Portal:History

The History Portal

Historia by Nikolaos Gyzis

History is the systematic study of the past. As an academic discipline, it analyzes and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened, focusing primarily on the human past. 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 slightly different sense, the term history refers not to an academic field but to the past itself or to individual texts about the past.

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, social history, and economic history. Branches associated with specific research methods are quantitative history, comparative history, and oral history.

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 integrate the perspectives of several individual sources to develop a coherent narrative. Different schools of thought, such as positivism, the Annales school, Marxism, and postmodernism, have distinct methodological implications.

History emerged as a field of inquiry in the ancient period to replace myth-infused narratives, with influential early traditions originating in Greece, China, and later also 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 –

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

---

• 
  
  

  

  Tubman in 1895

  
  Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross, c. March 1822 – March 10, 1913) was an American abolitionist and social activist. After escaping slavery, Tubman made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including her family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known collectively as the Underground Railroad. During the American Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the Union Army. In her later years, Tubman was an activist in the movement for women's suffrage.
  
  Born into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman was beaten and whipped by slave masters as a child. Early in life, she suffered a traumatic head wound when an irate overseer threw a heavy metal weight, intending to hit another slave, but hit her instead. The injury caused dizziness, pain, and spells of hypersomnia, which occurred throughout her life. After her injury, Tubman began experiencing strange visions and vivid dreams, which she ascribed to premonitions from God. These experiences, combined with her Methodist upbringing, led her to become devoutly religious. (Full article...)
• 
  "Death on the Rock" was a British television documentary, part of Thames Television's current affairs series This Week. It was broadcast in 1988. The programme examined the killing of three Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) members in Gibraltar in March 1988 by the British Special Air Service (codenamed "Operation Flavius"). "Death on the Rock" presented evidence that the IRA members were shot without warning or with their hands up. It was condemned by the British government and denounced in the press as sensationalist. After one of its witnesses retracted his statement, "Death on the Rock" became the first individual documentary to be the subject of an independent inquiry, in which it was largely vindicated.
  
  This Week began investigating the shootings after it emerged that IRA members were not armed or in possession of a bomb as initially reported. The documentary was broadcast on ITV on 28 April 1988, despite two attempts by the government to have it postponed. Using eyewitness statements, the documentary questioned the government's version of events, and suggested that the three IRA members may have been unlawfully killed. It concluded by putting its findings to a human rights lawyer, who suggested the government should convene a judicial inquiry. Several newspapers attacked the documentary, accusing it of sensationalism and "trial by television". They mounted a campaign against Carmen Proetta, one of the documentary's witnesses, accusing her of being a former prostitute and of being anti-British; Proetta later successfully sued several newspapers for libel. Other newspapers accused "Death on the Rock" of misrepresenting the eyewitnesses' statements and criticised the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) for allowing it to be broadcast. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Painting of Tecumseh based on an 1808 sketch

  
  Tecumseh (/tɪˈkʌmsə, -si/ tih-KUM-sə, -⁠see; c. 1768 – October 5, 1813) was a Shawnee chief and warrior who promoted resistance to the expansion of the United States onto Native American lands. A persuasive orator, Tecumseh traveled widely, forming a Native American confederacy and promoting intertribal unity. Even though his efforts to unite Native Americans ended with his death in the War of 1812, he became an iconic folk hero in American, Indigenous, and Canadian popular history.
  
  Tecumseh was born in what is now Ohio at a time when the far-flung Shawnees were reuniting in their Ohio Country homeland. During his childhood, the Shawnees lost territory to the expanding American colonies in a series of border conflicts. Tecumseh's father was killed in battle against American colonists in 1774. Tecumseh was thereafter mentored by his older brother Cheeseekau, a noted war chief who died fighting Americans in 1792. As a young war leader, Tecumseh joined Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket's armed struggle against further American encroachment, which ended in defeat at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 and with the loss of most of Ohio in the 1795 Treaty of Greenville. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Air Commodore Cobby (left) and Group Captain Caldwell at Morotai in January 1945

  
  The "Morotai Mutiny" was an incident in April 1945 involving members of the Australian First Tactical Air Force based on the island of Morotai, in the Dutch East Indies. Eight senior pilots, including Australia's leading flying ace, Group Captain Clive Caldwell, tendered their resignations to protest what they perceived as the relegation of Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) fighter squadrons to strategically unimportant ground attack missions against Japanese positions that had been bypassed in the Allies' "island-hopping" campaign. A government investigation vindicated the "mutineers", and three high-ranking officers at First Tactical Air Force Headquarters, including the commander, Air Commodore Harry Cobby, the Australian Flying Corps' top-scoring ace in World War I, were relieved of their posts.
  
