Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (Russian: Анастасия Николаевна Романова, romanized: Anastasiya Nikolaevna Romanova; 18 June [O.S. 5 June] 1901 – 17 July 1918) was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna.

Anastasia was the younger sister of Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, and Maria (commonly known together as the OTMA sisters) and was the elder sister of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia. She was murdered with her family by a group of Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg on 17 July 1918. (Full article...)

The House of Plantagenet (/plænˈtædʒənət/ plan-TAJ-ə-nət) was a royal house which originated from the French county of Anjou. The name Plantagenet is used by modern historians to identify four distinct royal houses: the Angevins, who were also counts of Anjou; the main line of the Plantagenets following the loss of Anjou; and the Houses of Lancaster and York, two of the Plantagenets’ cadet branches. The family held the English throne from 1154, with the accession of Henry II, until 1485, when Richard III died.

England was transformed under the Plantagenets, although only partly intentionally. The Plantagenet kings were often forced to negotiate compromises such as Magna Carta, which constrained royal power in return for financial and military support. The king was no longer just the most powerful man in the nation, holding the prerogative of judgement, feudal tribute and warfare, but had defined duties to the realm, underpinned by a sophisticated justice system. A distinct national identity was shaped by their conflict with the French, Scots, Welsh and Irish, as well as by the establishment of Middle English as the primary language. (Full article...)

Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias (pronounced [kaˈʃi.ɐs]; 25 August 1803 – 7 May 1880), nicknamed "The Peacemaker" and "The Iron Duke", was an army officer, politician and monarchist of the Empire of Brazil. Like his father and uncles, Caxias pursued a military career. In 1823 he fought as a young officer in the Brazilian War for Independence against Portugal, then spent three years in Brazil's southernmost province, Cisplatina, as the government unsuccessfully resisted that province's secession in the Cisplatine War. Though his own father and uncles renounced Emperor Dom Pedro I during the protests of 1831, Caxias remained loyal. Pedro I abdicated in favor of his young son Dom Pedro II, whom Caxias instructed in swordsmanship and horsemanship and eventually befriended.

During Pedro II's minority the governing regency faced countless rebellions throughout the country. Again breaking with his father and other relatives sympathetic to the rebels, from 1839 to 1845 Caxias commanded loyalist forces suppressing such uprisings as the Balaiada, the Liberal rebellions of 1842 and the Ragamuffin War. In 1851, under his command, the Brazilian army prevailed against the Argentine Confederation in the Platine War; a decade later Caxias, as army marshal (the army's highest rank), led Brazilian forces to victory in the Paraguayan War. As a reward he was raised to the titled nobility, becoming successively a baron, count, and marquis, finally becoming the only person created duke during Pedro II's 58-year reign. (Full article...)

Wiglaf (died 839) was King of Mercia from 827 to 829 and again from 830 until his death in 839. His ancestry is uncertain: the 820s were a period of dynastic conflict within Mercia and the genealogy of several of the kings of this time is unknown. Wigstan, his grandson, was later recorded as a descendant of Penda of Mercia, so it is possible that Wiglaf was descended from Penda, one of the most powerful seventh-century kings of Mercia.

Wiglaf succeeded Ludeca, who was killed campaigning against East Anglia. His first reign coincided with the continued rise of the rival Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex under Ecgberht. Ecgberht drove Wiglaf from the throne in 829, and ruled Mercia directly for a year. Wiglaf recovered the kingdom in 830, probably by force, although it may be that Wiglaf remained subject to Ecgberht's overlordship. Mercia never regained the south-eastern kingdoms, but Berkshire and perhaps Essex came back into Mercian control. The causes of the fluctuating fortunes of Mercia and Wessex are a matter of speculation, but it may be that Carolingian support influenced both Ecgberht's ascendancy and the subsequent Mercian recovery. Although Wiglaf appeared to have restored Mercia's independence, the recovery was short-lived, and later in the century Mercia was divided between Wessex and the Vikings. (Full article...)

