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The History Portal

Historia by Nikolaos Gyzis
Historia by Nikolaos Gyzis


History (from Greek ἱστορία, historia, meaning "inquiry; knowledge acquired by investigation") is the study and the documentation of the past. Events before the invention of writing systems are 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 also an academic discipline which uses narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect. Historians often debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effects. Historians also debate the nature of history as an end in itself, as well as its usefulness to give 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 evidence. However, ancient cultural influences have helped spawn variant interpretations of the nature of history which have evolved over the centuries and continue to change today. The modern study of history is wide-ranging, and includes the study of specific regions and the study of certain topical or thematic elements of historical investigation. History is often taught as part of primary and secondary education, and the academic study of history is a major discipline in university studies.

Herodotus, a 5th-century BC Greek historian, is often considered the "father of history" in the Western tradition, although he has also 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, although only 2nd-century BC texts have survived. (Full article...)

Outline of history · Index

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  • Macdonald in the 1940s

    Angus Lewis Macdonald PC QC (August 10, 1890 – April 13, 1954), popularly known as 'Angus L.', was a Canadian lawyer, law professor and politician from Nova Scotia. He served as the Liberal premier of Nova Scotia from 1933 to 1940, when he became the federal minister of defence for naval services. He oversaw the creation of an effective Canadian navy and Allied convoy service during World War II. After the war, he returned to Nova Scotia to become premier again. In the election of 1945, his Liberals returned to power while their main rivals, the Conservatives, failed to win a single seat. The Liberal rallying cry, "All's Well With Angus L.," was so effective that the Conservatives despaired of ever beating Macdonald. He died in office in 1954.

    Macdonald's more than 15 years as premier brought fundamental changes. Under his leadership, the Nova Scotia government spent more than $100 million paving roads, building bridges, extending electrical transmission lines and improving public education. Macdonald dealt with the mass unemployment of the Great Depression by putting the jobless to work on highway projects. He felt direct government relief payments would weaken moral character, undermine self-respect and discourage personal initiative. However, he also faced the reality that the financially strapped Nova Scotia government could not afford to participate fully in federal relief programs that required matching contributions from the provinces. (Full article...)
  • St Vincent at anchor, 1909

    The St Vincent-class battleships were a group of three dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. The sister ships spent their entire careers assigned to the Home and Grand Fleets. Aside from participating in the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 and the inconclusive action of 19 August several months later, their service during the First World War generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea. Vanguard was destroyed in 1917 by a magazine explosion with the near total loss of her crew. The remaining pair were obsolete by the end of the war in 1918, and spent their remaining time either in reserve or as training ships before being sold for scrap in the early 1920s.

    Vanguard's wreck was extensively salvaged before it was declared a war grave. Since 2002, it has been designated as a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 and diving on the wreck is generally forbidden. (Full article...)
  • Trinity Detonation T&B.jpg

    Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. It was conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project. The test was conducted in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, on what was then the USAAF Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, now part of White Sands Missile Range. The only structures originally in the vicinity were the McDonald Ranch House and its ancillary buildings, which scientists used as a laboratory for testing bomb components. A base camp was constructed, and there were 425 people present on the weekend of the test.

    The code name "Trinity" was assigned by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, inspired by the poetry of John Donne. The test was of an implosion-design plutonium device, informally nicknamed "The Gadget", of the same design as the Fat Man bomb later detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. The complexity of the design required a major effort from the Los Alamos Laboratory, and concerns about whether it would work led to a decision to conduct the first nuclear test. The test was planned and directed by Kenneth Bainbridge. (Full article...)
  • The front of the pagoda is cream colored and sits on a raised platform which is connected to the ground by a stairway. Chinese characters are above a set of ornate glass windows. A few people are sitting on the benches in the brick courtyard below, surrounded by many trees and shrubs. The roof is tiled brown and there is an unused flagpole at the front of the raise platform.
    Xá Lợi Pagoda, the focal point of the attacks

    The Xá Lợi Pagoda raids were a series of synchronized attacks on various Buddhist pagodas in the major cities of South Vietnam shortly after midnight on 21 August 1963. The raids were executed by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces under Colonel Lê Quang Tung, and combat police, both of which took their orders directly from Ngô Đình Nhu, younger brother of the Roman Catholic President Ngô Đình Diệm. Xá Lợi Pagoda, the largest pagoda in the South Vietnamese capital, Saigon, was the most prominent of the raided temples. Over 1,400 Buddhists were arrested, and estimates of the death toll and missing ranged up to the hundreds. In response to the Huế Vesak shootings and a ban on the Buddhist flag in early May, South Vietnam's Buddhist majority rose in widespread civil disobedience and protest against the religious bias and discrimination of the Catholic-dominated Diệm government. Buddhist temples in major cities, most prominently the Xá Lợi pagoda, became focal points for protesters and assembly points for Buddhist monks from rural areas.

