Portal:History

History by Frederick Dielman

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 and how 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.

Historical research relies on primary and secondary sources to reconstruct past events and validate interpretations. Source criticism is used to evaluate these sources, assessing their authenticity, content, and reliability. Historians strive to integrate the perspectives of several sources to develop a coherent narrative. Different schools of thought, such as positivism, the Annales school, Marxism, and postmodernism, have distinct methodological approaches.

History is a broad discipline encompassing many branches. Some focus on specific time periods, such as ancient history, while others concentrate on particular geographic regions, such as the history of Africa. Thematic categorizations include political history, military history, social history, and economic history. Branches associated with specific research methods and sources include quantitative history, comparative history, and oral history.

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...)

Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

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The Parliament of 1327, which sat at the Palace of Westminster between 7 January and 9 March 1327, was instrumental in the transfer of the English Crown from King Edward II to his son, Edward III. Edward II had become increasingly unpopular with the English nobility due to the excessive influence of unpopular court favourites, the patronage he accorded them, and his perceived ill-treatment of the nobility. By 1325, even his wife, Queen Isabella, despised him. Towards the end of the year, she took the young Edward to her native France, where she entered into an alliance with the powerful and wealthy nobleman Roger Mortimer, who her husband previously had exiled. The following year, they invaded England to depose Edward II. Almost immediately, the King's resistance was beset by betrayal, and he eventually abandoned London and fled west, probably to raise an army in Wales or Ireland. He was soon captured and imprisoned.

Isabella and Mortimer summoned a parliament to confer legitimacy on their regime. The meeting began gathering at Westminster on 7 January, but little could be done in the absence of the King. The fourteen-year-old Edward was proclaimed "Keeper of the Realm" (but not yet king), and a parliamentary deputation was sent to Edward II asking him to allow himself to be brought to parliament. He refused, and the parliament continued without him. The King was accused of offences ranging from the promotion of favourites to the destruction of the church, resulting in a betrayal of his coronation oath to the people. These were known as the "Articles of Accusation". The City of London was particularly aggressive in its attacks on Edward II, and its citizens may have helped intimidate those attending the parliament into agreeing to the King's deposition, which occurred on the afternoon of 13 January. (Full article...)
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King Alexander c. 1917

Alexander (Greek: Αλέξανδρος, romanized: Aléxandros; 1 August 1893 – 25 October 1920) was King of Greece from 11 June 1917 until his death on 25 October 1920.

The second son of King Constantine I, Alexander was born in the summer palace of Tatoi on the outskirts of Athens. He succeeded his father in 1917, during World War I, after the Entente Powers and the followers of Eleftherios Venizelos pushed King Constantine and his eldest son, Crown Prince George, into exile. Having no real political experience, the new king was stripped of his powers by the Venizelists and effectively imprisoned in his own palace. Venizelos, as prime minister, was the effective ruler with the support of the Entente. Though reduced to the status of a puppet king, Alexander supported Greek troops during their war against the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. Under his reign, the territorial extent of Greece considerably increased, following the victory of the Entente and their Allies in the First World War and the early stages of the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922. (Full article...)
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Marshal Mortier at the battle of Durenstein in 1805, by Auguste Sandoz

The Battle of Dürenstein (German: Schlacht bei Dürnstein; also known as Dürrenstein, Dürnstein and Diernstein) or the Battle of Krems (Russian: Сражение при Кремсе), on 11 November 1805, was an engagement in the Napoleonic Wars during the War of the Third Coalition. Dürenstein (modern Dürnstein), Austria, is located in the Wachau valley, on the river Danube, 73 kilometers (45 mi) upstream from Vienna, Austria. The river makes a crescent-shaped curve between Dürnstein and nearby Krems an der Donau, and the battle was fought in the flood plain between the river and the mountains.

