Early Modern Era

Porto Seguro lies on the coast of the Brazilian state of Bahia, where a reef-sheltered bay and a low coastal escarpment meet the South Atlantic. On 22 April 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral's fleet…

This is Cusco, Peru — a highland city sitting deep in the Andes mountain range, far inland from the Pacific coast on the western spine of South America. Around 1500, the Inca civilization used…

Ollantaytambo, in present-day Peru, sits high in the Andes of western South America — exactly where the mountain spine the title described runs through the heart of the continent, far from any coast…

This event is set in Tenochtitlan, the great island city built on a lake in the high Valley of Mexico, sitting atop the broad central plateau between the Sierra Madre Occidental and Sierra Madre…

This is Tabriz, in what is now northwestern Iran — set on a high plateau between the Caspian Sea to the east and Lake Urmia to the west, ringed by the Zagros and Armenian mountain systems. In 1501, a…

This stone was carved in Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire, located in the high Valley of Mexico on a plateau deep in the interior of North America, far south of the Rio Grande and…

Florence, in the Arno River valley of Tuscany, was where Leonardo da Vinci began the Mona Lisa around 1503–1506, likely portraying Lisa Gherardini, wife of a Florentine silk merchant. Leonardo used…

Florence, in the Arno River valley of Tuscany, central Italy, was the setting for Michelangelo's David, completed in 1504 from a single block of Carrara marble quarried in the Apuan Alps near the…

St Peter's Basilica rises on the right (west) bank of the Tiber River in the Vatican, built over the traditional site of the Apostle Peter's tomb and the location of the Emperor Nero's circus. Pope…

This was the Battle of Diu, fought off Diu — a small coastal outpost on the northwestern tip of the Indian subcontinent, where the Arabian Sea meets the Gujarat coast near the Gulf of Khambhat. In…

This is Goa, on the western coast of India, exactly where the Arabian Sea meets the subcontinent's Konkan shoreline — the geographic crossroads the event title pointed toward. In 1510, the Portuguese…

The Sistine Chapel stands within the Vatican, the papal enclave on the west bank of the Tiber River in Rome, central Italy. Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling in 1508; the…

Florence, Italy — a city on the Arno River in the northern half of the Italian peninsula, cradled between the Apennines and the Tyrrhenian coast — is where Niccolò Machiavelli wrote The Prince in…

The Battle of Chaldiran took place in 1514 near what is now Caldiran, in the Van Province of eastern Turkey — on the high Anatolian plateau where the highlands of Anatolia give way toward the Zagros…

This battle took place at Yaunis Khan, in what is today the southern Gaza Strip, Palestine — a narrow strip of land squeezed between the Mediterranean coast to the west and the desert interior to the…

Marj Dabiq is a plain near the town of Dabiq in northern Syria, sitting just south of where the Taurus Mountains descend toward the flat expanse of the Syrian plateau, with the Mediterranean coast…

This event took place in Wittenberg, Germany — a small town sitting on the Elbe River, on the broad North European Plain that stretches from France to Russia with few natural barriers to slow the…

On 31 October 1517, the German monk and theology professor Martin Luther nailed a list of 95 arguments — known as the 95 Theses — to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. The list…

This event unfolded in Tenochtitlan, the island capital of the Aztec Empire, built on a lake in the high Valley of Mexico — a volcanic plateau sitting at roughly 2,200 metres above sea level, almost…

Seville, Spain — sitting on the Guadalquivir River in the southwestern corner of the Iberian Peninsula, where Europe reaches closest to Africa across the Strait of Gibraltar and the Atlantic…

This battle took place at Otumba, in present-day Mexico, on the high central plateau that sits between the Sierra Madre ranges and roughly 40 kilometres northeast of the great lake basin where the…

This event unfolded in Tenochtitlan — the island city at the heart of the Aztec empire, now buried beneath modern-day Mexico City, Mexico, on a high plateau ringed by volcanic peaks between the…

This is Tenochtitlan — today's Mexico City — built on an island in Lake Texcoco on the high central plateau of Mexico, exactly where North America's mountain spine narrows before reaching the land…

The city is Worms, Germany, sitting on the western bank of the Rhine River as it flows northward across the broad central European plain toward the North Sea. In 1521, the religious reformer Martin…

This event unfolded on Lake Texcoco, at the heart of the Valley of Mexico — a high basin ringed by volcanoes in the southern reaches of North America, roughly where the continent narrows toward the…

