Definitions

Einsatzgruppen ('deployment groups') were secret Nazi killing units, who systematically sought out and murdered civilians identified as enemies of the Third Reich. Operating without any legal restrictions in territories newly conquered by...

The Mountain Meadows Massacre (11 September 1857) was a conflict between the Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and the wagon train of the Baker-Fancher party, who were traveling through Utah to California, resulting in...

Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962), a lieutenant-colonel in the Nazi SS, was responsible for organising the transportation of Jewish people and other victims of Nazism to concentration, labour, and death camps. Eichmann played a key role in the Holocaust...

The Peace of Westphalia, the name given to the multiple treaties, marked the conclusion of the Thirty Years' War. Signed on 24 October 1648, it aimed to secure political autonomy for the multitude of small states that made up the Holy Roman...

The Nuremberg trials (1945-6), held in Nürnberg (Nuremberg), Germany, were a series of trials involving the senior surviving Nazis to hold them accountable for waging war and committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Second...

Yamm (from the Semitic word yam for 'sea', also known as Yam and Yam-Nahar) was the god of the sea and storm in the pantheon of the Canaanite-Phoenicians. Depicted consistently as tyrannical, angry, violent, and harsh, Yamm was the brother...

Britomartis, also known as Diktynna (Dictynna), was the Cretan goddess of hunting and fishing nets in Greek mythology. Although referred to as a nymph and worshipped locally, she had at least two significant and active shrines, one in Crete...

Herman Melville (1819 – 1891) was a 19th-century American author of novels, short stories and poetry. He is best known for his novel Moby Dick, published in 1851, and his short stories Bartleby the Scrivner and Billy Budd, Sailor. Despite...

Rudolf Hess (1894-1987) was deputy leader of the German Nazi Party and a key figure in the fascist regime of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) until his bizarre decision in 1941 to fly to Scotland. Hess believed he could persuade Britain to withdraw...

James Madison (1751-1836) was a statesman, diplomat, and a Founding Father of the United States, who served as the fourth US president from 1809 to 1817. He played an important role in the drafting of the United States Constitution and the...