At Dürenstein, a combined force of Russian and Austrian troops trapped a French division commanded by Théodore Maxime Gazan. The French division was part of the newly created VIII Corps, the so-called Corps Mortier, under command of Édouard Mortier. In pursuing the Austrian retreat from Bavaria, Mortier had over-extended his three divisions along the north bank of the Danube. Mikhail Kutuzov, commander of the Coalition force, enticed Mortier to send Gazan's division into a trap and French troops were caught in a valley between two Russian columns. They were rescued by the timely arrival of a second division, under command of Pierre Dupont de l'Étang. The battle extended well into the night, after which both sides claimed victory. The French lost more than a third of their participants, and Gazan's division experienced over 40 percent losses. The Austrians and Russians also had heavy losses—close to 16 percent—but perhaps the most significant was the death in action of Johann Heinrich von Schmitt, one of Austria's most capable chiefs of staff. (Full article...)
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Anderson c. 1864

William T. Anderson (c. 1840 – October 26, 1864), known by the nickname "Bloody Bill" Anderson, was a soldier who was one of the deadliest and most notorious Confederate guerrilla leaders in the American Civil War. Anderson led a band of volunteer partisan raiders who targeted Union loyalists and federal soldiers in the states of Missouri and Kansas.

Raised by a family of Southerners in Kansas, Anderson began to support himself by stealing and selling horses in 1862. After a former friend and secessionist turned Union loyalist judge killed his father, Anderson killed the judge and fled to Missouri. There he robbed travelers and killed several Union soldiers. In early 1863 he joined Quantrill's Raiders, a group of Confederate guerrillas which operated along the Kansas–Missouri border. He became a skilled bushwhacker, earning the trust of the group's leaders, William Quantrill and George M. Todd. Anderson's bushwhacking marked him as a dangerous man and eventually led the Union to imprison his sisters. After a building collapse in the makeshift jail in Kansas City, Missouri killed one sister and left another permanently maimed, Anderson devoted himself to revenge. He took a leading role in the Lawrence Massacre and later took part in the Battle of Baxter Springs, both in 1863. (Full article...)
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Operation PBHistory was a covert operation carried out in Guatemala by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It followed Operation PBSuccess, which led to the overthrow of Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in June 1954 and ended the Guatemalan Revolution. PBHistory attempted to use documents left behind by Árbenz's government and by organizations related to the communist Guatemalan Party of Labor to demonstrate that the Guatemalan government had been under the influence of the Soviet Union, and to use those documents to obtain further intelligence that would be useful to US intelligence agencies. It was an effort to justify the overthrow of the elected Guatemalan government in response to the negative international reactions to PBSuccess. The CIA also hoped to improve its intelligence resources about communist parties in Latin America, a subject on which it had little information.

The first phase of the operation began soon after Árbenz's resignation on June 27, 1954: several agents were dispatched to Guatemala beginning on July 4. These included agents of the CIA and the Office of Intelligence Research (OIR). The first phase involved the collection of 150,000 documents from sources including Árbenz's personal possessions, trade union offices, and police agencies. The ruling military junta led by Carlos Castillo Armas aided these efforts. Following a presentation made to US President Dwight Eisenhower on July 20, a decision was taken to accelerate the operation, and the number of people working in Guatemala was increased. The new team members posed as unaffiliated with the US government to maintain plausible deniability. The operation helped set up the Guatemalan National Committee of Defense Against Communism, which was covertly funded by the CIA: agents of the committee became involved in PBHistory. The team studied over 500,000 documents in total, and finished processing documents on September 28, 1954. (Full article...)
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Armorial of Plantagenet

The House of Plantagenet (/plænˈtædʒənət/ plan-TAJ-ə-nət) was a royal house which originated from the French county of Anjou. The name Plantagenet is used by modern historians to identify four distinct royal houses: the Angevins, who were also counts of Anjou; the main line of the Plantagenets following the loss of Anjou; and the Houses of Lancaster and York, two of the Plantagenets’ cadet branches. The family held the English throne from 1154, with the accession of Henry II, until 1485, when Richard III died in battle.

