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Important Events

Here we feature some of the most seminal, historical, and influential events throughout history – both celebrated and unheralded – from the emergence of powerful civilizations and empires, to famous battles, great achievements, and events that have helped shape the world we currently know.

Suspicious townfolk targeted Alice Kyteler.
6 November, 2018 - 18:58 dhwty

Alice Kyteler: The Kilkenny ‘Witch’ Who Ran While her Servant Burned

Alice Kyteler (known also as the Kilkenny Witch ) was the first recorded person to have been condemned of witchcraft in Ireland. The alleged witch, however, succeeded in fleeing the country, thereby...
“Taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, 15th July 1099” (1847) by Émile Signol / Giraudon / The Bridgeman Art Library. The Crusaders were mostly successful in the First Crusade.
6 November, 2018 - 14:00 dhwty

The First Crusade: Christian and Muslim Bloodshed as Peasants, Princes, and Turks Clash in the Holy Land

The First Crusade (1095-1099 AD) was a military campaign launched by Christendom in an attempt to retake Jerusalem from the Muslims to make the holy site safe once more for Christian pilgrims. The...
Hanukkah menorah with wailing wall in the background
5 November, 2018 - 13:58 dhwty

Hanukkah Origins: ‘Miracle of Oil’ Exalted a Religious Freedom Victory in Ancient Jewish Temple

Known also as the Festival of Dedication, as well as the Festival of Lights, Hanukkah is a major Jewish holiday commemorating the re-dedication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Maccabees...
Timurid Emperor Ulugh Beg, an astronomer and khan, seen here with scholars in this statue.
27 October, 2018 - 15:34 Mark Miller

Timurid Empire’s Arts and Culture Influenced Much of the Known World

When people think of the Mongol warriors of the Middle Ages, they might imagine wild, bloodthirsty savages marauding across Eurasia dealing slaughter from horseback with arrows, spears, battle axes,...
Modern Mongol horsemen at the eagle festival. Life may have been tranquil for hunters during the time of Pax Mongolica too.
25 October, 2018 - 01:59 dhwty

The Pax Mongolica: When the Mongols Brought Peace to Europe and Asia

The Pax Mongolica (translated from Latin to mean ‘Mongol Peace’) refers to a period in history when a large part of Europe and Asia was under Mongol control as a result of the military campaigns of...
The Mongol ruler Hulagu in Baghdad interns the Caliph of Baghdad among his treasures. Hulagu founded the Ilkhanate.
22 October, 2018 - 13:57 dhwty

The Ilkhanate Had Only Two Goals: Conquest and Power

The Ilkhanate was one of the four khanates that emerged after the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire. This khanate was founded by Hulegu Khan, one of Genghis Khan’s grandsons, and lasted from the...
Artistic representation by Heinrich Harder of humans hunting glyptodon, a megafauna that lived during the Pleistocene period.
19 October, 2018 - 23:02 Caleb Strom

Pleistocene Epoch: Humans, Welcome to Earth

The Pleistocene epoch is a geologic epoch which began around 2.6 Mya (Million years ago) and came to an end around 11,700 BP (Before Present). It is characterized by lower sea levels than the present...
Mongol attac
7 October, 2018 - 13:59 dhwty

The Famous and Powerful Khanates that Followed the Mongol Empire

A khanate was a political entity ruled by a khan. Historically speaking, the ruler of a Mongolian tribe was given the title ‘Khan’. Later on, this title was adopted by many Muslim societies. Although...
Wampanoag Tribe Helped the Mayflower Pilgrims Survive But Peace Was Fleeting
1 October, 2018 - 14:00 Mark Miller

Wampanoag Tribe Helped the Mayflower Pilgrims Survive But Peace Was Fleeting

The Wampanoag nation was unfortunate to be among the first people in the Northeast United States to have contact with European explorers and later English colonists in the early 16 th and 17 th...
Democritus’ (1630) by Johannes Moreelse. There have certainly been some strange and funny events in history.
29 September, 2018 - 18:57 ashley cowie

Monumentally Funny Events in History: From Napoléon’s Petit Package to Pythagoras’ Fear of Farts

History is often presented in grey, rather dry terms, but when you do a bit of digging, our past is full of remarkable people who had wicked senses of humor and died with as much vigor as they lived...
This is an untitled ledger drawing in pencil and colored pencil by a Lakota tribe artist and leader named Black Hawk, born ca. 1832. This work also appears in Janet Catherine Berlo's ‘Spirit Beings and Sun Dancers: Black Hawk's Vision of the Lakota World.’
25 September, 2018 - 02:00 Mark Miller

Lakota Tribes Inhabited Two Rich Wildernesses, Both were Stolen, But The People Resisted

The Lakota tribe of the Sioux people are vivid in the world’s imagination as buffalo hunters and warriors who fought the U.S. Calvary from horseback in feather bonnets on the Great Plains and Wild...
An ancient Egyptian ship. Sailors sent out by Pharaoh Necho II saw some of the first hints that the world is not flat.
21 September, 2018 - 18:53 Mark Oliver

When Sailors from Ancient Egypt Discovered the World is Not Flat, No One Listened

