Portal:History
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The History Portal
History by Frederick Dielman
History (derived from Ancient Greek ἱστορία (historía) 'inquiry; knowledge acquired by investigation') is the systematic study and documentation of the human past.
The period of events before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of these events. Historians seek knowledge of the past using historical sources such as written documents, oral accounts, art and material artifacts, and ecological markers. History is incomplete and still has debatable mysteries.
History is an academic discipline which uses a narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect. Historians debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effects. Historians debate the nature of history as an end in itself, and its usefulness in giving 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. History differs from myth in that it is supported by verifiable evidence. However, ancient cultural influences have helped create 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 certain topical or thematic elements of historical investigation. History is taught as a part of primary and secondary education, and the academic study of history is a major discipline in universities.
Herodotus, a 5th-century BC Greek historian, is often considered the "father of history", as one of the first historians in the Western tradition, though he has been criticized as the "father of lies". Along with his contemporary Thucydides, he helped form the foundations for the modern study of past events and societies. 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 reputed to date from as early as 722 BC, though only 2nd-century BC texts have survived. (Full article...)
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Rear Admiral Otto Humphrey Becher, CBE, DSO, DSC & Bar (13 September 1908 – 15 June 1977) was a senior officer in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Born in Harvey, Western Australia, Becher entered the Royal Australian Naval College in 1922. After graduating in 1926, he was posted to a series of staff and training positions prior to specialising in gunnery.
A lieutenant commander at the outbreak of the Second World War, Becher assisted in the extraction of Allied troops from the Namsos region of Norway while aboard the heavy cruiser HMS Devonshire, and was decorated with the Distinguished Service Cross. Following service in the Mediterranean theatre, he returned to Australia in 1942 as officer-in-charge of the gunnery school at HMAS Cerberus. He spent two years at Cerberus before being given command of the Q class destroyer HMAS Quickmatch in March 1944. While commanding Quickmatch in operations against Japanese forces in the Pacific, Becher earned a Bar to his Distinguished Service Cross. (Full article...) - Image 2
David Randolph Scott (born June 6, 1932) is an American retired test pilot and NASA astronaut who was the seventh person to walk on the Moon. Selected as part of the third group of astronauts in 1963, Scott flew to space three times and commanded Apollo 15, the fourth lunar landing; he is one of four surviving Moon walkers and the only living commander of a spacecraft that landed on the Moon.
Before becoming an astronaut, Scott graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and joined the Air Force. After serving as a fighter pilot in Europe, he graduated from the Air Force Experimental Test Pilot School (Class 62C) and the Aerospace Research Pilot School (Class IV). Scott retired from the Air Force in 1975 with the rank of colonel, and more than 5,600 hours of logged flying time. (Full article...) - Image 3
SMS Nymphe was the lead ship of the Nymphe class of steam corvettes, the first ship of that type to be built for the Prussian Navy. She had one sister ship, Medusa, and the vessels were wooden-hulled ships armed with a battery of sixteen guns. She was ordered as part of a naval expansion program to counter the Danish Navy over the disputed ownership of Schleswig and Holstein. Nymphe was laid down in January 1862, was launched in April 1863, and was completed in October that year.
Nymphe saw action during the Second Schleswig War against Denmark in 1864 at the Battle of Jasmund. She was heavily engaged by a Danish frigate in the battle; she received around 70 hits, mostly to her rigging, though she was not seriously damaged. The ship, which had been on a cruise in the Mediterranean Sea, was in the process of being recalled to Germany during the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, and as a result, saw no action during the conflict. During the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, a French squadron of ironclads had anchored off Danzig, and Nymphe launched a surprise night attack on the idle vessels, though she inflicted no serious damage on the armored French ships. Her attack nevertheless convinced the French admiral that his heavy ships were not useful in a close blockade of German ports, and so they left. (Full article...) - Image 4
Cyril Royston Guyton Bassett, VC (3 January 1892 – 9 January 1983) was a New Zealand recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for gallantry "in the face of the enemy" that could be awarded to British and Empire forces at the time. He was the only soldier serving with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) to be awarded the VC in the Gallipoli Campaign of the First World War.