England was transformed under the Plantagenets, although only partly intentionally. The Plantagenet kings were often forced to negotiate compromises such as Magna Carta, which constrained royal power in return for financial and military support. The king was no longer just the most powerful man in the nation, holding the prerogative of judgement, feudal tribute and warfare, but had defined duties to the realm, underpinned by a sophisticated justice system. By the end of the reign of Edward III, the Plantagenets developed a new identity including adopting the language of the ordinary people—Middle English— as the language of governance. This is one of the reasons that the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography considers Edward III as culturally the first English Plantagenet ruler. (Full article...)
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Charles Scott (April 1739 – October 22, 1813) was an American military officer and politician who served as the governor of Kentucky from 1808 to 1812. Orphaned in his teens, Scott enlisted in the Virginia Regiment in October 1755 and served as a scout and escort during the French and Indian War. He quickly rose through the ranks to become a captain. After the war, he married and engaged in agricultural pursuits on land left to him by his father, but he returned to active military service in 1775 as the American Revolution began to grow in intensity. In August 1776, he was promoted to colonel and given command of the 5th Virginia Regiment. The 5th Virginia joined George Washington in New Jersey later that year, serving with him for the duration of the Philadelphia campaign. Scott commanded Washington's light infantry, and by late 1778 was also serving as his chief of intelligence. Furloughed at the end of the Philadelphia campaign, Scott returned to active service in March 1779 and was ordered to South Carolina to assist General Benjamin Lincoln in the southern theater. He arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, just as Henry Clinton had begun his siege of the city. Scott was taken as a prisoner of war when Charleston surrendered. Paroled in March 1781 and exchanged for Lord Rawdon in July 1782, Scott managed to complete a few recruiting assignments before the war ended.

After the war, Scott visited the western frontier in 1785 and began to make preparations for a permanent relocation. He resettled near present-day Versailles, Kentucky, in 1787. Confronted by the dangers of Indian raids, Scott raised a company of volunteers in 1790 and joined Josiah Harmar for an expedition against the Indians. After Harmar's Defeat, President Washington ordered Arthur St. Clair to prepare for an invasion of Indian lands in the Northwest Territory. In the meantime, Scott, by now holding the rank of brigadier general in the Virginia militia, was ordered to conduct a series of preliminary raids. In July 1791, he led the most notable and successful of these raids against the village of Ouiatenon. St. Clair's main invasion, conducted later that year, was a failure. Shortly after the separation of Kentucky from Virginia in 1792, the Kentucky General Assembly commissioned Scott as a major general and gave him command of the 2nd Division of the Kentucky militia. Scott's division cooperated with "Mad" Anthony Wayne's Legion of the United States for the rest of the Northwest Indian War, including their decisive victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. (Full article...)
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Powick Bridge pictured in 2006

The battle of Powick Bridge was a skirmish fought on 23 September 1642 south of Worcester, England, during the First English Civil War. It was the first engagement between elements of the principal field armies of the Royalists and Parliamentarians. Sir John Byron was escorting a Royalist convoy of valuables from Oxford to King Charles's army in Shrewsbury and, worried about the proximity of the Parliamentarians, took refuge in Worcester on 16 September to await reinforcements. The Royalists despatched a force commanded by Prince Rupert. Meanwhile, the Parliamentarians sent a detachment, under Colonel John Brown, to try to capture the convoy. Each force consisted of around 1,000 mounted troops, a mix of cavalry and dragoons.

The Parliamentarians approached the city from the south on the afternoon of 23 September. Their route took them up narrow lanes and straight into Rupert's force, which was resting in a field. The noise of the approaching Parliamentarian cavalry alerted the Royalists, who quickly formed up. The Royalist dragoons gave their cavalry time to prepare, firing at point-blank range as the Parliamentarians emerged into the field. Rupert's cavalry then charged and broke most of the Parliamentarian cavalry, although one troop stood its ground and returned fire. Ultimately, all the Parliamentarians were routed. (Full article...)
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Kronprinz Wilhelm in Scapa Flow, 1919

The König class was a group of four dreadnought battleships built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the early 1910s. The class comprised König, the lead ship, Grosser Kurfürst, Markgraf, and Kronprinz. The design for the ships was derived from the preceding Kaiser class, using the same basic hull but with the main battery of ten 30.5 cm (12 in) guns in five twin-gun turrets rearranged to improve the guns' firing arcs. Instead of the staggered wing turrets used in the Kaisers, the Königs placed their main guns all on the centerline using superfiring pairs fore and aft. Budgetary constraints and the need to begin construction quickly to compete with Britain in the Anglo-German naval arms race prevented any more radical changes. Diesel engines were planned for the ships, but they could not be readied in time, so all four vessels reverted to steam turbines for their propulsion system.

