Portal:History
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Introduction
Herodotus (c. 484 BC – c. 425 BC), often considered the "father of history"
History (from Greek ἱστορία, historia, meaning "inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation") is the study of the past as it is described in written documents. Events occurring before written record are considered prehistory. It is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events. Scholars who write about history are called historians.
History can also refer to the academic discipline which uses a narrative to examine and analyse a sequence of past events, and objectively determine the patterns of cause and effect that determine them. Historians sometimes debate the nature of history and its usefulness by discussing the study of the discipline as an end in itself and as a way of providing "perspective" on the problems of the present.
Stories common to a particular culture, but not supported by external sources (such as the tales surrounding King Arthur), are usually classified as cultural heritage or legends, because they do not show the "disinterested investigation" required of the discipline of history. Herodotus, a 5th-century BC Greek historian is considered within the Western tradition to be the "father of history", and, along with his contemporary Thucydides, helped form the foundations for the modern study of human history. Their works continue to be read today, and the gap between the culture-focused Herodotus and the military-focused Thucydides remains a point of contention or approach in modern historical writing. In East Asia, a state chronicle, the Spring and Autumn Annals was known to be compiled from as early as 722 BC although only 2nd-century BC texts have survived.
Ancient influences have helped spawn variant interpretations of the nature of history which have evolved over the centuries and continue to change today. The modern study of history is wide-ranging, and includes the study of specific regions and the study of certain topical or thematical elements of historical investigation. Often history is taught as part of primary and secondary education, and the academic study of history is a major discipline in university studies.
Selected periods of history
The Diamond Sutra, of Dunhuang, China was published in 868 AD as the first printed book in world history using woodblock printing techniques. This image is a front piece for the book which was instrumental in spreading East-Asian Buddhism. Post-classical times were an era of religion. Matters of faith took part in the development of political power and in the personal lives of most ordinary people in both the New and Old World. Geographic regions were often divided based on a location's religious affiliation.
For more maps, images and other media please see *Post-classical history at Wikimedia Commons
Post-classical history (also called the Post-Antiquity era, Post-Ancient Era, or Pre-Modern Era) is a periodization commonly used by the school of "world history" instead of Middle Ages (Medieval), which is roughly synonymous. The period runs from about AD 500 to 1450 though there may be regional differences and debates. The era was globally characterized by the expansion of civilizations geographically, the development of three of the great world religions (Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism), and development of networks of trade between civilizations. Read more...
The Bronze Age is a historical period characterized by the use of bronze, and in some areas proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, for classifying and studying ancient societies.
An ancient civilization is defined to be in the Bronze Age either by producing bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or by trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Bronze itself is harder and more durable than other metals available at the time, allowing Bronze Age civilizations to gain a technological advantage. Read more...
From the Apocalypse in a Biblia Pauperum illuminated at Erfurt around the time of the Great Famine. Death sits astride a lion whose long tail ends in a ball of flame (Hell). Famine points to her hungry mouth.
The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history lasting from 1250 to 1500 AD. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Renaissance).
Around 1300, centuries of prosperity and growth in Europe came to a halt. A series of famines and plagues, including the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the Black Death, reduced the population to around half of what it was before the calamities. Along with depopulation came social unrest and endemic warfare. France and England experienced serious peasant uprisings, such as the Jacquerie and the Peasants' Revolt, as well as over a century of intermittent conflict, the Hundred Years' War. To add to the many problems of the period, the unity of the Catholic Church was temporarily shattered by the Western Schism. Collectively, those events are sometimes called the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages. Read more...- The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age system, preceded by the Stone Age (Neolithic) and the Bronze Age. It is an archaeological era in the prehistory and protohistory of Europe and the Ancient Near East, and by analogy also used of other parts of the Old World.
The three-age system was introduced in the first half of the 19th century for the archaeology of Europe in particular, and by the later 19th century expanded to the archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Its name harks back to the mythological "Ages of Man" of Hesiod. As an archaeological era it was first introduced for Scandinavia by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen in the 1830s. By the 1860s, it was embraced as a useful division of the "earliest history of mankind" in general and began to be applied in Assyriology. The development of the now-conventional periodization in the archaeology of the Ancient Near East was developed in the 1920s to 1930s.
As its name suggests, Iron Age technology is characterized by the production of tools and weaponry by ferrous metallurgy (ironworking), more specifically from carbon steel.
The duration of the Iron Age varies depending on the region under consideration. It is defined by archaeological convention, and the mere presence of some cast or wrought iron is not sufficient to represent an Iron Age culture; rather, the "Iron Age" begins locally when the production of iron or steel has been brought to the point where iron tools and weapons superior to their bronze equivalents become widespread. For example, Tutankhamun's meteoric iron dagger comes from the Bronze Age. In the Ancient Near East, this transition takes place in the wake of the so-called Bronze Age collapse, in the 12th century BC. The technology soon spreads throughout the Mediterranean region and to South Asia.
Its further spread to Central Asia, Eastern and Central Europe is somewhat delayed, and Northern Europe is reached still later, by about 500 BC. Read more... 
Charlemagne's empire included most of modern France, Germany, the Low Countries, Austria and northern Italy.
The Early Middle Ages or Early Medieval Period, sometimes referred to as the Dark Ages, are typically regarded as lasting from the 5th or 6th century to the 10th century CE. They marked the start of the Middle Ages of European history. The term "Late Antiquity" is used to emphasize elements of continuity with the Roman Empire, while "Early Middle Ages" is used to emphasize developments characteristic of the earlier medieval period. As such it overlaps with Late Antiquity, following the decline of the Western Roman Empire, and precedes the High Middle Ages (c. 10th to 13th centuries).
The period saw a continuation of trends evident since late classical antiquity, including population decline, especially in urban centres, a decline of trade, a small rise in global warming and increased migration. The Early Middle Ages was labelled the "Dark Ages" in the 19th century, a characterization based on the relative scarcity of literary and cultural output from this time. However, the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire, continued to survive, though in the 7th century the Islamic caliphates conquered swathes of formerly Roman territory. Read more...
An early nuclear power plant that used atomic energy to generate electricity.
The Atomic Age, also known as the Atomic Era, is the period of history following the detonation of the first nuclear ("atomic") bomb, Trinity, on July 16, 1945, during World War II. Although nuclear chain reactions had been hypothesized in 1933 and the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction (Chicago Pile-1) had taken place in December 1942, the Trinity test and the ensuing bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II represented the first large-scale use of nuclear technology and ushered in profound changes in sociopolitical thinking and the course of technology development.
While atomic power was promoted for a time as the epitome of progress and modernity, entering into the nuclear power era also entailed frightful implications of nuclear warfare, the Cold War, mutual assured destruction, nuclear proliferation, the risk of nuclear disaster (potentially as extreme as anthropogenic global nuclear winter), as well as beneficial civilian applications in nuclear medicine. It is no easy matter to fully segregate peaceful uses of nuclear technology from military or terrorist uses (such as the fabrication of dirty bombs from radioactive waste), which complicated the development of a global nuclear-power export industry right from the outset. Read more...
The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, or New Media Age) is a historic period in the 21st century characterized by the rapid shift from traditional industry that the Industrial Revolution brought through industrialization, to an economy based on information technology. The onset of the Information Age is associated with the Digital Revolution, just as the Industrial Revolution marked the onset of the Industrial Age. The definition of what "digital" means (or what "information" means) continues to change over time as new technologies, user devices, methods of interaction with other humans and devices enter the domain of research, development and market launch.
During the Information Age, digital industry shapes a knowledge-based society surrounded by a high-tech global economy that exerts influence on how the manufacturing and service sectors operate in an efficient and convenient way. In a commercialized society, the information industry can allow individuals to explore their personalized needs, therefore simplifying the procedure of making decisions for transactions and significantly lowering costs both for producers and for buyers. This is accepted overwhelmingly by participants throughout the entire economic activities for efficacy purposes, and new economic incentives would[original research?] then be indigenously encouraged, such as the knowledge economy.[page needed] Read more...- The Enlightenment (also known as the The Age of Enlightenment or The Age of Reason) was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century, the "Century of Philosophy".
French historians traditionally place the Enlightenment between 1715 (the year that Louis XIV died) and 1789 (the beginning of the French Revolution). International historians begin the period in the 1620s, with the start of the scientific revolution. Les philosophes (French for "the philosophers") of the period widely circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies, Masonic lodges, literary salons, coffee houses and in printed books and pamphlets. The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and the Church and paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. A variety of 19th-century movements, including liberalism and neo-classicism, trace their intellectual heritage to the Enlightenment. Read more... 
The Viking Age (793–1066 AD) is a period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, following the Germanic Iron Age. It is the period of history when Scandinavian Norsemen explored Europe by its seas and rivers for trade, raids, colonization, and conquest. In this period, the Norsemen settled in Norse Greenland, Newfoundland, and present-day Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Normandy, Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, Isle of Man, the Netherlands, Germany, Ukraine, Russia, and Turkey.
Viking travellers and colonists were seen at many points in history as brutal raiders. Many historical documents suggest that their invasion of other countries was retaliation in response to the encroachment upon tribal lands by Christian missionaries, and perhaps by the Saxon Wars prosecuted by Charlemagne and his kin to the south, or were motivated by overpopulation, trade inequities, and the lack of viable farmland in their homeland. Read more...
Modern history, the modern period or the modern era, is the linear, global, historiographical approach to the time frame after post-classical history. Modern history can be further broken down into periods:- The early modern period began approximately in the early 16th century; notable historical milestones included the European Renaissance, the Age of Discovery, and the Protestant Reformation.
- The late modern period began approximately in the mid-18th century; notable historical milestones included the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Great Divergence, and the Russian Revolution. It took all of human history up to 1804 for the world's population to reach 1 billion; the next billion came just over a century later, in 1927.
- Contemporary history is the span of historic events from approximately 1945 that are immediately relevant to the present time.
This article primarily covers the 1800–1950 time period with a brief summary of 1500–1800. For a more in depth article on modern times before 1800, see Early Modern period. Read more...
The Space Age is a time period encompassing the activities related to the Space Race, space exploration, space technology, and the cultural developments influenced by these events. The Space Age is generally considered to have begun with Sputnik (1957). Read more...- 17th century philosophy is generally regarded as seeing the start of modern philosophy, and the shaking off of the medieval approach, especially scholasticism. It succeeded the Renaissance and preceded the Age of Enlightenment. It is often considered to be part of early modern philosophy. Read more...
Modern history, the modern period or the modern era, is the linear, global, historiographical approach to the time frame after post-classical history. Modern history can be further broken down into periods:- The early modern period began approximately in the early 16th century; notable historical milestones included the European Renaissance, the Age of Discovery, and the Protestant Reformation.
- The late modern period began approximately in the mid-18th century; notable historical milestones included the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Great Divergence, and the Russian Revolution. It took all of human history up to 1804 for the world's population to reach 1 billion; the next billion came just over a century later, in 1927.
- Contemporary history is the span of historic events from approximately 1945 that are immediately relevant to the present time.
This article primarily covers the 1800–1950 time period with a brief summary of 1500–1800. For a more in depth article on modern times before 1800, see Early Modern period. Read more...- Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history which describes the historical period from approximately 1945 to the present. The term "contemporary history" has been in use at least since the early 19th century.
Contemporary history is politically dominated by the Cold War (1945–91) between the United States and Soviet Union whose effects were felt across the world. The confrontation, which was mainly fought through proxy wars and through intervention in the internal politics of smaller nations, ultimately ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact in 1991, following the Revolutions of 1989. The latter stages and aftermath of the Cold War enabled the democratisation of much of Europe, Africa, and Latin America. In the Middle East, the period after 1945 was dominated by conflict involving the new state of Israel and the rise of petroleum politics, as well as the growth of Islamism after the 1980s. The first supranational organisations of government, such as the United Nations and European Union, emerged during the period after 1945, while the European colonial empires in Africa and Asia collapsed, gone by 1975. Countercultures rose and the sexual revolution transformed social relations in western countries between the 1960s and 1980s, epitomised by the Protests of 1968. Living standards rose sharply across the developed world because of the post-war economic boom, whereby such major economies as Japan and West Germany emerged. The culture of the United States, especially consumerism, spread widely. By the 1960s, many western countries had begun deindustrializing; in their place, globalization led to the emergence of new industrial centres, such as Japan, Taiwan and later China, which exported consumer goods to developed countries. Read more...