Born in Auckland, Bassett was a bank worker when the First World War began. A member of New Zealand's Territorial Force, he volunteered for service abroad with NZEF and was posted to the New Zealand Divisional Signal Company as a sapper. He saw action on the opening day of the Gallipoli Campaign, and during the Battle of Chunuk Bair he performed the actions that led to his award of the VC. Medically evacuated due to sickness shortly after the battle, he later served on the Western Front and finished the war as a second lieutenant. Bassett returned to the banking profession but was recalled to active duty during the Second World War. He served on the Home Front and by the time he was taken off active duty in December 1943, he had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and was commander of signals in the Northern Military District. When he retired from his banking career he became a justice of the peace in Devonport. He died in 1983 at the age of 91. (Full article...) - Image 5
Australia entered World War II on 3 September 1939, following the government's acceptance of the United Kingdom's declaration of war on Nazi Germany. Australia later entered into a state of war with other members of the Axis powers, including the Kingdom of Italy on 11 June 1940, and the Empire of Japan on 9 December 1941. By the end of the war, almost one million Australians had served in the armed forces, whose military units fought primarily in the European theatre, North African campaign, and the South West Pacific theatre. In addition, Australia came under direct attack for the first time in its post-colonial history. Its casualties from enemy action during the war were 27,073 killed and 23,477 wounded. Many more suffered from tropical disease, hunger, and harsh conditions in captivity; of the 21,467 Australian prisoners taken by the Japanese, only 14,000 survived.
Australian Army units were gradually withdrawn from the Mediterranean and Europe following the outbreak of war with Japan. However, Royal Australian Air Force and Royal Australian Navy units and personnel continued to take part in the war against Germany and Italy. From 1942 until early 1944, Australian forces played a key role in the Pacific War, making up the majority of Allied strength throughout much of the fighting in the South West Pacific theatre. While the military was largely relegated to subsidiary fronts from mid-1944, it continued offensive operations against the Japanese until the war ended. (Full article...) - Image 6
The Arch of Remembrance is a First World War memorial designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and located in Victoria Park, Leicester, in the East Midlands of England. Leicester's industry contributed significantly to the British war effort. A temporary war memorial was erected in 1917, and a committee was formed in 1919 to propose a permanent memorial. The committee resolved to appoint Lutyens as architect and to site the memorial in Victoria Park. Lutyens's first proposal was accepted by the committee but was scaled back and eventually cancelled due to a shortage of funds. The committee then asked Lutyens to design a memorial arch, which he presented to a public meeting in 1923.
The memorial is a single Portland stone arch with four legs (a tetrapylon or quadrifrons), 69 feet 4+1⁄4 inches (21 metres) tall. The legs form four arched openings, two large on the main axis, 36 feet (11 metres) tall, oriented north-west to south-east, and two small on the sides, 24 feet (7.3 metres) tall. At the top of the structure is a large dome, set back from the edge. The main arches are aligned so the sun shines through them at sunrise on 11 November (Armistice Day). The inside of the arch has a decorative coffered ceiling and the legs support painted stone flags which represent each of the British armed forces and the Merchant Navy. The arch is surrounded by decorative iron railings, and complemented by the later addition of a set of gates at the University Road entrance to the park and a pair of gates and lodges at the London Road entrance—the war memorial is at the intersection of the paths leading from the two entrances. (Full article...) - Image 7
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (Latin: Octavianus), was the founder of the Roman Empire. He reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. The reign of Augustus initiated an imperial cult, as well as an era of imperial peace (the Pax Romana or Pax Augusta) in which the Roman world was largely free of armed conflict (aside from expansionary wars and the Year of the Four Emperors, which occurred after Augustus' reign). The Principate system of government was established during his reign and lasted until the Crisis of the Third Century.