As tensions in Europe spiraled out of control during the July Crisis in 1914, work on the ships was accelerated; all four ships were completed in the early months of World War I and they were rushed into service to join III Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet. They took part in a number of operations in the North Sea as support for the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group, including the Raid on Yarmouth and the Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby in late 1914. The year 1915 passed uneventfully, as a series of sweeps into the North Sea failed to bring contact with elements of the British Royal Navy. All four ships were present at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, where they formed the front of the German line of battle. As a result, they received numerous hits, with Kronprinz the only member of the class to avoid being damaged in the action. (Full article...)
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Connecticut underway sometime before World War I

USS Connecticut (BB-18), the fourth United States Navy ship to be named after the state of Connecticut, was the lead ship of her class of six pre-dreadnought battleships. Her keel was laid on 10 March 1903; launched on 29 September 1904, Connecticut was commissioned on 29 September 1906, as the most advanced ship in the US Navy.

Connecticut served as the flagship for the Jamestown Exposition in mid-1907, which commemorated the 300th anniversary of the founding of the Jamestown colony. She later sailed with the Great White Fleet on a circumnavigation of the Earth to showcase the US Navy's growing fleet of blue-water-capable ships. After completing her service with the Great White Fleet, Connecticut participated in several flag-waving exercises intended to protect American citizens abroad until she was pressed into service as a troop transport at the end of World War I to expedite the return of American Expeditionary Forces from France. (Full article...)
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Hindman in uniform, c. 1862

Thomas Carmichael Hindman Jr. (January 28, 1828 – September 28, 1868) was an American lawyer, politician, and a senior officer of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, he later moved to Mississippi and became involved in politics. He served in the Mexican–American War from 1846 to 1848. Hindman practiced law and in 1853 was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives. After his term expired in 1854, he moved to Helena, Arkansas where there were more opportunities for his political ambitions. Hindman opposed the Know-Nothing party and Arkansas's ruling Conway-Johnson dynasty. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1858, and supported slavery (and was a slaveholder himself) and secession. He was assassinated during the Reconstruction era.

Once the American Civil War began in 1861 and Arkansas seceded, Hindman joined the Confederate States Army, first commanding the 2nd Arkansas Infantry Regiment, then a brigade, and then an ad-hoc division at the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862; he was wounded during the battle. Following Shiloh, Hindman was promoted to major general and sent to the Trans-Mississippi Department to command Arkansas, Missouri, the Indian Territory, and part of Louisiana. As commander of the region, his policies were sometimes legally questionable and were unpopular, although they were successful in building up the district from a basically indefensible state. Public outcry led to Hindman's removal from his regional command. He was defeated at the Battle of Prairie Grove in December. Transferred to the Army of Tennessee in 1863, he led a division at the Battle of Chickamauga in September, where he was again wounded. After recovering, he commanded a division during the early stages of the Atlanta campaign although he wished to be transferred elsewhere. (Full article...)
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Round Tower and Upper Ward viewed from the Long Walk in Windsor Great Park

Windsor Castle is a royal residence at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, about 25 miles (40 km) west of central London. It is strongly associated with the English and succeeding British royal family, and embodies almost a millennium of architectural history.

