Rebel generals plagued the Roman Empire for much of its history, but few were as bold or as successful as Carausius. A skilled naval commander, he first rose to prominence around 286 A.D., when he More

In 1738, a British mariner named Robert Jenkins displayed a severed, decomposing ear before the members of Parliament. As part of a formal testimony, he claimed that a Spanish coastguard officer had More

If Rome’s sheer size made it difficult to govern, ineffective and inconsistent leadership only served to magnify the problem. More

In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made its own re-ordering of the Ukrainian jigsaw. Western Ukraine was taken by Stalin from Poland at the end of the Second World War. Crimea was transferred by More

In 490 B.C., as the story goes, a Greek soldier ran from Marathon to Athens, a distance of just over 26 miles, to bring news of the Athenian victory over the Persians in the Battle of Marathon. More

The marathon may have ancient roots, but the foot race’s official length of 26.2 miles wasn’t established until the 20th century. The first organized marathon was held in Athens at the 1896 More

There is no doubt that it bears a negative imprint of the face and outline of the body of a man who has suffered injuries consistent with crucifixion, but scientists have been unable to reach a More

Between 14 October 1066, when Harold II was killed at the battle of Hastings, and 25 December, when William I was crowned at Westminster Abbey, England was ruled, at least in theory, by Edgar More

China’s legendary Great Wall is actually a collection of stone, wood and earthen barricades that meander for thousands of miles from the Gobi Desert to the North Korean border. More

This early period of ‘taking of the land’ is described in the Landnámabók, a 13th-century compilation of earlier sources, which details the names, ancestry and notable deeds of the first More

A schoolboy who fought on the Somme after lying about his age has been declared the youngest authenticated combatant of the First World War. More

The conquest of Sindh brought Islamic civilization face to face with the ancient Vedic civilization of the Indo-Gangetic Plains. In later centuries, there was much that Muslim scholarship would learn More

When Roman forces reached the Euphrates in the 60s BC, they met the Arsacid dynasty of the Parthians, which had been expanding westward for over two centuries. More

The Forbidden City, the Great Wall, fabulous ceramics: the Ming is how we see historic China. The Ming came out of the shock of Mongol occupation and the civil wars of the 1350s. More

Before the Arab Revolt could even begin and before Sharif Hussein could create his Arab kingdom, the British and French had other plans. In the winter of 1915-1916, two diplomats, Sir Mark Sykes of More

At first, the new Turkish government seemed to inherit the role of the Ottoman government as the upholder of Islam. A new constitution drawn up by the GNA declared that Islam was the official state More

Charles II is, in my view, the wittiest monarch in English history. He was courageous, tolerant, lazy, duplicitous and pleasure-loving: his return from exile in 1660 inaugurated the most conspicuous More

With limited technology available, effective ‘in the field’ communication during the First World War was difficult. Communication was restricted mostly to physical message relaying, Morse More

The sight of a speeding helicopter embarking upon a potentially life-saving rescue mission is today a familiar one, but when were aircrafts first used in such operations? More

In the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, there is a gallery which houses imperial artifacts from the British Raj. In a prominent section of the gallery that was opened by none other than Pundit More

The first formal madrasa of the Muslim world, the University of al-Karaouine in Fes was established in 859 by a wealthy merchant by the name of Fatima al-Fihri. More

Perhaps the largest human impact of the 1948 War was the expulsion of much of the Palestinian population. Within the borders of the new State of Israel, there had been close to 1,000,000 Palestinian More

The European powers, however, believed it was only a matter of time before ethnic tensions would erupt into fully-fledged independence movements. More

From the 1500s through the 1800s, European nations were engaged in a tragic and barbaric practice known as the "slave trade". During this period, over 12 million Africans were boarded onto ships and More