Octavian was born into an equestrian branch of the plebeian gens Octavia. His maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, and Octavian was named in Caesar's will as his adopted son and heir; as a result, he inherited Caesar's name, estate, and the loyalty of his legions. He, Mark Antony, and Marcus Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate to defeat the assassins of Caesar. Following their victory at the Battle of Philippi (42 BC), the Triumvirate divided the Roman Republic among themselves and ruled as de facto dictators. The Triumvirate was eventually torn apart by the competing ambitions of its members; Lepidus was exiled in 36 BC, and Antony was defeated by Octavian at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. Antony and his wife Cleopatra, the Ptolemaic queen of Egypt, killed themselves during Octavian's invasion of Egypt, which then became a Roman province. (Full article...) - Image 8
The Manhattan Project was a program of research and development undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the bombs. The Army program was designated the Manhattan District, as its first headquarters were in Manhattan; the name gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. The project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys. The Manhattan Project employed nearly 130,000 people at its peak and cost nearly US$2 billion (equivalent to about $27 billion in 2023), over 80 percent of which was for building and operating the plants that produced the fissile material. Research and production took place at more than 30 sites across the US, the UK, and Canada.
The project resulted in two types of atomic bombs, developed concurrently during the war: a relatively simple gun-type fission weapon and a more complex implosion-type nuclear weapon. The Thin Man gun-type design proved impractical to use with plutonium, so a simpler gun-type design called Little Boy was developed that used uranium-235. Three methods were employed for uranium enrichment: electromagnetic, gaseous, and thermal. In parallel with the work on uranium was an effort to produce plutonium. After the feasibility of the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, was demonstrated in 1942 at the Metallurgical Laboratory in the University of Chicago, the project designed the X-10 Graphite Reactor and the production reactors at the Hanford Site, in which uranium was irradiated and transmuted into plutonium. The Fat Man plutonium implosion-type weapon was developed in a concerted design and development effort by the Los Alamos Laboratory. (Full article...) - Image 9
James Park Woods VC (4 January 1886 – 18 January 1963) was an Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross during World War I; the Victoria Cross was the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that could be awarded to members of the Australian armed forces at the time. Woods enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in September 1916 and, after training in Australia and the United Kingdom, joined his unit, the 48th Battalion, in France in September 1917. Along with the rest of his battalion, he participated in the First Battle of Passchendaele the following month. In early 1918, Woods was hospitalised for several months before rejoining his unit in May. He again reported sick in July, and did not return to the 48th Battalion until mid-August.
On 18 September 1918, the 48th Battalion was involved in the attack on the Hindenburg Outpost Line during the Hundred Days Offensive. After the first phase of the attack, some elements of Woods' unit were tasked to support another battalion as it conducted a further assault. When it was suspected that flanking British troops had not gone forward to their objective as reported, a four-man patrol including Woods attempted to make contact with them. Instead of finding British troops, they encountered a strong German post and, after calling for reinforcements, attacked it, driving more than thirty Germans from the position. Woods' actions during this assault and subsequent defence of the captured post resulted in him being awarded the Victoria Cross. Woods survived the war, returned to Australia and operated a vineyard and orchard in Western Australia. He retired early due to ill health and died in 1963. His medals are displayed in the Hall of Valour at the Australian War Memorial. (Full article...) - Image 10
Lieutenant General Sir Vernon Ashton Hobart Sturdee, KBE, CB, DSO (16 April 1890 – 25 May 1966) was an Australian Army commander who served two terms as Chief of the General Staff. A regular officer of the Royal Australian Engineers who joined the Militia in 1908, he was one of the original Anzacs during the First World War, participating in the landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. In the campaign that followed, he commanded the 5th Field Company, before going on to lead the 8th Field Company and the 4th Pioneer Battalion on the Western Front. In 1918 he was seconded to General Headquarters (GHQ) British Expeditionary Force as a staff officer.