The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the period of European history that commenced around 1000 and lasted until around 1250. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended around 1500 (by historiographical convention).
Key historical trends of the High Middle Ages include the rapidly increasing population of Europe, which brought about great social and political change from the preceding era, and the Renaissance of the 12th century, including the first developments of rural exodus and of urbanization. By 1250, the robust population increase had greatly benefited the European economy, which reached levels that would not be seen again in some areas until the 19th century. That trend faltered during the Late Middle Ages because of a series of calamities, most notably the Black Death, but also numerous wars as well as economic stagnation. Read more...
Petrarch, who conceived the idea of a European "Dark Age". From Cycle of Famous Men and Women, Andrea di Bartolo di Bargilla, c. 1450
The "Dark Ages" is a historical periodization traditionally referring to the Middle Ages, that asserts that a demographic, cultural, and economic deterioration occurred in Western Europe following the decline of the Roman Empire.
The term employs traditional light-versus-darkness imagery to contrast the era's "darkness" (lack of records) with earlier and later periods of "light" (abundance of records). The concept of a "Dark Age" originated in the 1330s with the Italian scholar Petrarch, who regarded the post-Roman centuries as "dark" compared to the light of classical antiquity. The phrase "Dark Age" itself derives from the Latin saeculum obscurum, originally applied by Caesar Baronius in 1602 to a tumultuous period in the 10th and 11th centuries. The concept thus came to characterize the entire Middle Ages as a time of intellectual darkness between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance; this became especially popular during the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment. Read more...- The early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages of the post-classical era. Although the chronological limits of the period are open to debate, the timeframe spans the period after the late portion of the post-classical age (c. 1500), known as the Middle Ages, through the beginning of the Age of Revolutions (c. 1800) and is variously demarcated by historians as beginning with the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, with the Renaissance period, and with the Age of Discovery (especially with the voyages of Christopher Columbus beginning in 1492, but also with Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea route to the East in 1498), and ending around the French Revolution in 1789.
Historians in recent decades have argued that from a worldwide standpoint, the most important feature of the early modern period was its globalizing character. The period witnessed the exploration and colonization of the Americas and the rise of sustained contacts between previously isolated parts of the globe. The historical powers became involved in global trade, as the exchange of goods, plants, animals, food crops, and slaves extended to the Old World and the New World. The Columbian Exchange greatly affected the human environment. Read more... 
A Roberts loom in a weaving shed in 1835. Textiles were the leading industry of the Industrial Revolution and mechanized factories, powered by a central water wheel or steam engine, were the new workplace.
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Europe and the US, in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, the increasing use of steam power, the development of machine tools and the rise of the factory system. The Industrial Revolution also led to an unprecedented rise in the rate of population growth.
Textiles were the dominant industry of the Industrial Revolution in terms of employment, value of output and capital invested. The textile industry was also the first to use modern production methods. Read more...
Cantino planisphere 1502, earliest surviving chart showing the explorations of Columbus to Central America, Corte-Real to Newfoundland, Gama to India and Cabral to Brazil. Tordesillas line depicted, Biblioteca Estense, Modena
The Age of Discovery, or the Age of Exploration (approximately from the beginning of the 15th century until the end of the 18th century), is an informal and loosely defined term for the period in European history in which extensive overseas exploration emerged as a powerful factor in European culture and which was the beginning of globalization. It also marks the rise of the period of widespread adoption in Europe of colonialism and mercantilism as national policies. Many lands previously unknown to Europeans were discovered by them during this period, though most were already inhabited. From the perspective of many non-Europeans, the Age of Discovery marked the arrival of invaders from previously unknown continents.
Global exploration started with the Portuguese discoveries of the Atlantic archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores in 1419 and 1427, the coast of Africa after 1434 and the sea route to India in 1498; and from the Crown of Castile (Spain), the trans-Atlantic voyages of Christopher Columbus to the Americas between 1492 and 1502 and the first circumnavigation of the globe in 1519–1522. These discoveries led to numerous naval expeditions across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, and land expeditions in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia that continued into the late 19th century, and ended with the exploration of the polar regions in the 20th century. Read more...
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Selected images
Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia, founded 670 CE
Cave painting, Lascaux, France, c. 15,000 BCE
Atomic bombings: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, 1945
China has become a leader in wind power and solar panels.
1570 world map, with Europeans' discoveries
Collegium Maius of Kraków's Jagiellonian University, Copernicus's first alma mater
Empires, 1898
World population, 10,000 BCE – 2,000 CE (vertical population scale is logarithmic)
Gutenberg Bible, produced using movable type c. 1450
The Pantheon in Rome, Italy, now a Catholic church
Last Moon landing: Apollo 17 (1972)
"Venus of Willensdorf", Austria, c. 26,500 BCE
Terracotta army, China, c. 210 BCE
Persepolis, Achaemenid Empire, 6th century BCE
Russian chapel, Fort Ross, California, U.S.
Battle during 1281 Mongol invasion of Japan
Angkor Wat temple, Cambodia, early 12th century
Ming Dynasty section, Great Wall of China
The September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacks influenced U.S. foreign policy.
Pillar erected by India's Maurya Dynasty Emperor Ashoka
Watt's steam engine powered the Industrial Revolution.
Hagia Sophia, Istanbul (formerly Constantinople), Turkey
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Selected histories by subject
- Archaeology is the study of human activity in the past, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts (also known as eco-facts) and cultural landscapes (the archaeological record).
The development of the field of archaeology has it roots with history and with those who were interested in the past, such as kings who wanted to show past glories of their respective nations. The 5th-century-BCE Greek historian Herodotus was the first scholar to systematically study the past and perhaps the first to examine artifacts. In the Song Empire (960–1279) of Imperial China, Chinese scholar-officials unearthed, studied, and cataloged ancient artifacts. The 15th and 16th centuries saw the rise of antiquarians in Renaissance Europe who were interested in the collection of artifacts. The antiquarian movement shifted into nationalism as personal collections turned into national museums. It evolved into a much more systematic discipline in the late 19th century and became a widely used tool for historical and anthropological research in the 20th century. During this time there were also significant advances in the technology used in the field. Read more... 
The history of science is the study of the development of science and scientific knowledge, including both the natural and social sciences (the history of the arts and humanities is termed history of scholarship). Science is a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world, produced by scientists who emphasize the observation, explanation, and prediction of real-world phenomena. Historiography of science, in contrast, studies the methods employed by historians of science.
The English word scientist is relatively recent—first coined by William Whewell in the 19th century. Previously, investigators of nature called themselves "natural philosophers". While empirical investigations of the natural world have been described since classical antiquity (for example, by Thales and Aristotle), and the scientific method has been employed since the Middle Ages (for example, by Ibn al-Haytham and Roger Bacon), modern science began to develop in the early modern period, and in particular in the scientific revolution of 16th- and 17th-century Europe. Traditionally, historians of science have defined science sufficiently broadly to include those earlier inquiries. Read more...
The Parthenon in Athens
The history of architecture traces the changes in architecture through various traditions, regions, overarching stylistic trends, and dates. The branches of architecture are civil, sacred, naval, military, and landscape architecture. Read more...- The history of Christianity concerns the Christian religion, Christendom, and the Church with its various denominations, from the 1st century to the present.
Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity spread to all of Europe in the Middle Ages. Since the Renaissance era, Christianity has expanded throughout the world and become the world's largest religion. Today there are more than two billion Christians worldwide. Read more... - The historicity of the Bible is the question of the Bible's "acceptability as a history". This can be extended to the question of the Christian New Testament as an accurate record of the historical Jesus and the Apostolic Age.
Many fields of study span the Bible and history; such fields range from archeology and astronomy to linguistics and comparative literature. Scholars also examine the historical context of Bible passages, the importance ascribed to events by the authors, and the contrast between the descriptions of these events and other historical evidence. Read more... 
In 1808 Bavarian educational commissioner Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer coined the term Humanismus to describe the new classical curriculum he planned to offer in German secondary schools, and by 1836 the word "humanism" had been absorbed into the English language in this sense. The coinage gained universal acceptance in 1856, when German historian and philologist Georg Voigt used humanism to describe Renaissance humanism, the movement that flourished in the Italian Renaissance to revive classical learning, a use which won wide acceptance among historians in many nations, especially Italy.
But in the mid-18th century, during the French Enlightenment, a more ideological use of the term had come into use. In 1765, the author of an anonymous article in a French Enlightenment periodical spoke of "The general love of humanity ... a virtue hitherto quite nameless among us, and which we will venture to call 'humanism', for the time has come to create a word for such a beautiful and necessary thing". The latter part of the 18th and the early 19th centuries saw the creation of numerous grass-roots "philanthropic" and benevolent societies dedicated to human betterment and the spreading of knowledge (some Christian, some not). After the French Revolution, the idea that human virtue could be created by human reason alone independently from traditional religious institutions, attributed by opponents of the Revolution to Enlightenment philosophes such as Rousseau, was violently attacked by influential religious and political conservatives, such as Edmund Burke and Joseph de Maistre, as a deification or idolatry of humanity. Humanism began to acquire a negative sense. The Oxford English Dictionary records the use of the word "humanism" by an English clergyman in 1812 to indicate those who believe in the "mere humanity" (as opposed to the divine nature) of Christ, i.e., Unitarians and Deists. In this polarised atmosphere, in which established ecclesiastical bodies tended to circle the wagons and reflexively oppose political and social reforms like extending the franchise, universal schooling, and the like, liberal reformers and radicals embraced the idea of Humanism as an alternative religion of humanity. The anarchist Proudhon (best known for declaring that "property is theft") used the word "humanism" to describe a "culte, déification de l’humanité" ("worship, deification of humanity") and Ernest Renan in L’avenir de la science: pensées de 1848 ("The Future of Knowledge: Thoughts on 1848") (1848–49), states: "It is my deep conviction that pure humanism will be the religion of the future, that is, the cult of all that pertains to humanity—all of life, sanctified and raised to the level of a moral value." Read more...
The history of games dates to the ancient human past. Games are an integral part of all cultures and are one of the oldest forms of human social interaction. Games are formalized expressions of play which allow people to go beyond immediate imagination and direct physical activity. Common features of games include uncertainty of outcome, agreed upon rules, competition, separate place and time, elements of fiction, elements of chance, prescribed goals and personal enjoyment.
Games capture the ideas and worldviews of their cultures and pass them on to the future generation. Games were important as cultural and social bonding events, as teaching tools and as markers of social status. As pastimes of royalty and the elite, some games became common features of court culture and were also given as gifts. Games such as Senet and the Mesoamerican ball game were often imbued with mythic and ritual religious significance. Games like Gyan chauper and The Mansion of Happiness were used to teach spiritual and ethical lessons while Shatranj and Wéiqí (Go) were seen as a way to develop strategic thinking and mental skill by the political and military elite. Read more...
The Creation of Adam; by Michelangelo; 1508–1512; fresco; 480.1 × 230.1 cm (15.7 × 7.5 ft); Sistine Chapel (Vatican City)
The history of art focuses on objects made by humans in visual form for aesthetic purposes. Visual art can be classified in diverse ways, such as separating fine arts from applied arts; inclusively focusing on human creativity; or focusing on different media such as architecture, sculpture, painting, film, photography, and graphic arts. In recent years, technological advances have led to video art, computer art, Performance art, animation, television, and videogames.
