"Historical Lexicon" is a world history in faces. Its heroes are famous people of all classes and ranks, from emperors to pirates, who glorified or disgraced their age. Essays were written by prominent scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences and leading universities of Russia - historians, literary critics, art historians, musicologists, naturalists, religious scholars. Rigorous science is combined with accessibility and entertainment, which for the first time allowed us to show so vividly and at the same time so reliably what was happening simultaneously at all ends of the Earth.