This is Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital built on an island in Lake Texcoco, located in the high Valley of Mexico on the central plateau of present-day Mexico — roughly midway between the Pacific and…

New York Bay is a large sheltered harbour on the mid-Atlantic coast of North America, enclosed by Long Island to the north-east, Staten Island to the south-west, and the New Jersey shore, with a…

Bad Frankenhausen sits in the Kyffhäuser lowlands of what is now Thuringia, Germany — east of the Rhine valley and just north of the forested Thuringian highlands that form a natural barrier across…

Hispaniola is a large Caribbean island shared today by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, lying between Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, in the Caribbean Sea. In 1525, the first ships…

This is Panipat, in present-day India, sitting on the flat plains south of the Himalayas and north of the Gangetic heartland — exactly the kind of open ground where cavalry armies could manoeuvre…

The battle unfolded near Mohács, Hungary, on the broad floodplain beside the Danube that sits almost exactly midway between the Carpathian arc and the Adriatic coastline. On August 29, 1526, the…

Khanwa, in the state of Rajasthan in northern India, sits on the arid plain exactly where the Thar Desert's edge gives way to the broad Gangetic lowlands, with the Himalayas rising to the north. On…

This is Vienna, now the capital of Austria, sitting on the Danube where the Alps give way to the vast flat basin stretching east toward the Black Sea — exactly the geographic bottleneck the title…

This event unfolded in Cusco, Peru — a city perched high in the Andes mountains along South America's western backbone, exactly the highland core the title clue pointed toward. Around 1529, following…

The pin lands at Cajamarca, Peru — a highland city sitting in a narrow Andean valley at roughly 2,750 metres above sea level, on the Pacific side of the continent and just south of the equator…

This is Cusco, Peru — a city set high in the Andes mountains, deep in the interior of South America, far from the Pacific coast but connected to it by the great mountain spine that runs the length of…

In Westminster, England — on the north bank of the Thames just inland from the channel that separates the island from the continent — Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy in 1534, declaring King…

This event unfolded in Münster, a city in what is now northwestern Germany — sitting in the flat lowlands east of the Rhine delta, well inland from the North Sea coast. In 1535, Anabaptist radicals…

This is Lima, the capital of modern-day Peru, sitting on a narrow desert strip between the Pacific Ocean and the towering Andes — exactly the geographic setting the clue described. In January 1535…

This uprising took place in and around York, in northern England — a region of broad valleys and moorland hills sitting between the Pennine hills to the west and the North Sea coast to the east. In…

Nagyvárad — today called Oradea, in western Romania — sits precisely where the Carpathian Mountains curve down toward the great Hungarian plain, the Pannonian Basin, which stretches west toward the…

This battle took place at Preveza, a coastal town in northwestern Greece, sitting precisely where the Adriatic and Ionian Seas meet at a narrow channel on the western edge of the Balkan Peninsula…

This event took place in Rome, Italy — the city on the Tiber River at the heart of the Italian peninsula, south of the Alps and surrounded by the Mediterranean world. In 1540, Pope Paul III…

In 1541 the French-born reformer John Calvin returned to Geneva and, through his Ecclesiastical Ordinances, reorganised the city as a Reformed Protestant republic governed by scripture. Geneva sits…

In 1543, Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus published De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, arguing that the Sun — not the Earth — sits at the centre of the universe, and that all planets…

This was Trent, a city in what is now northern Italy, sitting in the Adige River valley just south of the Brenner Pass — the great Alpine gateway connecting the Italian peninsula to central Europe…

The battle took place at Mühlberg, a small town on the Elbe River in what is now eastern Germany — sitting in the wide, flat North European Plain that stretches from France to Russia, east of the…

This event took place in London, England — on the large island of Great Britain, separated from continental Europe by the English Channel to the south and the North Sea to the east. In 1549, the…

This event took place in London, England — a city on the River Thames in the southeast of the island of Great Britain, separated from continental Europe by the narrow English Channel. In 1552, the…

This is Kazan, Russia — a fortified city sitting on the Volga River, roughly where the great Eurasian plain stretches east toward the Ural Mountains. In 1552, Ivan the Terrible led a massive Russian…

Augsburg, in present-day Germany, sits on the Lech River just north of where the Alps rise from the Bavarian plateau — exactly the central European heartland the title clue described. In 1555, the…

