Creasy, Edward Shepherd: - Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy was an English historian and lawyer. Born in Bexley, Kent, England, he was the son of a land agent and attended Eton College (where he earned the Newcastle Scholarship in 1831) and King's College, Cambridge. He was admitted to the Bar in 1837 and appointed assistant judge of the Westminster Sessions Court. In 1840, he started teaching history at the University of London and produced several historical publications, notably The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World (1851). Creasy was knighted in 1860 and served as Ceylon's Chief Justice for a decade and a half (1860-1875). He later went to England in terrible health, dying in London on January 17, 1878. Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World (1851) is Creasy's most well-known literary work. Creasy explains that many of the fifteen conflicts were significant because they denied Eastern peoples access to European soil. Other conflicts are seen as "decisive" because they shaped the growth of Britain, the world's dominant power at the time of writing.