The Great Depression was an event that devastated not just American families and business, but also the lives of people and nations around the world. How did this chapter of history ultimately shape the face of the modern world? […]
The Renaissance is having a big year. Part of what’s fueling scholarly interest is the 200th birthday of Jacob Burckhard, author of what is arguably still the most famous study of the Italian Renaissance, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Here, read about the life of the man, historian, and author of this seminal work. […]
The Christian emperor Constantine was ever pragmatic; he could only push his pagan subjects so far. One act of his, in the end, ensured the position of Christianity: the establishment of a new capital that would be known as Constantinople. […]
Absolutism was a system of government in which all sovereignty resided with the king, true to Louis XIV’s dictum: “I am the state.” Particularly in France and Germany, the wars of religion had seriously weakened national governments and monarchies. Nobles had regained a great deal of power, peasants were in revolt, and there was really a great need for a political rebuilding of monarchies. […]
Before Italy’s city-states were united under Victor Emmanuel II of the House of Savoy in 1861, Italy was, as Prince Clemens von Metternich said to Lord Palmerston, “merely a geographical expression.” […]
The reign of Augustus has often been called the Golden Age of Rome. This was the age of many great cultural achievements including the writing of Roman poetry by the master poets Virgil and Ovid. […]
In 1931, Spain had become a democracy, the Second Republic, when King Alfonso had gone into exile. The government enacted legislation to reduce the power […]
As Europe approached 1500, a generation of stronger monarchs arose. Their goal was to suppress baronial rebellions and subordinate the church and aristocracy. They wanted to make themselves more secure and, ultimately, absolute. They would establish the modern conception of the nation-state with unitary loyalty owed to that state. […]
During the Italian Renaissance, the history of ancient Rome proudly remained in the forefront of popular culture. It’s presence was increasingly regarded as an intellectual heritage to be mined for contemporary use. […]
On June 28, 1914, the heir to the Habsburg throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife were both assassinated in the capital of Bosnia, Sarajevo. Six weeks later, Europe found itself on the brink of the 20th century’s first world war. […]
© The Teaching Company, LLC. All rights reserved.