In Macbeth, or "the Scottish play" as actors sometimes refer to it, William Shakespeare fictionalizes the historical account of King Macbeth, ruler of Scotland from 1040 until his death in 1057. In Shakespeare's drama, Macbeth is urged on b...

Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch seafarer and explorer best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644, in the service of the VOC (Dutch East India Company). His was the first European expedition to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land (now T...

John Maurice of Nassau was called "the Brazilian" for his fruitful period as governor of Dutch Brazil. He was count and (from 1674) prince of Nassau-Siegen, and Grand Master of the Order of Saint John (Bailiwick of Brandenburg). He was b...

Widely regarded as the world's first modern novel, and one of the funniest and most tragic books ever written, Don Quixote chronicles the famous picaresque adventures of the noble knight-errant Don Quixote of La Mancha and his faithful squi...

Considered one of Shakespeare's greatest plays, The Tragedy of King Lear is based on the life of King Leir, a legendary king of Britain who is said to have had the longest reign of all that line of monarchs at sixty years. In Shakespeare's...

Frans Banninck Cocq was a burgemeester (mayor) of Amsterdam in the mid-17th century. He is best known as the central figure in Rembrandt's masterpiece The Night Watch which shows Cocq and his company of civil guards. Although known as T...

Philip IV of Castille (Felipe IV) was the king of Spain, from 1621 until his death, and king of Portugal as Philip III (Filipe III) until 1640. The eldest son of Philip III (and his wife Margaret), Philip IV was born at Valladolid. His chie...

Sir Thomas Browne was an English polymath and author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including science and medicine, religion and the esoteric. Browne's writings display a deep curiosity towards the natural...

In 1606, the small Dutch ship Duyfken sailed from the Indonesian island of Banda in search of gold and trade opportunities on the fabled island of Nova Guinea. Under the command of Willem Janszoon, Duyfken and her crew ventured south-east....

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art and the most important in Dutch history. His contributions to art came in a period of gre...

Jan Davidsz. de Heem, also called Johannes de Heem or Johannes van Antwerpen, was a still life painter who was active in Utrecht and Antwerp. He is a major representative of that genre in both Dutch and Flemish Baroque painting. De Heem...

The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies or the Thirteen American Colonies, were a group of colonies of Great Britain on the Atlantic coast of America founded in the 17th and 18th centuries which declared independe...

John Harvard was an English minister in America, "a godly gentleman and a lover of learning", whose deathbed bequest to the "schoale or Colledge" recently undertaken by the Massachusetts Bay Colony was so gratefully received that it was con...

Jan Lievens was a Dutch painter, usually associated with Rembrandt, working in a similar style. In his early years he was a student of Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam. After two years he began his career as an independent artist at age of fourt...

Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter is the most famous and one of the most skilled admirals in Dutch history. De Ruyter is most famous for his role in the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th century. He fought the English and French in these wars and s...