The original castle was built in the 11th century, after the Norman invasion of England by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I (who reigned 1100–1135), it has been used by the reigning monarch and is the longest-occupied palace in Europe. The castle's lavish early 19th-century state apartments were described by the art historian Hugh Roberts as "a superb and unrivalled sequence of rooms widely regarded as the finest and most complete expression of later Georgian taste". Inside the castle walls is the 15th-century St George's Chapel, considered by the historian John Martin Robinson to be "one of the supreme achievements of English Perpendicular Gothic" design. (Full article...)
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Hindenburg at anchor at Scapa Flow

SMS Hindenburg was a battlecruiser of the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy), the third ship of the Derfflinger class, built to a slightly modified design. She carried the same battery of eight 30.5 cm (12 in) guns, but in improved turrets that allowed them to fire further. The ship was also slightly larger and faster than her two sister ships. She was named in honor of Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, the victor of the Battle of Tannenberg and the Battle of the Masurian Lakes, as well as Supreme Commander of the German armies from 1916. The ship was the last capital ship of any type built for the German navy during World War I.
Hindenburg was commissioned late in the war and as a result had a brief service career. The ship took part in a handful of short fleet operations as the flagship of I Scouting Group in 1917–18, though saw no major action. The proposed final sortie of the fleet in the last weeks of the war came to nothing when the crews of the capital ships mutinied. Hindenburg was subsequently interned with the rest of the German battlecruisers at Scapa Flow in November 1918. Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter ordered the ships be scuttled on 21 June 1919. Hindenburg was the last of the ships to sink. She was raised in 1930 and broken up for scrap over the following two years. (Full article...)
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Divisional vehicle symbol

The 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian) was a mountain infantry division of the Waffen-SS, an armed branch of the German Nazi Party that served alongside but was never formally part of the Wehrmacht during World War II. At the post-war Nuremberg trials, the Waffen-SS was declared to be a criminal organisation due to its major involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity. From March to December 1944, the division fought a counter-insurgency campaign against communist-led Yugoslav Partisan resistance forces in the Independent State of Croatia, a fascist puppet state of Germany that encompassed almost all of modern-day Croatia, all of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina, and parts of Serbia.

The division was named Handschar (Serbo-Croatian: handžar), after a local fighting knife or scimitar carried by Ottoman policemen during the centuries that the region was part of the Ottoman Empire. It was the first non-Germanic Waffen-SS division, and its formation marked the expansion of the Waffen-SS into a multi-ethnic military force. Composed mainly of Bosnian Muslims with some Catholic Croats, and mostly German and Yugoslav Volksdeutsche officers and non-commissioned officers, the members of the division took an oath of allegiance to the German Führer Adolf Hitler and the Croatian Poglavnik Ante Pavelić. (Full article...)
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Lake Providence, Louisiana

The Battle of Lake Providence was fought on June 9, 1863, during the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War. Confederate troops from the Trans-Mississippi Department were trying to relieve Union pressure during the Siege of Vicksburg. Major General Richard Taylor, primarily using Walker's Greyhounds, prepared a three-pronged attack against Union positions at Milliken's Bend, Young's Point, and Lake Providence, which was scheduled to take place on June 7. The strike against Lake Providence was conducted by 900 men led by Colonel Frank Bartlett.

Bartlett's force crossed Bayou Macon two days late. The Confederates encountered a Union picket force six miles (10 km) from their destination. The Union pickets withdrew, alerted Union commander Brigadier General Hugh T. Reid, and while withdrawing burned the bridge over Bayou Tensas. The Confederates were halted at Bayou Tensas by the wrecked bridge, and before the structure could be rebuilt, Reid arrived with his main force. A Confederate cannon was driven off by Union fire, and Bartlett withdrew his men at dusk. The attack against Lake Providence accomplished little, the strike against Milliken's Bend was defeated in the Battle of Milliken's Bend, and little came of the movement against Young's Point. Vicksburg surrendered on July 4. (Full article...)