The history of art is often told as a chronology of masterpieces created during each civilization. It can thus be framed as a story of high culture, epitomized by the Wonders of the World. On the other hand, vernacular art expressions can also be integrated into art historical narratives, referred to as folk arts or craft. The more closely that an art historian engages with these latter forms of low culture, the more likely it is that they will identify their work as examining visual culture or material culture, or as contributing to fields related to art history, such as anthropology or archaeology. In the latter cases art objects may be referred to as archeological artifacts. Read more...- The history of transport is largely one of technological innovation. Advances in technology have allowed people to travel farther, explore more territory, and expand their influence over larger and larger areas. Even in ancient times, new tools such as foot coverings, skis, and snowshoes lengthened the distances that could be travelled. As new inventions and discoveries were applied to transport problems, travel time decreased while the ability to move more and larger loads increased. Innovation continues as transport researchers are working to find new ways to reduce costs and increase transport efficiency. Read more...
The history of Buddism spans from the 5th century BCE to the present. Buddhism arose in the eastern part of Ancient India, in and around the ancient Kingdom of Magadha (now in Bihar, India), and is based on the teachings of Siddhārtha Gautama. This makes it one of the oldest religions practiced today. The religion evolved as it spread from the northeastern region of the Indian subcontinent through Central, East, and Southeast Asia. At one time or another, it influenced most of the Asian continent. The history of Buddhism is also characterized by the development of numerous movements, schisms, and schools, among them the Theravāda, Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna traditions, with contrasting periods of expansion and retreat. Read more...- Axial Age (also Axis Age, from German: Achsenzeit) is a term coined by German philosopher Karl Jaspers in the sense of a "pivotal age" characterizing the period of ancient history from about the 8th to the 3rd century BCE.
During this period, according to Jaspers' concept, new ways of thinking appeared in Persia, India, China and the Greco-Roman world in religion and philosophy, in a striking parallel development, without any obvious direct cultural contact between all of the participating Eurasian cultures. Jaspers identified key thinkers from this age who had a profound influence on future philosophies and religions, and identified characteristics common to each area from which those thinkers emerged. Read more... 
The Watt steam engine, a major driver in the industrial revolution, underscores the importance of engineering in modern history. This model is on display at the main building of the ETSIIM in Madrid, Spain
The concept of engineering has existed since ancient times as humans devised fundamental inventions such as the pulley, lever, and wheel. Each of these inventions is consistent with the modern definition of engineering, exploiting basic mechanical principles to develop useful tools and objects.
The term engineering itself has a much more recent etymology, deriving from the word engineer, which itself dates back to 1325,
when an engine’er (literally, one who operates an engine) originally referred to "a constructor of military engines." In this context, now obsolete, an "engine" referred to a military machine, i. e., a mechanical contraption used in war (for example, a catapult). The word "engine" itself is of even older origin, ultimately deriving from the Latin ingenium (c. 1250), meaning "innate quality, especially mental power, hence a clever invention." Read more...- The history of Artificial Intelligence (AI) began in antiquity, with myths, stories and rumors of artificial beings endowed with intelligence or consciousness by master craftsmen. The seeds of modern AI were planted by classical philosophers who attempted to describe the process of human thinking as the mechanical manipulation of symbols. This work culminated in the invention of the programmable digital computer in the 1940s, a machine based on the abstract essence of mathematical reasoning. This device and the ideas behind it inspired a handful of scientists to begin seriously discussing the possibility of building an electronic brain.
The field of AI research was founded at a workshop held on the campus of Dartmouth College during the summer of 1956. Those who attended would become the leaders of AI research for decades. Many of them predicted that a machine as intelligent as a human being would exist in no more than a generation and they were given millions of dollars to make this vision come true. Read more... 
Bust of Homer, the ancient Greek epic poet
Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. It encompasses the study of the Greco-Roman world, particularly of its languages and literature (Ancient Greek and Classical Latin) but also of Greco-Roman philosophy, history, and archaeology. Traditionally in the West, the study of the Greek and Roman classics was considered one of the cornerstones of the humanities and a fundamental element of a rounded education. The study of classics has therefore traditionally been a cornerstone of a typical elite education.
Study encompasses specifically a time-period of history from the mid-2nd millennium BC to the 6th century AD. Read more...
The ability to predict rains and floods based on annual cycles was evidently used by humans at least from the time of agricultural settlement if not earlier. Early approaches to predicting weather were based on astrology and were practiced by priests. Cuneiform inscriptions on Babylonian tablets included associations between thunder and rain. The Chaldeans differentiated the 22° and 46° halos.
Ancient Indian Upanishads contain mentions of clouds and seasons. The Samaveda mentions sacrifices to be performed when certain phenomena were noticed. Varāhamihira's classical work Brihatsamhita, written about 500 AD, provides evidence of weather observation. Read more...- The history of geography includes many histories of geography which have differed over time and between different cultural and political groups. In more recent developments, geography has become a distinct academic discipline. 'Geography' derives from the Greek γεωγραφία – geographia, a literal translation of which would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes (276–194 BC). However, there is evidence for recognizable practices of geography, such as cartography (or map-making) prior to the use of the term geography. Read more...
- The sociology and philosophy of science, as well as the entire field of science studies, have in the 20th century been occupied with the question of large-scale patterns and trends in the development of science, and asking questions about how science "works" both in a philosophical and practical sense. Read more...
Selected historical figures
Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840 – April 12, 1897) was an American paleontologist and comparative anatomist, as well as a noted herpetologist and ichthyologist. He was a founder of the Neo-Lamarckism school of thought. Born to a wealthy Quaker family, Cope distinguished himself as a child prodigy interested in science; he published his first scientific paper at the age of 19. Though his father tried to raise Cope as a gentleman farmer, he eventually acquiesced to his son's scientific aspirations. Cope married his cousin and had one child; the family moved from Philadelphia to Haddonfield, New Jersey, although Cope would maintain a residence and museum in Philadelphia in his later years.
Cope had little formal scientific training, and he eschewed a teaching position for field work. He made regular trips to the American West, prospecting in the 1870s and 1880s, often as a member of United States Geological Survey teams. A personal feud between Cope and paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh led to a period of intense fossil-finding competition now known as the Bone Wars. Cope's financial fortunes soured after failed mining ventures in the 1880s, forcing him to sell off much of his fossil collection. He experienced a resurgence in his career toward the end of his life before dying on April 12, 1897. Read more...
John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American oil industry business magnate, industrialist, and philanthropist. He is widely considered the wealthiest American of all time, and the richest person in modern history.
Rockefeller was born into a large family in upstate New York and was shaped by his con man father and religious mother. His family moved several times before eventually settling in Cleveland, Ohio. Rockefeller became an assistant bookkeeper at age 16 and went into a business partnership with Maurice B. Clark and his brothers at 20. After buying them out, he and his brother William founded Rockefeller & Andrews with Samuel Andrews, and they concentrated on oil refining rather than drilling. In 1867, Henry Morrison Flagler entered the partnership, and the Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler company grew by taking over local refineries. Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company in 1870 as an Ohio partnership with William, Flagler, Andrews, Jabez A. Bostwick, and silent partner Stephen V. Harkness. He ran it until 1897. Read more...- Draco (/ˈdreɪkoʊ/; Greek: Δράκων, Drakōn; fl. c. 7th century BCE) was the first recorded legislator of Athens in Ancient Greece. He replaced the prevailing system of oral law and blood feud by a written code to be enforced only by a court of law. Draco was the first democratic legislator, requested by the Athenian citizens to be a lawgiver for the city-state, but the citizens were fully unaware that Draco would establish laws characterized by their harshness. To this day, the adjective draconian refers to similarly unforgiving rules or laws, in English and other European languages. Read more...
- Matsuo Bashō (松尾 芭蕉, 1644–1694), born 松尾 金作, then Matsuo Chūemon Munefusa (松尾 忠右衛門 宗房), was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. During his lifetime, Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative haikai no renga form; today, after centuries of commentary, he is recognized as the greatest master of haiku (then called hokku). Matsuo Bashō's poetry is internationally renowned; and, in Japan, many of his poems are reproduced on monuments and traditional sites. Although Bashō is justifiably famous in the West for his hokku, he himself believed his best work lay in leading and participating in renku. He is quoted as saying, "Many of my followers can write hokku as well as I can. Where I show who I really am is in linking haikai verses."
Portrait of Bashō by Hokusai, late 18th century
Bashō was introduced to poetry at a young age, and after integrating himself into the intellectual scene of Edo (modern Tokyo) he quickly became well known throughout Japan. He made a living as a teacher; but then renounced the social, urban life of the literary circles and was inclined to wander throughout the country, heading west, east, and far into the northern wilderness to gain inspiration for his writing. His poems were influenced by his firsthand experience of the world around him, often encapsulating the feeling of a scene in a few simple elements. Read more...
Ferenc Puskás (Hungarian: [ˈfɛrɛnt͡s ˈpuʃkaːʃ]; né Purczeld; 2 April 1927 – 17 November 2006) was a Hungarian footballer and manager, widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time and he is the son of former footballer Ferenc Puskás Senior. A prolific forward, he scored 84 goals in 85 international matches for Hungary, and 514 goals in 529 matches in the Hungarian and Spanish leagues. He became an Olympic champion in 1952 and led his nation to the final of the 1954 World Cup where he was named the tournament's best player. He won three European Cups (1959, 1960, 1966), 10 national championships (5 Hungarian and 5 Spanish Primera División) and 8 top individual scoring honors. In 1995, he was recognized as the top scorer of the 20th century by the IFFHS.
Puskás started his career in Hungary playing for Kispest and Budapest Honvéd. He was the top scorer in the Hungarian League on four occasions, and in 1948, he was the top goal scorer in Europe. During the 1950s, he was both a prominent member and captain of the Hungarian national team, known as the Mighty Magyars. In 1958, two years after the Hungarian Revolution, he emigrated to Spain where he played for Real Madrid. While playing with Real Madrid, Puskás won four Pichichis and scored seven goals in two European Champions Cup finals. Read more...
Richard Rothwell's portrait of Mary Shelley was shown at the Royal Academy in 1840, accompanied by lines from Percy Shelley's poem The Revolt of Islam calling her a "child of love and light".
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (née Godwin; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin, and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.
After Wollstonecraft's death less than a month after her daughter Mary was born, Mary was raised by Godwin, who was able to provide his daughter with a rich, if informal, education, encouraging her to adhere to his own anarchist political theories. When Mary was four, her father married a neighbour, with whom, as her stepmother, Mary came to have a troubled relationship. Read more...
Tiberius (/taɪˈbɪəriəs/; Latin: Tiberius Caesar Divi Augusti filius Augustus; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March 37 AD) was Roman emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD, succeeding the first emperor, Augustus.
Born to Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla in a Claudian family, he was given the personal name Tiberius Claudius Nero. His mother divorced Nero and married Octavian—later to ascend to Emperor as Augustus—who officially became his stepfather. Tiberius would later marry Augustus' daughter (from his marriage to Scribonia), Julia the Elder, and even later be adopted by Augustus. Through the adoption, he officially became a Julian, assuming the name Tiberius Julius Caesar. The emperors after Tiberius would continue this blended dynasty of both families for the following thirty years; historians have named it the Julio-Claudian dynasty. His relationship to the other emperors of this dynasty was as follows: Tiberius was the stepson of Augustus, grand-uncle of Caligula, paternal uncle of Claudius, and great-grand uncle of Nero. His 22-and-a-half-year reign would be the longest after Augustus's until Antoninus Pius, who surpassed his reign by a few months. Read more...
Gold dinar minted by the Umayyads in 695, which likely depicts Abd al-Malik
ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam (Arabic: عبد الملك ابن مروان, 646/47–9 October 705) was the sixth Umayyad caliph, ruling from 685 until his death. At the time of his accession, Umayyad authority had disintegrated throughout the caliphate and had begun to be reconstituted in Syria and Egypt during the short reign of his father, Caliph Marwan I (r. 684–685). Abd al-Malik initially focused on consolidating Syria before attempting to reconquer the remainder of the caliphate from his principal rival, the Mecca-based caliph Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr. To that end, he concluded an unfavorable truce with a reinvigorated Byzantine Empire in 689, fended off a coup attempt in Damascus by his kinsman the following year and reconciled with the disaffected Qaysi tribes of Upper Mesopotamia in 691. He subsequently conquered Zubayrid Iraq and dispatched one of his generals, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, to Mecca where he killed Ibn al-Zubayr and restored Umayyad rule in Arabia by late 692. Al-Hajjaj ultimately became the caliph's viceroy in the east and firmly established Abd al-Malik's authority in Iraq and Khurasan, having stamped out opposition by the Kharijites and the Arab tribal nobility by 702. In the west, Abd al-Malik's brother, Abd al-Aziz, maintained peace and stability in Egypt while his troops retook Qayrawan, which served as the launchpad for the conquests of western North Africa and Spain under the caliph's sons and successors.