Domenico Selvo (died 1087) was the 31st Doge of Venice, serving from 1071 to 1084. During his reign as Doge, his domestic policies, the alliances that he forged, and the battles that the Venetian military won and lost laid the foundations for much of the subsequent foreign and domestic policy of the Republic of Venice. He avoided confrontations with the Byzantine Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Roman Catholic Church at a time in European history when conflict threatened to upset the balance of power. At the same time, he forged new agreements with the major nations that would set up a long period of prosperity for the Republic of Venice. Through his military alliance with the Byzantine Empire, Emperor Alexios I Komnenos awarded Venice economic favors with the declaration of a golden bull that would allow for the development of the republic's international trade over the next few centuries.

Within the city itself, he supervised a longer period of the construction of the modern St Mark's Basilica than any other Doge. The basilica's complex architecture and expensive decorations stand as a testament to the prosperity of Venetian traders during this period. The essentially democratic way in which he not only was elected but also removed from power was part of an important transition of Venetian political philosophy. The overthrow of his rule in 1084 was one of many forced abdications in the early history of the republic that further blurred the lines between the powers of the Doge, the common electorate, and the nobility. (Full article...)

Æthelwold (/ˈæθəlwoʊld/) or Æthelwald (died 13 December 902) was the younger of two known sons of Æthelred I, King of Wessex from 865 to 871. Æthelwold and his brother Æthelhelm were still infants when their father the king died while fighting a Danish Viking invasion. The throne passed to the king's younger brother (Æthelwold's uncle) Alfred the Great, who carried on the war against the Vikings and won a crucial victory at the Battle of Edington in 878.

After Alfred's death in 899, Æthelwold disputed the throne with Alfred's son, Edward the Elder. As senior ætheling (prince of the royal dynasty eligible for kingship), Æthelwold had a strong claim to the throne. He attempted to raise an army to support his claim, but was unable to get sufficient support to meet Edward in battle and fled to Viking-controlled Northumbria, where he was accepted as king. In 901 or 902 he sailed with a fleet to Essex, where he was also accepted as king. (Full article...)

Princess Beatrice (Beatrice Mary Victoria Feodore; 14 April 1857 – 26 October 1944), later Princess Henry of Battenberg, was the fifth daughter and youngest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Beatrice was also the last of Queen Victoria's children to die, nearly 66 years after the first, her elder sister Alice.

Beatrice's childhood coincided with Queen Victoria's grief following the death of her husband on 14 December 1861. As her elder sisters married and left their mother, the Queen came to rely on the company of her youngest daughter, whom she called "Baby" for most of her childhood. Beatrice was brought up to stay with her mother always and she soon resigned herself to her fate. The Queen was so set against her youngest daughter marrying that she refused to discuss the possibility. Nevertheless, many suitors were put forward, including Louis Napoléon, Prince Imperial, the son of the exiled Emperor Napoleon III of France, and Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, the widower of Beatrice's older sister Alice. She was attracted to the Prince Imperial and there was talk of a possible marriage, but he was killed in the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879. (Full article...)

Eadred (also Edred, c. 923 – 23 November 955) was King of the English from 26 May 946 until his death in 955. He was the younger son of Edward the Elder and his third wife Eadgifu, and a grandson of Alfred the Great. His elder brother, Edmund, was killed trying to protect his seneschal from an attack by a violent thief. Edmund's two sons, Eadwig and Edgar, were then young children, so Eadred became king. He suffered from ill health in the last years of his life and he died at the age of a little over thirty, having never married. He was succeeded successively by his nephews, Eadwig and Edgar.

Eadred's elder half-brother Æthelstan inherited the kingship of England south of the Humber in 924, and conquered the south Northumbrian Viking kingdom of York in 927. Edmund and Eadred both inherited kingship of the whole kingdom, lost it shortly afterwards when York accepted Viking kings, and recovered it by the end of their reigns. In 954, the York magnates expelled their last king, Erik Bloodaxe, and Eadred appointed Osullf, the Anglo-Saxon ruler of the north Northumbrian territory of Bamburgh, as the first ealdorman of the whole of Northumbria. (Full article...)

