In the year 193 AD an auction took place that sent shockwaves throughout the ancient world, as buyers competed for the greatest prize of a generation, the Roman Empire. Following the murder of...
Hoplite comes from the Greek word “ ta hopla ,” which means “tool” or “equipment,” and was the name given to legions of citizen soldiers who were tasked with protecting their territories from outside...
The jus primae noctis , droit du seigneur , or “right of the first night,” is an alleged medieval custom which permitted lords to engage in sexual intercourse with the brides of their male subjects...
Eugenics, the science of selectively choosing human genetics, is most synonymous with the modern world and the horrors of Hitler’s ‘final solution’, in which millions of Jews and other ‘undesirable’...
The medieval pike, around 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) in weight and just under 5 meters (16.4 feet) in length, was a weapon supposedly invented in Turin, Italy in 1327 AD. However, its history was...
The medieval jester has become an iconoclastic figure in society, regularly appearing in the TV shows, films, and video-games of the modern era. The classic jester, replete with flamboyant colorful...
As Alexander the Great slipped away on his deathbed on June 10-11th 323 BC, the iconoclastic emperor, whose remarkable achievements would be imitated by countless impersonators throughout history,...
At the beginning of the 20th century, a team of international paleontologists prepared to excavate a cave located in a limestone formation known as Dragon-Bone Hill, a few hours outside of Beijing...
Looking to the past, the annals of history have its fair share of extraordinary and unusual deaths, some more famous than others. It’s well known that Attila the Hun, the marauding Mongolian warlord...
The year was 1832 when Joseph Thompson, a local Cardiff man, led his wife by halter to the local marketplace hoping for a good price in what was, after all, just a wife auction. Before the bidding,...
Although located on opposite ends of the globe, ancient Rome and China were remarkably similar in their stature, as both commanded respect from the weaker kingdoms enveloped in their spheres of...
During the First Crusade, the city state of Pisa, like many other European powers, was moved by the pleas of Pope Urban II, who in 1095 ordered the Christian kingdoms of Europe to launch a holy...
The kings of the Sena Empire, who were part of the Brahmin top-echelon caste in India, originally came from Karnata in southern India before they moved to the Bengali region. The history of the Sena...
In the annals of humanity there is one phenomenon that has consistently weaved and threaded itself through the fabric of time. It is, of course, war, which from the very earliest times until the...
The Antonine plague, which happened between 165 and 180 AD, was a disastrous pandemic deemed so catastrophic that many historians have argued that it was the first major event to usher in the decline...
Bloodletting, or phlebotomy, is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “the surgical removal of some of a patient’s blood for therapeutic purposes.” Throughout the majority of history, this gruesome,...