Search Results: Walter benjamin

Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1552-1618 CE) was an English courtier, soldier, mariner, explorer, and historian. A one-time favourite of his queen, Elizabeth I of England (r. 1558-1603 CE), Raleigh organised three expeditions to form a colony on...

Oil on slate painting by Benjamin West, c.1816. From the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Captain Benjamin Hornigold was a British pirate active in the Caribbean and North Atlantic from 1716 to 1717. Hornigold’s greatest claim to fame (or infamy) is that he taught the pirating ropes to Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard (d. 1718). Giving...

An unfinished oil sketch depicting the Treaty of Paris of 1783, by Benjamin West, c. 1783. The American commissioners depicted from left to right are John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Laurens, and William Temple Franklin...

An illustration by Walter Paget of Robinson Crusoe which appeared in an 1895-6 edition of Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe, first published in 1719. The character was inspired by Alexander Selkirk, marooned on the Juan Fernández Islands...

A portrait by Nicholas Hilliard of Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1552-1618 CE), the English courtier, soldier, mariner, explorer and historian. (National Portrait Gallery, London)

The Duchy of Athens was a Latin or Frankish state in Greece that existed from 1205 to 1458 CE. It was created in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204 CE) and would be ruled for the majority of its history by the Burgundian de la...

Richard I of England, also known as Richard the Lionheart (Cœur de Lion), reigned as king of England from 1189 to 1199 CE. The son of Henry II of England (r. 1154-1189 CE) and Eleanor of Aquitaine (c. 1122-1204 CE), Richard was known for...

Alexander III of Scotland reigned from 1249 to 1286 CE. Succeeding his father Alexander II of Scotland (r. 1214-1249 CE) at the age of eight, the young king's early reign was blighted by rivalries between his nobles, a situation made more...

Thessaly was an independent state in medieval Greece from 1267 or 1268 to 1394 CE, first as the Greek-ruled Thessaly and later as the Catalan and Latin-ruled Duchy of Neopatras. Under its sebastokrators, Thessaly was a thorn in the side of...