In c. 1750, over half of the population of the thirteen colonies was still of English descent, but significant minorities were beginning to establish themselves. The largest of these was African, predominantly slaves, and overwhelmingly concentrated in the plantations of Virginia and the southern colonies. The Scots-Irish, mainly Presbyterians from... More
In 2000, Catholics were the largest Christian group globally. Catholicism, which still predominates in southern and central Europe, is particularly evident in former Spanish, French and Portuguese colonies, such as Latin America, Mexico and the Philippines. Canada and Australia have large Catholic communities, reflecting immigration from the Catholic Old World,... More
From c. 5000 BCE, drought and the desertification of northeast Africa caused nomadic cattle herders to gravitate toward the Nile flood plains, creating separate kingdoms spanning the Nubian desert to the delta. The first settlements kept livestock, practised agriculture and used simple clay pottery. Excavations show that in the Early... More
The earliest evidence of humans in India dates to approximately 1.5 million years ago in fragments of fossil tools found in Attirampakkam and Krishna, in southeast and southern central India respectively. A partial human skull, probably Homo Erectus, dating back 500,000 years has been recovered from valley of the River... More
As the first full year of the conflict neared its end, President Davis responded to a call from his home state Mississippi’s legislature to visit and provide ‘refuge from an Iliad of Woes’. Travelling incognito with just one aide, Davis combined his address in Jackson with a tour of his... More
Major General Sterling Price’s Raid on Missouri was ambitious in conception, flawed in execution. State and national elections were impending, and the masterplan was to seize Missouri, secure a Confederate governor and so discredit Lincoln that he lost the presidential election. Price was given the go-ahead and amassed a largely... More
The Chinese Republic was established in 1912 but, by 1931, had descended into a civil war, which the Japanese were quick to exploit. After several acts of aggression, beginning with the taking of Peking (now Beijing) and Tientsin, war was declared in July 1937. From the start, Japan had aerial... More
William Caxton, a wealthy London merchant, acquired the art of printing while based in Bruges. His first printed English work, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, was produced in 1476 in Westminster. His output was eclectic, including chivalric romances and classical translations, such as Aesop’s Fables. Britain was a slow burner in the... More
Johannes Gutenberg was a goldsmith in Mainz, who managed, after years of painstaking experiment, to perfect the manufacture of small metal movable type. Guttenberg produced 200 copies of his revolutionary 42-line Bible in 1453. The new technology took off, and by 1461 a rival in Bamberg, Albrecht Pfister, had produced... More
At the beginning of the 20th century Hollywood was an idyllic, unincorporated backwater in which movie theatres were banned. This changed with its merger with Los Angeles in 1910. Thereafter, it became an unwitting beneficiary of an exodus of the nascent film industry from its original hub in New York/New... More
As the war progressed, the Nazi war machine was in need of oil, yet no area under Axis power had sufficient supplies. The oil-rich Middle East was a logical target for the Nazis, yet to succeed they would need to take the Suez Canal. From there, they could sweep through... More
Prior to the establishment of the 1st Dynasty, there is evidence of increasing sophistication and interconnectedness between autonomous settlements dotted along the Nile. This is attested by more sophisticated artefacts, particularly pottery design and ornamentation, and a range of trade, with goods such as obsidian, gold, copper and lapis lazuli... More