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On July 12, 1588, the legendary Spanish Armada started for the English channel. The Spanish plan was to take this invasion, led by the duke of Parma, to the coast of southeast England, where they would be released to conquer Elizabethan England for the Spanish monarch and Catholic Christendom.

The vast expanses of southern Russia and the Ukraine provided the Eastern Front arena where the armies of Third Reich dictator Adolf Hitler and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin wrestled lethally for supremacy in 1943. Endless rolling plains - ideal "tank country" - vast forests, sprawling cities, and enormous tracts of agricultural land formed the environment over which millions of men and thousands of the era's most formidable military vehicles fought for their respective overlords and ideologies.

Although apartheid is typically dated from the late 1940s until its dismantling decades later, segregationist policies had been the norm in South Africa from nearly the moment European explorers sailed to the region and began settling there. Whether it was displacing and fighting indigenous groups like the Khoi and San, or fighting other whites like the Boer, separation between ethnicities was the norm in South Africa for centuries before the election of Malan signaled the true rise of the Afrikaner far right.

There is no record of Marco Polo ever visiting the Andaman Islands, so his brief description of the islanders must have been drawn from a secondary source. They were, he wrote, “a most brutish and savage race, having heads, eyes, and teeth like those of dogs. They are very cruel, and kill and eat every foreigner whom they can lay their hands upon.”

For the Maya, astronomy was not a purely scientific pursuit, but intimately linked to religious, mythological, and ideological elements that were of the highest importance. The celestial realm held a sacred nature, as did the many gods and goddesses that dwelt there, so for all Mesoamerican cultures, astronomy was a fundamental part of their everyday lives. Thus, astronomy was present in their calendars, religion, and even agriculture, and in close relation to astronomy, the concept of time was also an essential part of their worldview.

While Waco remains notorious more for the federal agents’ siege of David Koresh’s compound and the deaths of the Branch Davidians, it was followed a few years later by a mass suicide carried out by one of the most notorious doomsday cults in American history. On paper, the extraordinarily unorthodox ideology spouted by Heaven's Gate ranks near the top of the list of most outlandish end-of-the-world prophecies, and it was built on a blend of Christian, Gnostic, supernatural, New Age, and extraterrestrial lore.

Different branches of the same religion are the exception more than the rule, and they have had a profound impact upon history. The schism between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches influenced relationships between nations across Europe, and religious intolerance based on different Christian faiths led to persecution and outright violence across the continent for centuries.

Sulla had become renowned in Rome as a general during the Jugurthine, Social, and Mithridatic Wars, but naturally he is now remembered for the gruesome acts committed during his tenure as Rome’s first lifelong dictator. Sulla’s unprecedented period of one-man rule is viewed by many historians as a means of re-establishing peace and order in Roman politics while safeguarding the Republican system from abuse by powerful individuals.

He was the only sitting member of the House of Representatives elected President to date, but he served only about half a year in the office. He was the second president in less than 20 years felled by an assassin’s bullet. Yet James A. Garfield, a man little known outside his own party before his “dark-horse” nomination by the Republican Party in 1880, was significant in a number of ways. Garfield’s short term marked the first entrance of a “reformist” strain into the presidency that sought to root out corruption and political favoritism in government.

When scholars study the history of the ancient Near East, several wars that had extremely brutal consequences (at least by modern standards) often stand out. Forced removal of entire populations, sieges that decimated entire cities, and wanton destruction of property were all tactics used by the various peoples of the ancient Near East against each other, but the Assyrians were the first people to make war a science. When the Assyrians are mentioned, images of war and brutality are among the first that come to mind, despite the fact that their culture prospered for nearly 2,000 years.

On July 15, 1410, Tannenberg was the site of another decisive battle between the army of the Germanic Teutonic Order and that of Poland-Lithuania, a battle now commonly referred to as the Battle of Grunwald (after a nearby village). German nationalism saw the destruction of the Russians as vengeance upon the Slavs for the defeat of 1410, and the Nazis also exploited that sentiment during their invasions of Poland and Russia.

The conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is over 70 years old and counting but has its roots in over 2,000 years of history. With so much time and history, the Middle East peace process has become laden with unique, politically sensitive. Menachem Begin: The Life and Legacy of the Irgun Leader Who Became Israel’s Prime Minister looks at how Begin rose the ranks through militias and governments to become one of the Jewish State’s most consequential leaders.

2016 has been one of the most unusual election years, and nothing represents the unprecedented nature more than the race for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, which featured more than 15 candidates. As with most years, several candidates with various political experience, from former and current governors to Congressmen and Senators, ran, but the race also featured a number of political novices, one of whom became the party’s nominee.

Osiris was one of the most important gods in the Egyptian pantheon, and he could well be the most famous of the Egyptian gods today. Aside from the ubiquity of the sun-god Ra in much of modern popular culture, it is Osiris who captivates the minds of modern readers most. His story is both familiar and strangely alien. He is the god of the dead, but he became so by the very fact of his mortality. All the gods of ancient Egypt were capable of dying, but Osiris was also a symbol of resurrection.

Wellington’s Scum: The History and Legacy of the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars examines the history of the British Army during one of history’s most pivotal eras. You will learn about the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars like never before.

Individuals who decide to learn about the Old Testament of the Bible are immediately faced with the difficult proposition of identifying the various peoples that the Hebrews met and sometimes came into conflict with when they entered the territory that eventually became Israel. The Canaanites and Philistines: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Israelites' Enemies in the Land That Became Israel looks at the various groups and their impact on the region and subsequent cultures.

The story of Jason and his crew of Argonauts is one of the best-known and most beloved myths of all time. Blockbuster movies have been made about it, and legendary explorer and historian Tim Severin even constructed a replica of the Argo in 1984 and succeeded in sailing it to Colchis (modern-day Georgia). In the ancient world too, this myth was told and retold time and again.

Tyranny in ancient Greece was not a phenomenon limited to any particular period. Tyrants could be found in power throughout Greece, ruling poleis from the 7th century BC right through to the 2nd century BC, when Roman domination effectively put an end to this form of government throughout the Hellenistic world. That said, the heyday of tyranny was undoubtedly the 7th and 6th centuries BC, and it is in this period, known as the Age of Tyrants, that large numbers of tyrannies arose, particularly in the Peloponnese.

The world watched in horror as Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans in August 2005, and the calamity seemed all the worse because many felt that technology had advanced far enough to prevent such tragedies, whether through advanced warning or engineering. Spawning off the Bahamian coast that month, Katrina quickly grew to be one of the deadliest natural disasters in American history, killing more than 1,800 people and flooding a heavy majority of one of America's most famous cities.

At 9:32 a.m. on July 16, 1969, time stood still throughout the world as thousands converged on the Kennedy Space Center and millions tuned in on live television. At that instant, the first rumbles began to shake the ground, as a small spacecraft attached to the giant Saturn V rocket several hundred feet tall started lifting off. Apollo 11 was on its way to a historic first landing on the Moon.