History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categorize history as a social science, while others see it as part of the humanities or consider it a hybrid discipline. Similar debates surround the purpose of history—for example, whether its main aim is theoretical, to uncover the truth, or practical, to learn lessons from the past. In a more general sense, the term history refers not to an academic field but to the past itself, times in the past, or to individual texts about the past.
History emerged as a field of inquiry in antiquity to replace myth-infused narratives, with influential early traditions originating in Greece, China, and later in the Islamic world. Historical writing evolved throughout the ages and became increasingly professional, particularly during the 19th century, when a rigorous methodology and various academic institutions were established. History is related to many fields, including historiography, philosophy, education, and politics. (Full article...)
Phan Đình Phùng (Vietnamese:[faːnɗîŋ̟fûŋm]; 1847 – January 21, 1896) was a Vietnamese revolutionary who led rebel armies against French colonial forces in Vietnam. He was the most prominent of the Confucian court scholars involved in anti-French military campaigns in the 19th century and was cited after his death by 20th-century nationalists as a national hero. He was renowned for his uncompromising will and principles—on one occasion, he refused to surrender even after the French had desecrated his ancestral tombs and had arrested and threatened to kill his family.
Born into a family of mandarins from Hà Tĩnh Province, Phan continued his ancestors' traditions by placing first in the metropolitan imperial examinations in 1877. Phan quickly rose through the ranks under Emperor Tự Đức of the Nguyễn dynasty, gaining a reputation for his integrity and uncompromising stance against corruption. Phan was appointed as the Imperial Censor, a position that allowed him to criticise his fellow mandarins and even the emperor. As the head of the censorate, Phan's investigations led to the removal of many incompetent or corrupt mandarins. (Full article...)
The Brandenburg class consisted of four pre-dreadnoughtbattleships built for the GermanKaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy), the first modern battleships of the fleet. The four ships of the class—Brandenburg, Wörth, Weissenburg, and Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm—were the first ocean-going capital ships built for the German fleet in nearly two decades, owing to reluctance in the Reichstag (Imperial Diet) to fund large projects. They followed a series of small coastal defense ships, and though in retrospect they anticipated the buildup that created the High Seas Fleet, they were ordered as part of a construction program that reflected the strategic and tactical confusion that affected many navies in the 1880s. The design process that resulted in the Brandenburg class was very lengthy, with proposals that ranged from outdated casemate ships to versions with two twin-gun turrets placed side by side. The designers ultimately settled on ships that were armed with an unusual main battery of six 28 cm (11 in) guns at a time when all foreign battleships were built with four or fewer heavy guns.
All four ships served with I Squadron of the German fleet for the first several years of their careers, with Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm the squadron flagship. During this period, they conducted routine training exercises and visited foreign countries, frequently in company with Kaiser Wilhelm II aboard his yacht. In 1900, they were deployed to China to help combat the Boxer Uprising, but they arrived after the bulk of the fighting was over and thus saw little action there. After returning to Germany they were modernized beginning in 1902, thereafter resuming their peacetime activities. Brandenburg and Wörth remained in service with the German fleet until 1912, when they were laid up. In 1910, Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm and Weissenburg were sold to the Ottoman Navy and were renamed Barbaros Hayreddin and Turgut Reis. The now-Ottoman ships saw extensive service during the First Balkan War, providing fire support to Ottoman ground forces fighting in Thrace, as well as engaging the Greek fleet at the Battles of Elli and Lemnos in December 1912 and January 1913, respectively. (Full article...)
Miniature from John of Worcester's Chronicon ex Chronicis, c. 1118–1140.
Henry I (c. 1068 – 1 December 1135), also known as Henry Beauclerc, was King of England from 1100 to his death in 1135. He was the fourth son of William the Conqueror and was educated in Latin and the liberal arts. On William's death in 1087, Henry's elder brothers Robert Curthose and William Rufus inherited Normandy and England, respectively, thereby leaving Henry landless. He subsequently purchased the County of Cotentin in western Normandy from Robert, but his brothers deposed him in 1091. He gradually rebuilt his power base in the Cotentin and allied himself with William Rufus against Robert.
