Locations of events.

To this day, we still associate the horrors of the Inquisition and the brutal treatment of ‘heretics’ with Spain – forgetting that Spain’s enemies weren’t any better. They simply had better PR, which historians are only gradually starting to realise.

Not having to work, partying every night in the sparkling city, drinking and dancing as if there were no tomorrow. Doesn’t that sound good? F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel about the rich and beautiful of the 1920s shows that, unfortunately, it’s not quite as easy as that…

In the 16th century, discussions on how to secure one’s life beyond death were waged just as fiercely as the discussions about secure pensions would be waged today. Jakob Heerbrand’s “New Papal Indulgence” shows how Protestant theologians prepared themselves for these discussions.

In 1670, Charles II granted the East India Company all the rights it needed to become a ‘state within a state’ in the Far East. In 1673, John Ogilby published a book for the benefit of investors wondering whether they should buy shares in the East India Company, describing the kind of profit there was to be made there.

In 1518, Spanish pirates captured a ship carrying a diplomat of the Sultan of Fez. The pirates enslaved him and presented him as a gift to the Pope, in whose service he wrote an account of the countries of Africa. For centuries, this book was the only source of information the Christian world had on inland Africa.