  George Odgers summed up the cause of the incident in the official history of the RAAF in World War II as "the conviction of a group of young leaders that they were engaging in operations that were not militarily justifiable—a conviction widely shared also by many Australian soldiers and political leaders." Odgers concluded that the ensuing inquiry "made it clear that almost everyone concerned acted from the highest motives, and was convinced that, in the crisis, he acted wisely". (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Verdeja 75 mm self-propelled howitzer, based on the Verdeja 1 prototype chassis

  
  Verdeja was the name of a series of light tanks developed in Spain between 1938 and 1954 in an attempt to replace German Panzer I and Soviet T-26 tanks in Spanish service.
  
  The program was headed by major Félix Verdeja Bardales and led to the development of four prototype vehicles, including a self-propelled howitzer armed with a 75 millimeters (3.0 inches) gun. It was designed as an advanced light tank and was one of the first development programs which took into account survivability of the crew as opposed to the protection of the tank itself. The tank was influenced by several of the light tanks which it was intended to replace, including the Panzer I and T-26, both of which were originally used during the Spanish Civil War. The Verdeja was considered a superior tank to the T-26 after a lengthy testing period, yet was never put into mass production. (Full article...)
• 
  The Commissioner Government (Serbian: Комесарска влада, Komesarska vlada) was a short-lived Serbian collaborationist puppet government established in the German-occupied territory of Serbia within the Axis-partitioned Kingdom of Yugoslavia during World War II. It operated from 30 April to 29 August 1941, was headed by Milan Aćimović, and is also referred to as the Commissars Government or Council of Commissars. Of the ten commissioners, four had previously been ministers in various Yugoslav governments, and two had been assistant ministers. The members were pro-German, anti-semitic and anti-communist, and believed that Germany would win the war. The Aćimović government lacked any semblance of power, and was merely an instrument of the German occupation regime, carrying out its orders within the occupied territory. Under the overall control of the German Military Commander in Serbia, supervision of its day-to-day operations was the responsibility of the chief of the German administrative staff, SS-Brigadeführer and State Councillor Harald Turner. One of its early tasks was the implementation of German orders regarding the registration of Jews and Romani people living in the territory, and the placing of severe restrictions on their liberty.
  
  In early July, a few days after a communist-led mass uprising commenced, Aćimović reshuffled his government, replacing three commissioners and appointing deputies for most of the portfolios. By mid-July, the Germans had decided that the Aćimović regime was incompetent and unable to deal with the uprising, and began looking for a replacement. This resulted in the resignation of the Commissioner Government at the end of August, and the appointment of the Government of National Salvation led by former Minister of the Army and Navy, Armijski đeneral Milan Nedić, in which Aćimović initially retained the interior portfolio. The members of the Commissioner Government collaborated with the occupiers as a means to spare Serbs from political influences that they considered more dangerous than the Germans, such as democracy, communism and multiculturalism. They actively assisted the Germans in exploiting the population and the economy, and took an "extremely opportunistic" view of the Jewish question, regarding their own participation in the Holocaust as "unpleasant but unavoidable". There is no evidence that the collaboration of the Commissioner Government moderated German occupation policies in any way. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Du Bois in 1907

  
  William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (/duːˈbɔɪs/ doo-BOYSS; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist.
  
  Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. After completing graduate work at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin and Harvard University, where he was its first African American to earn a doctorate, Du Bois rose to national prominence as a leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of black civil rights activists seeking equal rights. Du Bois and his supporters opposed the Atlanta Compromise. Instead, Du Bois insisted on full civil rights and increased political representation, which he believed would be brought about by the African-American intellectual elite. He referred to this group as the talented tenth, a concept under the umbrella of racial uplift, and believed that African Americans needed the chances for advanced education to develop its leadership. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  A statue of Jochi in modern-day Mongolia

  
  Jochi (Mongolian: ᠵᠦᠴᠢ; c. 1182 – c. 1225), also spelled Jüchi, was a prince of the early Mongol Empire. His life was marked by controversy over the circumstances of his birth and culminated in his estrangement from his family. He was nevertheless a prominent military commander and the progenitor of the family who ruled over the khanate of the Golden Horde.
  
