The nineteenth century wasn’t a great time for the Ottoman Empire. It wasn’t the worst time, that would be the beginning of the twentieth century when everything collapsed. But for an empire that had been the strong conqueror of Europe out of Asia, it was a catastrophe. The coming fall of the Ottomans was so …
Cleopatra VII Philopater, mistress of Julius Caesar, wife of Marc Antony, Pharaoh of Egypt, killed herself on 12 August 30 BC. With her death the Ptolemaic Dynasty of Egypt ended. Except, actually, it didn’t. Cleopatra was, genetically, Egyptian-in-name-only. The Ptolemaic Dynasty came to power in Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 …
History consists of a lot of times and places when it would have been the opposite of awesome to exist in the prescribed role for women. Certainly ancient Greece checks this box, as, in the worlds of a museum website, “Greek women had virtually no political rights of any kind and were controlled by men …
In the Balkans, language rolls off the tongue and defines the culture profoundly. The way people speak is the way they think and also how they act and react. Tradition is key – the way things are done is the way things have always been done. Nothing changes easily. It is little wonder there are …
Within the thousands of pictures the world has of Yugoslavia’s apex leader Josip Broz Tito are many, many photos of the Yugoslav leader in various poses and situations with his pet dogs. Tito was well-known as an animal lover. During his time in leadership, other world leaders would send exotic beasts of all types to …
In August 1963, one month after an earthquake decimated the capital of Skopje, an open topped car zipped around the Socialist Republic of Macedonia carrying two powerful men who were dancing around a renewed relationship. Josip Broz Tito, whose fantastic response to Stalin’s constant dispatching of assassins ended Soviet/Yugoslav relations for many years, was showing …