Portal:History

The History Portal

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History (derived from Ancient Greek ἱστορία (historía) 'inquiry; knowledge acquired by investigation') is the systematic study and documentation of the human past. 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.

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 or traditional oral histories, art and material artifacts, and ecological markers.

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 BCE 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 BCE, though only 2nd-century BCE texts have survived. The title "father of history" has also been attributed, in their respective societies, to Sima Qian, Ibn Khaldun, and Kenneth Dike. (Full article...)

Featured articles –

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

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  The Boys from Baghdad High, also known as Baghdad High, is a British-American-French television documentary film. It was first shown in the United Kingdom at the 2007 Sheffield Doc/Fest, before airing on BBC Two on 8 January 2008. It also aired in many other countries including France, Australia, the United States, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands. It documents the lives of four Iraqi schoolboys of different religious or ethnic backgrounds over the course of one year in the form of a video diary. The documentary was filmed by the boys themselves, who were given video cameras for the project.
  
  Directed and produced by Ivan O'Mahoney and Laura Winter of Renegade Pictures and StoryLabTV, for the United Kingdom's BBC, HBO in the United States, and the Franco-German network Arte, The Boys from Baghdad High was produced by Alan Hayling and Karen O'Connor for the BBC, Hans Robert Eisenhauer for Arte, and Sheila Nevins for HBO. (Full article...)
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  An illustration of the engagement between Experiment and several Haitian barges.
  William Bainbridge Hoff, 1875

  
  The action of 1 January 1800 was a naval battle of the Quasi-War that took place off the coast of present-day Haiti, near the island of Gonâve in the Bight of Léogâne. The battle was fought between an American convoy of four merchant vessels escorted by the United States naval schooner USS Experiment, and a squadron of fourteen armed barges manned by Haitian sailors.
  
  A French-aligned Haitian general, André Rigaud, had instructed his forces to attack all foreign shipping within their range of operations. Accordingly, once Experiment and her convoy of merchant ships neared Gonâve, the barges attacked them, capturing two of the American merchant ships before withdrawing. Experiment managed to save the other two ships in her convoy, and escorted them to a friendly port. On the American side, only the captain of the schooner Mary was killed. Though the Haitians took heavy losses during this engagement, they remained strong enough to continue wreaking havoc among American shipping in the region. Only after Rigaud was forced out of power by the forces of Toussaint L'Ouverture, leader of the Haitian Revolution, did Haitian attacks on foreign merchantmen cease. (Full article...)
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  USS Chesapeake, painting by F. Muller (early 1900s)

  
  Chesapeake was a 38-gun wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy. She was one of the original six frigates whose construction was authorized by the Naval Act of 1794. Joshua Humphreys designed these frigates to be the young navy's capital ships. Chesapeake was originally designed as a 44-gun frigate, but construction delays, material shortages and budget problems caused builder Josiah Fox to alter his design to 38 guns. Launched at the Gosport Navy Yard on 2 December 1799, Chesapeake began her career during the Quasi-War with France and later saw service in the First Barbary War.
  
  On 22 June 1807 she was fired upon by HMS Leopard of the Royal Navy for refusing to allow a search for deserters. The event, now known as the Chesapeake–Leopard affair, angered the American public and government and was a precipitating factor that led to the War of 1812. As a result of the affair, Chesapeake's commanding officer, James Barron, was court-martialed and the United States instituted the Embargo Act of 1807 against the United Kingdom. (Full article...)
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  SS Minnesotan

  SS Minnesotan

  
  SS Minnesotan was a cargo ship built in 1912 for the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company. During World War I she was known as USAT Minnesotan in service for the United States Army and USS Minnesotan (ID-4545) in service for the United States Navy. She ended her career as the SS Maria Luisa R. under Italian ownership. She was built by the Maryland Steel Company as one of eight sister ships for American-Hawaiian, and was employed in inter-coastal service via the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the Panama Canal after it opened.
  
