Search Results: Maurice ashley

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was a French composer of classical music best known for his innovative piano pieces and orchestral works like Bolero and Daphnis et Chloé. Sometimes called an 'impressionist' composer, much was made of a practically...

The Schmalkaldic War (1546-1547) was fought between the Protestant Schmalkaldic League and the Catholic armies under Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, who, having failed to achieve religious unity of his subjects at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530...

The Eighty Years' War (1568-1648, also known as The Dutch Revolt and Dutch War of Independence) was a military conflict between the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands and Spain, which then governed them, beginning in the reign of King...

The Siege of Charleston (29 March to 12 May 1780) was a major military operation during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). Hoping to establish a foothold in the American South, British commander-in-chief Sir Henry Clinton led an...

Yazdegerd III (r. 632-651) was the last monarch of the Sassanian Empire (224-651), ruling – or attempting to rule – amidst the chaos of its final decline and fall to the invading Muslim Arabs. He was the son of the prince Shahriyar (d. 628...

Children were widely used as labour in factories, mines, and agriculture during the British Industrial Revolution (1760-1840). Very often working the same 12-hour shifts that adults did, children as young as five years old were paid a pittance...

The Avars were a confederation of heterogeneous (diverse or varied) people consisting of Rouran, Hephthalites, and Turkic-Oghuric races who migrated to the region of the Pontic Grass Steppe (an area corresponding to modern-day Ukraine, Russia...

Gertrude Bell (l. 1868-1926) was an archaeologist, travel writer, explorer, and political administrator responsible for creating the borders of the countries of the Near East after World War I and, especially, for the foundation of the modern...

Domesday Book was a comprehensive survey and record of all the landowners, property, tenants and serfs of medieval Norman England. It was compiled in 1086-7 under the orders of William the Conqueror (r. 1066-87). The record is unique in European...

A pastel portrait by Maurice Quentin de La Tour of the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). (Musée Antoine-Lécuyer, Saint-Quentin, France)