Asia

A magnificent earthenware horse with three-colour (sancai) lead glaze from the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE), representing the Silk Road culture of cosmopolitan Tang China. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

A richly pigmented Mughal miniature painting on paper depicting royal lovers in a garden landscape, ink, colours and gold on paper. Mughal period, India, 17th century — from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Open Access collection.

A Japanese Edo period sword guard (tsuba) in copper-gold shakudō alloy with enamelled cloisonné (shippō) decoration, ca. 1615–1868 — the finest expression of Japanese metalwork artistry in miniature.

A carved chert cylinder seal from the Akkadian Empire (ca. 2250–2150 BCE) bearing a hunting scene — the world's earliest form of personal identification, rolled across wet clay to authenticate documents and seal containers in ancient Mesopotamia.

A moulded polychrome tile in the cuerda seca (dry cord) technique, gilded, dated 824 AH / 1421 CE — from a Timurid or early Safavid architectural context in Iran. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

A fine Ottoman Iznik stonepaste dish painted with two birds among flowering plants in polychrome underglaze, ca. 16th–17th century — one of the most celebrated ceramic traditions in world art history.

A carved stone bust of the multi-armed Buddhist deity Hevajra from the Khmer Empire, Angkor period, late 12th to early 13th century CE — from the civilisation that built Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world.

The Tang Dynasty, which ruled China from 618 to 907 CE, is regarded by historians as one of the highest points of Chinese civilisation, a cosmopolitan golden age of poetry, art, trade, and religious diversity.

In 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang became the first emperor of a unified China, creating the administrative framework of a country that has endured for over two thousand years and beginning the construction of the Great Wall.

Mohandas Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolent resistance transformed the Indian independence movement and provided a model for social change that inspired movements from the American Civil Rights struggle to anti-apartheid campaigns.

On 6 August 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing 80,000 people instantly and inaugurating the nuclear age that continues to shape our world.

From a small principality in northwestern Anatolia, the Ottoman Empire grew to rule three continents for six centuries, controlling the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa at the height of its power.