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In 1393, the Tsar of Bulgaria, Ivan Shishman, defended Nicopolis in a last stand against the invading Ottoman Empire, but the well-known battle named after the town occurred in 1396, when an army of knights from all over Europe faced an Ottoman army. This battle is famous for representing the last time that Christian Europe (or, at least, most of it) united under a single banner to fight a common foe, and the military venture is often called the Last Crusade.

The word “mafia,” Sicilian in origin, is synonymous with Italy, but Italy is home to several different mafias, with three being particularly notorious. While the Cosa Nostra of western Sicily is the most infamous, other powerful groups include the ferocious ‘Ndrangheta of Calabria and the Camorra, the third-largest mafia, which is active in Naples and the Campania region.

Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz died almost 200 years ago, yet he remains one of the most important and influential of all military thinkers. His teachings combined strategy with military knowledge to produce a dialectic approach to the philosophy of warfare, and his work is still widely taught in military academies around the world. There are few senior military leaders anywhere who are not familiar with his seminal book, On War.

The ‘Ndrangheta (pronounced an-drang-et-ah) is a close neighbor of the Cosa Nostra and currently considered the most powerful (and difficult to spell) criminal organization in Italy. The ‘Ndrangheta is centered around Calabria, the most southwestern region of Italy, almost touching the Sicilian city of Messina. Though it began as far back as the late 19th century, it was not until the 1950s that the ‘Ndrangheta started to spread its tentacles throughout Italy and then across the entire globe, forming an empire that now ranges from Australia and Turkey, to Chile to Canada.

Otherwise known as the “Roma” or by their popular misnomer “the gypsies”, the members of this highly undervalued and grossly misrepresented community have long been considered outcasts. More often than not, the Romani are branded by even those who fancy themselves liberals as “pikeys”, “gyppos”, and “gips”. There's also a regrettably common term “gypped” meaning “to cheat, or swindle” which perpetuates the damaging stereotype that the Roma are dishonest nuisances and societal pests.

The War of the Spanish Succession, fought at the beginning of the 18th century, was the last major war engaged in by French King Louis XIV, the legendary Sun King, and it was also the most famous of all military conflicts during his reign. While the length and the scope of the conflict are the primary reasons why people have given so much attention to it, another reason for its historical popularity is, no doubt, the fact that its outcome humbled the French king, to the delight of his many critics. He was, after all, the one who had given himself the lofty nickname of “the Sun King".

On March 25, 1957, Italy signed the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community (EEC), a forerunner of the European Union (EU) that was promoted as a guarantor of future peace in Europe. For the soldiers on both sides of World War II fighting each other 13 years earlier in the mountains around Monte Cassino, south of Rome, this would have seemed a highly improbable outcome. The Italian Campaign of World War II effectively divided Italians into three groups, and the country into two rival political entities.

The history of Naples is long and tortured, or at least for centuries that was how its history has been told. Inhabited almost continuously from the Neolithic era to the present, Naples was founded by the Greeks and conquered by the Romans. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Naples passed between various foreign rulers for its entire history prior to Italian unification. Starting in 1040, when the Norman French invaders conquered Campania, Naples was ruled in a dizzying succession by Germans, then French, then Spanish, then Austrians, then Spanish, then French, and then Spanish.

The saga of English predominance in Ireland began in the 12th century following the Norman invasion of England, when a band of Norman adventurers, established on the Welsh mainland, set off across the Irish Sea to test their prospects on the shores of England’s western neighbor. Ireland at the time was ruled in provinces by local kings, each with limited power and authority, and often at war with one another.

Wales is a whimsical country with a powerful, complex, myth-filled, and oft disputed history. From these origins, tales of an ancient sunken kingdom began to spread, and they have persisted over the centuries, leading many to search for the place called Cantre'r Gwaelod. Cantre’r Gwaelod: The Mysterious Legend of the Ancient Sunken Kingdom Known as the Welsh Atlantis chronicles the origins of the story, the way it spread as it became more popular, and its impact on history.

The Mamluks of Egypt, a group of warriors, slaves, and kings. Hailing from the Eurasian steppes, the Mamluks were not Arab, but ethnically Turkish, enslaved at a young age, and sold into military service in Egypt, where they underwent intense military training in Cairo.The Mamluks held a tight grip on political and military power, and this system of recruitment from abroad and social isolation created an elite army loyal to the state and succeeded in barring the ruled people, even the sons of the Mamluks, from entering the ruling classes.

Today, Chechnya is a republic with some degree of autonomy in the contemporary Russian Federation. The history of the Chechen people in the region is, nevertheless, long-established, and Chechnya has become synonymous with conflict, civil war, and discontent. To understand Chechen history, it is necessary to understand the region’s development, including invasion, settlement, emigration, and the various confrontations and conflicts that have transpired there.

King Xerxes I: The Life and Legacy of the Achaemenid Persian Empire’s Most Notorious Ruler looks at the life of the Persian leader and the major conflicts he led. You will learn about Xerxes like never before.

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.

Gilgamesh, Hercules, Aeneas, and Lancelot are instantly recognized as mythological heroes in the West, evoking visions of Persian monsters, ghastly labors, and the founding and glorification of cities, but the name Quetzalcoatl is as mysterious as its spelling. Even those who have come across his name when learning about the history of Mesoamerica - particularly the Aztec and the god’s role in the Spanish conquest of their empire - are often unaware that the Mesoamerican deity has tales that equal any of those in the repertoire of the mythological figures mentioned above.

The Catacombs of Rome and Paris: The History and Legacy of Europe’s Most Famous Ossuaries examines the origins of these necropolises, their development throughout the years, and the period of rediscovery that put these subterranean cemeteries on the map. You will learn about the Roman and Parisian catacombs like never before.

Rome faced many formidable enemies over the course of nearly 1,000 years, but perhaps none are as enigmatic and forgotten as King Mithridates the Great of Pontus. King Mithridates the Great of Pontus: The Life and Legacy of the Leader Who Challenged Rome During the Mithridatic Wars looks at how Mithridates and his kingdom rose in power and became one of the Roman Republic’s most legendary enemies.

In the late 18th century, as political unrest stirred in the heart of Paris, local residents of the neighborhoods surrounding the city’s urban cemeteries faced a pressing crisis: The putrefying stink of rotting corpses, many of which were likely friends and family members, crept into every house and business due to overflowing burial grounds. The city’s population had long since outgrown its centuries-old cemeteries, and mass graves packed tightly with corpses lay open for months at a time, sometimes upwards of a year, as they waited for more bodies to join.

Water covers the vast majority of the planet, and people have looked upon the oceans for thousands of years with a mixture of awe and fear. The world’s water offers transportation, connections with distant lands, food, and beauty. Furthermore, the deep seas and oceans remain largely unexplored, especially farther below. All of these factors have led to centuries worth of mysteries and stories. Countless people have ventured out on those vast expanses of water, never to return, while others have plumbed the depths and made strange discoveries.

The Wright Brothers initially underestimated the difficulties involved in flying, and they were apparently surprised by the fact that so many others were working on solving the “problem of human flight” already. Decades before their own historic plane would end up in the National Air & Space Museum, Wilbur and Orville asked the Smithsonian for reading materials and brushed up on everything from the works of their contemporaries to Leonardo Da Vinci.