  Jochi was the son of Börte, the first wife of the Mongol leader Temüjin. For many months before Jochi's birth, Börte had been a captive of the Merkit tribe, one of whom forcibly married and raped her. Although there was thus considerable doubt over Jochi's parentage, Temüjin considered him his son and treated him accordingly. Many Mongols, most prominently Börte's next son Chagatai, disagreed; these tensions eventually led to both Chagatai and Jochi being excluded from the line of succession to the Mongol throne. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  An Italian AV-8B Plus hovering

  
  The McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) AV-8B Harrier II is a single-engine ground-attack aircraft that constitutes the second generation of the Harrier family, capable of vertical or short takeoff and landing (V/STOL). The aircraft is primarily employed on light attack or multi-role missions, ranging from close air support of ground troops to armed reconnaissance. The AV-8B is used by the United States Marine Corps (USMC), the Spanish Navy, and the Italian Navy. A variant of the AV-8B, the British Aerospace Harrier II, was developed for the British military, while another, the TAV-8B, is a dedicated two-seat trainer.
  
  The project that eventually led to the AV-8B's creation started in the early 1970s as a cooperative effort between the United States and United Kingdom, aimed at addressing the operational inadequacies of the first-generation Hawker Siddeley Harrier. Early efforts centered on a larger, more powerful Pegasus engine to dramatically improve the capabilities of the Harrier. Because of budgetary constraints, the UK abandoned the project in 1975. Following the UK's withdrawal, McDonnell Douglas extensively redesigned the earlier AV-8A Harrier to create the AV-8B. While retaining the general layout of its predecessor, the aircraft incorporates a new, larger composite wing with an additional hardpoint on each side, an elevated cockpit, a redesigned fuselage and other structural and aerodynamic refinements. The aircraft is powered by an upgraded version of the Pegasus. The AV-8B made its maiden flight in November 1981 and entered service with the USMC in January 1985. Later upgrades added a night-attack capability and radar, resulting in the AV-8B(NA) and AV-8B Harrier II Plus versions, respectively. An enlarged version named Harrier III was also studied but not pursued. The UK, through British Aerospace, re-joined the improved Harrier project as a partner in 1981, giving it a significant work-share in the project. Following corporate mergers in the 1990s, Boeing and BAE Systems have jointly supported the program. Approximately 340 aircraft were produced in a 22-year production program that ended in 2003. (Full article...)
• 

  

  Joshua Reynolds' Puck (1789), painted for Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery, is modelled after Parmigianino's Madonna with St. Zachary, the Magdalen, and St. John

  
  
  The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery in London, England, was the first stage of a three-part project initiated in November 1786 by engraver and publisher John Boydell in an effort to foster a school of British history painting. In addition to the establishment of the gallery, Boydell planned to produce an illustrated edition of William Shakespeare's plays and a folio of prints based upon a series of paintings by different contemporary painters. During the 1790s the London gallery that showed the original paintings emerged as the project's most popular element.
  
  The works of William Shakespeare enjoyed a renewed popularity in 18th-century Britain. Several new editions of his works were published, his plays were revived in the theatre and numerous works of art were created illustrating the plays and specific productions of them. Capitalising on this interest, Boydell decided to publish a grand illustrated edition of Shakespeare's plays that would showcase the talents of British painters and engravers. He chose the noted scholar and Shakespeare editor George Steevens to oversee the edition, which was released between 1791 and 1803. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Head from portrait statue by Arnolfo di Cambio, c. 1277

  
  Charles I (early 1226/1227 – 7 January 1285), commonly called Charles of Anjou or Charles d'Anjou, was King of Sicily from 1266 to 1285. He was a member of the royal Capetian dynasty and the founder of the House of Anjou-Sicily. Between 1246 and 1285, he was Count of Provence and Forcalquier in the Holy Roman Empire and Count of Anjou and Maine in France. In 1272 he was proclaimed King of Albania, in 1277 he purchased a claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and in 1278 he became Prince of Achaea after the previous ruler, William of Villehardouin, died without heirs.
  
