•  In Greek mythology, Pandora ("all gifted") was the first woman, fashioned by Zeus as part of his punishment of mankind for having stolen the secret of fire . mankind had lived a life in a paradise without worry. Epimetheus told Pandora never to open the box she had received from Zeus. However, one day, Pandora's curiosity got the better of her and she opened it, releasing all the misfortunes of mankind (plague, sorrow, poverty, crime, etc.). Once opened, she shut it in time to keep one thing in the box: hope. The world remained extremely bleak for an unspecified interval, until Pandora "chanced" to revisit the box again, at which point Hope fluttered out. Thus, mankind always has hope in times of evil, but Hope has a great deal of catching up to do.

•  In Greek mythology, Cerberus (Greek Kerberos , demon of the pit ), was the hound of Hades—a monstrous three-headed dog (sometimes said to have 50 or 100 heads) with a snake for a tail and innumerable snake heads on his back. He guarded the gate to Hades (the Greek underworld) and ensured that the dead could not leave and the living could not enter. His brother was Orthrus. He is the offspring of Echidna and Typhon.

•  Pax Romana , Latin for "the Roman peace", is the long period of peace experienced by states within the Roman Empire. The term stems from the fact that Roman rule and its legal system pacified regions, sometimes forcefully, which had suffered from the quarrels between rival leaders. It was an era of relative tranquillity, in which Rome endured neither major civil wars, such as the perpetual bloodshed of the first century BCE, nor serious invasions, such as those of the Second Punic War a century prior.This period is generally considered to have lasted from 27 BCE, when Augustus Caesar declared an end to the great Roman civil wars of the first century, until 180 CE, when emperor Marcus Aurelius died. It was a time in which Roman commerce thrived, unhampered by pirates or marauding enemy troops. It was not peaceful; rebellions frequently appeared, but were mostly quelled.

•  The Berlin Wall (German: Die Berliner Mauer ) was a long barrier separating West Berlin from East Berlin and the surrounding territory of East Germany. The East German authorities called it the “antifaschistischer Schutzwall” (Anti-Fascist Protection Wall) . Its purpose was to restrict access between West Berlin and East Germany. It was built in 1961 and fortified over the years, but was opened to unrestricted transit on November 9, 1989 and subsequently almost entirely demolished.

•  The Ottoman Empire was an imperial power, centered around the borders of the Mediterranean Sea, that existed from 1299 to 1922. At the height of its power in the 16th century, it included Anatolia, the Middle East, parts of North Africa, much of south-eastern Europe to the Caucasus in the north. It comprised an area of about 5.5 million km², though much of this was under indirect control of the central government. The Empire was situated in the middle of East and West, and interacted through-out its six-century history with both the East and the West.

•  Nazi Germany , or the Third Reich , refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the control of the National Socialist German Workers Party, or Nazi Party , with the Führer Adolf Hitler as head of state.. It was adopted by Nazi propaganda, which counted the Holy Roman Empire as the first Reich , the 1871–1918 German Empire the second, and its own regime as the third. This was done in order to suggest a return to former German glory after the failure of the 1919 Weimar Republic.

•  Rosa Louise Parks a retired African-American seamstress and figure in the American Civil Rights Movement, most famous for her refusal in 1955 to give up a bus seat to a white man who was getting on the bus.This refusal is markd as a beginning to the modern civil rights movement.

•  Prohibition was a period during which the manufacture, transportation, import, export, and sale of alcoholic beverages were restricted or illegal. In the United States it lasted from 1919 to 1933. The Eighteenth Amendment made Prohibition the law of the United States. The Twenty-first Amendment repealed Prohibition.

•  The term " Red Scare " has been applied to two distinct periods of intense anti-Communism in United States history: first from 1917 to 1920, and second from the late 1940s through the mid-1950s. Both periods were characterized by the suspicion of widespread civil-service infiltration by Communists and Anarchist and fears of communist influence on U.S. society and infiltration of the U.S. government. These fears spurred aggressive investigation and (particularly during the first period) jailing of persons associated with communist and socialist ideology or political movement.

•  Jack 'Jackie' Roosevelt Robinson (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) became the first African American Major League Baseball player of the modern era in 1947. Robinson's achievement has been recognized by the retirement by each Major League team of his uniform number, 42. Robinson was an exceptionally talented and disciplined hitter, with a career average of .311 and substantially more walks than strikeouts. He played several defensive positions extremely well and was the most aggressive and successful baserunner of his era; he was among the few players to "steal home" frequently, doing so at least 19 documented times. By his talent and physical presence, he disrupted the concentration of pitchers, catchers and middle infielders. Robinson's overall talent was such that he is often cited as among the best players of his era. It is also frequently claimed that Robinson was one of the most intelligent baseball players ever, a claim that is well supported by his home plate discipline and defensive prowess. Robinson was regarded as a fierce competitor in the truest sense: he never gave up on a game if his team was losing, to the point that he would try everything to avoid being the last man out for his side.