  In World War I, USAT Minnesotan carried cargo and animals to France under charter to the U.S. Army from September 1917. When she was transferred to the U.S. Navy in August 1918, USS Minnesotan continued to undertake the same duties; after the Armistice she was converted to a troop transport and returned over 8,000 American troops from France. Returned to American-Hawaiian in 1919, Minnesotan resumed inter-coastal cargo service, and, at least twice, carried racing yachts from the U.S. East Coast to California. (Full article...)
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  William Jennings Bryan being carried on the shoulders of delegates after giving the speech

  
  The Cross of Gold speech was delivered by William Jennings Bryan, a former United States Representative from Nebraska, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on July 9, 1896. In his address, Bryan supported "free silver" (i.e. bimetallism), which he believed would bring the nation prosperity. He decried the gold standard, concluding the speech, "you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold". Bryan's address helped catapult him to the Democratic Party's presidential nomination and is considered one of the greatest political speeches in American history.
  
  For twenty years, Americans had been bitterly divided over the nation's monetary standard. The gold standard, which the United States had effectively been on since 1873, limited the money supply but eased trade with other nations, such as the United Kingdom, whose currency was also based on gold. Many Americans, however, believed that bimetallism (making both gold and silver legal tender) was necessary for the nation's economic health. The financial Panic of 1893 intensified the debates, and when President Grover Cleveland (a Democrat) continued to support the gold standard against the will of much of his party, activists became determined to take over the Democratic Party organization and nominate a silver-supporting candidate in 1896. (Full article...)
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  John Errol Manners DSC (25 September 1914 – 7 March 2020) was an English first-class cricketer and Royal Navy officer. The son of Admiral Sir Errol Manners, his naval career spanned from 1932 to 1958. He served in the Second World War and held several commands, earning the Distinguished Service Cross for his role in the sinking of the German submarine U-1274 in April 1945 while commanding the destroyer HMS Viceroy.
  
  As a first-class cricketer, Manners was a hard-hitting right-handed batsman and a right-arm medium pace bowler. He began his playing career with Hampshire in 1936, but found his availability limited due to his commitments as a naval officer. With his career further interrupted by the war, Manners returned to first-class cricket in 1947 after securing a shore-based position at Sandhurst. He played county cricket for Hampshire in 1947 and 1948, but played most of his first-class cricket after the war for the Combined Services cricket team. He scored over 1,000 runs in his first-class career, which included four centuries. (Full article...)
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  Rogožarski IK-3

  
  The Rogožarski IK-3 was a 1930s Yugoslav monoplane single-seat fighter, designed by Ljubomir Ilić, Kosta Sivčev and Slobodan Zrnić as a successor to the Ikarus IK-2 fighter. Its armament consisted of a hub-firing 20 mm (0.79 in) autocannon and two fuselage-mounted synchronised machine guns. It was considered comparable to foreign aircraft such as the Messerschmitt Bf 109E and came into service in 1940. The prototype crashed during testing; twelve production aircraft had been delivered by July 1940.
  
  Six IK-3s were serviceable when the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia began on 6 April 1941. All six were in service with the 51st Independent Fighter Group at Zemun near Belgrade. Pilots flying the IK-3 claimed 11 Axis aircraft had been shot down during the 11-day war. According to one account, to prevent them from falling into German hands, the surviving aircraft and incomplete airframes were destroyed by their crews and factory staff. Another account suggests that one aircraft survived the invasion and was later destroyed by sabotage. The IK-3 design was the basis for the post-war Yugoslav-built Ikarus S-49 fighter. (Full article...)
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  A late-medieval imaginative interpretation of King Edward II's arrest in November 1326, with Isabella watching from the right

  
  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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  Modern depiction (1876) by Jean Léon Gérôme of a chariot race in Rome's Circus Maximus, as if seen from the starting gate. The Palatine Hill and imperial palace are to the left.

  
  
  Chariot racing (Ancient Greek: ἁρματοδρομία, harmatodromía; Latin: ludi circenses) was one of the most popular ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine sports. In Greece, chariot racing played an essential role in aristocratic funeral games from a very early time. With the institution of formal races and permanent racetracks, chariot racing was adopted by many Greek states and their religious festivals. Horses and chariots were very costly. Their ownership was a preserve of the wealthiest aristocrats, whose reputations and status benefitted from offering such extravagant, exciting displays. Their successes could be further broadcast and celebrated through commissioned odes and other poetry.
  