  The youngest son of Louis VIII of France and Blanche of Castile, Charles was destined for a Church career until the early 1240s. He acquired Provence and Forcalquier through his marriage to their heiress, Beatrice. His attempts to restore central authority brought him into conflict with his mother-in-law, Beatrice of Savoy, and the nobility. He relinquished control of Forcalquier to his mother-in-law in 1248, although she returned it to him in 1256. Charles received Anjou and Maine from his brother, Louis IX of France, in appanage. He accompanied Louis during the Seventh Crusade to Egypt. Shortly after he returned to Provence in 1250, Charles forced three wealthy autonomous cities—Marseille, Arles and Avignon—to acknowledge his suzerainty. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  A postcard of Poltava

  
  The Petropavlovsk class, sometimes referred to as the Poltava class, was a group of three pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy during the 1890s. They were transferred to the Pacific Squadron shortly after their completion in 1899–1900 and were based at Port Arthur before the start of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. All three ships participated in the Battle of Port Arthur on the second day of the war. Petropavlovsk sank two months after the war began after striking one or more mines laid by the Japanese. Her two sister ships, Sevastopol and Poltava, took part in the Battle of the Yellow Sea in August 1904 and were sunk or scuttled during the final stages of the siege of Port Arthur in early 1905.
  
  Poltava was salvaged after the Japanese captured Port Arthur and incorporated into the Imperial Japanese Navy. The ship, renamed Tango in Japanese service, participated in the Battle of Tsingtao in late 1914, during World War I. She was sold back to the Russians in 1916 and renamed Chesma as her original name was in use by another battleship. The ship became the flagship of the Russian Arctic Flotilla in 1917, and her crew supported the Bolsheviks later that year. Chesma was seized by the British in early 1918 when they intervened in the Russian Civil War, abandoned by them when they withdrew and scrapped by the Soviets in 1924. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  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 (1377–1381 and 1382–1401), later giving the position to his cousin Vytautas in exchange for the title of Supreme Duke of Lithuania (1401–1434) and then King of Poland (1386–1434), first alongside his wife Jadwiga until 1399, and then sole ruler of Poland.
  
  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 own 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...)
• 
  
  

  

  Map of the 766th Independent Infantry Regiment's final offensive action, August 10, 1950

  
  The 766th Independent Infantry Regiment (Korean: 제766독립보병련대) was an elite light infantry unit of North Korea's Korean People's Army (KPA) that existed briefly during the Korean War. It was headquartered in Hoeryong, North Korea, and was also known as the 766th Unit (Korean: 766부대). Trained extensively in amphibious warfare and unconventional warfare, the 766th Regiment was considered a commando unit. The regiment was trained to conduct assaults by sea and then to lead other North Korean units on offensive operations, to infiltrate behind enemy lines, and to disrupt enemy supplies and communications.
  
  Activated in 1949, the regiment trained for more than a year before the outbreak of the war on June 25, 1950. On that day, half of the regiment led North Korean forces against South Korean troops by land and sea, pushing them back after several days of fighting. Over the next six weeks, the regiment advanced slowly down the Korean Peninsula, acting as a forward unit of the North Korean army. Suffering from a lack of supplies and mounting casualties, the regiment was committed to the Battle of Pusan Perimeter as part of a push to force United Nations (UN) troops out of Korea. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Lochry's Defeat, Will Vawter, c. 1895

  
  Lochry's Defeat, also known as the Lochry massacre, was a battle fought on August 24, 1781, near present-day Aurora, Indiana, in the United States. The battle was part of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), which began as a conflict between Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies before spreading to the western frontier, where American Indians entered the war as British allies. The battle was short and decisive: about one hundred Indians of local tribes led by Joseph Brant, a Mohawk military leader who was temporarily in the west, ambushed a similar number of Pennsylvania militiamen led by Archibald Lochry. Brant and his men killed or captured all of the Pennsylvanians without suffering any casualties.
  
  Lochry's force was part of an army being raised by George Rogers Clark for a campaign against Detroit, the British regional headquarters. Clark, the preeminent American military leader on the northwestern frontier, worked with Governor Thomas Jefferson of Virginia in planning an expedition to capture Detroit, by which they hoped to bring an end to British support of the Indian war effort. In early August 1781, Clark and about 400 men left Fort Pitt in Pennsylvania by boat, floating down the Ohio River a few days ahead of Lochry and his men, who were trying to catch up. (Full article...)