When William died in a hunting accident, Henry seized the English throne ahead of Robert, promising at his coronation to correct many of William's less popular policies. He married Matilda of Scotland and they had two surviving children, Empress Matilda and William Adelin. Robert disputed Henry's control of England and invaded from Normandy in 1101. The ensuing military campaign ended in a negotiated settlement that confirmed Henry as king. The peace was short-lived, however, and Henry invaded the Duchy of Normandy in 1105 and 1106, finally defeating Robert at the Battle of Tinchebray. Henry kept Robert imprisoned for the rest of his life. Henry's control of Normandy was subsequently challenged by Louis VI of France, Baldwin VII of Flanders and Fulk V of Anjou, who promoted the rival claims of Robert's son, William Clito, and supported a major rebellion in the Duchy between 1116 and 1119. Following Henry's victory at the Battle of Brémule, a favourable peace settlement was agreed with Louis in 1120. (Full article...)
Flat, triangular object depicting three goddesses, with numerous inscriptionsIllustration of a bronze tablet from Pergamon, Asia Minor, dating to the 3rd century AD. An inscription mentions the goddess Melinoë, who is otherwise known only from the Orphic Hymns. The Orphic Hymns are a collection of eighty-seven ancient Greekhymns addressed to various deities, which were attributed in antiquity to the mythical poet Orpheus. They were composed in Asia Minor (located in modern-day Turkey), most likely around the 2nd or 3rd centuries AD, and were used in the rites of a religious community which existed in the region. The Hymns are among the few extant works of Orphic literature (the tradition of texts attributed to Orpheus in antiquity), and recent scholars have observed parallels between the collection and other Orphic works.
The collection is preceded by a proem (or prologue), in which Orpheus addresses the legendary poet Musaeus, and calls upon around seventy deities to be present. The individual hymns in the collection, all of which are brief, typically call for the attention of the deity they address, before describing them and highlighting aspects of their divinity, and then appealing to them with a request. The descriptions of deities consist primarily of strings of epithets (titles or adjectives applied to gods), which make up a substantial portion of the hymns' content, and are designed to summon the powers of the god. The deity featured most prominently in the collection is Dionysus, who is the recipient of eight hymns, and is mentioned throughout the collection under various names. Most of the deities featured in the Hymns are derived from mainstream Greek mythology, and a number are assimilated with one another. (Full article...)
A B-52H bomber taking off from Minot Air Force Base in August 2007
On 29 August 2007, six AGM-129 ACMcruise missiles, each loaded with a W80-1variable yieldnuclear warhead, were mistakenly loaded onto a United States Air Force (USAF) B-52Hheavy bomber at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota and transported to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. The nuclear warheads in the missiles were supposed to have been removed before the missiles were taken from their storage bunker. The missiles with the nuclear warheads were not reported missing and remained mounted to the aircraft at both Minot and Barksdale for 36 hours. During this period, the warheads were not protected by the various mandatory security precautions for nuclear weapons.
The incident was reported to the top levels of the United States military and referred to by observers as a Bent Spear incident, which indicates a nuclear weapon incident below the more severe Broken Arrow tier. (Full article...)
The Caspian expeditions of the Rus' were military raids undertaken by the Rus' between the late 9th century and c. 1041 on the Caspian Sea shores, of what are nowadays Iran, Dagestan, and Azerbaijan. Initially, the Rus' appeared in Serkland in the 9th century travelling as merchants along the Volga trade route, selling furs, honey, and slaves. The first small-scale Viking raids took place in the late 9th and early 10th century. The Rus' undertook the first large-scale expedition in 913; having arrived on 500 ships, they pillaged in the Gorgan region, in the territory of present-day Iran, and more to the west, in Gilan and Mazandaran, taking slaves and goods. On their return, the northern raiders were attacked and defeated by the Khazars in the Volga Delta, and those who escaped were killed by the local tribes in the middle Volga.
