Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, was an American-born British physicist and inventor whose challenges to established physical theory were part of the 19th century revolution in thermodynamics. He also served as a Lieutenant-Colonel in...

François Le Vaillant was a French explorer, collector and ornithologist. Hugely popular in his lifetime for his engaging and colourful travel accounts, Le Vaillant is best known today for his spectacular books of ornithology, but his reputa...

The Kingdom of Great Britain was one of the leading participants in the Seven Years War which lasted between 1754 and 1763. Britain emerged from the war as the world's leading colonial power having gained a number of new territories at the...

Louis XVI was King of France and Navarre from 1774 until 1791, and then King of the French in 1791-1792. Suspended and arrested during the insurrection of the 10th of August, he was tried by the National Convention, found guilty of treason...

Paul I was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801. Paul was born in the Palace of Empress Elisabeth in St Petersburg. He was the son of Elizabeth's heir, her nephew, the Grand Duke Peter, later Emperor Peter III, and his wife, the Gran...

Vice-Admiral William Bligh FRS RN was an officer of the British Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. A notorious mutiny occurred during his command of HMS Bounty in 1789; Bligh and his loyal men made a remarkable voyage to Timor, after...

Joseph Louis Proust was a French chemist. Proust’s largest accomplishment into the realm of science was disproving Berthollet with the law of definite proportions, which is sometimes also known as Proust's Law. Proust studied copper carbona...

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, Prince de Benevente, the Prince of Diplomats, was a French diplomat. He worked successfully from the regime of Louis XVI, through the French Revolution and then under Napoleon I, Louis XVIII and Louis...

The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, also known as the Great Lisbon Earthquake, took place on November 1, 1755, at around 9:40 in the morning. The earthquake was followed by a tsunami and fires, which caused near-total destruction of Lisbon in Portu...

Marie Antoinette was Queen Consort of France. Daughter of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria of the Habsburg dynasty and her consort, the Emperor Francis I, she was married to the heir to the French throne (later Louis XVI of France) in order...

Alexander Hamilton was a Founding Father, soldier, economist, political philosopher, one of America's first constitutional lawyers and the first United States Secretary of the Treasury. As Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton was the prim...

Nicolas-Jacques Conté was a French painter, balloonist, army officer, and inventor of the modern pencil. He distinguished himself for his mechanical genius which was of great avail to the French army in Egypt. Napoleon called him “a univ...

Louis XVIII was King of France and Navarre from 1814 to 1824, omitting the Hundred Days in 1815. Louis XVIII spent twenty-three years in exile, from 1791 to 1814, due to the French Revolution, and was exiled again in 1815, upon the return o...

James Parkinson FGS was an English surgeon, apothecary, geologist, palaeontologist and political activist. He is best known for his 1817 work An Essay on the Shaking Palsy, in which he was the first to describe "paralysis agitans", a condit...

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five...