Pieter Jansz. Saenredam was a painter of the Dutch Golden Age, known for his distinctive paintings of whitewashed church interiors. Saenredam's paintings show medieval churches, usually Gothic, but sometimes late Romanesque, which had been...

James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603 until his death. The kingdoms of England and Scotland were individu...

Fyodor I Ivanovich, also known as Feodor the Bellringer, was the last Rurikid Tsar of Russia (1584–1598). Feodor's mother died when he was three, and he grew up in the shadow of his father, Ivan the Terrible. A pious man of retiring disp...

William Gilbert, also known as Gilberd, was an English physician, physicist and natural philosopher. He was an early Copernican, and passionately rejected both the prevailing Aristotelian philosophy and the Scholastic method of university t...

Philip II, king of Spain and Portugal, was born at Valladolid, the only son of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V and Isabella of Portugal. Philip II, the self-proclaimed leader of Counter-Reformation, assumed the throne in 1556 with a great...

Selim II Sarkhosh, also known as "Selim the Sot (Mest)" or "Selim the Drunkard", was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1566 until his death. He was born in Constantinople a son of Suleiman the Magnificent and his fourth and favourite wi...

Clement VII, Pope 1523-1534, the illegitimate son of Giuliano de' Medici, he was raised by his uncle Lorenzo de' Medici. In 1513 he was made archbishop of Florence and cardinal by his cousin Pope Leo X. He commissioned art from Raphael and...

Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, engraver, printmaker, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His high-quality woodcuts established his reputation and influence across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conve...

Manuel I, the Fortunate, 14th king of Portugal and the Algarves. Manuel would prove a worthy successor to his cousin King John II, supporting the Portuguese exploration of the Atlantic Ocean and the development of Portuguese commerce. Durin...

Domenico Ghirlandaio was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Florence. Ghirlandaio was part of the so-called "third generation" of the Florentine Renaissance, along with Verrocchio, the Pollaiolo brothers and Sandro Botticelli. Ghirlanda...

Johannes Müller von Königsberg, today best known by the Latin epithet Regiomontanus, was a German mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, translator, instrument maker and Catholic bishop. He was born in the Franconian village of Unfinden,...

Ibn Khaldun or Aith Khaldoun was a Arab Muslim historiographer and historian, and one of the founding fathers of modern historiography, sociology and economics. He is best known for his Muqaddimah (known as Prolegomena in Greek), which w...

Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Prince of Aquitaine, was the eldest son of King Edward III of England and his wife Philippa of Hainault as well as father to King Richard II of England. He was called Edward of Wood...

Edward I, popularly known as "Longshanks" because of his 6 foot 2 inch (1.88 m) frame and the "Hammer of the Scots" (his tombstone, in Latin, read, Hic est Edwardus Primus Scottorum Malleus, "Here is Edward I, Hammer of the Scots"), achieve...

Emperor Gaozong, born Zhao Gou, was the tenth emperor of the Song Dynasty of China, and the first emperor of the Southern Song. He reigned from 1127 to 1162. He fled south after the Jurchens overran Kaifeng hence the beginning of the Southe...