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...

José Gaspar, also known by his nickname Gasparilla (supposedly lived c. 1756 – 1821), is an apocryphal Spanish pirate, the "Last of the Buccaneers," who is claimed to have roamed and plundered across the Gulf of Mexico and the Spanish Main...

Willem Bilderdijk was a Dutch poet. His parents were ardent partisans of the House of Orange-Nassau, and Bilderdijk grew up with strong monarchical and Calvinistic convictions. After studying at Leiden University, Bilderdijk obtained his do...

William Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism. Godwin is most famous for two books that he published...

Principal Writings on Religion Including Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and the Natural History of Religion. David Hume is one of the most provocative philosophers to have written in the English language. His skeptical accounts of th...

The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757. The battle consolidated the Company's presence in Bengal, which later expanded to cover much of I...

An English navigator and explorer, Vancouver sailed on Capt. James Cook's 2nd and 3rd voyages. In 1791, he set out for the NW coast of America. He rounded the Cape of Good Hope, explored the coasts of Australia and New Zealand, and visited...

William Blake was an English painter, poet and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His prophetic poetry has been sa...

Thomas Telford was a Scottish civil engineer, architect and stonemason, and a noted road, bridge and canal builder. Apprenticeship as a stonemason laid the basis for Telford's move via Edinburgh to London, where he worked on Somerset House...

Gilbert Du Motier, marquis de La Fayette was a French aristocrat and military officer. La Fayette is considered a national hero in both France and the United States for his participation in the American and French revolutions. In 2002, he w...

Charles X ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. A younger brother to Kings Louis XVI and Louis XVIII, he supported the latter in exile and eventually succeeded him. His rule of almost six years c...