Images

A photograph of the composer Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868). Taken in 1865 by Étienne Carjat. (Harvard Art Museum)

The First Peace of Nisibis (299 CE) established a rare moment of stability in the long rivalry between the Roman and Sasanian Empires, fixing their borders in the Caucasus after Emperor Diocletian (reign 284–305 CE) and his co-emperor Galerius...

Colonel Henry Knox bringing the artillery from Fort Ticonderoga to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to help bring an end to the Siege of Boston, by an unknown artist, 1775. National Archive, collection number: 111-SC-100815.

An 1820 portrait by Constance Mayer of the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868). (Museo internazionale e biblioteca della musica, Bologna, Italy)

The Nine Muses of Greek mythology were divine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory), revered as patrons of poetry, song, history, and the arts. Early Greek tradition sometimes spoke of an earlier triad—Mneme (Memory), Melete (Practice...

The British evacuate Boston in March 1776, after the Siege of Boston (19 April 1775 to 17 March 1776), in the opening phase of the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). Image by William James Aylward, 1911. New York Public Library.

George Washington takes command of the Continental Army in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on 2 July 1775, by C. Rogers, 1832.

A c. 1807 oil on canvas portrait by John Wesley Jarvis of the Anglo-American philosopher Thomas Paine (1737-1809). (National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.)

A statue of the Anglo-American philosopher Thomas Paine (1737-1809). Located in Paine's hometown of Thetford in Norfolk, England.

The title page of an early edition of Common Sense by the Anglo-American philosopher Thomas Paine (1737-1809). The pamphlet was first published in 1776 and therein Paine argued for independence for the 13 American colonies.