Gunpowder, also known as the retronym black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur (S), charcoal (C), and potassium nitrate (saltpeter, KNO3). The...

The Book of Kells (Irish: Leabhar Cheanannais), sometimes known as the Book of Columba, is an illuminated manuscript in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was transcr...

The Dresden Codex is a pre-Columbian Maya book of the eleventh or twelfth century of the Yucatecan Maya in Chichén Itzá. The Maya codex is believed to be a copy of an original text of some three or four hundred years earlier. Historians sa...

Angkor is a name conventionally applied to the region of Cambodia serving as the seat of the Khmer empire that flourished from approximately the ninth century to the fifteenth century A.D. More precisely, the Angkorian period may be defined...

Verdun, Treaty of, the partition of Charlemagne's empire among three sons of Louis I, emperor of the West. Louis the German received the eastern portion (later Germany); Charles II (Charles the Bald) became king of the western portion (late...

Between AD 900 and 1150, Chaco Canyon was a major center of culture for the Ancient Pueblo Peoples. Chacoans quarried sandstone blocks and hauled timber from great distances, assembling 15 major complexes which remained the largest building...

Rajaraja I was a Chola emperor from present day south India who ruled over the Chola kingdom of medieval Tamil Nadu (parts of southern India), parts of northern India, two thirds of Sri Lankan territory, Maldives and parts of East Asia, bet...

Tancred of Hauteville was an eleventh-century Norman petty lord about whom little is known. His historical importance comes entirely from the accomplishments of his sons and later descendants. He was a minor noble near Coutances in the Cote...

Guido of Arezzo (991/992 – after 1033) was a music theorist of the Medieval era. He is regarded as the inventor of modern musical notation (staff notation) that replaced neumatic notation; his text, the Micrologus, was the second-most-widel...

William I usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman King of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087. The descendant of Viking raiders, he had been Duke of Normandy since 1035...

Alp Arslan was the second Sultan of the Seljuq Empire and great-grandson of Seljuq, the eponymous founder of the dynasty. His real name was Muhammad bin Dawud Chaghri, and for his military prowess, personal valour, and fighting skills he ob...

The "Wujing Zongyao" (literally "Collection of the Most Important Military Techniques") was the first book in history to record the written formulas for gunpowder solutions containing saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, along with many added...

The Battle of Stamford Bridge took place at the village of Stamford Bridge, East Riding of Yorkshire, in England on 25 September 1066, between an English army under King Harold Godwinson and an invading Norwegian force led by King Harald Ha...

William took seven months to prepare his invasion force, using some 600 transport ships to carry around 7,000 men (including 2,000-3,000 cavalry) across the Channel. On 28 September 1066, with a favourable wind, William landed unopposed at...

The Battle of Manzikert was fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuq Turks on August 26, 1071 near Manzikert (modern Malazgirt in Mus Province, Turkey). The decisive defeat of the Byzantine army and the capture of the Emperor Roma...