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This map sheet displays three views of the central Arabian Peninsula. It was created by the legendary Harry Saint John Bridger Philby (1885-1960), a British adventurer, political counsellor, author, spy, and the most celebrated early modern traveler in Arabia, about which he published several books. The map focuses on the topographic features along the routes of Philby's travels. The central map shows the route across the Arabian Peninsula from Riyadh to Jeddah (Jiddah) taken in 1917 in connection with a diplomatic mission to Ibn Saʻud, the future king of Saudi Arabia. The larger of the t...

This work is a commentary on Mulahhas fī al-Hay'a Al-Basīta (The compendium of plain astronomy), a treatise on theoretical astronomy by Maḥmūd ibn Muḥammad Jighmīnī. A renowned Persian mathematician and astronomer, Jighmīnī was born in the village of Jaghmīn, in the region of Khwarizm in present-day Uzbekistan. He died circa 1221 during the cataclysmic Mongol conquest of Khwarizm. Several popular commentaries were written on his treatise. On the cover of this manuscript a handwritten note from a previous owner states: "This is a commentary of the 'Handbook of a...

Erasmus Darwin Keyes (1810--95) was a Union general in the American Civil War. Born in Brimfield, Massachusetts, and raised in Maine, he graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1832. Unlike many generals from both the North and the South, he did not see action in the Mexican War. During the first year of the Civil War, he successfully led a battalion in the First Battle of Bull Run (also called the First Battle of Manassas), was appointed to command a division in the Army of the Potomac, and was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers. In 1862 he was appointed to...

The Nansen passport was a certificate issued by the Nansen International Office for Refugees as an international substitute for a passport, which allowed stateless persons or those deprived of their national passports to enter and transit other countries. The Nansen office was the successor to the first international agency dealing with refugees, the High Commission for Refugees, established in June 1921 by the League of Nations under the direction of the Norwegian explorer and statesman Fridtjof Nansen (1861--1930). The League Secretariat had assumed responsibility for international refugees ...

The Federal Convention convened in the State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on May 14, 1787, to revise the Articles of Confederation. Because the delegations from only two states were present initially, the members adjourned from one day to the next until a quorum of seven states was obtained on May 25. Through discussion and debate it became clear by mid-June that, rather than amend the existing Articles of Confederation, the convention would draft an entirely new framework for the government. All through the summer, the delegates debated, drafted, and redrafted the articles of the...