Amasya, a city in northern Turkey, sits on the Yeşilırmak River in the highlands of Anatolia — the broad peninsula between the Black Sea to the north and the Mediterranean to the south, forming the…

Panipat, a town in northern India, sits on the flat plains just south of where the Himalayas descend toward the great river systems of the subcontinent — exactly the kind of open ground the title…

This event unfolded in London, England — on the large island of Great Britain, sitting off the northwestern edge of continental Europe and separated from France by the narrow English Channel. In…

On July 12, 1562, Friar Diego de Landa, the leading Catholic authority in Yucatán, presided over an auto-da-fé in the central plaza of Maní — a town in the central Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico…

This is Valletta, the capital of Malta — a small limestone island sitting almost exactly at the midpoint of the Mediterranean Sea, roughly equidistant between the North African coast and the southern…

The Battle of Talikota was fought in 1565 near the town of Talikota, in what is now the state of Karnataka in southern India — on the broad, semi-arid Deccan Plateau that stretches across the…

St. Augustine, Florida, on the Atlantic coast of the southeastern United States, sits roughly 350 kilometres north of the Florida Straits — the narrow channel separating North America from Cuba…

The Battle of Lepanto was fought in 1571 in the Gulf of Patras, off the western coast of Greece, exactly where the Ionian Sea narrows into the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth — the geographic…

The Battle of Tukaroi took place in 1575 in the border region between present-day West Bengal and Odisha, India — on the low coastal plains where rivers from the eastern interior drain down toward…

Roanoke Island sits off the coast of present-day North Carolina, United States — a small island sheltered behind the Outer Banks, the long ribbon of barrier islands that separates the Atlantic Ocean…

This naval battle unfolded in the English Channel — the narrow strip of water separating southern England from the northwestern coast of continental Europe, with France visible across its shortest…

This event took place in Nantes, a city in western France where the Loire River — the country's longest river — empties into the Atlantic Ocean. In 1598, King Henry IV issued the Edict of Nantes…

Sekigahara, a small town in present-day Japan's Gifu Prefecture, sits in a strategic mountain pass corridor on Honshu — the main island of the Japanese archipelago, separated from the Korean…

This event unfolded in Abomey, the inland capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey, in what is today the country of Benin — a narrow strip of West Africa wedged between the Niger delta region and the Gulf…

This event took place in London, England — a city straddling the River Thames near where it widens into the North Sea, on the northwestern edge of the European continent. On December 31, 1600, Queen…

Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, sits at the mouth of the Rhine delta on the North Sea — exactly the northwest European coast where river trade from deep inland Europe meets the sea route between…

This event unfolded in Edo — today's Tokyo — on Honshu, the main island of Japan, a volcanic archipelago curving along the northwestern edge of the Pacific Ocean, directly east across the Sea of…

Jamestown, Virginia — now part of the United States — sits on a low, marshy peninsula along the James River, which flows into Chesapeake Bay on the Atlantic coast of North America, roughly midway up…

This event unfolded in Venice, Italy — the famous lagoon city perched at the northern end of the Adriatic Sea, exactly where the Italian peninsula tucks under the Alps. In 1610, Galileo Galilei…

This event unfolded in Rome, Italy — the city on the Tiber River in the heart of the Italian Peninsula, which stretches south from the Alps between the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic Seas into the…

Prague, in the modern Czech Republic, sits at the heart of Central Europe where the Vltava River winds through Bohemian hills before feeding into the Elbe and draining toward the North Sea — exactly…

This event took place in Jamestown, Virginia, USA — on a marshy peninsula along the James River, which drains into the Chesapeake Bay on the Atlantic seaboard of eastern North America. In 1619, the…

This landing took place at Plymouth, on the northeastern coast of what is now the United States — a rocky shoreline on the western edge of the North Atlantic, where the continent's northeastern arm…

This event took place at Plymouth, on the northeastern coast of what is now the United States — exactly where a rocky, forested shoreline meets the western edge of the North Atlantic, near the broad…

This is Boston, on the northeastern coast of what is now the United States, where Massachusetts Bay cuts into the Atlantic shoreline just south of the Gulf of Maine — exactly the rocky, forested…

This is Agra, in present-day India, sitting on the Yamuna River on the broad Indo-Gangetic Plain — the flat, river-crossed heartland stretching south from the Himalayas. In 1632, Mughal Emperor Shah…

Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA — sitting just inland from the broad harbor on North America's northeastern Atlantic coast, exactly where the rocky New England shoreline curves toward the open ocean…

This uprising took place on the Shimabara Peninsula in Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's four main islands, where the land juts southward into the sea between the open Pacific and the sheltered…

This conflict erupted across England, the southern and largest part of Great Britain — the large island sitting northwest of mainland Europe, separated from France by the narrow English Channel and…

This was Münster, in the Westphalia region of what is today northwestern Germany, sitting on the broad North European Plain between the Rhine to the south and the North Sea coast to the northwest. In…

This event took place in London, England — the capital of the large island of Great Britain, sitting off the northwest edge of continental Europe and separated from France by the English Channel at…

This event is set in what is now Haiti, occupying the western third of Hispaniola — the large Caribbean island sitting between Cuba to the northwest and Puerto Rico to the east, roughly midway…

This event is rooted in Charles Town — modern Charleston — on the Atlantic coast of what is now South Carolina, USA, where the Appalachian piedmont slopes down to a flat, marshy coastline facing the…

This conflict took place in Plymouth, in what is now the state of Massachusetts in the northeastern United States — exactly at that rocky Atlantic corner of North America where European colonists had…

This uprising took place in Santa Fe, in what is now the state of New Mexico, United States — a high desert city nestled in the Rocky Mountains, far inland from the Pacific coast, straddling the…

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — sitting on the Delaware River as it flows toward the Atlantic along the mid-Atlantic coast of North America — is where William Penn established his Quaker colony in 1681…

This is Vienna, the capital of Austria, sitting in the Danube basin where the eastern Alps give way to the great Central European plain — exactly the forested hills above the city that the title…

Fontainebleau, a town in north-central France roughly 55 kilometres south of Paris, is where Louis XIV signed the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685, revoking the religious protections that French…

This event unfolded in Boston, Massachusetts — the colonial port on the Atlantic seaboard of North America, sitting on a peninsula in Massachusetts Bay, south of the Gulf of Maine and north of the…

In 1687, Isaac Newton published Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica from Cambridge University, England. The book set out three laws of motion explaining how and why objects accelerate and…

This event unfolded in London, England — on the large island off northwestern Europe's Atlantic coast, separated from France by the narrow English Channel that the invading fleet had just crossed. In…

This took place in London, England — the capital of Great Britain, sitting on the River Thames on an island separated from continental Europe by the English Channel, one of the world's busiest…

This was London, England — a city straddling the River Thames on the large island separated from mainland Europe by the English Channel and the North Sea. In 1689, John Locke published his Two…

Nerchinsk, in what is now Russia's Far East, sits in the basin where the Stanovoy Mountains slope down toward the Amur River — exactly the frontier the two delegations had gathered to divide. In…

On March 13, 1697, Spanish forces led by Martín de Ursúa y Arismendi launched a naval assault across Lake Petén Itzá in northern Guatemala, storming the island city of Nojpetén — the capital of the…

This battle took place at Senta, a town in modern-day Serbia, positioned on the Tisa River — a major southern tributary of the Danube — on the broad, flat plains that stretch between the Carpathian…

Moscow, Russia — a fortress city on the Moskva River, which feeds into the Oka and then the Volga, sitting west of the Ural Mountains in the vast country that straddles both Europe and Asia, exactly…

Ouidah, on the Atlantic coast of present-day Benin in West Africa, was one of the largest slave-trading ports in history. It sits on the narrow coastal plain between the Bight of Benin to the south…

Utrecht is a city on the Oude Rijn (Old Rhine) branch of the Rhine-Meuse delta in the central Netherlands. The Treaty of Utrecht (1713), ending the War of the Spanish Succession, was signed there in…

The Battle of Karnal took place near Karnal, in present-day northern India, on the flat plains that stretch between the Hindu Kush foothills to the northwest and the Gangetic Plain to the southeast…

This uprising unfolded along the Stono River near Charleston, in present-day South Carolina on the southeastern Atlantic coast of North America — exactly the low, marshy coastal plain where tidal…

The publication took place in Geneva, the city-state now part of modern Switzerland, tucked between the Alps to the east and the Jura Mountains to the west — exactly the Alpine crossroads the title…

This was the Battle of Plassey, fought in 1757 near the village of Palashi in present-day West Bengal, India — on the low, humid plains where the Ganges and its tributaries fan out toward the Bay of…