To understand why Belarus isn’t part of Russia, you have to go back to the medieval world of the Kievan Rus and the later power struggles between Lithuania, Poland, and Muscovy. For centuries, Belarus ...

The marsh had defeated civilizations for millennia, from ancient tribes to medieval rulers. But 1930s engineers approached ...

Roland Scheel, a Scandinavian scholar leading the research, explained that primary sources were written by Christian scholars well over a century after the Viking period ended. Apart from brief runic ...

This piece is the last of a series of articles covering the medieval and early modern great powers of each of Asia’s regions: East Asia, Central and North Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and West ...

During a four-year excavation of an Etruscan well at the ancient Italian settlement of Cetamura del Chianti, a team led by a Florida State University archaeologist and art historian unearthed ...

This piece is part of a series of articles covering the medieval and early modern great powers of each of Asia’s regions: East Asia, Central and North Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and West Asia ...

Every entry in “Sid Meier’s Civilization” series has a learning curve. The first time players take on a campaign, it’s full of blunders. They have to dig through the new mechanic and discover they ...

The feeling will be familiar to many who have visited the great cities of history: I had come to Athens for the first time and made a pilgrimage to its democratic Assembly, Plato's Academy, and ...

If you want to understand what makes great civilizations possible, consider a walk on Monte Testaccio in central Rome. This 115-foot hill is actually an artificial mound, made up of fragments of ...

When someone mentions castles in America, your mind probably jumps to Disney World or maybe some fancy mansion in California. But tucked away in Loveland, Ohio, sits a genuine medieval fortress that’s ...

MONTPELLIER, France — Archaeological evidence from 1,768 ancient grape seeds scattered across Italy tells a surprising story: the transition from wild grape gathering to actual winemaking took ...

No, there were no stories of chivalry or dragons in Mesoamerica between the 5th and 15th centuries. But why was there no Middle Ages in Mexico? A Mexican historian explains. (Denis ...