Beorhtwulf (Old English: [ˈbeorˠxtwuɫf], meaning "bright wolf"; also spelled Berhtwulf; died 852) was King of Mercia, a kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England, from 839 or 840 to 852. His ancestry is unknown, though he may have been connected to Beornwulf, who ruled Mercia in the 820s. Almost no coins were issued by Beorhtwulf's predecessor, Wiglaf, but a Mercian coinage was restarted by Beorhtwulf early in his reign, initially with strong similarities to the coins of Æthelwulf of Wessex, and later with independent designs. The Vikings attacked within a year or two of Beorhtwulf's accession: the province of Lindsey was raided in 841, and London, a key centre of Mercian commerce, was attacked the following year. Another Viking assault on London in 851 "put Beorhtwulf to flight", according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; the Vikings were subsequently defeated by Æthelwulf. This raid may have had a significant economic impact on Mercia, as London coinage is much reduced after 851.

Berkshire appears to have passed from Mercian to West Saxon control during Beorhtwulf's reign. The Welsh are recorded to have rebelled against Beorhtwulf's successor, Burgred, shortly after Beorhtwulf's death, suggesting that Beorhtwulf had been their overlord. Charters from Beorthwulf's reign show a strained relationship with the church, as Beorhtwulf seized land and subsequently returned it. (Full article...)

Manuel I Komnenos (Greek: Μανουήλ Κομνηνός, romanized: Manouḗl Komnēnós; 28 November 1118 – 24 September 1180), Latinized as Comnenus, also called Porphyrogenitus (Greek: Πορφυρογέννητος; "born in the purple"), was a Byzantine emperor of the 12th century who reigned over a crucial turning point in the history of Byzantium and the Mediterranean. His reign saw the last flowering of the Komnenian restoration, during which the Byzantine Empire experienced a resurgence of military and economic power and enjoyed a cultural revival.

Eager to restore his empire to its past glories as the great power of the Mediterranean world, Manuel pursued an energetic and ambitious foreign policy. In the process he made alliances with Pope Adrian IV and the resurgent West. He invaded the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, although unsuccessfully, being the last Eastern Roman emperor to attempt reconquests in the western Mediterranean. The passage of the potentially dangerous Second Crusade through his empire was adroitly managed. Manuel established a Byzantine protectorate over the Crusader states of Outremer. Facing Muslim advances in the Holy Land, he made common cause with the Kingdom of Jerusalem and participated in a combined invasion of Fatimid Egypt. Manuel reshaped the political maps of the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean, placing the kingdoms of Hungary and Outremer under Byzantine hegemony and campaigning aggressively against his neighbours both in the west and in the east. (Full article...)

Anne (6 February 1665 – 1 August 1714) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 8 March 1702, and Queen of Great Britain and Ireland following the ratification of the Acts of Union 1707 merging the kingdoms of Scotland and England, until her death in 1714.

Anne was born during the reign of her uncle King Charles II. Her father was Charles's younger brother and heir presumptive, James, whose suspected Roman Catholicism was unpopular in England. On Charles's instructions, Anne and her elder sister Mary were raised as Anglicans. Mary married their Dutch Protestant cousin, William III of Orange, in 1677, and Anne married the Lutheran Prince George of Denmark in 1683. On Charles's death in 1685, James succeeded to the throne, but just three years later he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Mary and William became joint monarchs. Although the sisters had been close, disagreements over Anne's finances, status, and choice of acquaintances arose shortly after Mary's accession and they became estranged. William and Mary had no children. After Mary's death in 1694, William reigned alone until his own death in 1702, when Anne succeeded him. (Full article...)

George II (George Augustus; German: Georg August; 30 October / 9 November 1683 – 25 October 1760) was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) and a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 (O.S.) until his death in 1760.

Born and brought up in northern Germany, George is the most recent British monarch born outside Great Britain. The Act of Settlement 1701 and the Acts of Union 1707 positioned his grandmother Sophia of Hanover and her Protestant descendants to inherit the British throne. George married Princess Caroline of Ansbach, with whom he had eight children. After the deaths of George's grandmother and Anne, Queen of Great Britain, George's father, the Elector of Hanover, ascended the British throne as George I in 1714. In the first years of his father's reign as king, Prince George was associated with opposition politicians until they rejoined the governing party. (Full article...)

George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 29 January 1820 until his death in 1830. At the time of his accession to the throne, he was acting as prince regent for his father, King George III, having done so since 5 February 1811 during his father's final mental illness.