Featured picture

• 
  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.
• 
  Slavery in the United States

  Photo credit: McPherson and Oliver

  Scars of a whipped slave named Peter, photo taken at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1863. In his own words, "Overseer Artayou Carrier whipped me. I was two months in bed sore from the whipping. My master come after I was whipped; he discharged the overseer." The slave pictured here escaped from a plantation in Mississippi, made his way to Union forces, and joined the U.S. Army at the Union garrison located at Baton Rouge.
  
  Slavery in the United States began soon after the English colonists first settled in North America. From about the 1640s until 1865, people of African descent were legally enslaved within the boundaries of the present U.S. mostly by whites, but also by a comparatively tiny number of American Indians and free blacks. By 1860, the slave population in the U.S. had grown to 4 million.
• 
  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.
• 
  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.
• 
  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.
• 
  Schutterij

  De Magere Compagnie (completed 1637), which depicts a company of schutterij, a voluntary city guard or citizen militia in the medieval and early modern Netherlands. Frans Hals was commissioned to create this, but he was unable to complete it after three years, and the company hired Pieter Codde to finish it. Group portraits such as this of schutterij were known as schuttersstuk, and were popular among the guards themselves.
• 
  Charge of the Light Brigade

  Artist: William Simpson; Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  On October 25, 1854, during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War, British cavalry units charged heavily fortified Russian opposition, an action known as the Charge of the Light Brigade. By mischance, they attacked the wrong target, as the orders were unclear, and as a result suffered great casualties. Alfred, Lord Tennyson's famous poem made the charge a symbol of warfare at both its most courageous and its most tragic.
• 
  Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855)

  Artist: William Simpson; Restoration: Lise Broer

  A lithograph of a watercolour painting depicting soldiers transporting winter clothing, lumber for huts, and other supplies through a snow-covered landscape, with partially buried dead horses along the roadside, to the British camps, during the Siege of Sevastopol of the Crimean War. In the winter, a storm ruined the camps and supply lines of the Allied forces (France, Britain and the Ottoman Empire). Men and horses became sick and starved in the poor conditions.
• 
  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.
• 
  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.
• 
  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.
• 
  Khoikhoi

  Artist: Samuel Daniell

  An 1805 depiction of a Khoikhoi family dismantling their huts, preparing to move to new pastures. The Khoikhoi are a native people of southwestern Africa, closely related to the Bushmen. Most of the Khoikhoi have largely disappeared as a group, except for the largest group, the Namas.
• 
  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".
• 
  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."
• 
  Timeline of lighting technology

  Illustration: Maurice Dessertenne
  Restoration: Michel Vuijlsteke

  An illustration from Volume IV (E–G) of the encyclopedia Nouveau Larousse illustré showing various methods of lighting through the ages, starting from prehistoric times in the upper left (No. 1) to carbide lamps at the beginning of the 20th century (No. 54, lower right), with a separate section for Japanese lighting (No. 55–58, lower left).
• 
  The Rhodes Colossus

  Illustration: Edward Linley Sambourne

  The Rhodes Colossus is an iconic editorial cartoon of the Scramble for Africa period, depicting British colonialist Cecil John Rhodes as a giant standing over the continent, after his announcement of plans to extend an electrical telegraph line from Cape Town to Cairo. Rhodes is shown in a visual pun as the ancient Greek statue the Colossus of Rhodes, with his right foot in Cape Town and his left in Cairo, illustrating his broader "Cape to Cairo" concept for British domination of Africa.
• 
  Poison gas in World War I

  Photo credit: Frank Hurley

  A group of Australian infantry wearing Small Box Respirators (SBRs) at the Third Battle of Ypres in September 1917. After the introduction of poison gas in World War I, countermeasures were developed. SBRs represented the pinnacle of gas mask development during the war, a mouthpiece connected via a hose to a box filter (hanging around the wearer's neck in this picture), which in turn contained granules of chemicals that neutralised the gas. The SBR was the prized possession of the ordinary infantryman; when the British were forced to retreat during the German Spring Offensive of 1918, it was found that while some troops had discarded their rifles, hardly any had left behind their respirators.
• 
  Historical reenactment

  Photo: Myrabella

  A historical reenactment is an educational or entertainment activity in which participants follow a prearranged plan to recreate aspects of a historical event or period. Here, a group reenacts the Battle of Waterloo, in which an Imperial French army under the command of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by the armies of the Seventh Coalition.