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Sheep husbandry
Poster credit: Breuker & Kessler, Co.
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".
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Shiva
Photo: Los Angeles County Museum of Art
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.
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Selimiye Barracks
Lithography: Day & Son; Restoration: Jake Wartenberg
An 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.
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The "Theatre" at Petra
Photo: Douglas Perkins
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.
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Operation Ivy
Photo: United States Department of Energy
The mushroom cloud from the Ivy Mike nuclear test, one of two tests conducted as part of Operation Ivy at the Pacific Proving Grounds on Elugelab in the Marshall Islands. Mike was the first successful full-scale test of a multi-megaton thermonuclear weapon, and it left an underwater crater 6,240 ft (1,900 m) wide and 164 ft (50 m) deep where the island had been.
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Machu Picchu
Photo: Martin St-Amant
Machu Picchu, a 15th-century Peruvian Inca site located 2,430 metres (7,970 ft) above sea level, as viewed from Huayna Picchu. Established c. 1450, the settlement was abandoned at the time of the Spanish Conquest the following century. Although it remained known locally, it was not brought to international attention until after Hiram Bingham visited the site in 1911. Machu Picchu is now a popular tourist destination and UNESCO World Heritage Site, and restoration efforts are ongoing.
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Wilhelmina of the Netherlands
Engraver: George J. Verbeck, after Thérèse van Duyl Schwarze
Restoration: Lise Broer
A 1901 etching of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, based on an 1898 painting of her in her coronation robe. Having assumed the throne at the age of ten after the death of her father, King William III, Wilhemina ruled for fifty-eight years (1890–1948), longer than any other Dutch monarch. In 1948 she abdicated in favor of her daughter Juliana, thereafter making few public appearances until the country was devastated by the North Sea flood of 1953.
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US Brig Niagara
Photo credit: Unknown
The 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.
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Ziegler Polar Expedition
Photo credit: Anthony Fiala
A panorama from the Ziegler Polar Expedition of 1903–05, an unsuccessful attempt to reach the North Pole. The party remained stranded north of the Arctic Circle for two years before being rescued, yet all but one of its members survived.
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Invasion of Normandy
Photo credit: United States Coast Guard
Landing ships putting ashore on Omaha Beach at low tide during the first days of the Invasion of Normandy, mid-June, 1944. Barrage balloons fly overhead and U.S. Army "half-tracks" form a convoy on the beach. The Normandy landing was the largest seaborne invasion in history, with almost three million troops crossing the English Channel.
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The Coronation of Napoleon
Painting by Jacques-Louis David and Georges Rouget
The Coronation of Napoleon, a painting by Jacques-Louis David depicting Napoleon Bonaparte's self-coronation as Emperor of France on December 2, 1804. The act took place in Notre-Dame de Paris, during which Napoleon, eschewing tradition, took the crown and placed it on his own head. The nearly 10 by 6 m (32.8 by 19.7 ft) work was commissioned before the coronation and completed in 1807.
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Constantinople
Map credit: Konstantinos Plakidas
A 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.
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Battle of Jerusalem (1917)
Photo: American Colony; Restoration: Sebastian Kolendo
The 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.
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Borobudur
Photo: William Henry Jackson; Restoration: Lise Broer
A 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.
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Nefertiti Bust
Photo: Philip Pikart
The Nefertiti Bust is a 3300-year-old painted limestone bust of Nefertiti, the Great Royal Wife of the Pharaoh Akhenaten and one of the most copied works of Ancient Egypt. It is believed to have been crafted in 1345 BC by the sculptor Thutmose, in whose workshop it was discovered in 1912 by a German archaeological team led by Ludwig Borchardt. It is part of the Egyptian Museum of Berlin collection, currently on display in the Neues Museum and has been the subject of an intense argument between Egypt and Germany over the Egyptian demands for its repatriation.
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Apollo 11
Photograph credit: Neil Armstrong
Apollo 11 was the fifth crewed mission of NASA's Apollo program. After launching from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 16, 1969, commander Neil Armstrong and Apollo Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed Eagle in Mare Tranquillitatis on July 20, at 20:17:40 UTC, while command module pilot Michael Collins remained on Columbia in lunar orbit. Armstrong was the first to exit the spacecraft, stepping onto the surface 6 hours and 39 minutes later, on July 21, at 02:56:15 UTC; nineteen minutes later, Aldrin joined him on extravehicular activity, which lasted 2 hours, 31 minutes and 40 seconds. Armstrong and Aldrin lifted off from Tranquility Base after almost 22 hours on the lunar surface and rejoined Collins in the command module, before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24.

