Following the heavy defeat of the Teutonic Order of Knights by the Polish-Lithuanian alliance at Tannenberg in 1410, the Order’s control and reputation began to weaken. Most of the Order’s senior knights had been killed on the battlefield, and the remainder were obliged to fall back and defend their capital... More
Being Muslim does not mean that a follower is restricted to specific languages. Instead, they follow their own culture and speak the native language of the part of the world they occupy. The Quran was revealed in Arabic and many non-Arabic speaking Muslims learn Arabic in order to read an... More
Ancient Italy resembled the modern Caucasus, with an intricate ethnography reflecting its complex topography. Yet both are regions girdled by seas and thus exposed to external commerce and colonization. At the beginning of the 5th century BCE, Etruria and Greece were vying to be the dominant colonizing power on the... More
Following the dismemberment of the Spanish Empire, Latin America remained highly unstable, with a succession of Caudillos, military strongmen, seizing power and waging war. Some of these wars were brutal: Paraguay lost up to half its population in conflict with Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina (1864–70); Bolivia lost its access to... More
The travellers of the ancient world positioned themselves using landmarks and simple maps. This worked well locally, but different methods were needed for travelling further afield across featureless terrain such as sea or desert. Travellers now required a frame of reference, or co-ordinates, to fix their position. In the 3rd... More
After World War I, the territories of Germany and the Ottoman Empire were reclassified as mandates and allocated to leading powers, which would oversee their administration until the mandate was deemed able to run itself. From the former territories of the Ottoman Empire, France was entrusted with control of the... More
The Battle of Lechfeld saw Otto I, King of East Francia repel the invading Hungarian army commanded by Horka Bulcsú. Otto moved his troops from the west to intercept the Hungarian army near Augsburg. Two days before the main battle began, the Hungarians attempted to besiege Augsburg itself but were... More
After retreating from Russia in 1812, Napoleon launched a new campaign in Germany in 1813. The Russian army pursued the French into the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Prussia, where the Prussian army changed sides under the Treaty of Kalisz and joined the Russian forces against Napoleon. Combined Prussian-Russian forces... More
During the siege of Leningrad (8 September 1941–27 January 1944) the Germans engaged in a systematic bombardment of civilian and military infrastructure in an attempt to crush the morale of those trapped inside. By the end of 1941 the incendiary bombs and shells fired into the city had destroyed the... More
On 23 June 1944 the Red Army attacked Army Group Centre in Belorussia as part of Operation Bagration. Following the collapse of the German front line, the Soviets encircled German forces around Minsk, liberating the city on 4 July. The Soviet offensive now turned to Poland and the Baltic States.... More
One of Hitler’s strategic goals under Operation Barbarossa was Leningrad, the symbolic capital of the Russian Revolution. As Army Group North (comprising 18th Army, 4th Panzer Army and 16th Army) advanced, the Russians formed the defensive Leningrad Front; further defence was created through the split of the northern Front to... More
Captain Meriwether Lewis was commissioned by President Jefferson to explore the territories acquired by the 1803 Louisiana Purchase and to find ‘practicable water communication’ to the Pacific. Enlisting the soldier William Clark as his confederate, Lewis departed St Charles near St Louis with his ‘Corps of Discovery’ in May 1804,... More