In a significant departure from his predecessors, rule over the caliphate was centralized under Abd al-Malik, following the elimination of his rivals. Gradually, loyalist Arab troops from Syria were tasked with maintaining order in the provinces as dependence on less reliable, localized Arab garrisons receded. In tandem, the traditional military stipends to veterans of the early Muslim conquests and their descendants were abolished, with salaries being restricted to those in active service. Furthermore, Abd al-Malik introduced a single Islamic currency in place of Byzantine and Sassanian coins and established Arabic as the language of the bureaucracy, replacing Greek, Persian and Coptic in Syria, Iraq and Egypt, respectively. These measures led to renewed war with Byzantium, this time ending in Umayyad advances into Armenia. Conflict with external and domestic Christian forces and rival claimants to Islamic leadership, along with his Muslim upbringing, influenced Abd al-Malik's aforementioned efforts to proscribe a distinctly Islamic character to the Umayyad state. Another manifestation of this initiative was his founding of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which is the earliest known religious structure built by a Muslim ruler and the possessor of the earliest epigraphic proclamations of Islam and the prophet Muhammad. Abd al-Malik was succeeded by his eldest son al-Walid I, who extensively relied on al-Hajjaj and whose reign was largely a continuation of his father's policies. Read more...
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (English: /ˈpʊʃkɪn/; Russian: Александр Сергеевич Пушкин, tr. Aleksándr Sergéyevich Púshkin, IPA: [ɐlʲɪˈksandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn] (
listen); 6 June [O.S. 26 May] 1799 – 10 February [O.S. 29 January] 1837) was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature.
Pushkin was born into Russian nobility in Moscow. His father, Sergey Lvovich Pushkin, belonged to Pushkin noble families. His matrilineal great-grandfather was Abram Petrovich Gannibal. He published his first poem at the age of 15, and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. Upon graduation from the Lycee, Pushkin recited his controversial poem "Ode to Liberty", one of several that led to his being exiled by Tsar Alexander the First. While under the strict surveillance of the Tsar's political police and unable to publish, Pushkin wrote his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov. His novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, was serialized between 1825 and 1832. Read more...
Filippo Brunelleschi (Italian: [fiˈlippo brunelˈleski]; 1377 – April 15, 1446) considered to be a founding father of Renaissance architecture, was an Italian architect and designer, recognized to be the first modern engineer, planner and sole construction supervisor. He is most famous for designing the dome of the Florence Cathedral, a feat of engineering that had not been accomplished since antiquity, as well as the development of the mathematical technique of linear perspective in art which governed pictorial depictions of space until the late 19th century and influenced the rise of modern science. His accomplishments also include other architectural works, sculpture, mathematics, engineering, and ship design. His principal surviving works can be found in Florence, Italy. Read more...
Suryavarman II (Khmer: សូរ្យវរ្ម័នទី២) posthumously named Paramavishnuloka, was a Khmer king of the Khmer Empire from 1113 AD to 1145-1150 AD and the builder of Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world which he dedicated to the Hindu God Vishnu. His reign's monumental architecture, numerous military campaigns and restoration of strong government have led historians to rank Suryavarman as one of the empire's greatest kings. Read more...
Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor, self-described "Father of Radio", and a pioneer in the development of sound-on-film recording used for motion pictures. He had over 180 patents, but also a tumultuous career—he boasted that he made, then lost, four fortunes. He was also involved in several major patent lawsuits, spent a substantial part of his income on legal bills, and was even tried (and acquitted) for mail fraud. His most famous invention, in 1906, was the three-element "Audion" (triode) vacuum tube, the first practical amplification device. Although De Forest had only a limited understanding of how it worked, it was the foundation of the field of electronics, making possible radio broadcasting, long distance telephone lines, and talking motion pictures, among countless other applications. Read more...- Patañjali (Sanskrit: पतञ्जलि) is the name of one or more authors of a number of Sanskrit works. A great deal of scholarship has been devoted over the last century or so to the issue of the historicity or identity of this author or these authors.
Amongst the more important authors called Patañjali are:- The author of the Mahābhāṣya, an ancient treatise on Sanskrit grammar and linguistics, based on the Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini. This Patañjali's life is dated to mid 2nd century BCE by both Western and Indian scholars. This text was titled as a bhasya or "commentary" on Katyayana-Panini's work by Patanjali, but is so revered in the Hindu traditions that it is widely known simply as Maha-bhasya or "Great commentary". So vigorous, well reasoned and vast is his text, that this Patanjali has been the authority as the last grammarian of classical Sanskrit for 2,000 years, with Panini and Katyayana preceding him. Their ideas on structure, grammar and philosophy of language have also influenced scholars of other Indian religions such as Buddhism and Jainism.
- The compiler of the Yoga sūtras, a text on Yoga theory and practice, and a notable scholar of Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy. He is variously estimated to have lived between 2nd century BCE to 4th century CE, with more scholars accepting dates between 2nd and 4th century CE. The Yogasutras is one of the most important texts in the Hindu tradition and the foundation of classical Yoga. It is the Indian Yoga text that was most translated in its medieval era into forty Indian languages. Also, the third chapter is the basis for the TM-Sidhis.
- The author of a medical text called Patanjalatantra. He is cited and this text is quoted in many medieval health sciences-related texts, and Patanjali is called a medical authority in a number of Sanskrit texts such as Yogaratnakara, Yogaratnasamuccaya and Padarthavijnana. There is a fourth Hindu scholar also named Patanjali, who likely lived in 8th-century CE and wrote a commentary on Charaka Samhita and this text is called Carakavarttika. According to some modern era Indian scholars such as P.V. Sharma, the two medical scholars named Patanjali may be the same person, but completely different person from the Patanjali who wrote the Sanskrit grammar classic Mahabhasya.
- Patanjali is one of the 18 siddhars in the Tamil siddha (Saiva) tradition.
Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto (/pəˈrɛtoʊ/; Italian: [vilˈfreːdo paˈreːto]; born Wilfried Fritz Pareto, 15 July 1848 – 19 August 1923) was an Italian engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist, and philosopher. He made several important contributions to economics, particularly in the study of income distribution and in the analysis of individuals' choices. He was also responsible for popularising the use of the term "elite" in social analysis.
He introduced the concept of Pareto efficiency and helped develop the field of microeconomics. He was also the first to discover that income follows a Pareto distribution, which is a power law probability distribution. The Pareto principle was named after him, and it was built on observations of his such as that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by about 20% of the population. He also contributed to the fields of sociology and mathematics, according to the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot and Richard L. Hudson: Read more...
Lee in the 1971 film The Big Boss
Lee Jun-fan (Chinese: 李振藩; November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973), known professionally as Bruce Lee (Chinese: 李小龍), was a Hong Kong-American actor, director, martial artist, martial arts instructor, and philosopher. He was the founder of the hybrid martial arts Jeet Kune Do. Lee was the son of Cantonese opera star Lee Hoi-chuen. He is considered by commentators, critics, media, and other martial artists to be one of the most influential martial artists and a pop culture icon of the 20th century. He is often credited with helping to change the way Asians were presented in American films.
Lee was born in the Chinatown area of San Francisco, California, on November 27, 1940, to parents from Hong Kong, and was raised with his family in Kowloon, Hong Kong. He was introduced to the film industry by his father and appeared in several films as a child actor. Lee moved to the United States at the age of 18 to receive his higher education at the University of Washington in Seattle, and it was during this time that he began teaching martial arts. His Hong Kong and Hollywood-produced films elevated the traditional Hong Kong martial arts film to a new level of popularity and acclaim, sparking a surge of interest in Chinese martial arts in the West in the 1970s. The direction and tone of his films dramatically changed and influenced martial arts and martial arts films in the US, Hong Kong, and the rest of the world. Read more...
Eratosthenes of Cyrene (/ɛrəˈtɒsθəniːz/; Greek: Ἐρατοσθένης ὁ Κυρηναῖος, IPA: [eratostʰénɛːs]; {{{1}}} – c. 195/194 BC) was a Greek mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist. He was a man of learning, becoming the chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria. He invented the discipline of geography, including the terminology used today.
He is best known for being the first person to calculate the circumference of the Earth, which he did by comparing angles of the mid-day Sun at two places a known North-South distance apart. His calculation was remarkably accurate. He was also the first to calculate the tilt of the Earth's axis, again with remarkable accuracy. Additionally, he may have accurately calculated the distance from the Earth to the Sun and invented the leap day. He created the first map of the world, incorporating parallels and meridians based on the available geographic knowledge of his era. Read more...
Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini (/ˈærəˌfæt,ˈɑːrəˌfɑːt/; Arabic: محمد ياسر عبد الرحمن عبد الرؤوف عرفات القدوة الحسيني; 4 / 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), popularly known as Yasser Arafat (Arabic: ياسر عرفات , Yāsir `Arafāt) or by his kunya Abu Ammar (Arabic: أبو عمار , 'Abū `Ammār), was a Palestinian political leader. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004 and President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) from 1994 to 2004. Ideologically an Arab nationalist, he was a founding member of the Fatah political party, which he led from 1959 until 2004.
Arafat was born to Palestinian parents in Cairo, Egypt, where he spent most of his youth and studied at the University of King Fuad I. While a student, he embraced Arab nationalist and anti-Zionist ideas. Opposed to the 1948 creation of the State of Israel, he fought alongside the Muslim Brotherhood during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Returning to Cairo, he served as president of the General Union of Palestinian Students from 1952 to 1956. In the latter part of the 1950s he co-founded Fatah, a paramilitary organisation seeking the disestablishment of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian state. Fatah operated within several Arab countries, from where it launched attacks on Israeli targets. In the latter part of the 1960s Arafat's profile grew; in 1967 he joined the PLO and in 1969 was elected chair of the Palestinian National Council (PNC). Fatah's growing presence in Jordan resulted in military clashes with King Hussein's Jordanian government and in the early 1970s it relocated to Lebanon. There, Fatah assisted the Lebanese National Movement during the Lebanese Civil War and continued its attacks on Israel, resulting in it becoming a major target of Israel's 1978 and 1982 invasions. Read more...
Totila, original name Baduila (died July 1, 552), was the penultimate King of the Ostrogoths, reigning from 541 to 552 AD. A skilled military and political leader, Totila reversed the tide of the Gothic War, recovering by 543 almost all the territories in Italy that the Eastern Roman Empire had captured from his Kingdom in 540.
A relative of Theudis, sword-bearer of Theodoric the Great and king of the Visigoths, Totila was elected king by Ostrogothic nobles in the autumn of 541 after King Witigis had been carried off prisoner to Constantinople. Totila proved himself both as a military and political leader, winning the support of the lower classes by liberating slaves and distributing land to the peasants. After a successful defence at Verona, Totila pursued and defeated a numerically superior army at the Battle of Faventia in 542 AD. Building on his victories, Totila followed these victories by defeating the Romans outside Florence and capturing Naples. By 543, fighting on land and sea, he had reconqured the bulk of the lost territory. Rome held out, and Totila appealed unsuccessfully to the Senate in a letter reminding them of the loyalty of the Romans to his predecessor Theodoric the Great. In the spring of 544 the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I sent his general Belisarius to Italy to counterattack, but Totila captured Rome in 546 from Belisarius and depopulated the city after a yearlong siege. When Totila left to fight the Byzantines in Lucania, south of Naples, Belisarius retook Rome and rebuilt its fortifications. Read more...