Promotion was stagnant between the wars, and Sturdee remained at his wartime rank of lieutenant colonel until 1935. He served in a series of staff posts, and attended the Staff College at Quetta in British India and the Imperial Defence College in Britain. Like other regular officers, he had little faith in the government's "Singapore strategy", and warned that the Army would have to face an effective and well-equipped Japanese opponent. (Full article...) - Image 11
Hobart Amory Hare "Hobey" Baker (January 15, 1892 – December 21, 1918) was an American amateur athlete of the early twentieth century. Considered the first American star in ice hockey by the Hockey Hall of Fame, he was also an accomplished American football player. Born into a prominent family from the Philadelphia area, he enrolled at Princeton University in 1910. Baker excelled on the university's hockey and football teams, and became a noted amateur hockey player for the St. Nicholas Hockey Club in New York City. He was a member of three national championship teams, for football in 1911 and hockey in 1912 and 1914, and helped the St. Nicholas Club win a national amateur championship in 1915. Baker graduated from Princeton in 1914 and worked for J.P. Morgan Bank until he enlisted in the United States Army Air Service. During World War I he served with the 103rd and the 13th Aero Squadrons before being promoted to captain and named commander of the 141st Aero Squadron. Baker died in December 1918 after a plane he was test-piloting crashed, hours before he was due to leave France and return to America.
Baker was widely regarded by his contemporaries as one of the best athletes of his time and is considered one of the best early American hockey players. When the Hockey Hall of Fame was founded in 1945, Baker was named one of the first nine inductees, the only American among them. In 1973, he became one of the initial inductees in the United States Hockey Hall of Fame. He was also inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1975, and is the only person to be in both the hockey and college football halls of fame. (Full article...) - Image 12
The Portland spy ring was an espionage group active in the UK between 1953 and 1961. It comprised five people who obtained classified research documents from the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment (AUWE) on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, and passed them to the Soviet Union.
Two of the group's members, Harry Houghton and Ethel Gee, were British. They worked at the AUWE and had access to the areas where the research was stored. After they obtained the information it was passed to their handler, Konon Molody—who was acting under the name Gordon Lonsdale. He was a KGB agent acting in the UK under a Canadian passport. Lonsdale would pass the documents in microdot format to Lona and Morris Cohen, two American communists who had moved to the UK using New Zealand passports in the names Helen and Peter Kroger. The Krogers would get the information to Moscow, often by using the cover of an antiquarian book dealer. (Full article...) - Image 13
The Battle of the Tenaru, sometimes called the Battle of the Ilu River or the Battle of Alligator Creek, was a land battle between the Imperial Japanese Army and Allied ground forces that took place on 21 August 1942, on the island of Guadalcanal during the Pacific campaign of World War II. The battle was the first major Japanese land offensive during the Guadalcanal campaign.
In the battle, U.S. Marines, under the overall command of U.S. Major General Alexander Vandegrift, repulsed an assault by the "First Element" of the "Ichiki" Regiment, under the command of Japanese Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki. The Marines were defending the Lunga perimeter, which guarded Henderson Field, which had been captured by the Allies in landings on Guadalcanal on 7 August. Ichiki's unit was sent to Guadalcanal, in response to the Allied landings there, with the mission of recapturing the airfield and driving the Allied forces off the island. (Full article...) - Image 14
Grant's Canal (also known as Williams's Canal) was an incomplete military effort to construct a canal through De Soto Point in Louisiana, across the Mississippi River from Vicksburg, Mississippi. During the American Civil War, the Union Navy attempted to capture the Confederate-held city of Vicksburg in 1862, but were unable to do so with army support. Union Brigadier-General Thomas Williams was sent to De Soto Point with 3,200 men to dig a canal capable of bypassing the strong defenses around Vicksburg. Despite being assisted by locally enslaved people, Williams was unable to finish constructing the canal due to disease and falling river levels, and the project was abandoned until January 1863, when Union Major-General Ulysses S. Grant took an interest in the project.