    In August, several Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) generals proposed the imposition of martial law, ostensibly to break up the demonstrations, but in reality to prepare for a military coup. However, Nhu, already looking to arrest Buddhist leaders and crush the protest movement, used the opportunity to preempt the generals and embarrass them. He disguised Tung's Special Forces in army uniforms and used them to attack the Buddhists, thereby causing the general public and South Vietnam's U.S. allies to blame the army, diminishing the generals' reputations and ability to act as future national leaders. (Full article...)
  • William Sanders c. 1916–17

    Lieutenant Commander William Edward Sanders, VC, DSO (7 February 1883 – 14 August 1917) was a First World War 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 Commonwealth forces at the time.

    Born in Auckland, Sanders took up a seafaring career in 1899. He initially worked aboard steamships before transferring to sailing ships to enhance his career prospects. Sanders earned a master's certificate in late 1914, following the outbreak of the First World War. He then served aboard troopships in the Merchant Navy until April 1916, when he was commissioned in the Royal Naval Reserve. He completed his military training in the United Kingdom, after which he served aboard Helgoland, a Q-ship that operated against German submarines. His performance on his first two patrols earned him his own command, HMS Prize, in February 1917. (Full article...)
  • 1832 Wallachian copy of Regulamentul Organic (printed РEГUЛAMENTUЛ OРГANIK in the Romanian transitional alphabet)

    Regulamentul Organic (Romanian: [reɡulaˈmentul orˈɡanik], Organic Regulation; French: Règlement Organique; Russian: Органический регламент, romanized: Organichesky reglament) was a quasi-constitutional organic law enforced in 1831–1832 by the Imperial Russian authorities in Moldavia and Wallachia (the two Danubian Principalities that were to become the basis of the modern Romanian state). The document partially confirmed the traditional government (including rule by the hospodars) and set up a common Russian protectorate which lasted until 1854. The Regulamentul itself remained in force until 1858. Conservative in its scope, it also engendered a period of unprecedented reforms which provided a setting for the Westernization of the local society. The Regulamentul offered the two Principalities their first common system of government. (Full article...)
  • Illustrious circa 1954

    HMS Illustrious was the lead ship of her class of aircraft carriers built for the Royal Navy before World War II. Her first assignment after completion and working up was with the Mediterranean Fleet, in which her aircraft's most notable achievement was sinking one Italian battleship and badly damaging two others during the Battle of Taranto in late 1940. Two months later the carrier was crippled by German dive bombers and was repaired in the United States. After sustaining damage on the voyage home in late 1941 by a collision with her sister ship Formidable, Illustrious was sent to the Indian Ocean in early 1942 to support the invasion of Vichy French Madagascar (Operation Ironclad). After returning home in early 1943, the ship was given a lengthy refit and briefly assigned to the Home Fleet. She was transferred to Force H for the Battle of Salerno in mid-1943 and then rejoined the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean at the beginning of 1944. Her aircraft attacked several targets in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies over the following year before Illustrious was transferred to the newly formed British Pacific Fleet (BPF). The carrier participated in the early stages of the Battle of Okinawa until mechanical defects arising from accumulated battle damage became so severe she was ordered home early for repairs in May 1945.

    The war ended while she was in the dockyard and the Admiralty decided to modify her for use as the Home Fleet's trials and training carrier. In this role she conducted the deck-landing trials for most of the British post-war naval aircraft in the early 1950s. She was occasionally used to ferry troops and aircraft to and from foreign deployments as well as participating in exercises. In 1951, she helped to transport troops to quell rioting in Cyprus after the collapse of the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936. She was paid off in early 1955 and sold for scrap in late 1956. (Full article...)
  • Article often refers to:
    • Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness
    • Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication


    Article may also refer to: (Full article...)
  • Air Marshal Sir Richard Williams

    Air Marshal Sir Richard Williams, KBE, CB, DSO (3 August 1890 – 7 February 1980), is widely regarded as the "father" of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). He was the first military pilot trained in Australia, and went on to command Australian and British fighter units in World War I. A proponent for air power independent of other branches of the armed services, Williams played a leading role in the establishment of the RAAF and became its first Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) in 1922. He served as CAS for thirteen years over three terms, longer than any other officer.