The first ship to sail around Africa left from Egypt sometime around 600 BC. Their only goal was to find another way to the straits of Gibraltar. But by watching the sky overhead, they discovered...
Trail of Tears
19 September, 2018 - 23:04 Mark Miller

The Tragedies that Befell the Five Civilized Tribes that were Forced to Trek the Trail of Tears

The Five Civilized Tribes of the American Southeast tried to assimilate into the European settlers’ society to keep their lands. But the outsiders who coveted their territory didn’t seem to care if...
Creek beadwork. Beads and wampum were important in ritual and as currency among Native American groups. Wampum is made of sea shells.
19 September, 2018 - 02:01 Mark Miller

Creek Tribes Were Decimated by Disease but Thrived Through Skin Trade

The Native American Creek (Muscogee) tribes of the Southeast were actually an allied nation that came into existence in relatively recent history so they would be united in peace. The Creek included...
Joseph Erb’s painting “Petition” recalls the role of creation figures as observers in the transcription of Cherokee Indian history.
15 September, 2018 - 01:53 Mark Miller

Strength, Unity, and Pride: Cherokee Indians Triumphed Over Adversity

The story of the Native American Cherokee tribes is a sad one. But in the end the Cherokee found a way to survive after being decimated by war and disease and being forced to live far from their...
Arcus Argentariorum, Rome.
14 September, 2018 - 23:02 Alexander Meddings

Arch Enemies: Family Feuds and Damnatio Memoriae on Rome’s Arcus Argentariorum

In the Eternal City every monument tells a story. The Colosseum, funded from the sack of Jerusalem, stands as a potent symbol of Rome’s imperial might and, to many, its savagery. The architecturally...
A lithograph of Ho-Chunk chief Hairy Bear for a cigarette ad, 1888. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art
8 September, 2018 - 01:54 ancient-origins

How the Ho-Chunk Nation Beat the Odds and Made a Comeback

After contact with Europeans in the 17 th century, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin was reduced from thousands of people to hundreds by disease, starvation and war, including inter-tribal warfare...
Four paintings from ‘The Course of Empire’
26 August, 2018 - 13:53 Walter Cruttenden

Lost Star of Myth and Time: The Rise and Fall of Civilizations

The idea of a worldwide Dark Age or universal decline in man’s knowledge may be difficult to accept because the broad deterioration of ancient civilizations didn’t happen at an even pace in all...
New Persian dynasty ruler, Ismail declares himself "Shah" by entering Tabriz; his troops in front of Arg of Tabriz, painter Chingiz Mehbaliyev.
9 August, 2018 - 02:00 dhwty

The Plurality of the Persian Empire: Part II - Persian Dynasties and a New Breed of Rulers Arise

[Read Part I Here] Following the conquest of Persia by the Arabs, the region lost its significance as the center of an empire, it was now a mere province in the larger Islamic Empire. The decline of...
Faravahar, one of the best-known symbols of ancient Iran (Persia). Relief in Persepolis.
7 August, 2018 - 22:46 dhwty

The Plurality of the Persian Empire: Part I – The Achaemenids to the Sassanians

The land of Persia (also known as Iran) has been the center of several important empires throughout history. Between the 6th and 4th centuries BC, this was the land from which the mighty Achaemenids...
"Israel in Egypt" by Edward Poynter, 1867
5 August, 2018 - 19:04 Rabbi Allen Maller

Pharaoh Ramses’ Anti-Israelite Policy Now Explained

Why were the Jews enslaved in Egypt? New evidence from a French Egyptologist, Alain Zivie, now points to an Egyptian suspect: Pharaoh’s vizier ‘Abdiel, whose Semitic name means ‘a servant of [the god...
From the royal tombs of Ur, the Standard of Ur mosaic, made of lapis lazuli and shell, shows peacetime.
3 August, 2018 - 13:57 dhwty

A Functional and Fertile Crescent: Technological Advancements in the Cradle of Civilization

The Fertile Crescent is the name given to the arc-shaped area of land that stretched across the Middle East from the northern end of the Gulf in the East to the Nile Valley in the West. It was here...
Standing hippopotamus figurine. From Egypt, Middle Egypt, Meir, Tomb B3 of the nomarch Senbi II, pit 1 (steward Senbi), Khashaba excavations, 1910. (CC0) Background: Members of Hatshepsut's trading expedition to the mysterious 'Land of Punt' from this pharaoh's elegant mortuary temple at Deir El-Bahri. In this scene, Egyptian soldiers bear tree branches and axes. (Σταύρος/CC BY 2.0)
31 July, 2018 - 18:52 Carly Silver

How Hungry, Hungry Hippos Started a War in Ancient Egypt

In the 17th century BC, a group of Semitic origin took advantage of political divisions to seize power in Egypt. These Levantine lords were called the “Hyksos” and were longtime residents of ancient...
Representative image of a Viking King
23 July, 2018 - 18:49 ancient-origins

Defeat Was Not an Option: Viking King Herlaug and His Men Choose to be Buried Alive Instead

BY THORNEWS The year is 871 AD, and King Herlaug of the Namdalen district in Central Norway fulfills his last wish: instead of surrendering to King Harald Fairhair, he and eleven of his men choose to...

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