Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber was a Bohemian-Austrian composer and violinist. Born in the small Bohemian town of Wartenberg, Biber worked at Graz and Kromeriz before he illegally left his Kremsier employer (Prince-Bishop Carl Liechtenstein...

William Penn was an English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was an early advocate of democrac...

Antonio Stradivari was an Italian luthier, a crafter of stringed instruments such as violins, cellos, guitars and harps. Stradivari is generally considered the most significant artisan in this field. The Latinized form of his surname, Strad...

The Cretan War or War of Candia (Italian: Guerra di Candia), as the Sixth Ottoman–Venetian War is better known, was a conflict between the Republic of Venice and her allies (chief among them the Knights of Malta, the Papal States and France...

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz was a German mathematician and philosopher. He occupies a prominent place in the history of mathematics and the history of philosophy. Leibniz developed calculus independently of Isaac Newton, and Leibniz's...

Pierre Bayle was a French philosopher and writer best known for his seminal work the Historical and Critical Dictionary, published beginning in 1695. Bayle was a self-pronounced Protestant and as a fideist he advocated a separation between...

Denis Papin was a French physicist, mathematician and inventor, best known for his pioneering invention of the steam digester, the forerunner of the steam engine, and of the pressure cooker. In 1673, while working with Christiaan Huygens...

Maria Sibylla Merian was a German-born naturalist and scientific illustrator, a descendant of the Frankfurt branch of the Swiss Merian family. Merian was one of the first naturalists to observe insects directly. Merian received her artis...

The Peace of Münster was a treaty between the United Netherlands and Spain signed in 1648. It was a landmark treaty for the Dutch republic and one of the key events in Dutch history; with it, the United Netherlands finally became independen...

The Fronde was a series of civil wars in France between 1648 and 1653, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. The king confronted the combined opposition of the princes, the nobility, the law courts (parl...

Hans William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland, Baron Bentinck of Diepenheim and Schoonheten, was a Dutch and English nobleman who became in an early stage the favourite of William, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder in the Netherlands, and future...

Pope Clement XI, was Pope from 1700 until his death. Born in Urbino, into a noble family that had established itself there from northern Albania in the 15th century and were originally soldiers of Scanderbeg against the Ottoman Empire. Duri...

William III (Dutch: Willem III) was a sovereign Prince of Orange by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange (Dutch: Willem III van Oranje) over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Repu...

Thomas Savery was an English inventor. Initially interested in naval applications of engineering (he designed an early paddle-wheel), Savery then became interested in pumping machines. On July 2, 1698 he patented an early steam engine, and...

John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough was a prominent English soldier and statesman whose career spanned the reigns of five monarchs throughout the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Rising from a lowly page at the court of the House of...