During the period after the Persian war two great powers arose in Greece, which were destined to come into close and virulent conflict. These were the league of Delos, which develo...
Otho II., Emperor of Germany,--Otho the Red, as he was called, from his florid complexion,--succeeded to the Western Empire in 973, when in his eighteenth year of age. His reign wa...
On a bright May morning in the year 1609, at the point where the stream then known as the Rivi[`e]re des Iroquois--and which has since borne the various names of the Richelieu, the...
We have already told what the word "tyrant" meant in Greece,--a despot who set aside the law and ruled at his own pleasure, but who might be mild and gentle in his rule. Such were...
The reign of Peter the Great was signalized by two notable instances of the rise of persons from the lowest to the highest estate, ability being placed above birth and talent prefe...
After the death of the great Hoangti, two of his generals fought for the throne of China,--Lieou Pang, who represents, in the Chinese annals, intellect, and Pa Wang, representing b...
In 1492, nearly eight centuries after the conquest of Spain by the Arabs, their dominion ended in the surrender of the city of Granada by King Boabdil to the army of Ferdinand and...
The story of a poor boy, born on the edge of the wilderness,--"at a despicable plantation on the river of Kennebec, and almost the farthest village of the eastern settlement of New...
Of all the minor operations of the Civil War, the one most marked at once by daring and success was the pioneer invasion of the Northern States, the notable Chambersburg raid of th...
In the history of nations there have been many instances of a man descended from the lowest class of the populace reaching the highest rank. Kings, conquerors, emperors, have thus...
As Italy was invaded by Gonsalvo de Cordova, the Great Captain, so Africa was invaded by Cardinal Ximenes, the Great Churchman, one of the ablest men who ever appeared in Spain, de...
The 12th of October, 1492, ranks very high among the important dates in the history of the world. For on that day men from Europe, then the centre of civilization, first gazed on a...
Many as have been the wars of China, the Chinese are not a warlike people. Their wars have mostly been fought at home to repress rebellion or overcome feudal lords, and during the...
In the later years of the Chow dynasty appeared the two greatest thinkers that China ever produced, Laoutse, the first and ablest philosopher of his race, and Confucius, a practica...
The dull monotony of sieges, of which there were many during the war with Granada, was little to the taste of the valorous Spanish cavaliers. They burned for adventure, and were ev...
In that year of woe and dread, 1348, the Black Death fell upon England. Never before had so frightful a calamity been known; never since has it been equalled. Men died by millions....
Shall we not break for a time from our record of special tales and let fall on our pages a bit of winter sunshine from the South, the story of a Christmas festival in the land of t...
It was a splendid road to fortune which Columbus opened to the adventurers of Spain, and hundreds of them soon took that promising path. Among these was one Vasco Nunez de Balboa,...
Nero, the cruel coward under whom Rome for its sins was made to suffer, could scarcely devise follies and atrocities enough to please his profligate fancy. He offended the pride an...
On the eastern margin of the Bay of Naples, where it serves as a striking background to the city of that name, stands the renowned Vesuvius, the most celebrated volcano in the worl...
A beautiful, wise, and well-learned maiden was Clotilde, princess of Burgundy, the noblest and most charming of the daughters of the Franks. Such was the story that the voice of fa...
We wish to say something here about a curious old man who lived in Virginia when George Washington was a boy, and who was wise enough to see that young Washington was anything but...
At the festival of Easter, in the year 1062, a great banquet was given in the royal palace at Kaiserswerth, on the Rhine. The Empress Agnes, widow of Henry III., and regent of the...
While Tarquin the Proud was king a strange thing happened at Rome. One day an unknown woman came to the king, bearing in her arms nine books, which she offered to sell to him at a...
The sentinels on the ramparts of Jelalabad, a fortified post held by the British in Afghanistan, looking out over the plain that extended northward and westward from the town, saw...
Of all the many fair maidens of the Saxon realm none bore such fame for beauty as the charming Elfrida, daughter of the earl of Devonshire, and the rose of southern England. She ha...
In looking upon a modern map of the empire of China, it will be seen to cover a vast area in Asia, including not only China proper but the wide plains of Mongolia and the rock-boun...
In the assault by the Roman forces on Megara, the suburb of Carthage, the first to mount the wall was a young man named Tiberius Gracchus, brother-in-law of Scipio, the commander,...
At the end of October, 1578, Sir Francis Drake, the Sea-King of Devon, as he was called, and the most daring and persistent of the enemies of the Spanish settlements in America, sa...
On the 16th of July, 1212, was fought the great battle which broke the Moorish power in Spain. During the two centuries before fresh streams of invasion had flowed in from Africa t...