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In 1604, a decade after the death of Gerhard Mercator (1512-94), one of the great cartographers of all time, the globe maker, engraver, and publisher Jodocus Hondius (1563-1612) bought the plates to Mercator's atlas from his grandsons. Hondius then worked with his brother-in-law, the engraver Pieter van der Keere, to add about 40 new maps to Mercator's atlas to create what became known as the "Mercator-Hondius Atlas," published in Amsterdam in 1606. Later operated by his sons and son-in-law, the publishing house of Jodocus Hondius remained one of the most important firms acti...

In 1874-75, the Russian government sent a research and trading mission to China to seek out new overland routes to the Chinese market, report on prospects for increased commerce and locations for consulates and factories, and gather information about the Dungan Revolt then raging in parts of western China. Led by Lieutenant Colonel Iulian A. Sosnovskii of the army General Staff, the nine-man mission included a topographer, Captain Matusovskii; a scientific officer, Dr. Pavel Iakovlevich Piasetskii; Chinese and Russian interpreters; three non-commissioned Cossack soldiers; and the mission photo...

This manuscript, tinged with blood and found between the sash and shirt of Agustín de Iturbide after his execution by firing squad on July 19, 1824, is an emotional defense of Iturbide's public career. A former Royalist officer who joined the Mexican struggle for independence, Itrubide was crowned emperor of Mexico on May 21, 1822, under the name Agustín I. However, he was unable to achieve peace and abdicated on March 19, 1823, and went into exile. Without knowing that he had been declared a traitor and an outlaw, he returned to Mexico on July 14, 1824, where he was apprehended and ex...

Kazakhstan had a strong oral tradition in literature until the mid-19th century. Abai (Ibrahim) Kunanbayev (1845--1904) was a Kazakh poet and teacher, and the key figure in developing a new Kazakh national written literature. His father, Kunanbai Uskenbayev, was a landowner, and the family was prominent in eastern Kazakhstan. Abai studied at the madrassa led by Mullah Akhmet Riza in Semipalatinsk and also attended a Russian school. He spoke Arabic, Persian, and other Eastern languages. Abai Kunanbayev also translated into Kazakh works by major European and Russian poets, such as Goethe, Heine,...

This photograph from 1921 shows a group of children orphaned as a result of World War I, newly arrived in New York harbor and about to begin a new life, posing with American flags. The war brought devastation to communities across Europe, leaving behind needy populations, including hundreds of thousands of orphans. In Central and Eastern Europe, the collapse of empires and onset of revolution prolonged the disorder, famine, and disease that began during the war. For Jews, there was the added danger of pogroms. The Joint Distribution Committee of American Funds for the Relief of Jewish War Suff...