  In standard Greek racing practise, each chariot held a single driver and was pulled by four horses, or sometimes two. Drivers and horses risked serious injury or death through collisions and crashes; this added to the excitement and interest for spectators. Most charioteers were slaves or contracted professionals. While records almost invariably credit victorious owners and their horses for winning, their drivers are often not mentioned at all. In the ancient Olympic Games, and other Panhellenic Games, chariot racing was one of the most important equestrian events, and could be watched by unmarried women. Married women were banned from watching any Olympic events but a Spartan noblewoman is known to have trained horse-teams for the Olympics and won two races, one of them as driver. (Full article...)
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  The first page of the MAUD Committee report, March 1941

  
  The MAUD Committee was a British scientific working group formed during the Second World War. It was established to perform the research required to determine if an atomic bomb was feasible. The name MAUD came from a strange line in a telegram from Danish physicist Niels Bohr referring to his housekeeper, Maud Ray.
  
  The MAUD Committee was founded in response to the Frisch–Peierls memorandum, which was written in March 1940 by Rudolf Peierls and Otto Frisch, two physicists who were refugees from Nazi Germany working at the University of Birmingham under the direction of Mark Oliphant. The memorandum argued that a small sphere of pure uranium-235 could have the explosive power of thousands of tons of TNT. (Full article...)
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  National color of the 4th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, later carried by the 51st Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment

  
  The 4th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, officially known as the 4th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, was an infantry regiment of the Union Army in the American Civil War. Formed mostly from a militia unit in Norristown in southeastern Pennsylvania, the regiment enlisted at the beginning of the American Civil War in April 1861 for a three-month period of service under the command of Colonel John F. Hartranft. Logistical difficulties bedeviled the regiment, which served as part of the garrison of Washington, D.C., until late June, when it was sent into Northern Virginia to join in the army of Brigadier General Irvin McDowell.
  
  The regiment suffered its only combat casualties in a picket action on June 30 and was sent back to be mustered out on the eve of the First Battle of Bull Run owing to disagreement among the men over remaining with the army after the expiration of their term of service. Its men were denounced as cowards for being members of the only regiment to refuse to fight at the July 21 battle. Hartranft and a company commander remained with the army and later received the Medal of Honor for their actions at Bull Run. Many men of the regiment went on to serve in new Pennsylvania regiments, forming the bulk of the 51st Pennsylvania Infantry, which fought for the rest of the war. (Full article...)
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  Copper fals of the Samanid ruler Mansur I ibn Nuh, citing al-Muti' as overlord, Bukhara, 964/65 CE

  
  Abū ʾl-Qāsim al-Faḍl ibn al-Muqtadir (Arabic: أبو القاسم الفضل بن المقتدر; 913/14 – September/October 974), better known by his regnal name of al-Mutīʿ li-ʾllāh (Arabic: المطيع لله, lit. 'Obedient to God'), was the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad from 946 to 974, ruling under the tutelage of the Buyid emirs.
  
  Al-Muti's reign represented the nadir of the Abbasid caliphate's power and authority. In previous decades, the secular authority of the caliphs had shrunk to Iraq, and even there had been curtailed by powerful warlords; with the Buyid conquest of Baghdad, it was now abolished entirely. Al-Muti' was raised to the throne by the Buyids and was effectively reduced to a rubber-stamp figurehead, albeit with some vestiges of authority over judicial and religious appointments in Iraq. The very fact of his subordination and powerlessness helped restore some stability to the caliphal institution: in stark contrast to his short-lived and violently deposed predecessors, al-Muti' enjoyed a long and relatively unchallenged tenure, and was able to hand over the throne to his son al-Ta'i'. (Full article...)
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  The first illustration of the first roll of the Anthony Roll, depicting the Henry Grace à Dieu, the largest ship in the English navy during the reign of King Henry VIII.

  
  The Anthony Roll is a written record of ships of the English Tudor navy of the 1540s, named after its creator, Anthony Anthony. It originally consisted of three rolls of vellum, depicting 58 naval vessels along with information on their size, crew, armament, and basic equipment. The rolls were presented to King Henry VIII in 1546, and were kept in the royal library. In 1680 King Charles II gave two of the rolls to Samuel Pepys, who had them cut up and bound as a single volume book, which is now in the Pepys Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge. The third roll remained in the royal collection until it was given by King William IV to his daughter Lady Mary Fox, who sold it to the British Museum in 1858; it is now owned by the British Library.
  