George IV was the eldest child of King George III and Queen Charlotte. He led an extravagant lifestyle that contributed to the fashions of the Regency era. He was a patron of new forms of leisure, style and taste. He commissioned John Nash to build the Royal Pavilion in Brighton and remodel Buckingham Palace, and commissioned Jeffry Wyatville to rebuild Windsor Castle. George's charm and culture earned him the title "the first gentleman of England", but his dissolute way of life and poor relationships with his parents and his wife, Caroline of Brunswick, earned him the contempt of the people and dimmed the prestige of the monarchy. He excluded Caroline from his coronation and asked the government to introduce the unpopular Pains and Penalties Bill in an unsuccessful attempt to divorce her. (Full article...)

Alexander II Theos Epiphanes Nikephoros (Ancient Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος Θεὸς Ἐπιφανὴς Νικηφόρος Aléxandros Theòs Epiphanḕs Nikēphóros, surnamed Zabinas; c. 150 BC – 123 BC) was a Hellenistic Seleucid monarch who reigned as the King of Syria between 128 BC and 123 BC. His true parentage is debated; depending on which ancient historian, he either claimed to be a son of Alexander I or an adopted son of Antiochus VII. Most ancient historians and the modern academic consensus maintain that Alexander II's claim to be a Seleucid was false. His surname "Zabinas" (Ζαβίνας) is a Semitic name that is usually translated as "the bought one". It is possible, however, that Alexander II was a natural son of Alexander I, as the surname can also mean "bought from the god". The iconography of Alexander II's coinage indicates he based his claims to the throne on his descent from Antiochus IV, the father of Alexander I.

Alexander II's rise is connected to the dynastic feuds of the Seleucid Empire. Both King Seleucus IV (d. 175 BC) and his brother Antiochus IV (d. 164 BC) had descendants contending for the throne, leading the country to experience many civil wars. The situation was complicated by Ptolemaic Egyptian interference, which was facilitated by the dynastic marriages between the two royal houses. In 128 BC, King Demetrius II of Syria, the representative of Seleucus IV's line, invaded Egypt to help his mother-in-law Cleopatra II who was engaged in a civil war against her brother and husband King Ptolemy VIII. Angered by the Syrian invasion, the Egyptian king instigated revolts in the cities of Syria against Demetrius II and chose Alexander II, a supposed representative of Antiochus IV's line, as an anti-king. With Egyptian troops, Alexander II captured the Syrian capital Antioch in 128 BC and warred against Demetrius II, defeating him decisively in 125 BC. The beaten king escaped to his wife Cleopatra Thea in the city of Ptolemais, but she expelled him. He was killed while trying to find refuge in the city of Tyre. (Full article...)

Neferirkare Kakai (also known as Raneferirka Kakai and in Greek as Nefercherês, Νεφερχέρης; died c. 2460 BC) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, the third king of the Fifth Dynasty. Neferirkare, the eldest son of Sahure with his consort Meretnebty, was known as Ranefer A before he came to the throne. He acceded the day after his father's death and reigned for around 17 years, sometime in the early to mid-25th century BCE. He was himself very likely succeeded by his eldest son, born of his queen Khentkaus II, the prince Ranefer B who would take the throne as king Neferefre. Neferirkare fathered another pharaoh, Nyuserre Ini, who took the throne after Neferefre's short reign and the brief rule of the poorly known Shepseskare.

Neferirkare was acknowledged by his contemporaries as a kind and benevolent ruler, intervening in favour of his courtiers after a mishap. His rule witnessed a growth in the number of administration and priesthood officials, who used their expanded wealth to build architecturally more sophisticated mastabas, where they recorded their biographies for the first time. Neferirkare was the last pharaoh to significantly modify the standard royal titulary, separating the nomen or birth name, from the prenomen or throne name. From his reign onwards, the former was written in a cartouche preceded by the "Son of Ra" epithet. His rule witnessed continuing trade relations with Nubia to the south and possibly with Byblos on the Levantine coast to the north. (Full article...)

Artabanus I (Parthian: 𐭍𐭐𐭕𐭓 Ardawān), incorrectly known in older scholarship as Artabanus II, was king of the Parthian Empire, ruling briefly from c. 127 to 124/3 BC. His short reign ended abruptly when he died during a battle against the Yuezhi in the east. He was succeeded by his son Mithridates II. (Full article...)