    Williams came from a working-class background in South Australia. He was a lieutenant in the Army when he learned to fly at Point Cook, Victoria, in 1914. As a pilot with the Australian Flying Corps (AFC) in World War I, Williams rose to command No. 1 Squadron AFC, and later 40th Wing RAF. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and finished the war a lieutenant colonel. Afterwards he campaigned for an Australian Air Force run separately to the Army and Navy, which came into being on 31 March 1921. (Full article...)
  • Map of Europe with several names marked with arrows

    Operation Copperhead was a small military deception operation run by the British during the Second World War. It formed part of Operation Bodyguard, the cover plan for the invasion of Normandy in 1944, and was intended to mislead German intelligence as to the location of General Bernard Montgomery. The operation was conceived by Dudley Clarke in early 1944 after he watched the film Five Graves to Cairo. Following the war M. E. Clifton James wrote a book about the operation, I Was Monty's Double. It was later adapted into a film, with James in the lead role.

    The German high command expected Montgomery (one of the best-known Allied commanders) to play a key role in any cross-channel bridgehead. Clarke and the other deception planners reasoned that a high-profile appearance outside the United Kingdom would suggest that an Allied invasion was not imminent. An appropriate look-alike was found, M. E. Clifton James, who spent a short time with Montgomery to familiarise himself with the general's mannerisms. On 26 May 1944, James flew first to Gibraltar and then to Algiers, making appearances where the Allies knew German intelligence agents would spot him. He then flew secretly to Cairo and remained in hiding until Montgomery's public appearance in Normandy following the invasion. (Full article...)
  • A Stuart tank from the regiment at El Alamein, July 1942

    The Divisional Cavalry Regiment (Div Cav), was an armoured cavalry regiment of the 2nd New Zealand Division during the Second World War and was New Zealand's first armoured unit. It served as a reconnaissance force for the 2nd New Zealand Division. Formed on 29 September 1939, the regiment embarked for Egypt on 4 January 1940. It fought with the division, as part of the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force, in Greece, Crete, North Africa and Italy. The regiment formed part of J Force, New Zealand's contribution to the occupation of Japan at the end of the war.

    Initially stationed at Maadi, the regiment was moved to Garawla in July and participated in the defence of the Baggush Box two months later. In January 1941, it moved to Helwan for training. In March, the regiment became part of W Force, the British contingent sent to Greece to defend the country from Nazi Germany. It took up positions on the Aliakmon Line before the regiment was scattered during the British retreat from the country. Most of the regiment ended up in Crete, where it faced a German paratroop attack in May and evacuated with the remainder of the British force. (Full article...)
  • Miniature from Matthew Paris's Historia Anglorum, c. 1253. The portrait is generic and depicts Henry holding the Church of Reading Abbey, where he was buried.

    Henry I (c. 1068 – 1 December 1135), also known as Henry Beauclerc, was King of England from 1100 to his death in 1135. He was the fourth son of William the Conqueror and was educated in Latin and the liberal arts. On William's death in 1087, Henry's elder brothers Robert Curthose and William Rufus inherited Normandy and England, respectively, but Henry was left landless. He purchased the County of Cotentin in western Normandy from Robert, but his brothers deposed him in 1091. He gradually rebuilt his power base in the Cotentin and allied himself with William against Robert.

    Present at the place where his brother William died in a hunting accident in 1100, Henry seized the English throne, promising at his coronation to correct many of William's less popular policies. He married Matilda of Scotland and they had two surviving children, William Adelin and Empress Matilda; he also had many illegitimate children by his many mistresses. Robert, who invaded in 1101, disputed Henry's control of England; this military campaign ended in a negotiated settlement that confirmed Henry as king. The peace was short-lived, and Henry invaded the Duchy of Normandy in 1105 and 1106, finally defeating Robert at the Battle of Tinchebray. Henry kept Robert imprisoned for the rest of his life. Henry's control of Normandy was challenged by Louis VI of France, Baldwin VII of Flanders and Fulk V of Anjou, who promoted the rival claims of Robert's son, William Clito, and supported a major rebellion in the Duchy between 1116 and 1119. Following Henry's victory at the Battle of Brémule, a favourable peace settlement was agreed with Louis in 1120. (Full article...)
  • The original letter from Balfour to Rothschild; the declaration reads:

    His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.