Lycurgus (/laɪˈkɜːrɡəs/; Greek: Λυκοῦργος, Lykoûrgos, Ancient Greek: [lykôrɡos]; fl. c. 820 BC) was the quasi-legendary lawgiver of Sparta who established the military-oriented reformation of Spartan society in accordance with the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi. All his reforms promoted the three Spartan virtues: equality (among citizens), military fitness, and austerity.
He is referred to by ancient historians and philosophers Herodotus, Xenophon, Plato, Polybius, Plutarch, and Epictetus. It is not clear if Lycurgus was an actual historical figure; however, many ancient historians believed that he instituted the communalistic and militaristic reforms - most notably the Great Rhetra - which transformed Spartan society. Read more...
Georges Benjamin Clemenceau (French pronunciation: [ʒɔʁʒ bɛ̃ʒamɛ̃ klemɑ̃so]; 28 September 1841 – 24 November 1929) was a French politician who was Prime Minister of France during the First World War. A leading independent Radical, he played a central role in the politics of the French Third Republic.
Clemenceau was Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909 and from 1917 to 1920. Demanding a total victory over Germany, he wanted reparations, colonies, and Alsace-Lorraine, and strict rules to prevent Germany from rearming. He achieved these goals in the Treaty of Versailles imposed on Germany at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Nicknamed "Père la Victoire" (Father Victory) or "Le Tigre" (The Tiger), in the 1920s he continued his harsh position against Germany, though not quite as much as the President Raymond Poincaré. He obtained mutual defense treaties with Britain and the United States, to unite against German aggression, but these never took effect. Read more...
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Selected historical disciplines
Venus de Milo, at the Louvre .
Art history is the study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts; that is genre, design, format, and style. The study includes painting, sculpture, architecture, ceramics, furniture, and other decorative objects.
Art history is the history of different groups of people and their culture represented throughout their artwork. Art historians compare different time periods in art history. Such as a comparison to Medieval Art to Renaissance Art. This history of cultures is shown in their art work in different forms. Art can be shown by attire, architecture, religion, sports. Or more visual pieces of art such as paintings, drawings, sculptures. Read more...
Diana and Actaeon, Titian, 1556–1559, a classic history painting, showing a dramatic moment in a mythological story, with elements of figure painting, landscape painting and still-life.
History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than artistic style. History paintings usually depict a moment in a narrative story, rather than a specific and static subject, as in a portrait. The term is derived from the wider senses of the word historia in Latin and Italian, meaning "story" or "narrative", and essentially means "story painting". Most history paintings are not of scenes from history, especially paintings from before about 1850.
In modern English, historical painting is sometimes used to describe the painting of scenes from history in its narrower sense, especially for 19th-century art, excluding religious, mythological and allegorical subjects, which are included in the broader term history painting, and before the 19th century were the most common subjects for history paintings. Read more...- Philology is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection between textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics. Philology is more commonly defined as the study of literary texts as well as oral and written records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form, and the determination of their meaning. A person who pursues this kind of study is known as a philologist.
In older usage, especially British, philology is more general, covering comparative and historical linguistics. Read more... 
Joseph Scaliger's De emendatione temporum (1583) began the modern science of chronology
Chronology (from Latin chronologia, from Ancient Greek χρόνος, chrónos, "time"; and -λογία, -logia) is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time. Consider, for example, the use of a timeline or sequence of events. It is also "the determination of the actual temporal sequence of past events".
Chronology is a part of periodization. It is also a part of the discipline of history including earth history, the earth sciences, and study of the geologic time scale. Read more...-
The history of science is the study of the development of science and scientific knowledge, including both the natural and social sciences (the history of the arts and humanities is termed history of scholarship). Science is a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world, produced by scientists who emphasize the observation, explanation, and prediction of real-world phenomena. Historiography of science, in contrast, studies the methods employed by historians of science.
The English word scientist is relatively recent—first coined by William Whewell in the 19th century. Previously, investigators of nature called themselves "natural philosophers". While empirical investigations of the natural world have been described since classical antiquity (for example, by Thales and Aristotle), and the scientific method has been employed since the Middle Ages (for example, by Ibn al-Haytham and Roger Bacon), modern science began to develop in the early modern period, and in particular in the scientific revolution of 16th- and 17th-century Europe. Traditionally, historians of science have defined science sufficiently broadly to include those earlier inquiries. Read more... - Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts and cultural landscapes. Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. In North America archaeology is a sub-field of anthropology, while in Europe it is often viewed as either a discipline in its own right or a sub-field of other disciplines.
Archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology is distinct from palaeontology, the study of fossil remains. It is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies across the world. Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. Read more... 
The German Hyghalmen Roll was made in the late 15th century and illustrates the German practice of repeating themes from the arms in the crest. (See Roll of arms).
Heraldry (/ˈhɛrəldri/) is a broad term, encompassing the design, display, and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank, and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branch of heraldry, concerns the design and transmission of the heraldic achievement, more commonly known as the coat of arms. The coat of arms usually includes a shield, helmet, and crest, together with any accompanying devices, such as supporters, badges, heraldic banners, and mottoes.
Although the use of various devices to signify individuals and groups goes back to antiquity, both the form and use of such devices varied widely, and the concept of regular, hereditary designs, constituting the distinguishing feature of heraldry, did not develop until the High Middle Ages. The use of helmets with face guards during this period made it difficult to recognize one's commanders in the field when large armies gathered together for extended periods, necessitating the development of heraldry as a symbolic language. Read more...- Urban history is a field of history that examines the historical nature of cities and towns, and the process of urbanization. The approach is often multidisciplinary, crossing boundaries into fields like social history, architectural history, urban sociology, urban geography, business history, and archaeology. Urbanization and industrialization were popular themes for 20th-century historians, often tied to an implicit model of modernization, or the transformation of rural traditional societies.
The history of urbanization focuses on the processes of by which existing populations concentrate themselves in urban localities over time, and on the social, political, cultural and economic contexts of cities. Most urban scholars focus on the "metropolis," a large or especially important city. There is much less attention to small cities, towns or (until recently) to suburbs. However social historians find small cities much easier to handle because they can use census data to cover or sample the entire population. In the United States from the 1920s to the 1990s many of the most influential monographs began as one of the 140 PhD dissertations at Harvard University directed by Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. (1888-1965) or Oscar Handlin (1915-2011). The field grew rapidly after 1970, leading one prominent scholar, Stephan Thernstrom, to note that urban history apparently deals with cities, or with city-dwellers, or with events that transpired in cities, with attitudes toward cities – which makes one wonder what is not urban history. Read more... - Cultural history combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past matter, encompassing the continuum of events (occurring in succession and leading from the past to the present and even into the future) pertaining to a culture.
Cultural history records and interprets past events involving human beings through the social, cultural, and political milieu of or relating to the arts and manners that a group favors. Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897) helped found cultural history as a discipline. Cultural history studies and interprets the record of human societies by denoting the various distinctive ways of living built up by a group of people under consideration. Cultural history involves the aggregate of past cultural activity, such as ceremony, class in practices, and the interaction with locales. Read more... - Intellectual history refers to the historiography of ideas and thinkers. This history cannot be considered without the knowledge of the humans who created, discussed, wrote about, and in other ways were concerned with ideas. Intellectual history as practiced by historians is parallel to the history of philosophy as done by philosophers, and is more akin to the history of ideas. Its central premise is that ideas do not develop in isolation from the people who create and use them, and that one must study ideas not as abstract propositions but in terms of the culture, lives, and historical contexts that produced them.
Intellectual history aims to understand ideas from the past by understanding them in context. The term "context" in the preceding sentence is ambiguous: it can be political, cultural, intellectual, and social. One can read a text both in terms of a chronological context (for example, as a contribution to a discipline or tradition as it extended over time) or in terms of a contemporary intellectual moment (for example, as participating in a debate particular to a certain time and place). Both of these acts of contextualization are typical of what intellectual historians do, nor are they exclusive. Generally speaking, intellectual historians seek to place concepts and texts from the past in multiple contexts. Read more... - Onomastics or onomatology is the study of the etymology, history, and use of proper names. Read more...
- Social history, often called the new social history, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in history departments in Britain, Canada, France, Germany, and the United States. In the two decades from 1975 to 1995, the proportion of professors of history in American universities identifying with social history rose from 31% to 41%, while the proportion of political historians fell from 40% to 30%. In the history departments of British and Irish universities in 2014, of the 3410 faculty members reporting, 878 (26%) identified themselves with social history while political history came next with 841 (25%). Read more...
- A universal history is a work aiming at the presentation of the history of mankind as a whole, coherent unit.
A universal chronicle or world chronicle traces history from the beginning of written information about the past up to the present.
Universal history embraces the events of all times and nations in so far as scientific treatment of them is possible. Read more... 
The city of Machu Picchu was constructed c. 1450 AD, at the height of the Inca Empire. It has commanding views down two valleys and a nearly impassable mountain at its back. There is an ample supply of spring water and enough land for a plentiful food supply. The hillsides leading to it have been terraced to provide farmland for crops, reduce soil erosion, protect against landslides, and create steep slopes to discourage potential invaders.
Environmental history is the study of human interaction with the natural world over time, emphasising the active role nature plays in influencing human affairs and vice versa.
Environmental history emerged in the United States out of the environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and much of its impetus still stems from present-day global environmental concerns. The field was founded on conservation issues but has broadened in scope to include more general social and scientific history and may deal with cities, population or sustainable development. As all history occurs in the natural world, environmental history tends to focus on particular time-scales, geographic regions, or key themes. It is also a strongly multidisciplinary subject that draws widely on both the humanities and natural science. Read more...- Military history is a humanities discipline within the scope of general historical recording of armed conflict in the history of humanity, and its impact on the societies, cultures and economies thereof, as well as the resulting changes to local and international relationships.
Professional historians normally focus on military affairs that had a major impact on the societies involved as well as the aftermath of conflicts, while amateur historians and hobbyists often take a larger interest in the details of battles, equipment and uniforms in use. Read more... - Political history is the narrative and analysis of political events, ideas, movements, organs of government, voters, parties and leaders. It is interrelated to other fields of history, especially diplomatic history, as well as constitutional history and public history.
Political history studies the organization and operation of power in large societies. By focusing on the elites in power, on their impact on society, on popular response, and on the relationships with the elites in other social history, which focuses predominantly on the actions and lifestyles of ordinary people, or people's history, which is historical work from the perspective of the common people. Read more... 
Cliometrics (klīəˈmetriks), sometimes called new socialhistory, or econometric history, is the systematic application of economic theory, econometric techniques, and other formal or mathematical methods to the study of history (especially social and economic history). It is a quantitative (as opposed to qualitative or ethnographic) approach to economic history. The term cliometrics comes from Clio, who was the muse of history, and was originally coined by the mathematical economist Stanley Reiter in 1960. There has been a revival in 'new economic history' since the late 1990s. Read more...- Archontology is the study of historical offices and important positions in state, international, political, religious and other organizations and societies. It includes chronology, succession of office holders, their biographies and related records. Read more...
Did you know...
- ... that the second reused orbital rocket in history, Falcon 9 booster B1029, was "extra toasty" upon coming back from the edge of space on June 23, 2017, to land on a drone ship?
- ... that the recently rediscovered and restored 1898 short film Something Good – Negro Kiss counters racist caricatures?
- ... that prime numbers have been studied since the time of the ancient Greeks, but had few real-world applications until the invention of public-key cryptography in the 1970s?
- ... that in 2006, footballer Steve Flack scored the fastest hat-trick in Exeter City's history?
- ... that the 2014 Carlton Complex Fire was the largest wildfire in Washington state history up to that time?
- ... that Washington Huskies basketball player Matisse Thybulle was the first in the school's history to be named Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year?
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Selected historical concepts
Big History is an academic discipline which examines history from the Big Bang to the present. Big History resists specialization, and searches for universal patterns or trends. It examines long time frames using a multidisciplinary approach based on combining numerous disciplines from science and the humanities, and explores human existence in the context of this bigger picture. It integrates studies of the cosmos, Earth, life, and humanity using empirical evidence to explore cause-and-effect relations, and is taught at universities and secondary schools often using web-based interactive presentations.