Grant attempted to resolve some of the issues inherent to the concept by moving the upstream entrance to a spot with a stronger current, but the heavy rains and flooding that broke a dam prevented the project from succeeding. Work was abandoned in March, and Grant eventually used other methods to capture Vicksburg, whose Confederate garrison surrendered on July 4, 1863. In 1876, the Mississippi River changed course to cut across De Soto Point, eventually isolating Vicksburg from the river, but the completion of the Yazoo Diversion Canal in 1903 restored Vicksburg's river access. Most of the canal site has since been destroyed by agriculture, but a small section survives. This section was donated by local landowners to the National Park Service and became part of Vicksburg National Military Park in 1990. A 1974 article in The Military Engineer speculated that the canal would likely have been successful if the dam at the downstream end of the canal had been opened. (Full article...) - Image 15
The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of three wars fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy, primarily in Italy and Iberia, but also on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and, towards the end of the war, in North Africa. After immense materiel and human losses on both sides, the Carthaginians were once again defeated. Macedonia, Syracuse and several Numidian kingdoms were drawn into the fighting, and Iberian and Gallic forces fought on both sides. There were three main military theatres during the war: Italy, where Hannibal defeated the Roman legions repeatedly, with occasional subsidiary campaigns in Sicily, Sardinia and Greece; Iberia, where Hasdrubal, a younger brother of Hannibal, defended the Carthaginian colonial cities with mixed success before moving into Italy; and Africa, where Rome finally won the war.
The First Punic War had ended in a Roman victory in 241 BC after 23 years and enormous losses on both sides. After the war Carthage expanded its holdings in Iberia where in 219 BC a Carthaginian army under Hannibal besieged, captured and sacked the pro-Roman city of Saguntum. In early 218 BC Rome declared war on Carthage, beginning the Second Punic War. Later that year, Hannibal surprised the Romans by marching his army overland from Iberia, through Gaul and over the Alps to Cisalpine Gaul (modern northern Italy). Reinforced by Gallic allies he obtained crushing victories over the Romans at the battles of Trebia (218) and Lake Trasimene (217). Moving to southern Italy in 216 Hannibal defeated the Romans again at the battle of Cannae, where he annihilated the largest army the Romans had ever assembled. After the death or capture of more than 120,000 Roman troops in less than three years, many of Rome's Italian allies, notably Capua, defected to Carthage, giving Hannibal control over much of southern Italy. As Syracuse and Macedonia joined the Carthaginian side after Cannae, the conflict spread. Between 215 and 210 BC the Carthaginians attempted to capture Roman-held Sicily and Sardinia, but were unsuccessful. The Romans took drastic steps to raise new legions: enrolling slaves, criminals and those who did not meet the usual property qualification; this vastly increased the number of men they had under arms. For the next decade the war in southern Italy continued, with Roman armies slowly recapturing most of the Italian cities that had joined Carthage. (Full article...)
Featured picture
- Image 1Photograph: Lewis Hine; restoration: Lise BroerA baseball team composed mostly of child laborers from an Indiana glassmaking factory, as photographed by Lewis Hine in August 1908. Hine (1874–1940) was an American sociologist who promoted the use of photography as an educational medium and means for social change. Beginning in 1908, he spent ten years photographing child labor for the National Child Labor Committee. The project was a dangerous one, and Hine had to disguise himself – at times as a fire inspector, post card vendor, Bible salesman or industrial photographer – to avoid the factory police and foremen.
- Image 2Photo: American Colony; Restoration: Sebastian KolendoThe Mayor of Jerusalem Hussein al-Husayni (centre) meets with soldiers of the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force on December 9, 1917, under the white flag of surrender. The Battle of Jerusalem had begun the day before, but the Turkish forces in the city were no match against the British forces. A Turkish counterattack on December 25 was also repulsed, confirming the capture of Jerusalem by the Allies.
- Image 3Map credit: Konstantinos PlakidasA map of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Throughout the Middle Ages, Constantinople, strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara at the point where Europe meets Asia, was Europe's largest and wealthiest city. It was officially renamed to its modern name Istanbul (Turkish: İstanbul) in 1930.
- Image 4Lithography: Day & Son; Restoration: Jake WartenbergAn 1856 lithograph of the Selimiye Barracks, located in Istanbul, Turkey, being used as a hospital during the Crimean War. Florence Nightingale's experiences here during this time helped her develop the foundations of modern nursing. As such, the barracks now contain a museum dedicated to her and her staff.
- Image 5A 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.
- Image 6Photo credit: USHMMJews 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.