During their next expedition in 943, the Rus' captured Bardha'a, the capital of Arran, in the modern-day Republic of Azerbaijan. The Rus' stayed there for several months, killing many inhabitants of the city and amassing substantial plunder. It was only an outbreak of dysentery among the Rus' that forced them to depart with their spoils. Sviatoslav, prince of Kiev, commanded the next attack, which destroyed the Khazar state in 965. Sviatoslav's campaign established the Rus's hold on the north-south trade routes, helping to alter the demographics of the region. Raids continued through the time period with the last Scandinavian attempt to reestablish the route to the Caspian Sea taking place in c. 1041 by Ingvar the Far-Travelled. (Full article...)
The son of Sophus Mads Jørgensen, a professor of chemistry, Jørgensen was born and lived for most of his life in Copenhagen. He was educated at the prestigious Metropolitanskolen and at the University of Copenhagen, where he began his study of the Homeric poems. In 1904, following academic travels to Berlin, Athens, Italy and Constantinople, he published "The Appearances of the Gods in Books 9–12 of the Odyssey", an article in which he outlined the distinctions in the poem between how the actions of deities are described by mortal characters and by the narrator and gods. The principles he set out became known as "Jørgensen's law". (Full article...)
The Wittelsbach-class battleships were a group of five pre-dreadnought battleships built for the GermanKaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the early 1900s. They were the first battleships ordered under the First Navy Law of 1898, part of AdmiralAlfred von Tirpitz's fleet expansion program. The class comprised the lead ship, Wittelsbach, and Wettin, Zähringen, Schwaben, and Mecklenburg. All five ships were laid down between 1899 and 1900 and were finished by 1904. The ships of the Wittelsbach class were similar in appearance to their predecessors in the Kaiser Friedrich III class, but had a more extensive armor belt and a flush main deck, as opposed to the lower quarterdeck of the previous class. Both classes carried a battery of four 24 cm (9.4 in) guns in two twin-gun turrets. Wittelsbach, Wettin, Mecklenburg, and Zähringen served in I Squadron for the duration of their peacetime careers, where they were primarily occupied with training exercises and cruises abroad. Schwaben was used as a training ship to modernize the training unit of the German fleet. By 1910, with the arrival of the first dreadnought battleships, the Wittelsbach-class ships were removed from front-line service and relegated to training duties or simply laid up in reserve. With the outbreak of World War I in July 1914, the ships returned to active service as IV Battle Squadron, seeing guard duty in the North Sea and limited operations in the Baltic Sea against Russian forces. These operations included supporting the attack on Libau in May 1915 and the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August that year. (Full article...)
The calutron is a type of sector mass spectrometer, an instrument in which a sample is ionized and then accelerated by electric fields and deflected by magnetic fields. The ions ultimately collide with a plate and produce a measurable electric current. Since the ions of the different isotopes have the same electric charge but different masses, the heavier isotopes are deflected less by the magnetic field, causing the beam of particles to separate into several beams by mass, striking the plate at different locations. The mass of the ions can be calculated according to the strength of the field and the charge of the ions. During World War II, calutrons were developed to use this principle to obtain substantial quantities of high-purity uranium-235, by taking advantage of the small mass difference between uranium isotopes. (Full article...)
Anne was born during the reign of her uncle King Charles II. Her father was Charles's younger brother and heir presumptive, James, whose suspected Roman Catholicism was unpopular in England. On Charles's instructions, Anne and her elder sister Mary were raised as Anglicans. Mary married her Dutch Protestant cousin, William III of Orange, in 1677, and Anne married Prince George of Denmark, a Lutheran, in 1683. On Charles's death in 1685, James succeeded to the throne, but three years later he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Mary and William became joint monarchs. Although the sisters had been close, disagreements over Anne's finances, status, and choice of acquaintances arose shortly after Mary's accession and they became estranged. William and Mary had no children. After Mary's death in 1694, William reigned alone until his own death in 1702, when Anne succeeded him. (Full article...)
