Cloister at Moissac (ca. 1100 AD, southern France) The first part of the Middle Ages saw very little building of anything but houses in northern Europe, as people struggled to adjust to the fall of [...]
Plate tectonics: The world as seen from space (flattened out) The continents move around When you look at a map of the world, it seems as though it was always [...]
A man making paper West Asia entered the 1500s AD in a very powerful position in world trade. Iran, together with the Central Asian state of Uzbekistan and the Mughal Empire, dominated the Silk Road, and the Silk Road [...]
Tenochtitlan under attack (painted in the 1600s) Ships and sailing improve Beginning about 1450 AD, Europeans took advantage of new advances in sail technolog. They invaded and took over most of the [...]
Heloise and Abelard Who was Heloise? The story of Heloise (HELL-oh-ees) and her husband Peter Abelard is one of the saddest stories of Western history. Heloise was born about 1100 [...]
Stone Age Italy: rock art from Val Camonica, in northern Italy. Neanderthals in Italy By around 200,000 years ago, there were a few early humans living in Italy. We know about them [...]
Etruscan art: Apollo of Veii (ca. 520 BC) Etruscan art and Greek art Etruscan art is in some ways a lot like Greek art of the same time, because the Etruscans [...]
Etruscan temple at Veii - a reconstruction When did Etruscans start to build in stone? The Etruscans, about 700 BC, were the first people in northern and central Italy to build big [...]
Troyes, France Shlomo Yitzhaki, or Shlomo son of Yitzak, was a Jewish man born in Troyes, France, in 1040 AD. This was when the Capetian kings ruled France. Shlomo was an only child, [...]
Jewish money-lenders in medieval France - Jews in medieval Europe A hard time for the Jews The Middle Ages in Europe were a difficult time for the Jews. Many Jews lived [...]