Bahram Mirza Moezz-od-Dowleh (Persian: بهرام میرزا معزالدوله) was a Qajar prince, statesman and governor in 19th-century Iran. The second son of the crown prince Abbas Mirza, he served as the Minister of Justice from 1878 until his death on 21 October 1882.

Bahram Mirza first started working for the government in 1828, when he briefly governed Khoy. After the death of his grandfather and sovereign Fath-Ali Shah Qajar (r. 1797–1834) on 24 October 1834, a dynastic struggle for the throne erupted. Bahram Mirza helped his elder brother Mohammad Shah Qajar (r. 1834–1848) defeat some of the rebel princes and was made the governor of Kermanshah, Khuzestan, and Lorestan, the latter of which he assigned to his brother Farhad Mirza. (Full article...)

Tiberius (Greek: Τιβέριος, romanized: Tibérios; 705–711), sometimes enumerated as Tiberius IV, was the son of Emperor Justinian II and Theodora of Khazaria. He served as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire with his father Justinian II, from 706 to 711. Both were killed in 711, when Bardanes led a rebellion which marched on Constantinople. After Tiberius' death, two different individuals impersonated him, with one, named Bashir, going on to be hosted by Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, the Umayyad caliph, before his lie was discovered and he was crucified. (Full article...)

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was one of the key events that led to World War I. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated on 28 June 1914 by Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip. They were shot at close range while being driven through Sarajevo, the provincial capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, formally annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908.

Princip was part of a group of six Bosnian assassins together with Muhamed Mehmedbašić, Vaso Čubrilović, Nedeljko Čabrinović, Cvjetko Popović and Trifko Grabež coordinated by Danilo Ilić; all but one were Bosnian Serbs and members of a student revolutionary group that later became known as Young Bosnia. The political objective of the assassination was to free Bosnia and Herzegovina of Austria-Hungarian rule and establish a common South Slav ("Yugoslav") state. The assassination precipitated the July Crisis which led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia and the start of World War I. (Full article...)

Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia (Maria Nikolaevna Romanova; Russian: Великая Княжна Мария Николаевна, 26 June [O.S. 14 June] 1899 – 17 July 1918) was the third daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna. Her murder following the Russian Revolution of 1917 resulted in her canonization as a passion bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.

During her lifetime, Maria, too young to become a Red Cross nurse like her elder sisters during World War I, was patroness of a hospital and instead visited wounded soldiers. Throughout her lifetime she was noted for her interest in the lives of the soldiers. The flirtatious Maria had a number of innocent crushes on the young men she met, beginning in early childhood. She hoped to marry and have a large family. (Full article...)

The House of Lancaster was a cadet branch of the royal House of Plantagenet. The first house was created when King Henry III of England created the Earldom of Lancaster—from which the house was named—for his second son Edmund Crouchback in 1267. Edmund had already been created Earl of Leicester in 1265 and was granted the lands and privileges of Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, after de Montfort's death and attainder at the end of the Second Barons' War. When Edmund's son Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster, inherited his father-in-law's estates and title of Earl of Lincoln he became at a stroke the most powerful nobleman in England, with lands throughout the kingdom and the ability to raise vast private armies to wield power at national and local levels. This brought him—and Henry, his younger brother—into conflict with their cousin King Edward II, leading to Thomas's execution. Henry inherited Thomas's titles and he and his son, who was also called Henry, gave loyal service to Edward's son King Edward III.

The second house of Lancaster was descended from John of Gaunt, who married the heiress of the first house, Blanche of Lancaster. Edward III married all his sons to wealthy English heiresses rather than following his predecessors' practice of finding continental political marriages for royal princes. Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster, had no male heir so Edward married his son John to Henry's heiress daughter and John's third cousin Blanche of Lancaster. This gave John the vast wealth of the House of Lancaster. Their son Henry usurped the throne in 1399, creating one of the factions in the Wars of the Roses. There was an intermittent dynastic struggle between the descendants of Edward III. In these wars, the term Lancastrian became a reference to members of the family and their supporters. The family provided England with three kings: Henry IV (r. 1399–1413), Henry V (r. 1413–1422), and Henry VI (r. 1422–1461 and 1470–1471). (Full article...)

Marie (born Princess Marie Alexandra Victoria of Edinburgh; 29 October 1875 – 18 July 1938) was the last queen of Romania from 10 October 1914 to 20 July 1927 as the wife of King Ferdinand I.