Excalibur firing at three warheadsAn illustration depicting Excalibur firing at three nearby targets. In most descriptions, each could fire at dozens of targets, which would be hundreds or thousands of kilometers away. Project Excalibur was a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Cold War–era research program to develop an X-ray laser system as a ballistic missile defense (BMD) for the United States. The concept involved packing large numbers of expendable X-ray lasers around a nuclear device, which would orbit in space. During an attack, the device would be detonated, with the X-rays released focused by each laser to destroy multiple incoming target missiles. Because the system would be deployed above the Earth's atmosphere, the X-rays could reach missiles thousands of kilometers away, providing protection over a wide area.
Anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems of the time only attacked the enemy nuclear warheads after they were released by ICBMs. A single ICBM could carry as many as a dozen warheads, so dozens of defense missiles were required per attacking missile. A single Excalibur device contained up to fifty lasers and could potentially destroy a corresponding number of missiles, with all of the warheads still on board. A single Excalibur could thus destroy dozens of ICBMs and hundreds of warheads for the cost of a single nuclear bomb, improving the cost-exchange ratio that had previously doomed ABM systems. (Full article...)
Courageous as a battlecruiser during the First World War
The Courageous class consisted of three battlecruisers known as "large light cruisers" built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. The class was nominally designed to support the Baltic Project, a plan by Admiral of the FleetLord Fisher that was intended to land troops on the German Baltic Coast. Ships of this class were fast but very lightly armoured, with only a few heavy guns. They were given a shallow draught, in part to allow them to operate in the shallow waters of the Baltic but also reflecting experience gained earlier in the war. To maximize their speed, the Courageous-class battlecruisers were the first capital ships of the Royal Navy to use geared steam turbines and small-tube boilers.
The first two ships, Courageous and Glorious, were commissioned in 1917 and spent the war patrolling the North Sea. They participated in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in November 1917 and were present when the High Seas Fleet surrendered a year later. Their half-sisterFurious was designed with a pair of 18-inch (457 mm) guns, the largest guns ever fitted on a ship of the Royal Navy, but was modified during construction to take a flying-off deck and hangar in lieu of her forward turret and barbette. After some patrols in the North Sea, her rear turret was removed and another flight deck added. Her aircraft attacked the Zeppelin sheds during the Tondern raid in July 1918. (Full article...)
The Acra (also spelled Akra, from Ancient Greek: Ἄκρα, Hebrew: חקרא ,חקרהḤaqra(h)), meaning "stronghold" (see under "Etymology"), was a location in Jerusalem thought to have contained a fortified compound built by Antiochus Epiphanes, ruler of the Seleucid Empire, following his sack of the city in 168 BCE. The name Acra was also used at a later time for a city quarter probably associated with the by-then destroyed fortress, known to Josephus (first century CE) as both Acra and "the lower city". The fortress played a significant role in the events surrounding the Maccabean Revolt, which resulted in the formation of the Hasmonean Kingdom. The "upper city" was captured by Judas Maccabeus, with the Seleucid garrison taking refuge in the "Acra" below. The task of destroying this last enemy stronghold inside Jerusalem fell to Simon Maccabeus surnamed Thassi. Knowledge about the Acra is based almost exclusively on the writings of Josephus, which are of a later date, and on the First and Second Books of Maccabees, which were written not long after the described events.