- Image 7Artist: William Simpson; Restoration: Adam CuerdenOn October 25, 1854, during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War, British cavalry units charged heavily fortified Russian opposition, an action known as the Charge of the Light Brigade. By mischance, they attacked the wrong target, as the orders were unclear, and as a result suffered great casualties. Alfred, Lord Tennyson's famous poem made the charge a symbol of warfare at both its most courageous and its most tragic.
- Image 8Illustration: Maurice Dessertenne
Restoration: Michel VuijlstekeAn illustration from Volume IV (E–G) of the encyclopedia Nouveau Larousse illustré showing various methods of lighting through the ages, starting from prehistoric times in the upper left (No. 1) to carbide lamps at the beginning of the 20th century (No. 54, lower right), with a separate section for Japanese lighting (No. 55–58, lower left). - Image 9Graphic: Arne NordmannA color visual interpretation of the digital signal in the Arecibo message, sent in 1974 from the Arecibo Observatory. Broadcast into space via frequency modulated radio waves at a ceremony to mark the remodeling of the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, the message consisted of 1,679 binary digits, approximately 210 bytes, transmitted at a frequency of 2,380 MHz. It was aimed at the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, some 25,000 light-years away, and contains information related to mathematics, chemistry, and astronomy.
- Image 10Photo credit: UnknownThe original US Brig Niagara, which played a pivotal role in defeating the British at the Battle of Lake Erie. It was sunk in 1820 for preservation but raised again in 1913 for the centennial anniversary of the battle (seen here). A modern replica based out of Erie, Pennsylvania now travels the Great Lakes as an educational and training vessel.
- Image 11The "Theatre" at PetraPhoto: Douglas PerkinsPetra 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.
- Image 12The Battle of the Somme was a battle of the First World War fought between 1 July and 18 November 1916 by the armies of the British and French empires against the German Empire. The largest battle of World War I on the Western Front, it was fought on both sides of upper reaches of the River Somme in France. More than one million men were wounded or killed, making it one of the bloodiest battles in human history.
This map shows the situation on the first day on the Somme, as well as Allied gains up to 19 November 1916. - Image 13A historical reenactment is an educational or entertainment activity in which participants follow a prearranged plan to recreate aspects of a historical event or period. Here, a group reenacts the Battle of Waterloo, in which an Imperial French army under the command of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by the armies of the Seventh Coalition.
- Image 14Photo credit: Berlyn BrixnerThe Trinity nuclear test explosion, .016 seconds after detonation. The fireball is about 200 metres (700 ft) wide. Conducted by the United States on July 16, 1945, at a location 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, on what is now White Sands Missile Range, Trinity was the first test of technology for a nuclear weapon.
- Image 15Photograph: Andrew ShivaAn aerial view of Masada, an ancient fortification in the Southern District of Israel. Found atop an isolated rock plateau, it overlooks the Dead Sea. The first fortifications on the mountain were built by Alexander Jannaeus, and significantly strengthened by the Roman client king Herod between 37 and 31 BCE. During the First Jewish–Roman War of 66–73 CE, the fortress was besieged, falling only after the 960 Sicarii defending it committed mass suicide.
Masada is among the more popular tourist attractions in Israel, and in 2001 it was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site. - Image 16Photo: William Henry Jackson; Restoration: Lise BroerA man climbs a statue of a Buddhist idol at Borobudur, a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist monument near Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia, in this 1895 hand-tinted lantern slide. The monument comprises six square platforms topped by three circular platforms, and is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. The monument is both a shrine to the Lord Buddha and a place for Buddhist pilgrimage. Evidence suggests Borobudur was abandoned following the 14th-century decline of Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms in Java, and the Javanese conversion to Islam. The monument is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is the most popular tourist attraction in the country.
- Image 17Photo credit: Eva BraunThe two European Axis leaders during World War II, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, riding in an automobile, circa June 1940. This photo was found in Eva Braun's personal photo albums and is credited to her, though whether she was the true photographer is unknown.