Marie was born into the British royal family. Her parents were Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (later Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha), and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia. Marie's early years were spent in Kent, Malta and Coburg. After refusing a proposal from her cousin, the future King George V, she was chosen as the future wife of Ferdinand, then crown prince of Romania, in 1892. Marie was crown princess between 1893 and 1914, and became immediately popular with the Romanian people. (Full article...)

Justina Szilágyi de Horogszeg (Hungarian: horogszegi Szilágyi Jusztina; before 1455 – 1497) was a Hungarian noblewoman, who became the second wife of Vlad Dracula, Voivode of Wallachia. She was the daughter of Ladislaus or Osvát Szilágyi and thus a cousin of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary. Corvinus first gave her in marriage to Wenceslas Pongrác of Szentmiklós. Pongrác had inherited estates in Upper Hungary (present-day Slovakia), but was forced to renounce them in exchange for landed property he and Justina jointly received in Transylvania following their marriage. After Pongrác died in 1474, the widowed Justina married Vlad, whom Corvinus acknowledged as the lawful voivode of Wallachia in 1475. Vlad seized Wallachia in late 1476, but soon died in battle. To strengthen her claim to her Transylvanian estates, she married Paul Suki, who was related to the former owners of those territories. After the death of Suki, in 1479, Justina was married to John Erdélyi of Somkerék, until her death in 1497. (Full article...)

Burebista (Ancient Greek: Βυρεβίστας, Βοιρεβίστας) was the king of the Getae and Dacian tribes from 82/61 BC to 45/44 BC. He was the first king who successfully unified the tribes of the Dacian kingdom, which comprised the area located between the Danube, Tisza, and Dniester rivers, and modern day Romania and Moldova. In the 7th and 6th centuries BC it became home to the Thracian peoples, including the Getae and the Dacians. From the 4th century to the middle of the 2nd century BC the Dacian peoples were influenced by La Tène Celts who brought new technologies with them into Dacia. Sometime in the 2nd century BC, the Dacians expelled the Celts from their lands. Dacians often warred with neighbouring tribes, but the relative isolation of the Dacian peoples in the Carpathian Mountains allowed them to survive and even to thrive. By the 1st century BC the Dacians had become the dominant power.

From 61 BC onwards Burebista pursued a series of conquests that expanded the Dacian kingdom. The tribes of the Boii and Taurisci were destroyed early in his campaigns, followed by the conquest of the Bastarnae and probably the Scordisci peoples. He led raids throughout Thrace, Macedonia, and Illyria. From 55 BC the Greek cities on the west coast of the Black Sea were conquered one after another. These campaigns inevitably culminated in conflict with Rome in 48 BC, at which point Burebista gave his support to Pompey. This in turn made him an enemy to Julius Caesar, who decided to start a campaign against Dacia. This plan fell through in 44 BC when Caesar was assassinated. Burebista himself was assassinated in a plot by the Dacian aristocracy at around the same time. (Full article...)

Ali ibn Abi Talib, the fourth Rashidun caliph (r. 656–661) and the first Shia Imam, was assassinated during the morning prayer on 28 January 661 CE, equivalent to 19 Ramadan 40 AH. He died of his wounds about two days after the Kharijite dissident Ibn Muljim struck him over his head with a poison-coated sword at the Great Mosque of Kufa, located in Kufa, in present-day Iraq. He was about sixty-two years of age at the time of his death.

Ibn Muljim had entered Kufa with the intention of killing Ali, probably in revenge for the Kharijites' defeat in the Battle of Nahrawan in 658. He found two accomplices in Kufa, namely, Shabib ibn Bujra and Wardan ibn al-Mujalid. Unlike Ibn Muljim, the swords of these two missed Ali and they fled, but were later caught and killed. Before his death, Ali requested either a meticulous application of lex talionis to Ibn Muljim or his pardon, and he was later executed by Hasan, the eldest son of Ali. By most accounts, also involved in the assassination was al-Ash'ath ibn Qays, the influential Kufan tribal leader whose loyalty to Ali is often questioned in the early sources. The assassination of Ali paved the way for his rival Mu'awiya to found the Umayyad Caliphate. The shrine of Ali in Najaf, near Kufa, is a major destination for Shia pilgrims. (Full article...)