Historian David Christian has been credited with coining the term "Big History". Some historians have expressed skepticism towards "scientific history" and argue that the claims of Big History are unoriginal. Others support the scientific merit but point out that cosmology and natural history have been studied since the Renaissance, and that the new term, Big History, continues such work. Read more...
Palaeography (UK) or paleography (US; ultimately from Greek: παλαιός, palaiós, "old", and γράφειν, graphein, "to write") is the study of ancient and historical handwriting (that is to say, of the forms and processes of writing; not the textual content of documents). Included in the discipline is the practice of deciphering, reading, and dating historical manuscripts, and the cultural context of writing, including the methods with which writing and books were produced, and the history of scriptoria.
The discipline is important for understanding, authenticating, and dating ancient texts. However, it cannot in general be used to pinpoint dates with high precision. Read more...- In his "Society must be Defended", Michel Foucault posited that the victors of a social struggle use their political dominance to suppress a defeated adversary's version of historical events in favor of their own propaganda, which may go so far as historical revisionism. (See Michel Foucault's analysis of historical and political discourse above.) Nations adopting such an approach would likely fashion a "universal" theory of history, a manifest destiny in the US, to support their aims, with a teleological and deterministic philosophy of history used to justify the inevitableness and rightness of their victories.
Wolfgang Schivelbusch's Culture of Defeat took a completely different view—according to him, defeat is a major driver for the defeated to reinvent himself, while the victor—confirmed in his attitudes and methods, dissatisfied by the high losses and paltry gains made, may be less creative and fall back. The concept evokes Hegel's Master–slave dialectics—the master is dependent of the work of the slave, the slave has to take his master's and his own interests into account, gets more knowledge and more insight as the master; and in realising that the world around him was created by his own hands he may gain self-consciousness and emancipation. Schivelbusch worked on three basic examples, the South and its Lost cause after the Civil War, France after the Franco-Prussian War 1870/71, and Germany following World War I. Wolfgang Schivelbusch view includes complex psychological and cultural responses of vanquished nations, from every level of society and sees a need and rise of creativity and various narratives for the defeated. Read more... 
Genealogy (from Greek: γενεαλογία genealogia from γενεά genea, "generation" and λόγος logos, "knowledge"), also known as family history, is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members. The results are often displayed in charts or written as narratives.
The pursuit of family history and origins tends to be shaped by several motives, including the desire to carve out a place for one's family in the larger historical picture, a sense of responsibility to preserve the past for future generations, and a sense of self-satisfaction in accurate storytelling. Read more...
The future is what will happen in the time after the present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently exists and will exist can be categorized as either permanent, meaning that it will exist forever, or temporary, meaning that it will end. In the Occidental view, which uses a linear conception of time, the future is the portion of the projected time line that is anticipated to occur. In special relativity, the future is considered absolute future, or the future light cone.
In the philosophy of time, presentism is the belief that only the present exists and the future and the past are unreal. Religions consider the future when they address issues such as karma, life after death, and eschatologies that study what the end of time and the end of the world will be. Religious figures such as prophets and diviners have claimed to see into the future.
Future studies, or futurology, is the science, art and practice of postulating possible futures. Modern practitioners stress the importance of alternative and plural futures, rather than one monolithic future, and the limitations of prediction and probability, versus the creation of possible and preferable futures. Read more...- A millennium (plural millennia or millenniums) is a period equal to 1000 years, also called kiloyears. It derives from the Latin mille, thousand, and annus, year. It is often, but not always, related to a particular dating system.
Sometimes, it is used specifically for periods of a thousand years that begin at the starting point (initial reference point) of the calendar in consideration (typically the year "1"), or in later years that are whole number multiples of a thousand years after it. The term can also refer to an interval of time beginning on any date. Frequently in the latter case (and sometimes also in the former) it may have religious or theological implications (see millenarianism). Read more...
Cultural identity is the identity or feeling of belonging to a group. It is part of a person's self-conception and self-perception and is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality or any kind of social group that has its own distinct culture. In this way, cultural identity is both characteristic of the individual but also of the culturally identical group of members sharing the same cultural identity or upbringing. Read more...
The present (or here and now) is the time that is associated with the events perceived directly and in the first time, not as a recollection (perceived more than once) or a speculation (predicted, hypothesis, uncertain). It is a period of time between the past and the future, and can vary in meaning from being an instant to a day or longer. In radiocarbon dating, the "present" is defined as AD 1950.
It is sometimes represented as a hyperplane in space-time, typically called "now", although modern physics demonstrates that such a hyperplane cannot be defined uniquely for observers in relative motion. The present may also be viewed as a duration (see specious present). Read more...- In historiography, the term historical revisionism identifies the re-interpretation of the historical record. It usually means challenging the orthodox (established, accepted or traditional) views held by professional scholars about a historical event, introducing contrary evidence, or reinterpreting the motivations and decisions of the people involved. The revision of the historical record can reflect new discoveries of fact, evidence, and interpretation, which then provokes a revised history. In dramatic cases, revisionism involves a reversal of older moral judgments.
At a basic level, legitimate historical revisionism is a common and not especially controversial process of developing and refining the writing of history. Much more controversial is the reversal of moral findings, in which what had been considered to be positive forces are depicted as being negative. This revisionism is then challenged by the supporters of the previous view, often in heated terms, and becomes an illegitimate form of historical revisionism known as historical negationism if it involves inappropriate methods such as the use of forged documents or implausible distrust of genuine documents, attributing false conclusions to books and sources, manipulating statistical data and deliberately mis-translating texts. This type of historical revisionism presents a re-interpretation of the moral meaning of the historical record. Read more...
Periodization is the process or study of categorizing the past into discrete, quantified named blocks of time. This is usually done in order to facilitate the study and analysis of history, understanding current and historical processes, and causality that might have linked those events.
This results in descriptive abstractions that provide convenient terms for periods of time with relatively stable characteristics. However, determining the precise beginning and ending to any "period" is often arbitrary, since it has changed over time over the course of history. Read more...- A decade is a period of 10 years. The word is derived (via French and Latin) from the Ancient Greek: δεκάς, translit. dekas), which means a group of ten. Other words for spans of years also come from Latin: biennium (2 years), triennium (3 years), quadrennium (4 years), lustrum (5 years), century (100 years), millennium (1000 years). Read more...
- Joseph Scaliger's De emendatione temporum (1583) began the modern science of chronology
Chronology (from Latin chronologia, from Ancient Greek χρόνος, chrónos, "time"; and -λογία, -logia) is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time. Consider, for example, the use of a timeline or sequence of events. It is also "the determination of the actual temporal sequence of past events".
Chronology is a part of periodization. It is also a part of the discipline of history including earth history, the earth sciences, and study of the geologic time scale. Read more... - The history of science and technology (HST) is a field of history which examines how humanity's understanding of the natural world (science) and ability to manipulate it (technology) have changed over the centuries. This academic discipline also studies the cultural, economic, and political impacts of scientific innovation.
Histories of science were originally written by practicing and retired scientists, starting primarily with William Whewell, as a way to communicate the virtues of science to the public. In the early 1930s, after a famous paper given by the Soviet historian Boris Hessen, was focused into looking at the ways in which scientific practices were allied with the needs and motivations of their context. After World War II, extensive resources were put into teaching and researching the discipline, with the hopes that it would help the public better understand both Science and Technology as they came to play an exceedingly prominent role in the world. In the 1960s, especially in the wake of the work done by Thomas Kuhn, the discipline began to serve a very different function, and began to be used as a way to critically examine the scientific enterprise. At the present time it is often closely aligned with the field of science studies. Read more... 
Herodotus (c. 484–c. 425 BC) was a Greek historian who lived in the 5th century BC and one of the earliest historians whose work survives.
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past, and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is concerned with events preceding written history, the individual is a historian of prehistory. Some historians are recognized by publications or training and experience. "Historian" became a professional occupation in the late nineteenth century as research universities were emerging in Germany and elsewhere. Read more...- Landscape history is the study of the way in which humanity has changed the physical appearance of the environment – both present and past. It is sometimes referred to as landscape archaeology. It was first recognised as a separate area of study during the 20th century and uses evidence and approaches from other disciplines including archaeology, architecture, ecology, aerial photography, local history and historical geography. Read more...
- The timeline of historic inventions is a chronological list of particularly important or significant technological inventions and the people who created the inventions.
Note: Dates for inventions are often controversial. Inventions are often invented by several inventors around the same time, or may be invented in an impractical form many years before another inventor improves the invention into a more practical form. Where there is ambiguity, the date of the first known working version of the invention is used here. Read more... 
The Civil Rights Movement in the United States is an example of a social movement. Pictured are marchers at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963.
Social change involves alteration of the social order of a society. It may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations. Read more...- Historical thinking is a set of critical literacy skills for evaluating and analyzing primary source documents to construct a meaningful account of the past.
Sometimes called historical reasoning skills, historical thinking skills are frequently described in contrast to history content such as names, dates, and places. This dichotomous presentation is often misinterpreted as a claim for the superiority of one form of knowing over the other. In fact, the distinction is generally made to underscore the importance of developing thinking skills that can be applied when individuals encounter any history content. Most educators agree that together, history content—or facts about the past—and historical thinking skills enable students to interpret, analyze and use information about past events. In doing so, students will realize the complexity of history with all of the pieces and perspectives that cannot be captured through one narrative. Furthermore, as described by Dr. T. Mills Kelly, characteristics of historical thinking develop sourcing skills, the ability to construct and support an argument, and, "the ability to present the past in clear ways, whether in writing or in other media, saying what can be said and not saying what cannot." Read more... - Marxist historiography, or historical materialist historiography, is a school of historiography influenced by Marxism. The chief tenets of Marxist historiography are the centrality of social class and economic constraints in determining historical outcomes.
Marxist historiography has made contributions to the history of the working class, oppressed nationalities, and the methodology of history from below. The chief problematic aspect of Marxist historiography has been an argument on the nature of history as determined or dialectical; this can also be stated as the relative importance of subjective and objective factors in creating outcomes. Read more... - A future history is a postulated history of the future and is used by authors of science fiction and other speculative fiction to construct a common background for fiction. Sometimes the author publishes a timeline of events in the history, while other times the reader can reconstruct the order of the stories from information provided therein. Read more...
- A narrative is a report of connected events, real or imaginary, presented in a sequence of written or spoken words, or still or moving images, or both. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to tell", which is derived from the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled".
Narrative can be organized in a number of thematic or formal categories: non-fiction (such as definitively including creative non-fiction, biography, journalism, transcript poetry, and historiography); fictionalization of historical events (such as anecdote, myth, legend, and historical fiction); and fiction proper (such as literature in prose and sometimes poetry, such as short stories, novels, and narrative poems and songs, and imaginary narratives as portrayed in other textual forms, games, or live or recorded performances). Read more... - In sociology and anthropology, time discipline is the general name given to social and economic rules, conventions, customs, and expectations governing the measurement of time, the social currency and awareness of time measurements, and people's expectations concerning the observance of these customs by others.
The concept of "time discipline" as a field of special attention in sociology and anthropology was pioneered by E. P. Thompson in Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism, published in 1967. Coming from a Marxist viewpoint, Thompson argued that observance of clock-time is a consequence of the European industrial revolution, and that neither industrial capitalism nor the creation of the modern state would have been possible without the imposition of synchronic forms of time and work discipline. The new clock time imposed by government and capitalist interests replaced earlier, collective perceptions of time that Thompson believed flowed from the collective wisdom of human societies. While in fact it appears likely that earlier views of time were imposed instead by religious and other social authorities prior to the industrial revolution, Thompson's work identified time discipline as an important concept for study within the social sciences. Read more... - Human prehistory is the period between the use of the first stone tools c. 3.3 million years ago by hominins and the invention of writing systems. The earliest writing systems appeared c. 5,300 years ago, but it took thousands of years for writing to be widely adopted and it was not used in some human cultures until the 19th century or even until the present. The end of prehistory therefore came at very different dates in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently.
