Sébastien Le Prestre, Seigneur de Vauban and later Marquis de Vauban, commonly referred to as Vauban, was a Marshal of France and the foremost military engineer of his age, famed for his skill in both designing fortifications and breaking t...

Menno, Baron van Coehoorn was a Dutch soldier and military engineer of Swedish extraction. He made a number of influential weaponry innovations in siege warfare and fortification techniques. He was also known as the "Hollandish Vauban" (Hol...

The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians (Roundheads) and Royalists (Cavaliers). The first (1642–46) and second (1648–49) civil wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I ag...

Mehmed IV was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1648 to 1687. Taking the throne at age seven, his reign was significant as he changed the nature of the Sultan's position forever by giving up most of his executive power to his Grand Vizi...

The Fronde was a series of civil wars in France between 1648 and 1653, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. The king confronted the combined opposition of the princes, the nobility, the law courts (parl...

John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough was a prominent English soldier and statesman whose career spanned the reigns of five monarchs throughout the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Rising from a lowly page at the court of the House of...

The First Anglo-Dutch War (called the First Dutch War in England, and the First English War in the Netherlands) was the first of the four Anglo-Dutch Wars. It was fought entirely at sea between the navies of the Commonwealth of England and...

The Anglo-Spanish War was a conflict between the English Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell and Spain, between 1654 and 1660. It was caused by commercial rivalry. Each side attacked the other's commercial and colonial interests in various w...

William Kidd, also known as Captain William Kidd or simply Captain Kidd, was a Scottish sailor who was tried and executed for piracy after returning from a voyage to the Indian Ocean. Some modern historians, for example Sir Cornelius Neale...

Prince Eugene of Savoy was one of the most successful military commanders in modern European history, rising to the highest offices of state at the Imperial court in Vienna. Born in Paris to aristocratic Savoyard parents, Eugene grew up aro...

The Second Anglo-Dutch War was fought between England and the United Provinces from 4 March 1665 until 31 July 1667. England tried to end the Dutch domination of world trade. After an initial English success it ended in a Dutch victory. Eng...

Holmes's Bonfire was a raid on the Vlie estuary in the Netherlands, executed by the English Fleet during the Second Anglo-Dutch War on 19 and 20 August 1666. The attack, named after the commander of the landing force, Rear-Admiral Robert Ho...

One of the more unfortunate events in the British naval history happened on 12 – 14th June. 1667, when a Dutch fleet sailed up the river Medway in Kent and destroyed several British ships laid up ijn Chatham Dockyard, capturing the...

The Great Turkish War refers to a series of conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and contemporary European powers, then joined into a Holy League, during the second half of the 17th century. The Great Turkish War was a disaster for the Otto...

The Franco-Dutch War, often called simply the Dutch War (French: La Guerre de Hollande) (1672–78) was a war fought by France, Sweden, the Bishopric of Münster, the Archbishopric of Cologne and England against the United Netherlands, which w...