Al-Malik al-Mansur Sayf ad-Din Abu Bakr (Arabic: الملك المنصور سيف الدين أبو بكر), better known as al-Mansur Abu Bakr (المنصور أبو بكر), (ca. 1321 – November 1341) was a Bahri Mamluk Sultan of Egypt in 1341. From an early age, Abu Bakr received military training in the desert town of al-Karak. His father, Sultan an-Nasir Muhammad (r. 1310–41), groomed him as a potential successor to the throne and made him an emir in 1335. He was consistently promoted in the following years, becoming the na'ib (governor) of al-Karak in 1339. In June 1341, he became sultan, the first of several sons of an-Nasir Muhammad to accede to the throne. However, his reign was short-lived; in August, Abu Bakr was deposed and arrested by his father's senior emir, Qawsun. Abu Bakr was imprisoned in the Upper Egyptian city of Qus, along with many of his brothers, and executed on Qawsun's orders two months later. He was formally succeeded by his younger half-brother, al-Ashraf Kujuk, but Qawsun was left as the strongman of the sultanate. (Full article...)

Mauricio González-Gordon y Díez, Marquis of Bonanza (18 October 1923 – 27 September 2013) was a Spanish sherry maker and a conservationist. Most of his life he worked for the family company, González Byass, where he increased its exports to a worldwide level. His family estate was located in the wetland region called Doñana in southern Spain and was threatened by drainage efforts in the early 1950s. González-Gordon with the help of researchers and international support managed to preserve the site, while at the same time donating some of his family land to the conservation effort. Afterward, González-Gordon became one of the founders of the Spanish Ornithological Society in 1954. His conservation efforts for Doñana culminated in the creation of the Doñana National Park in 1969. The area was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. (Full article...)

Gian Gastone de' Medici (born Giovanni Battista Gastone; 25 May 1671 – 9 July 1737) was the seventh and last Medicean grand duke of Tuscany.

He was the second son of Grand Duke Cosimo III and Marguerite Louise d'Orléans. His sister, Electress Palatine Anna Maria Luisa, arranged his marriage to the wealthy and widowed Anna Maria Franziska of Saxe-Lauenburg in 1697. The couple despised each other and had no children. As Grand Prince Ferdinando, Gian Gastone's elder brother, predeceased Cosimo III, Gian Gastone succeeded his father in 1723. (Full article...)

Manuel Komnenos (Greek: Μανουήλ Κομνηνός, romanized: Manouēl Komnēnos; 1145–1185?) was the eldest son of Byzantine emperor Andronikos I Komnenos, and the progenitor of the Grand Komnenos dynasty of the Empire of Trebizond. He served his uncle, Manuel I Komnenos, as a diplomatic envoy to the Russian principalities and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but also helped his father escape imprisonment in Constantinople. His opposition to the regency of Empress-dowager Maria of Antioch and the protosebastos Alexios Komnenos landed him in prison, but he was released in April 1182, when his father stood poised to take power in the Byzantine capital.

Nevertheless, Manuel opposed his father's policy of persecuting the aristocracy, and refused to sanction or supervise the execution of Maria of Antioch. As a result, when Andronikos crowned himself emperor in 1183, Manuel was bypassed in the succession, and his younger brother John Komnenos was made co-emperor instead; Manuel received the title of sebastokrator. Despite his well-known opposition to Andronikos' more tyrannical policies, Manuel was blinded by Isaac II Angelos when the latter overthrew Andronikos in 1185. His subsequent fate is unknown, but his two sons, Alexios and David, went on to found the Empire of Trebizond in 1204, which was ruled by Manuel's descendants until its fall in 1461. (Full article...)

Catherine, Princess of Wales (born Catherine Elizabeth Middleton; 9 January 1982), is a member of the British royal family. She is married to William, Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the British throne.

Born in Reading, Catherine grew up in Bucklebury, Berkshire. She was educated at St Andrew's School and Marlborough College before earning a degree in art history at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where she met Prince William in 2001 and graduated in 2005. She held several jobs and pursued charity work before their engagement was announced in November 2010. She became Duchess of Cambridge by her marriage on 29 April 2011 at Westminster Abbey. The couple have three children: George, Charlotte, and Louis. (Full article...)