Locations of events.

In an enormous heroic poem, the former national epic of the Germans tells of political conflict in the early Middle Ages, deadly attempts at emancipation and (almost) immortalising dragon blood.

There are moments that change the world. The Lisbon earthquake was one of them. Europe’s educated elite wondered: How can a gracious God let something like that happen? Of course, there had been terrible natural disasters before – but there had never been such a high amount of reports on one of them.

When British envoys were received by the Chinese Emperor for the first time in 1793, two fundamentally different world views collided. Although the diplomatic mission of the envoys was no success, their report on China became a bestseller.

How would you go about gaining self-confidence and daring to take on new challenges? In the past, people turned to prominent figures of antiquity, from Alexander to Caesar, and their great achievements. This what made Plutarch’s timeless work “Parallel Lives” so successful.

Samuel Auguste Tissot was probably the most respected physician of his time: the rich and noble people of Europe queued up to see him. This book gives health advice to these very persons. After all, it became clear at that time that the decadent life at court with its opulent meals wasn’t very beneficial to their health.