  The Anthony Roll is the only known fully illustrated inventory of ships of the English navy in the Tudor period. As the work of a successful state official in 16th century England, the artistic value of the Anthony Roll has been described as being characterised by "naive draughtsmanship and conformity to a pattern" though its artistic aspects display "a decent amateur grasp of form and colour". While the inventories listed in its text have proven to be highly accurate, most of the ship illustrations are rudimentary and made according to a set formula. The level of detail of the ship design, armament and especially rigging has therefore proven to be only approximate. Nevertheless, through their depiction of the ceremonial ornamentation the illustrations in the Roll have provided relevant secondary information to the study of Tudor period heraldry, flags and ship ornamentation. (Full article...)
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  Northern Italy in 1494

  Northern Italy in 1494; by the start of the war in 1508, Louis XII had expelled the Sforza from the Duchy of Milan and added its territory to France.

  
  The War of the League of Cambrai, sometimes known as the War of the Holy League and several other names, was fought from February 1508 to December 1516 as part of the Italian Wars of 1494–1559. The main participants of the war, who fought for its entire duration, were France, the Papal States, and the Republic of Venice; they were joined at various times by nearly every significant power in Western Europe, including Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, England, the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Florence, the Duchy of Ferrara, and the Swiss.
  
  The war started with the Italienzug of Maximilian I, King of the Romans, crossing into Venetian territory in February 1508 with his army on the way to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope in Rome. Meanwhile, Pope Julius II, intending to curb Venetian influence in northern Italy, brought together the League of Cambrai—an anti-Venetian alliance consisting of him, Maximilian I, Louis XII of France, and Ferdinand II of Aragon—which was formally concluded in December 1508. Although the League was initially successful, friction between Julius and Louis caused it to collapse by 1510; Julius then allied himself with Venice against France. (Full article...)
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  Painting of the Battle of Jasmund by Willy Stöwer, depicting the Prussian squadron; Nymphe is at left, astern of Arcona

  
  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...)

Featured picture

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  Ivan the Terrible Showing His Treasury to Jerome Horsey

  Artist: Alexander Litovchenko

  Alexander Litovchenko's 1875 painting depicting Ivan IV of Russia seated in the Kremlin Armoury, his half-witted heir Fyodor standing behind, a group of distrustful boyars whispering at a distance, and the Tsar's jester in a skomorokh cap addressing the English diplomat Jerome Horsey. Horsey was a resident of the Russia Company in Moscow from 1572 to 1585.
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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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  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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  Map of the Battle of the Somme

  Map: Grandiose

  The 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.
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  Arg-e Bam

  Photograph credit: Diego Delso

  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.
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  Check used for the Alaska Purchase

  Check: William H. Seward; scan: Our Documents initiative

  The check used for the Alaska Purchase, issued on August 1, 1868, and signed by US Secretary of State William H. Seward. For a total of $7.2 million, the United States government purchased Russian America from the Russian Empire (represented here by Russian Minister to the United States Eduard de Stoeckl). The lands involved became the modern state of Alaska in 1959.
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  1895 train wreck, Gare Montparnasse

  Photo credit: Studio Lévy and Sons

  On October 22, 1895, the Granville–Paris Express train overran the buffer stop at Gare Montparnasse station. The engine careened across almost 30 metres (100 feet) of the station concourse, crashed through a 60 centimetre thick wall, shot across a terrace and sailed out of the station, plummeting onto the Place de Rennes 10 metres (30 feet) below where it stood on its nose. While all of the passengers on board the train survived, one woman on the street below was killed by falling masonry.
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  Photograph of glassworkers by Lewis Hine

  Photograph: Lewis Hine; restoration: Lise Broer

  A 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.
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  Army of the Republic of Vietnam

  Photo credit: J.F. Fitzpatrick, Jr., SPC5, U.S. Army Signal Corps

  This 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.
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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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  Jean-Paul Marat

  Credit: anonymous

  A 1793 etching with watercolor of Jean-Paul Marat, a radical journalist and politician from the French Revolution, carried on shoulders with a crown of laurel leaves, celebrating his acquittal by the Revolutionary Tribunal. From January to May 1793, Marat fought bitterly with the Girondins, whom he believed to be covert enemies of republicanism. The National Convention ordered the trial, but his acquittal only served to increase his public profile and popular support.
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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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  Samurai

  Photograph: Felice Beato

  A samurai with his sword and armor, photographed by Felice Beato c. 1860. The samurai, records of which date back to the early 10th-century Kokin Wakashū, were the military nobility of medieval and early-modern Japan. As Japan modernized during the Meiji period beginning in the late 1860s, the samurai lost much of their power, and the status was ultimately dissolved. However, samurai values remain common in Japanese society.
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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.
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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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  Dust Bowl

