Swammerdam was a seventeenth century Dutch microscopist and naturalist who is most famous for his microscopic observations and descriptions of insect development that were published posthumously as The Bible of Nature, but is more often ref...

Dieterich Buxtehude was a German-Danish organist and a highly regarded composer of the Baroque period. His organ works comprise a central part of the standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed at recitals and church services. He...

Jan van der Heyden was a Dutch Baroque-era painter, draughtsman, printmaker, a mennonite and inventor who significantly contributed to contemporary firefighting. He improved the fire hose in 1672, with his brother Nicolaes, who was a hydrau...

Maria Theresa of Spain was the daughter of Philip IV, King of Spain and Elizabeth of France. Maria Theresa was Queen of France as wife of King Louis XIV and mother of the Grand Dauphin, an ancestor of the last four Bourbon kings of France....

Gerrit Adriaenszoon Berckheyde was a Dutch Golden Age painter, active in Haarlem, Amsterdam, and The Hague, who is best known today for his cityscapes. He was also known for his Italianate landscapes as well as portraits and cavalry pieces....

Louis XIV, known as Louis the Great (Louis le Grand) or the Sun King (le Roi-Soleil), was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1643 until his death. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest...

Jean Racine was a French dramatist, one of the "big three" of 17th century France (along with Molière and Corneille), and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition. Racine was primarily a tragedian, though he did w...

Thomas Tompion was an English clock maker, watchmaker and mechanician who is still regarded to this day as the Father of English Clockmaking. Tompion's work includes some of the most historic and important clocks and watches in the world an...

Willem Hesselsz de Vlamingh was a Dutch sea-captain who explored the central west coast of Australia (then "New Holland") in the late 17th century. Vlamingh joined the VOC (Dutch East India Company) in 1688 and made his first voyage to Bata...

Leopold I, Holy Roman emperor, King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, was the second son of the emperor Ferdinand III and his first wife Maria Anna of Spain. His maternal grandparents were Philip III of Spain and Margaret of Austria. He was also...

Menno, Baron van Coehoorn was a Dutch soldier and military engineer of Swedish extraction. He made a number of influential weaponry innovations in siege warfare and fortification techniques. He was also known as the "Hollandish Vauban" (Hol...

Henry Sydney (or Sidney), 1st Earl of Romney. Henry entered Parliament in 1679 and, as a statesman, was one of the Immortal Seven (the author of the letter, in fact) to invite the Protestant William III of Orange to take the throne through...

Nicolaas or Nicolaes Witsen was mayor of Amsterdam thirteen times, between 1682-1706. In 1693 he became administrator of the VOC. In 1689 he was extraordinary-ambassador to the English court, and became Fellow of the Royal Society. In his f...

Directing his polemics against the pedantry of his time, Galileo, as his own popularizer, addressed his writings to contemporary laymen. His support of Copernican cosmology, against the Church's strong opposition, his development of a teles...

"Night Watch", 1642; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. The Night Watch is misnamed because of a very dark varnish that covered it until the 1940's. It should be titled The Company of Captain Frans Cocq. It is a group portrait of a company of civil gu...