Sumer in Mesopotamia, the Indus valley civilization and ancient Egypt were the first civilizations to develop their own scripts, and to keep historical records; this took place already during the early Bronze Age. Neighboring civilizations were the first to follow. Most other civilizations reached the end of prehistory during the Iron Age. The three-age system of division of prehistory into the Stone Age, followed by the Bronze Age and Iron Age, remains in use for much of Eurasia and North Africa, but is not generally used in those parts of the world where the working of hard metals arrived abruptly with contact with Eurasian cultures, such as the Americas, Oceania, Australasia and much of Sub-Saharan Africa. These areas also, with some exceptions in Pre-Columbian civilizations in the Americas, did not develop complex writing systems before the arrival of Eurasians, and their prehistory reaches into relatively recent periods; for example 1788 is usually taken as the end of the prehistory of Australia. Read more... - A century (from the Latin centum, meaning one hundred; abbreviated c.) is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages.
A centenary is a hundredth anniversary, or a celebration of this, typically the remembrance of an event which took place a hundred years earlier. Read more... -
Genealogy (from Greek: γενεαλογία genealogia from γενεά genea, "generation" and λόγος logos, "knowledge"), also known as family history, is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members. The results are often displayed in charts or written as narratives.
The pursuit of family history and origins tends to be shaped by several motives, including the desire to carve out a place for one's family in the larger historical picture, a sense of responsibility to preserve the past for future generations, and a sense of self-satisfaction in accurate storytelling. Read more... - A chronicle (Latin: chronica, from Greek χρονικά chroniká, from χρόνος, chrónos – "time") is a historical account of facts and events arranged in chronological order, as in a time line. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the chronicler. This is in contrast to a narrative or history, which sets selected events in a meaningful interpretive context and excludes those the author does not see as important.
Chronicler information sources vary; some chronicles are written from first-hand knowledge, some are from witnesses or participants in events, still others are accounts passed mouth to mouth prior to being written down. Some used written material: Charters, letters, or the works of earlier chroniclers. Still others are tales of such unknown origins so as to hold mythical status. Copyists also affected chronicles in creative copying, making corrections or in updating or continuing a chronicle with information not available to the original author(s). The reliability of a particular chronicle is an important determination for modern historians. Read more... - Timeline of electromagnetism and classical optics lists, within the history of electromagnetism, the associated theories, technology, and events. Read more...
- The categorization of the past into discrete, quantified named blocks of time is called periodization. This is a list of such named time periods as defined in various fields of study. Major categorization systems include cosmological (time periods in the origin and mass evolution of the universe), geological (time periods in the origin and evolution of the Earth), anthropological (time periods in the origin and evolution of humans) and historical (written history). Read more...
- Social history, often called the new social history, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in history departments in Britain, Canada, France, Germany, and the United States. In the two decades from 1975 to 1995, the proportion of professors of history in American universities identifying with social history rose from 31% to 41%, while the proportion of political historians fell from 40% to 30%. In the history departments of British and Irish universities in 2014, of the 3410 faculty members reporting, 878 (26%) identified themselves with social history while political history came next with 841 (25%). Read more...
- Pseudohistory is a form of pseudoscholarship that attempts to distort or misrepresent the historical record, often using methods resembling those used in legitimate historical research. Pseudohistory frequently presents a big lie or sensational claims about historical facts which would require the revision (re-writing) of the historical record. The related term cryptohistory applied to a pseudohistory based upon or derived from the superstitions inherent to occultism. Pseudohistory is related to pseudoscience and pseudoarchaeology and usage of the terms may occasionally overlap. Read more...
- Counterfactual history, also sometimes referred to as virtual history, is a form of historiography that attempts to answer "what if" questions known as counterfactuals. Black and MacRaild provide this definition: "It is, at the very root, the idea of conjecturing on what did not happen, or what might have happened, in order to understand what did happen." The method seeks to explore history and historical incidents by means of extrapolating a timeline in which certain key historical events did not happen or had an outcome which was different from that which did in fact occur. It has produced a literary genre which is variously called alternative history, speculative history, or hypothetical history.
One goal is to estimate the relative importance of a specific event, incident or person. For instance, to the counterfactual claim "What would have happened had Hitler drunk coffee instead of tea on the afternoon he committed suicide?", the timeline would have remained unchanged—Hitler in all likelihood still would have committed suicide on April 30, 1945, regardless of what he had to drink that afternoon. However, to the counterfactual "What would have happened had Hitler died in the July 1944 assassination attempt?", all sorts of possibilities become readily apparent, starting with the assumption that the German generals, had they been able to consolidate power over remaining Nazi functionaries such as Goebbels and Himmler, would probably have sued for peace, bringing an early end to World War II. (Historians generally feel popular support for the Party was still very strong in July 1944, and the party apparatus of Himmler, Goebbels, Speer, Bormann, Göring etc. would survive even an assassination of Hitler.) Thus, the counterfactual brings into sharp relief the question of how important Hitler was as an individual and how his personal fate shaped the course of the war and, ultimately, of world history. Read more...
Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people who participated in or observed past events and whose memories and perceptions of these are to be preserved as an aural record for future generations. Oral history strives to obtain information from different perspectives and most of these cannot be found in written sources. Oral history also refers to information gathered in this manner and to a written work (published or unpublished) based on such data, often preserved in archives and large libraries. Knowledge presented by Oral History (OH) is unique in that it shares the tacit perspective, thoughts, opinions and understanding of the interviewee in its primary form.
The term is sometimes used in a more general sense to refer to any information about past events that people who experienced them tell anybody else, but professional historians usually consider this to be oral tradition. However, as the Columbia Encyclopedia explains:
Read more...Primitive societies have long relied on oral tradition to preserve a record of the past in the absence of written histories. In Western society, the use of oral material goes back to the early Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides, both of whom made extensive use of oral reports from witnesses. The modern concept of oral history was developed in the 1940s by Allan Nevins and his associates at Columbia University.
- Historical classification groups the various history topics into different categories according to subject matter as shown below. Read more...
On this day
Kurt Eisner
- 1437 – King James I of Scotland was murdered at Perth in a failed coup by his uncle and former ally Walter Stewart, Earl of Atholl.
- 1828 – The inaugural issue of the Cherokee Phoenix, the first newspaper in a Native American language, was published.
- 1919 – Bavarian socialist Kurt Eisner (pictured), who had organized the German Revolution that overthrew the Wittelsbach monarchy and established Bavaria as a republic, was assassinated.
- 1929 – In the first battle of the Warlord Rebellion against the Nationalist government of China, a 24,000-strong rebel force led by Zhang Zongchang was defeated at Zhifu by 7,000 NRA troops.
- 1973 – After accidentally having strayed into Israeli-occupied airspace, Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 was shot down by two Israeli fighter aircraft, killing 108.
Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke (b. 1705) · Mary Edwards Walker (d. 1919) · Howard Florey (d. 1968)
More anniversaries:
History in the making...
- 20 February 2019 – Political appointments by Donald Trump
- U.S. President Donald Trump plans to nominate Jeffrey A. Rosen to replace Rod Rosenstein as Deputy Attorney General. (CBS News)
- 19 February 2019 – Insurgency in Egypt (2013–present)
- Sixteen militants are killed in two different raids in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. A number of weapons and explosives are also found in the raids. (Al Jazeera)
- 19 February 2019 –
- A house fire in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, kills seven children from a Syrian family. (BBC)
- 19 February 2019 – 2020 United States presidential election, 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries
- Vermont Senator and 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders announces on Vermont Public Radio that he is running for President of the United States as a Democrat in 2020. (NPR)
- 18 February 2019 – Kashmir conflict
- Two reported Jaish-e-Mohammed militants, one civilian and four Indian soldiers are killed in a skirmish in the Pulwama district of Indian-administered Kashmir as police search for suspects in Thursday's suicide attack that killed 40 Indian paramilitary police. (arynews)
- 18 February 2019 –
- A suicide bombing kills the bomber and three police officers in Cairo, Egypt. Two others are injured. (Wall Street Journal)
- 18 February 2019 – List of mass shootings in the United States in 2019
- Four people are killed in a shooting at a home in Solon Township, Kent County, Michigan, United States, with police investigating it as a possible murder–suicide. (NBC News) (CBS News)
- 18 February 2019 – National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States
- Sixteen states sue U.S. President Donald Trump, calling his national emergency declaration made last week "unlawful and unconstitutional". (USA Today)
- 18 February 2019 – 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis
- In a speech, U.S. President Donald Trump urges the Venezuelan military to abandon Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro or "lose everything". (Reuters)
- 18 February 2019 –
- United States Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is reported to be stepping down from his position in mid-March. (Reuters), (Fox News)
- 17 February 2019 –
- Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announces the country's major political parties computer networks had been hacked by a "sophisticated state actor." (BBC)
- 17 February 2019 – 2019 Daytona 500
- Denny Hamlin wins the 2019 Daytona 500. It is his second win in the event, the first coming in 2016. (Fox News)
- 16 February 2019 – Sinai insurgency
- Militants attacked an army checkpoint in Sinai Peninsula killing and injuring 15. It is believed that 11 were killed but that has not been confirmed. Seven militants also died in the attack. (The National) (The Times of Israel)
- 16 February 2019 – Afghanistan War
- 32 Afghan border security troops are killed by a Taliban attack in Kandahar, Afghanistan. (The New York Times)
- 15 February 2019 – 2019 Kaduna State massacre
- 66 people were killed by gunmen in Nigeria's Kaduna State including 34 victims being either women or children. The attack happened one day before the scheduled election before it was delayed another week. (Al Jazeera) (BBC)
- 15 February 2019 – Amazon HQ2
- After announcing that it was canceling its New York City headquarters plans the day before, Amazon announces that it will keep its second headquarters in Virginia. (CNET)
- 15 February 2019 – Aurora, Illinois shooting
- Five people are dead and six others are injured during a mass shooting in Aurora, Illinois. The suspected shooter was later killed by police. (CBS Chicago)
- 15 February 2019 – Brumadinho dam disaster
- Eight Vale employees from Minas Gerais are arrested over alleged involvement in a dam collapse that killed at least 166 people. (Financial Times) (The Wall Street Journal)
- 15 February 2019 – United States–Mexico barrier, Trump wall
- U.S. President Donald Trump declares a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States. (Fox News)
- The American Civil Liberties Union and watchdog group Public Citizen announced they will file lawsuits challenging the legality of President Trump’s emergency declaration. (Time) (CBS News)
Suboutlines
History (timelines) – records of past events and the way things were. It is also a field responsible for the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about the past.
- History, by period (See also Timeline of world history)
- Prehistory – events occurring before recorded history (that is, before written records).
- Colorado prehistory –
- Prehistoric technology – technologies that emerged before recorded history (i.e., before the development of writing).
- Ancient history (timeline) – from ≈3350 BCE to ≈500 CE
- Ancient West
- Classical antiquity (timeline) – long period of cultural history in the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the Greco-Roman world.
- Ancient Greece (timeline) – period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages (ca. 1100 BC) to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece. It was the seminal culture which provided the foundation of Western civilization.
- Ancient Rome (timeline) – civilization that started on the Italian Peninsula and lasted from as early as the 10th century BC to the 5th century AD. Over centuries it shifted from a monarchy to a republic to an empire which dominated South-Western Europe, South-Eastern Europe/Balkans and the Mediterranean region.
- Classical architecture – architecture of classical antiquity, that is, ancient Greek architecture and the architecture of ancient Rome. It also refers to the style or styles of architecture influenced by those.
- Classical antiquity (timeline) – long period of cultural history in the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the Greco-Roman world.
- Ancient East
- Ancient China – China from about 2070 to 221 BC, spanning the Xia Dynasty, Shang Dynasty, Zhou Dynasy, the Spring and Autumn period, to the end of the Warring States period.
- Ancient Egypt – ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, along the lower reaches of the Nile River starting about 3150 BC, in what is now the modern country of Egypt.
- Ancient India – India as it existed from pre-historic times (c. 7000 BCE or earlier) to the start of the Middle Ages (c. 500 CE).
