

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1863-1914) in the Balkans in the summer of 1914 set off a chain of events that led to the First World War (1914-18). For over a decade before, imperialistic governments, a fierce arms race, rising...

Elam, located in the region of the modern-day provinces of Ilam and Khuzestan in Iran, was one of the most impressive civilizations of the ancient world. It was never a cohesive ethnic kingdom or polity but rather a federation of different...

The poster for John Wayne's The Alamo (1960) celebrates its history with the line, "The Mission That Became a Fortress…The Fortress That Became A Shrine…," which is a concise and accurate summary of the story of the structure famously known...

The pre-First World War arms race between Britain and Germany was fuelled by Britain's desire to protect its empire, Germany's desire to build an empire, and a general atmosphere of suspicion amongst the great powers, which led to the formation...

The Day of the Dead, known in Spanish as Día de los Muertos, is a holiday that celebrates life and honors the dead through traditions, food, decorations, and activities intended to sustain the connections between the living and the dead...

La Malinche, or Malintzin, was the primary interpreter in the retinue of Hernán Cortés during his conquest of Mexico in the early 16th century and has become one of the most divisive women in Mexican history. Though she was called Malintzin...

The alliance system in Europe was one of the causes of the First World War (1914-18), although it did not make war inevitable. In the first decade of the 20th century, the Triple Entente powers of Great Britain, France, and Russia stood against...

The Graf Zeppelin was the most successful of all Zeppelin airships, making several hundred trips across the Atlantic between Europe and the Americas. In 1929, a new age of air travel dawned when the Graf Zeppelin flew around the world in...

The 13-day siege and Battle of the Alamo, 23 February to 6 March 1836, is among the most famous in American history, but, like any such event, it has inspired several myths, many accepted as historical fact. Disney's Davy Crockett miniseries...

The game of chess has a particularly long and fascinating history of more than 1500 years. Over the centuries, there have also been hundreds of different chess variants, all of which incorporate the fundamental distinguishing feature of standard...