- Image 18Photo credit: J.F. Fitzpatrick, Jr., SPC5, U.S. Army Signal CorpsThis twelve-year old ARVN Airborne trooper poses with an M79 grenade launcher during a sweep through the devastated Plantation Road area after a day-long battle near Tan Son Nhut during the Vietnam War. The young soldier had been "adopted" by the US Army Airborne Division.
Did you know (auto generated)
- ... that the Chinese government began compiling an official history of the Qing dynasty in 2002, but as of 2023 a protracted political review is forestalling its publication?
- ... that the 1892 Biddle vs. Livingstone football game was the first college football game ever played between historically black schools?
- ... that Eli N. Evans authored three books about the culture and history of Jews in the American South?
- ... that in the history of opera in Ukraine, Mykola Lysenko's historical Taras Bulba was the first grand opera, but not performed during his lifetime because he refused a performance in Russian?
- ... that the bankruptcy of Penn Central in 1970 was the largest in American history at the time?
- ... that an Armenian Apostolic Church lawsuit over the Zeytun Gospels led Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh to write a history of its separated canon tables?
Featured biography – show another
Tsar Simeon (also Symeon) I the Great (Church Slavonic: цѣсар҄ь Сѷмеѡ́нъ А҃ Вели́къ, romanized: cěsarĭ Sỳmeonŭ prĭvŭ Velikŭ Bulgarian: цар Симеон I Велики, romanized: Simeon I Veliki [simɛˈɔn ˈpɤrvi vɛˈliki] Greek: Συμεών Αʹ ὁ Μέγας, romanized: Sumeṓn prôtos ho Mégas) ruled over Bulgaria from 893 to 927, during the First Bulgarian Empire. Simeon's successful campaigns against the Byzantines, Magyars and Serbs led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion ever, making it the most powerful state in contemporary Eastern and Southeast Europe. His reign was also a period of unmatched cultural prosperity and enlightenment later deemed the Golden Age of Bulgarian culture.
During Simeon's rule, Bulgaria spread over a territory between the Aegean, the Adriatic and the Black Sea. The newly independent Bulgarian Orthodox Church became the first new patriarchate besides the Pentarchy, and Bulgarian Glagolitic and Cyrillic translations of Christian texts spread all over the Slavic world of the time. It was at the Preslav Literary School in the 890s that the Cyrillic alphabet was developed. Halfway through his reign, Simeon assumed the title of Emperor (Tsar), having prior to that been styled Prince (Knyaz). (Full article...)On this day
May 9: Europe Day in the European Union; Liberation Day in the Channel Islands (1945)
- 1877 – An earthquake struck northern Chile, leading to the deaths of 2,385 people, mostly victims of the ensuing tsunami, as far away as Hawaii and Fiji.
- 1944 – World War II: The Japanese Take Ichi convoy arrived at Halmahera in the Dutch East Indies after losing many ships and thousands of troops to Allied attacks while attempting to carry two divisions of troops from China to New Guinea.
- 1977 – The Hotel Polen in Amsterdam was destroyed by fire (pictured), leaving 33 people dead.
- 1980 – Part of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Florida collapsed after a pier was struck by the MV Summit Venture, killing 35 people.
- 2001 – Police at the Ohene Djan Stadium in Accra, Ghana, fired tear gas to quell unrest at a football match, leading to a stampede that killed 126 people.
- Al-Adid (b. 1151)
- John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair (d. 1747)
- Yukiya Amano (b. 1947)
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If you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the ocean.
— Henry Clay, American statesman
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- ... that after HMS Porcupine was nearly split in two by a torpedo, the halves were nicknamed HMS Pork and HMS Pine?
- ... that the Experiment was a boat powered by horses running on a treadmill and propelled by a then-novel type of screw propeller?
- ... that one of the highest-ranking generals in China was injured in battle nine times?
- ... that in Mesopotamian mythology, the Apkallu were sent by the god Enki, from Dilmun to teach human beings various aspects of civilization?
- ... that Karl Marx's theory of historical trajectory attempted to prove the long-term unsustainability of capitalism?
- ... that in November 1921, the schooner Cymric collided with a tram in Dublin?
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