- Ancient West
- Middle Ages (Medieval history) (timeline) – historical period following the Iron Age, fully underway by the 5th century and lasting to the 15th century and preceding the early Modern Era. It is the middle period in a three-period division of history: Classic, Medieval, and Modern.
- Renaissance – cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. It encompassed a flowering of literature, science, art, religion, and politics, and gradual but widespread educational reform.
- Early modern history – from 1500 to 1899
- Modern history – since 1900.
- Globalization – progression towards the development of an integrated world community, from ancient times to the present
- Prehistory – events occurring before recorded history (that is, before written records).
- History, by region
- History of South Asia (timeline)
- History of Western civilization
- History of existing states
- United States history (timeline)
- History of U.S. states
- History of Alabama • History of Alaska • History of Arizona • History of Arkansas • History of California • History of Colorado • History of Connecticut • History of Delaware • History of Florida • History of Georgia • History of Hawaii • History of Idaho • History of Illinois • History of Indiana • History of Iowa • History of Kansas • History of Kentucky • History of Louisiana • History of Maine • History of Maryland • History of Massachusetts • History of Michigan • History of Minnesota • History of Mississippi • History of Missouri • History of Montana • History of Nebraska • History of Nevada • History of New Hampshire • History of New Jersey • History of New Mexico • History of New York • History of North Carolina • History of North Dakota • History of Ohio • History of Oklahoma • History of Oregon • History of Pennsylvania • History of Rhode Island • History of South Carolina • History of South Dakota • History of Tennessee • History of Texas • History of Utah • History of Vermont • History of Virginia • History of Washington • History of West Virginia • History of Wisconsin • History of Wyoming
- History of U.S. states
- United States history (timeline)
- Historical states
- Ancient Egypt – ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, along the lower reaches of the Nile River starting about 3150 BC, in what is now the modern country of Egypt.
- Ancient Rome (timeline) – civilization that started on the Italian Peninsula and lasted from as early as the 10th century BC to the 5th century AD. Over centuries it shifted from a monarchy to a republic to an empire which dominated South-Western Europe, South-Eastern Europe/Balkans and the Mediterranean region.
- The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – six-volume work authored by the celebrated English historian Edward Gibbon (1737–1794).
- Byzantine Empire (timeline) – the Eastern Roman Empire that existed throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania by its inhabitants and neighbors, the empire was centered on the capital of Constantinople and was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State. Byzantium, however, was distinct from ancient Rome, in that it was Christian and predominantly Greek-speaking, being influenced by Greek, as opposed to Latin, culture.
- Ottoman Empire (timeline) – historical Muslim empire, also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey. At its zenith in the second half of the 16th century it controlled Southeast Europe, Southwest Asia and North Africa.
- Soviet Union – socialist state on the Eurasian continent that existed from 1922 to 1991. A union of multiple subnational Soviet republics, its government and economy were highly centralized. The Soviet Union was a one-party state, governed by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital. It was a major ally during World War II, a main participant in the Cold War, and it grew in power to become one of the world's two superpowers (the other being the United States). The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
- History, by subject
- History, by field
- Historical sciences – fields dealing with history
- History of terrorism
- Wars
- American Civil War – civil war in the United States of America from 1861–1865 in which 11 Southern slave states tried to secede.
- World War I (timeline) – major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. It involved all the world's great powers,[1] which were assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (centred on the Triple Entente of Britain, France and Russia) and the Central Powers (originally centred on the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy).
- World War II (timeline) – global military conflict from 1939 to 1945, which involved most of the world's nations forming two opposing military alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread, largest, most costly, and deadliest war in history.
- Cold War (timeline) – period of political and military tension between the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, accentuated by the rivalry between the two superpowers at that time: America (U.S.) and the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.).
- Vietnam War – Cold War era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations.
Subtopics
History by region – Ancient Egypt • Ancient Greece • Ancient Rome • History of China • History of the Middle East • History of Mesoamerica • History of India
- History by continent – Africa • The Americas • Antarctica • Asia • Australia • Eurasia • Europe • North America • Oceania • South America
List of time periods – Prehistory • Protohistory • Ancient history • Modern history • Future history
- The Ages of history – Stone Age • Copper Age • Bronze Age • Iron Age • Dark Ages (historiography) • Middle Ages • Age of Discovery • Renaissance • Age of Enlightenment • Industrial Age • Space Age • Information Age
History by subject
- History of science – Theories/sociology • Historiography • Mathematics • Pseudoscience • Scientific method
- History of science by era – In early cultures • In Classical Antiquity • In the Middle Ages • In the Renaissance • Scientific Revolution
Recognized content
Featured articles
- Æthelstan A
- Herman Vandenburg Ames
- Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany
- Balfour Declaration
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- Cross of Gold speech
- C. R. M. F. Cruttwell
- W. E. B. Du Bois
- Edmund Evans
- Ford Piquette Avenue Plant
- Free State of Galveston
- Halifax Explosion
- Hanged, drawn and quartered
- History of American football
- History of Baltimore City College
- History of biology
- History of Sheffield
- History of Arsenal F.C. (1886–1966)
- History of Aston Villa F.C. (1961–present)
- History of Bradford City A.F.C.
- History of Gibraltar
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- History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950
- History of the British farthing
- History of the New York Yankees
- Horrible Histories (2009 TV series)
- Hoysala Empire
- Inaugural games of the Flavian Amphitheatre
- Indigenous people of the Everglades region
- Jarrow March
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- President Truman's relief of General Douglas MacArthur
- Rosewood massacre
- The Slave Community
- Unification of Germany
- Wage reform in the Soviet Union, 1956–1962
- William Jennings Bryan 1896 presidential campaign
- William McKinley 1896 presidential campaign
- Zhou Tong (archer)
- Zong massacre
Good articles
- 102nd Intelligence Wing
- 1982 Iranian diplomats kidnapping
- Abir Congo Company
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- Aztecs
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- Belgium in "the long nineteenth century"
- Bodyguard of Lies
- John Wilkes Booth
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- Bristol Bus Boycott
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- Bury the Chains
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- Lydia Canaan
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- Catholic Church
- The Christian Manifesto
- Christmas in the post-war United States
- Cold War
- Constantine VIII
- Cèllere Codex
- Demographic history of Scotland
- Demolition of al-Baqi
- Dispute between Darnhall and Vale Royal Abbey
- Dreamtime (book)
- Early thermal weapons
- Eastcote House Gardens
- Economy of Scotland in the early modern period
- Education and Democracy: The Meaning of Alexander Meiklejohn
- Education in Medieval Scotland
- Education in early modern Scotland
- Edward of Angoulême
- Ely and Littleport riots of 1816
- Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945
- Encyclopedia of the Central Intelligence Agency
- English Poor Laws
- Family in early modern Scotland
- Federation of Stoke-on-Trent
- Fifty Years of Freedom
- Fortress of Humaitá
- Fujiwara no Teika
- Gadsden Purchase
- Geography of Scotland in the Middle Ages
- Geography of Scotland in the early modern era
- Lionel Gilbert
- Glorious Revolution in Scotland
- Government in early modern Scotland
- Government in medieval Scotland
- Government of Macedonia (ancient kingdom)
- Greater Germanic Reich
- HIAG
- Ha' K'in Xook
- Hampton National Historic Site
- Hindu–German Conspiracy
- History of agriculture
- History of Bombay under Portuguese rule (1534–1661)
- History of Cornell University
- History of Gaza
- History of Hertfordshire
- History of Indiana
- History of malaria
- History of Microsoft
- History of Philadelphia
- History of Pittsburgh
- History of poison
- History of private equity and venture capital
- History of Scotland
- History of Singapore
- History of the Galveston Bay Area
- History of the Song dynasty
- History of the Soviet Union (1964–82)
- History of the United Kingdom during the First World War
- History of Animals
- History of Aston Villa F.C. (1874–1961)
- History of Edinburgh Zoo
- History of Galveston, Texas
- History of Harvard Extension School
- History of KFC
- History of Lima
- History of Macedonia (ancient kingdom)
- History of Mumbai
- History of St. Louis
- History of Wat Phra Dhammakaya
- History of agriculture in Scotland
- History of aspirin
- History of cricket to 1725
- History of hip hop dance
- History of macroeconomic thought
- History of the Georgia Institute of Technology
- History of the Han dynasty
- Hitler's Generals on Trial
- Housing in Scotland
- I Ching
- Curtis P. Iaukea
- Ice trade
- Indigenous peoples in Canada
- Indo-Roman trade relations
- Itzam K'an Ahk II
- Janszoon voyage of 1605–06
- John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
- K'inich Yat Ahk II
- K'inich Yo'nal Ahk I
- Ernst Klink
- Legal history of cannabis in the United States
- Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
- Lisa the Iconoclast
- The Making of the English Landscape
- The Man-Eating Myth
- Manor Farm, Ruislip
- Maritime fur trade
- McMahon–Hussein Correspondence
- Meermin slave mutiny
- Middle Colonies
- Monte Testaccio
- Murrays' Mills
- Music in early modern Scotland
- National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933
- Naval battles of the American Revolutionary War
- Nawabs of Bengal and Murshidabad
- Nazi Germany
- Lynching of Laura and L. D. Nelson
- No Man Knows My History
- Nuova Cronica
- Ocean Village Marina, Gibraltar
- One Day in History
- Museum de Oude Wolden
- Paper Brigade
- Pax Mongolica
- Pied-Noir
- Karl Plagge
- Premiership of Gordon Brown
- Presidency of George Washington
- Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant
- Child prostitution
- Edward William Purvis
- History of Randolph, Tennessee
- Renaissance
- Renaissance in Scotland
- Roman Empire
- Romanticism in Scotland
- Rose Street Club
- Gunther E. Rothenberg
- Royal intermarriage
- Felix Römer
- Scotland during the Roman Empire
- Scotland in the Late Middle Ages
- Scotland in the Middle Ages
- Scotland in the early modern period
- Scotland in the modern era
- Scotland under the Commonwealth
- Scottish religion in the eighteenth century
- Scottish religion in the seventeenth century
- Scottish society in the Middle Ages
- Scottish society in the early modern era
- Shays' Rebellion
- Silver
- Son of God (TV series)
- Spain in Our Hearts
- Spanish flu
- Spanish conquest of Honduras
- Jan Willem Spruyt
- Stanley plan
- David Starkey
- Stolen Childhood
- Stratford Dialectical and Radical Club
- Taoism
- Testaroli
- Texas oil boom
- Topaz War Relocation Center
- Leo Tornikios
- Trade route
- Treaty of Waitangi
- D. H. Turner
- Venetian rule in the Ionian Islands
- Wannsee Conference
- Warfare in early modern Scotland
- Wolfram Wette
- Rwandan Revolution
- Witch trials in early modern Scotland
- Women in early modern Scotland
- Women's March on Versailles
- Workhouse
- Wow! signal
- Wreck of the RMS Titanic
- Yang Shoujing
- Yo'nal Ahk III
Subportals
·
History
- History by period
- History by decade
- History by century
- History by era
- Prehistory
- Ancient history
- Middle Ages
- Renaissance
- Modern history
- History by region
- American Old West • Anglo-Saxon England • Austria-Hungary • British Empire • Bulgarian Empire • Imperial China • East Germany • European military history • German Empire • Canada • Holy Roman Empire • Indian independence movement • Khitan • Mesoamerica • Nazi Germany • New France • North America • Ottoman Empire • Russian Empire • Sasanian Empire • Soviet Union • Transylvania • Weimar Republic
- History by subject
- Crown of Aragon • Disasters • Heraldry • History of art • History of the Latter Day Saint movement • History of Science
- Mythology
- Sports
- Time
- War
- War of 1812 • American Revolutionary War • American Civil War • Ancient warfare • Arab–Israeli conflict • Cold War • Crusades • Italian Wars • Liberation War • Military history of France • Military history of Africa • Military history of the Ottoman Empire • Napoleonic Wars • September 11 attacks • Spanish American wars of independence • Syrian Civil War • World War I • World War II
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