This philosopher is known for declaring "I think, therefore I am."
Rene Descartes
This Goddess was kidnapped by the Lord of the Underworld, Hades, and forced to be his wife
Persephone
This Massachusetts Lawyer served as the first Vice President of the United States and the second President.
John Adams
This American classic deals with issues of race relations, Southern culture, justice, and loss of innocence.
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
This language is the most spoken in the world
English
This philosopher believed in a "via media" or "middle way" between extremes
Aristotle
This tale, written by Homer, recounts the return of the hero Odysseus to his home in Ithaca after he fought in the Trojan war
The Odyssey
This dictator lead the country of Italy during the Second World War
Benito Mussolini
This fictional Prince of Denmark is known for asking "To be, or not to be?"
Prince Hamlet
In linguistics, this terms means a word in one language that has the same or a similar meaning, spelling, and pronunciation as a word in another language, because they share a common origin or ancestor word.
Cognate
This philosopher believed in a "realm of forms"
Plato
This Macedonian King conquered the known world of his time
Alexander the Great
This battle during the Hundred Years War saw a major victory for the English, led by their king, Henry the Fifth, using Welsh longsbowmen
This 1866 novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky is set in Imperial Russia and follows a young former law-student named Raskolnikov as he plans, executes, and contemplates on a scheme to kill a pawnbroker and take his money.
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
In linguistics, this term means a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. (e.g. "Worldview" from German "Weltanschauung.")
Calque
This philosophy argues that all history is determined by a pitched struggle between classes, and that the end-goal of that struggle will be the rule of the proletariat, or the working class.
Dialectical Materialism / Historical Materialism / Marxism
This female poet is known for writing love poetry about other women, and her home island, Lesbos, is the etymological origin for the word "Lesbian."
Sappho
This African-American religious leader led a Slave Rebellion in 1831 in the state of Virginia
Nat Turner
This 1942 novella by French philosopher Albert Camus is set in French-occupied Algeria and deals with themes of absurdism and post-colonialism.
The Stranger by Albert Camus
This script, unique to the Japanese language, was adapted from Chinese characters and literally means "Han characters."
Kanji
This philosopher, a proponent of Utilitarianism, had his body permanently preserved and put on display at the University of Oxford, where he taught.
Jeremy Bentham
This Greek hero was prophesied to kill his father and marry his mother
Oedipus
This Chinese General led the Nationalist Kuomintang forces during the Japanese Invasion, the Civil War, and the flight to Taiwan.
Chiang Kai-Shek
This Irish Modernist novel is written in a highly obscure and dense manner, making reading it a multiple year endeavor. The novel broadly follows the themes of Homer's Odyssey while also commenting on British rule in Ireland, Antisemitism, human sexuality, Irish nationalism, and literary criticism.
Ulysses by James Joyce
This notation system is meant to convey vocal sounds and pronunciations across linguistic boundaries.
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)