The exact location of Acra within Jerusalem, and even the meaning of the term—fortress, fortified compound inside the city, or compound with an associated fortress—is critical to understanding Hellenistic Jerusalem, but it remains a matter of ongoing discussion. The fact that Josephus used the name interchangeably with 'the lower city' certainly does not help. Historians and archaeologists have proposed various sites around Jerusalem, relying initially mainly on conclusions drawn from literary evidence. This approach began to change in the light of excavations which commenced in the late 1960s. New discoveries have prompted reassessments of the ancient literary sources, Jerusalem's geography, and previously discovered artifacts. The more recent theories combine archaeological and textual evidence and favour locations near the Temple Mount and south of it, but there are alternative theories as well (see "Location"). (Full article...)
Jews captured by SS and SD troops during the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising are forced to leave their shelter and march to the Umschlagplatz for deportation. The SD trooper pictured second from the right, is Josef Blösche, who was identified by Polish authorities using this photograph. Blösche was tried for war crimes in Erfurt, East Germany in 1969, sentenced to death and executed in July of that year.
A World War I-era poster sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture encouraging children to raise sheep to provide wool for the war effort. The poster reads, "Twenty sheep to clothe and equip each soldier / Boys and girls can help / Join a sheep club".
A crying Sudeten woman salutesAdolf Hitler as German forces sweep into Czechoslovakia, October 1938. Originally published in the Völkischer Beobachter, it supposedly showed the intense emotions of joy which swept the populace as Hitler drove through the streets of Cheb, 99% of whose inhabitants were ardently pro-Nazi Sudeten Germans at the time. In contrast, when the photo was published in the U.S., it was captioned, "The tragedy of this Sudeten woman, unable to conceal her misery as she dutifully salutes the triumphant Hitler, is the tragedy of the silent millions who have been 'won over' to Hitlerism by the 'everlasting use' of ruthless force." It is unknown what the true circumstances surrounding the photo are.
A Chola dynasty sculpture depicting Shiva. In Hinduism, Shiva is the deity of destruction and one of the most important gods; in this sculpture he is dancing as Nataraja, the divine dancer who unravels the world in preparation for it being remade by Brahma.
A medieval ship flag captured by forces from Lübeck in the 1420s showed the arms of Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Pomerania. At the time, Denmark, Norway and Sweden were united in the Kalmar Union. The flag is believed to originate from the reign of king Erik of Pomerania due to its inclusion of Pomerania's griffin symbol. For the following five hundred years, the flag was displayed as a war trophy in a Lübeck church until destroyed during a World War II air raid on the city. An 1880s copy of the flag is preserved in the museum at Frederiksborg Palace, Denmark. The saint accompanying the Virgin Mary and infant Christ is Saint James the Greater, identified by his scallop shell emblem. The flag was made of coarse linen. All figures and heraldic insignia were created using oil-based paint.
×ばつ 5.13 m (8 ft 11 in ×ばつ 16 ft 9 in). More featured pictures">Image 12 Alexander the Great Mosaic: Unknown Alexander the Great (356–323 BC), the King of Macedonia, as depicted in a detail from the Alexander Mosaic. Originally from the House of the Faun in Pompeii and dated to c. 100 BC, the mosaic depicts a battle between the armies of Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia. It is believed to be a copy of an early 3rd century BC Hellenistic painting, probably by Philoxenos of Eretria. The whole mosaic measures 2.72 ×ばつ 5.13 m (8 ft 11 in ×ばつ 16 ft 9 in). More featured pictures
Alexander the Great (356–323 BC), the King of Macedonia, as depicted in a detail from the Alexander Mosaic. Originally from the House of the Faun in Pompeii and dated to c. 100 BC, the mosaic depicts a battle between the armies of Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia. It is believed to be a copy of an early 3rd century BC Hellenistic painting, probably by Philoxenos of Eretria. The whole mosaic measures 2.72 ×ばつ 5.13 m (8 ft 11 in ×ばつ 16 ft 9 in).
