Pyrrhus of Epirus, king of the Molossians (from ca. 297 BC), Epirus (306-301, 297-272 BC) and Macedon (288-284, 273-272 BC), was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome. Some of his battles, though successful, cost him staggering losse...

Titus Lucretius Carus was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the epic philosophical poem on Epicureanism De rerum natura, translated into English as On the Nature of Things or "On the Nature of the Universe". According to...

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. A nu...

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was a Roman consul, statesman, general and architect. He was a close friend, son-in-law, and lieutenant to Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus and was responsible for the construction of some of the most notable building...

Domitian was Roman Emperor from 81 to 96. Domitian was the third and last emperor of the Flavian dynasty. Domitian's youth and early career were largely spent in the shadow of his brother Titus, who gained military renown during the First J...

Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for fifty-six years from 1216 to his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the...

James II who reigned as king of Scots from 1437 on, was the son of James I and Joan Beaufort. Nothing is known of his early life, but by his first birthday his twin and only brother, Alexander, who was also the older twin, had died, thus ma...

Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to gene...

Richard III was King of England from 1483 until his death. He was the last king from the House of York, and his defeat at the Battle of Bosworth marked the culmination of the Wars of the Roses and the end of the Plantagenet dynasty. After t...

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, known as Erasmus or Erasmus of Rotterdam, was a Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian. Erasmus was a classical scholar and wrote in a pure Latin style. Among h...

Isabella of Portugal was a Holy Roman Empress and Queen of Spain, Germany, Italy, Naples and Sicily and Duchess of Burgundy by her marriage to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and regent of Spain during the absences of her husband during 1529-...

Edward VI was King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death. He was crowned on 20 February at the age of nine. The son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, Edward was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first...

Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar also known as Akbar the Great was the son of Nasiruddin Humayun whom he succeeded as ruler of the Mughal Empire from 1556 to 1605, and the grandson of Babur who founded the Mughal dynasty. On the eve of his death i...

Nicolaes Tulp was a Dutch surgeon and mayor of Amsterdam. Tulp was well known for his upstanding moral character and as the subject of Rembrandt's famous painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp. The career of Dr Tulp matched the...

Jan Lievens was a Dutch painter, usually associated with Rembrandt, working in a similar style. In his early years he was a student of Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam. After two years he began his career as an independent artist at age of fourt...