Servius Tullius is Rome's semi-legendary sixth king, traditionally dated to the late 6th century BCE. Ancient sources credit him with major constitutional reforms, urban expansion, and an alliance with Latin cities, but modern scholars see these accounts as largely traditional and partly legendary.
Ivory has served as a material for religious and secular art across cultures - from prehistoric incisions to Greek chryselephantine statues and Japanese netsuke. Today international treaties and national laws tightly restrict commercial ivory trade to protect elephants.
A concise, updated biography of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: his education at Bowdoin, professorship at Harvard, key works from Evangeline to Hiawatha, personal tragedies, and his lasting popular legacy.
Leon Trotsky (Lev Bronstein) was a leading figure of the Russian revolutions, organizer of the Red Army, and a central opponent of Stalin who was exiled and assassinated in Mexico City in 1940.
A concise modern account of Edward Gibbon's life, his education and travels, and the creation, publication, and lasting influence of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Peter Abelard (1079-1142) was a leading twelfth-century scholastic whose teaching, writings, and stormy relationship with Heloise shaped medieval theology, education, and literary history.
A disciplined general and Roman emperor from AD 14 to 37, Tiberius governed effectively early on but later withdrew from Rome, leaving power struggles to figures like Sejanus and ruling from Capri.