The Finnish markka was the currency of Finland from 1860 to 2002. The currency was divided into 100 pennies and was first introduced by the Bank of Finland to replace the Russian ruble at a rate of four markkaa to one ruble. The markka was replaced by the euro on 1 January 2002 and ceased to be legal tender on 28 February later that year.
This picture shows a 20-markka banknote issued in 1862, as part of the first issue of markka banknotes (1860 to 1862), for the Grand Duchy of Finland, then an autonomous part of the Russian Empire; 1862 was also the first year of issue for this particular denomination. The banknote's obverse depicts the coat of arms of Finland on a Russian double-headed eagle, and was personally signed by the director and the cashier of the Bank of Finland. The text on the obverse is in Swedish, whereas the reverse is primarily in Russian and Finnish.
The Arg-e Bam, in Kerman Province in southeastern Iran, is the largest adobe building in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The ancient citadel has a history dating back around two thousand years, to the Parthian Empire (248 BC – 224 AD), but most of its buildings were constructed during the Safavid dynasty. A strong earthquake on 26 December 2003 largely devastated the fortress and the nearby modern city of Bam. The Arg-e Bam, including the governor's residence, the main tower, the Four Seasons Palace and the hammam, were nearly totally destroyed; this photograph from 2016 shows the citadel partially reconstructed.
Petra is an archaeological site in Jordan, lying in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Wadi Araba, the great valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. It is famous for having many stone structures carved into the rock.
The first successful permanent photograph, created in 1826, is titled "View from the Window at Le Gras". It required an eight-hour exposure in bright sunshine and was printed on a polished pewter plate covered with a petroleum derivative called bitumen of Judea. Due to the long exposure, the buildings are illuminated by the sun from both right and left.
... that the radio program Radio City Music Hall of the Air employed approximately 10,000 musicians during the first eight years of its broadcast history?
... that new employees of a business headquartered in the Editors Building chose their office decorations from a 7,000-piece collection of historic memorabilia of Washington, D.C.?
... that Episode 8055 of the Australian television soap opera Neighbours is the first episode in the show's history to star and be directed and written entirely by women?
Point du Sable was of African descent, but little else is known of his life before the 1770s. During his career, the areas where he settled and traded around the Great Lakes and in the Illinois Country changed hands several times between France, Britain, Spain and the United States. Described as handsome and well-educated, Point duSable married a PotawatomiNative American woman, Kitihawa, and they had two children. In 1779, during the American Revolutionary War, he was arrested by the British on suspicion of being an American Patriot sympathizer. In the early 1780s, he worked for the British lieutenant-governor of Michilimackinac on an estate at what is now St. Clair, Michigan. (Full article...)
... that a junior officer on the USS Ancon refused King George VI entry to the ship's intelligence centre because no one told him the King "was a Bigot"?
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![Image 1 A statue of Phan Đình Phùng in District 5, Ho Chi Minh City Phan Đình Phùng (Vietnamese: [faːn ɗîŋ̟ fûŋm]; 1847 – January 21, 1896) was a Vietnamese revolutionary who led rebel armies against French colonial forces in Vietnam. He was the most prominent of the Confucian court scholars involved in anti-French military campaigns in the 19th century and was cited after his death by 20th-century nationalists as a national hero. He was renowned for his uncompromising will and principles—on one occasion, he refused to surrender even after the French had desecrated his ancestral tombs and had arrested and threatened to kill his family. Born into a family of mandarins from Hà Tĩnh Province, Phan continued his ancestors' traditions by placing first in the metropolitan imperial examinations in 1877. Phan quickly rose through the ranks under Emperor Tự Đức of the Nguyễn dynasty, gaining a reputation for his integrity and uncompromising stance against corruption. Phan was appointed as the Imperial Censor, a position that allowed him to criticise his fellow mandarins and even the emperor. As the head of the censorate, Phan's investigations led to the removal of many incompetent or corrupt mandarins. (Full article...)](/index.cgi/contrast/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blank.png){kind=link}
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