The mission was planned to the minute, with the majority of the photographic tasks performed by Armstrong with a single Hasselblad camera. Most of the photographs taken on the Moon that include an astronaut are of Aldrin; there are only five images of Armstrong partly shown or reflected, as in this photograph, with Armstrong and the lunar module reflected in Aldrin's helmet visor. "As the sequence of lunar operations evolved," Aldrin explained, "Neil had the camera most of the time [...] It wasn't until we were back on Earth and in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory looking over the pictures that we realized there were few pictures of Neil."
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First permanent photograph
Photo credit: Nicéphore Niépce
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.
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Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Photo credit: USHMM
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.

... that a poem by Moses da Rieti includes an encyclopedia of the sciences, a Jewish paradise fantasy, and a post-biblical history of Jewish literature?
... that one historian considered the anachronisms of the historical novel The Rival Chiefs to be unproblematic because readers wanted "not accuracy but thrill"?
... that the historic water stream Seil Amman was roofed to make way for a road in the 1960s?
... that Lucien Laurent scored the first goal in FIFA World Cup history during the inaugural game of Group 1 of the 1930 World Cup?
... that no one laughed at the worst joke in legal history?
... that Fairleigh Dickinson's upset victory over Purdue was the biggest upset in terms of point spread in NCAA tournament history, with Purdue being a 23+1⁄2-point favorite?

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King Władysław II Jagiełło, detail of the Triptych of Our Lady of Sorrows in the Wawel Cathedral, Kraków

Jogaila (Lithuanian: [jɔˈɡâːɪɫɐ] ^ⓘ; c. 1352/1362 – 1 June 1434), later Władysław II Jagiełło (Polish: [vwaˈdɨswaf jaˈɡʲɛwwɔ] ^ⓘ), was Grand Duke of Lithuania beginning in 1377 and starting in 1386, becoming King of Poland as well. As Grand Duke, he ruled Lithuania from 1377 to 1381 and from 1382 to 1401, at which time he became the Supreme Duke of Lithuania in exchange for naming his cousin Vytautas as the new Grand Duke. Władysław II initially served as King of Poland alongside his wife Jadwiga until her death in 1399, and then the sole ruler until his own death in 1434.

Raised a Lithuanian polytheist, he converted to Catholicism in 1386 and baptized as Ladislaus (Polish: Władysław) in Kraków, married the young Queen Jadwiga, and was crowned King of Poland as Władysław II Jagiełło. In 1387, he converted Lithuania to Catholicism. His reign in Poland started in 1399, upon the death of Queen Jadwiga, lasted a further thirty-five years, and laid the foundation for the centuries-long Polish–Lithuanian union. He was a member of the Jagiellonian dynasty in Poland that bears his name and was previously also known as the Gediminid dynasty in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The dynasty ruled both states until 1572, and became one of the most influential dynasties in late medieval and early modern Europe. (Full article...)

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June 22: Windrush Day (United Kingdom)

George V and Mary after their coronation

1593 – Habsburg troops defeated a larger Ottoman force at the Battle of Sisak in the Kingdom of Croatia, triggering the Long Turkish War.
1911 – King George V and Queen Mary (both pictured) were crowned at Westminster Abbey in London.
1941 – World War II: As Axis troops began their invasion of the Soviet Union, the Lithuanian Activist Front started an uprising to liberate Lithuania from Soviet occupation.
1979 – Former British Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe was acquitted of conspiracy to murder Norman Scott, who had accused Thorpe of having a relationship with him.
2002 – A magnitude-6.5 earthquake struck northwestern Iran, killing at least 230 people and injuring 1,300 others; the official response, perceived to be slow, later caused widespread public anger.

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Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
— Sun Tzu, Ancient Chinese military strategist

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... that some of the nominally silver Roman coins from the Bredon Hill Hoard only have a 1% silver content?

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