La Mulâtresse Solitude was a historical figure and heroine in the fight against slavery on French Guadeloupe. She has been the subject of legends and a symbol of women's resistance in the struggle against slavery in the history of the islan...

Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader. Together with José de San Martín, he played a key role in Hispanic-Spanish America's successful struggle for independence from the Spanish Empire, and is today considered one of...

The First Fleet is the 11 ships which left Great Britain on 13 May 1787 to found a penal colony that would become the first European settlement in Australia. The fleet consisted of two Royal Navy vessels, three store ships and six convict t...

Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Pottinger was an Anglo-Irish soldier and colonial administrator who became the first Governor of Hong Kong (1843-1844). Pottinger accepted Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston's offer of the post of envoy and pl...

Stephen Fuller Austin, known as the "Father of Texas," led the Anglo-American colonization of the region. The capital city of Austin, Texas and Austin County, Texas, Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas as well as severa...

Andries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius was a leader of the Boers who was instrumental in the creation of the Transvaal Republic, as well as the earlier but short-lived Natalia Republic, in present-day South Africa. On 16 December 1838, Pret...

Raden Saleh Sjarif Boestaman is one of the best known painters from Indonesia and a pioneer of modern Indonesian art. He was considered to be the first modern artist from the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), and his paintings corresponded...

The Mexican War of Independence was an armed conflict between the people of Mexico and the Spanish colonial authorities which started on September 16, 1810. The movement, which became known as the Mexican War of Independence, was led by Mex...

The Venezuelan War of Independence (1810–1823) was one of the Spanish American wars of independence of the early nineteenth century, when independence movements in Latin America fought against rule by the Spanish Empire, emboldened by Spain...

Carlos Manuel de Céspedes del Castillo was a Cuban planter who freed his slaves and made the declaration of Cuban independence in 1868 which started the Ten Years' War. Céspedes was a landowner and lawyer in eastern Cuba, near Bayamo, wh...

The Anti-Slavery Society or A.S.S. was the everyday name of two different British organizations. The first was founded in 1823 and was committed to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. Its official name was the Society for the Mi...

Leopold Louis-Philippe Marie Victor of Saxe-Coburg, succeeded his father, Leopold I of Belgium, to the Belgian throne in 1865 as Leopold II, King of the Belgians and remained king until his death. Outside of Belgium, however, he is chiefly...

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was lauded as the "greatest humorist this country has produced", and William Faulkner called him "the fa...

Duleep Singh and later in life nicknamed the Black Prince of Perthshire, was the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire. He was the youngest son of the legendary "Lion of the Punjab" Maharaja Ranjit Singh and Maharani Jind Kaur, and came to power...

The First Anglo-Afghan War (also known as Auckland's Folly) was fought between British East India Company and Afghanistan from 1839 to 1842, which resulted in the deaths of 4,500 British and Indian soldiers, plus 12,000 of their camp follow...