Maya royal palace at Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico (600s-700s AD) When did they get started? When the Olmec rulers began to lose control of their country about 600 BC, new leaders came forward and [...]
Mexican history: Tenochtitlan under attack (painted in the 1600s) The Aztecs in Mexico In 1500 AD, the Aztec controlled most of what is now Mexico. People also called them the Mexica. More [...]
Ohlone people crossing San Francisco Bay, with a European wool blanket (Louis Choris, 1816 AD) Native people in California In 1500 AD, California was a popular place to live. About [...]
Copernicus, a Renaissance astronomer Starting in the 1200s AD, as Europe got richer, great universities got started there. In the later Middle Ages, West Asia and India suffered from the Mongol invasions. West Asian people were too poor to [...]
Charles Quint (by Titian, 1548) The Ottomans terrify Europe The biggest worry that people had in the early 1500s AD in Europe was that the Ottoman Empire was going to conquer Europe. Would Europe [...]
Catherine de Medici ruled France during the Protestant Reformation What was the Reformation? By the time Francis I of France and Henry VIII of England both died in 1547 AD, attacks by the Ottoman Empire were less [...]
Joanna of Castile, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain - the mother of Charles V Maximilian I and the Hapsburgs Maximilian I of the powerful Hapsburg family decided not to [...]
Pieter Brueghel, Children's Games (1560 AD) Did Brueghel see Chinese art? As European traders began to sail directly to China in the late 1400s AD, they brought back all kinds [...]
Mughal Empire - Babur, first Mughal ruler Timur's descendants: the Mughal Empire Timur's empire collapsed when he died in 1405 AD. Then the Mongols lost control of India for a while. Local Muslim leaders formed small [...]
