Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figu...

Maximilian was born in Vienna as the son of the Emperor Frederick III and Eleanore of Portugal. He married (1477-1482) the heiress of Burgundy, Mary, the only daughter of Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy. Through this marriage, Maximilian...

Guru Nanak was the founder of Sikhism and the first of the ten Sikh Gurus. His birth is celebrated world-wide as Guru Nanak Gurpurab on Kartik Pooranmashi, the full-moon day in the month of Katak, October–November. Guru Nanak has been ca...

Fra Bartolomeo or Bartolommeo OP , also known as Bartolommeo di Pagholo, Bartolommeo di S. Marco, and his actual name Baccio della Porta, was an Italian Renaissance painter of religious subjects. He spent all his career in Florence until hi...

Juan Ponce de León was a Spanish explorer and conquistador. He became the first Governor of Puerto Rico by appointment of the Spanish crown. He led the first known European expedition to La Florida, which he named during his first voyage to...

Lucrezia Borgia was the daughter of Rodrigo Borgia, the powerful Renaissance Spaniard who would later become Pope Alexander VI and Vannozza dei Cattani. Lucrezia's family later came to epitomise the ruthless Machiavellian politics and sexua...

Raphael was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Michelangelo...

William I, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg (nicknamed William the Rich, Dutch: Willem de Rijke) was a count of Nassau-Dillenburg from the House of Nassau. He was not wealthy; his nickname the Rich refers to him having many children. He was t...

Francis Xavier was a pioneering Roman Catholic missionary born in the Kingdom of Navarre (currently Spain) and co-founder of the Society of Jesus. He was a student of Ignatius of Loyola and one of the first seven Jesuits, dedicated at Montm...

James V, king of Scotland (1513–42), son and successor of James IV. His mother, Margaret Tudor, held the regency until her marriage in 1514 to Archibald Douglas, 6th earl of Angus, when she lost it to John Stuart, duke of Albany. The factio...

Henry II was King of France from 31 March 1547, until his death in 1559. Henry was born in the royal Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, the son of Francis I and Claude, Duchess of Brittany (daughter of Louis XII of France and Ann...

Catherine de' Medici was born in Florence, Italy, as Caterina Maria Romula di Lorenzo de' Medici. Both of her parents, Lorenzo II de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, and Madeleine de La Tour d'Auvergne, Countess of Boulogne, died within weeks of h...

Cornelis de Houtman, was a Dutch explorer who discovered a new sea route from Europe to Indonesia and managed to begin the Dutch spice trade. At the time, the Portuguese Empire held a monopoly on the spice trade, and the voyage was a symbol...

Bonfire Night, also known as Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes Night or Fireworks Night, is a celebration (but not a public holiday) which takes place on the evening of the 5th of November every year in the United Kingdom (and New Zealand). It celebra...

Christian IV was the king of Denmark-Norway from 1588 until his death. With a reign of more than 59 years, he is the longest-reigning monarch of Denmark, and he is frequently remembered as one of the most popular, ambitious and proactive Da...