  Photo credit: Sloan, USDA

  Buried machinery in a barn lot, Dallas, South Dakota, United States, due to Dust Bowl conditions, May 1936. Dust storms from 1930–1939 caused major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands. This ecological disaster was a result of drought conditions coupled with decades of extensive farming using techniques that promoted erosion.
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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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  Great Sphinx of Giza

  Photo: Maison Bonfils; Restoration: Lise Broer

  A late nineteenth century photo of the partially excavated Great Sphinx of Giza, with the Pyramid of Khafre (left) and the Great Pyramid of Giza (right) behind it. The Sphinx is the oldest known monumental sculpture, and is commonly believed to have been built by ancient Egyptians of the Old Kingdom in the reign of the pharaoh Khafra.

Did you know (auto generated)

• ... that the 1948 novel The Corner That Held Them uses subversion of history that includes a nun who enjoyed the Black Death?
• ... that an Armenian Apostolic Church lawsuit over the Zeytun Gospels led Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh to write a history of its separated canon tables?
• ... that the first Russian feature film, Stenka Razin, depicts the historical Cossack leader throwing a princess into the Volga?
• ... that fifteen future Pro Football Hall of Fame players have been drafted by the Detroit Lions?
• ... that no one laughed at the worst joke in legal history?
• ... that public health measures and advances in medical science in modern human history helped raise global life expectancy from about 31 years in 1900 to over 66 years in 2000?

Featured biography –

This is a Featured article, which represents some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

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Tolkien in the 1920s

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (/ˈruːl ˈtɒlkiːn/, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and a Fellow of Pembroke College, both at the University of Oxford. He then moved within the same university to become the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, and held these positions from 1945 until his retirement in 1959. Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis, a co-member of the informal literary discussion group The Inklings. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972. (Full article...)

On this day

November 28: Thanksgiving in the United States (2024); Bukovina Day in Romania

Skanderbeg

• 1443 – Having deserted the Ottoman army, Skanderbeg (pictured) arrived in the Albanian city of Krujë and, using a forged letter from Sultan Murad II to the governor of Krujë, became lord of the city.
• 1895 – The Chicago Times-Herald race, the first automobile race in the U.S., was held in Chicago.
• 1903 – SS Petriana struck a reef near Point Nepean, leading to Australia's first major oil spill and a debate over the White Australia policy.
• 2016 – LaMia Flight 2933 crashed near Medellín, Colombia, killing 71 people, many of whom were players from Chapecoense Football Club.

• Manuel I Komnenos (b. 1118)
• Magnus Olsen (b. 1878)
• Wilhelmina of the Netherlands (d. 1962)
• Helen of Greece and Denmark (d. 1982)

More anniversaries:

• November 27
• November 28
• November 29

Selected quote

Truth alone will endure, all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time. I must continue to bear testimony to truth even if I am forsaken by all. Mine may today be a voice in the wilderness, but it will be heard when all other voices are silenced, if it is the voice of Truth.

— Gandhi, Indian political and spiritual leader

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• ... that the Soviet Tupolev Tu-142 (pictured) maritime patrol aircraft was developed in response to the American UGM-27 Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missile?
• ... that Harry Powers said that watching his victims die was more fun than a brothel?
• ... that the effort put forth by the subject of Miró's 1937 Naked woman climbing a staircase and her heavy limbs are thought to reflect the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War?
• ... that 49% of German military losses happened in the last 10 months of the Second World War in Europe?
• ... that Thomas Edison lost a fortune in his ore-milling company, but "had a hell of a good time spending it"?
• ... that American McCaull Comic Opera Company actress May Yohé, once the owner of the Hope Diamond, died poor?
• ... that Egyptian political cartoonist Ahmad Nady took part in the 2011 Egyptian revolution, drawing cartoons while he demonstrated?
• ... that finds unearthed at the Israelite Tower in Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter attest to the Babylonian sack of the city in 586 BCE?

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Things you can do

Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Article requests : Requested articles/Social sciences/History Copyedit : History articles needing copy editing Photo : Wikipedia requested photographs of history Stubs : Expand history stub articles Are you a historian : i.e. one who studies and writes history, and who has a keen interest in writing outstanding articles? Join our group by adding Category:Wikipedian historians to the bottom of your user page.

Associated Wikimedia

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