The Pharisees were a Jewish sect that emerged c. 150 BCE and promoted the idea of priestly purity for all Jews, belief in providence or fate, and the concept of the resurrection of the dead, and taugh...

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) was an accomplished cavalry commander, then head of Parliament’s New Model Army, and finally Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The latter title was awarded....

A prominent Icelandic merchant named Thórarin Nefjólfsson happened to be in Túnsberg (now Tønsberg), Norway, at a time when King Olaf II Haraldsson (r. 1015-1028) was residing in the city. T…

Khotyn fortress is a complex of fortifications situated on the hilly right bank of the Dniester in Khotyn, Ukraine. It consists of a 13th-century stronghold and an 18th-century bastion surrounding it....

Astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus was born on this day. The Church dismissed as heresy his theory that Earth revolved around the sun and not the other way round.

Heinrich Bullinger (l. 1504-1575) was a Swiss reformer, minister, and historian who succeeded Huldrych Zwingli (l. 1484-1531) as leader of the Reformed Church in Switzerland and became the theological...

Protesters fighting government forces on Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv on 18 February 2014.