    The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population. The declaration was contained in a letter dated 2 November 1917 from the United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. The text of the declaration was published in the press on 9 November 1917.

    Immediately following their declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire in November 1914, the British War Cabinet began to consider the future of Palestine; within two months a memorandum was circulated to the Cabinet by a Zionist Cabinet member, Herbert Samuel, proposing the support of Zionist ambitions in order to enlist the support of Jews in the wider war. A committee was established in April 1915 by British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith to determine their policy towards the Ottoman Empire including Palestine. Asquith, who had favoured post-war reform of the Ottoman Empire, resigned in December 1916; his replacement David Lloyd George favoured partition of the Empire. The first negotiations between the British and the Zionists took place at a conference on 7 February 1917 that included Sir Mark Sykes and the Zionist leadership. Subsequent discussions led to Balfour's request, on 19 June, that Rothschild and Chaim Weizmann submit a draft of a public declaration. Further drafts were discussed by the British Cabinet during September and October, with input from Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews but with no representation from the local population in Palestine. (Full article...)
  • Head and shoulders portrait
    J. Robert Oppenheimer, c. 1944

    J. Robert Oppenheimer (/ˈɒpənˌhaɪmər/; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist who was professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is among those who are credited with being the "father of the atomic bomb" for their role in the Manhattan Project – the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons. Oppenheimer was among those who observed the Trinity test in New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb was successfully detonated on July 16, 1945.

    He later remarked that the explosion brought to mind words from the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." In August 1945, the weapons were used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Full article...)
  • Head of a man wearing a diadem
    A clay tessera bearing a possible depiction of Odaenathus wearing a diadem


    Odaenathus, the king of Palmyra from 260 to 267 CE, has been identified by modern scholars as the subject of sculptures, seal impressions, and mosaic pieces. His city was part of the Roman Empire, and he came to dominate the Roman East when in 260 he defeated Shapur I, the Sasanian emperor of Persia, who had invaded the Roman Empire. Odaenathus besieged the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon in 263, and although the city did not fall, the campaign led to a full restoration of Roman provinces taken by Shapur I. In the aftermath of his Persian war, Odaenathus assumed the title King of Kings, which was a challenge to the Persian monarch's claims of authority in the region. Odaenathus ruled the Roman East unopposed with imperial consent. In 267, he was assassinated alongside his eldest son Herodianus while conducting a campaign against Germanic raiders in Bithynia; he was succeeded by his son Vaballathus under the regency of the widow queen Zenobia.

    Palmyrene portraits were usually abstract, depicting little individuality. Most reported portraits of Odaenathus are undated and have no inscriptions, making identification speculative. Generally, the criteria for determining whether a piece represents the king are its material (imported marble, in contrast to local limestone) and iconography, such as the presence of royal attributes (crowns or diadems). Several limestone head portraits from Palmyra were identified by several twentieth-century scholars as depicting Odaenathus, based on criteria such as the size of the portrait and the presence of a wreath; the latter element was not special in Palmyrene portraits, as priests were also depicted with wreaths. More recent research on the limestone portraits indicates that these pieces were probably funerary objects depicting private citizens. (Full article...)
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Harriet Arbuthnot by John Hoppner

Harriet Arbuthnot (10 September 1793 – 2 August 1834) was an early 19th-century English diarist, social observer and political hostess on behalf of the Tory party. During the 1820s she was the closest woman friend of the hero of Waterloo and British Prime Minister, the 1st Duke of Wellington. She maintained a long correspondence and association with the Duke, all of which she recorded in her diaries, which are consequently extensively used in all authoritative biographies of the Duke of Wellington.

Born into the periphery of the British aristocracy, her parents were Henry Fane and his wife, Elizabeth, née Swymmer; she married a politician and member of the establishment, Charles Arbuthnot. Thus well connected, she was perfectly placed to meet many of the key figures of the Regency and late Napoleonic eras. Recording meetings and conversations often verbatim, she has today become the "Mrs. Arbuthnot" quoted in many biographies and histories of the era. Her observations and memories of life within the British establishment are not confined to individuals but document politics, great events and daily life with an equal attention to detail, providing historians with a clear picture of the events described. Her diaries were themselves finally published in 1950 as The Journal of Mrs Arbuthnot. (Full article...)
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