Did you know (auto generated)

• ... that the Victoria State Government has ordered 100 G-class trams, which is the largest domestic order in Australian history?
• ... that Cyclone Freddy was the longest-lasting tropical cyclone recorded?
• ... that the Picts disappeared from the historical record after the devastation suffered following the Battle of Dollar?
• ... that the Three Bards are the most celebrated poets in the history of Polish literature?
• ... that in 88 BC, Lucius Cornelius Sulla carried out the first coup d'état in Roman history?
• ... that an Armenian Apostolic Church lawsuit over the Zeytun Gospels led Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh to write a history of its separated canon tables?

Featured biography –

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

---

Brand in 1961

Joel Brand (Hungarian: Brand Jenő; 25 April 1906 – 13 July 1964) was a member of the Budapest Aid and Rescue Committee (Va'adat ha-Ezra ve-ha-Hatzala be-Budapest or Va'ada), an underground Zionist group in Budapest, Hungary, that smuggled Jews out of German-occupied Europe to the relative safety of Hungary, during the Holocaust. When Germany invaded Hungary in March 1944, Brand became known for his efforts to save the Jewish community from deportation to the Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland and the gas chambers there.

In April 1944 Brand was approached by SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann, head of the German Reich Security Head Office department IV B4 (Jewish affairs), who had arrived in Budapest to organize the deportations. Eichmann proposed that Brand broker a deal between the SS and the United States or Britain, in which the Nazis would exchange one million Jews for 10,000 trucks for the Eastern front and large quantities of tea and other goods. It was the most ambitious of a series of proposals between the SS and Jewish leaders. Eichmann called it "Blut gegen Waren" ("blood for goods"). (Full article...)

On this day

February 4: World Cancer Day (2000)

Execution of John Rogers

• 1488 – Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias landed in Mossel Bay, becoming the first known European to have sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and the southern tip of Africa.
• 1555 – Marian Restoration: Because he opposed Catholicism, John Rogers was burned at the stake (pictured) as the first English Protestant executed for heresy under the reign of Mary I.
• 1945 – World War II: American forces liberated the Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila, the largest enemy-civilian internment camp run by the Empire of Japan in the Philippines.
• 1999 – The Panamanian-flagged freighter New Carissa ran aground near Coos Bay, Oregon, causing one of the worst oil spills in the state's history.

• Joan of France (d. 1505)
• Constance Markievicz (b. 1868)
• Betty Friedan (b. 1921)
• Louis Jordan (d. 1975)

More anniversaries:

• February 3
• February 4
• February 5

Selected quote

Fortune, which has a great deal of power in other matters but especially in war, can bring about great changes in a situation through very slight forces.

— Julius Caesar, Roman consul

Related portals

More Did you know...

• ... 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?

Topics

Categories

Select [►] to view subcategories

History

History by location

History by mountain range

History by period

Fields of history

Historiography

People in history occupations

Chronology

Origins

Outlines of history and events

History-related lists

History awards

Historical controversies

History in culture

History education

Glossaries of history

History by topic

Legacies

Historical objects

History organizations

Philosophy of history

Historic preservation

Pseudohistory

Historical works

History images

History stubs

History • By period • By region • By topic • By ethnic group • Historiography • Archaeology • Books • Maps • Images • Magazines • Organizations • Fictional • Museums • Pseudohistory • Stubs • Timelines • Chronology • People • Wikipedia historians

WikiProjects

WikiProject History • Ancient Near East • Australian History • Classical Greece and Rome • Dacia • Former countries • History of Canada • Chinese history • European history • Heraldry and vexillology • Indian history • Jewish history • Medieval Scotland • Mesoamerica • Military history • Middle Ages • History of Science

WikiProject Time • Days of the Year • Years

WikiProject Biography • Composers • Political figures • Saints • United States Presidents

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

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

• 

  Commons
  Free media repository

• 

  Wikibooks
  Free textbooks and manuals

• 

  Wikidata
  Free knowledge base

• 

  Wikinews
  Free-content news

• 

  Wikiquote
  Collection of quotations

• 

  Wikisource
  Free-content library

• 

  Wikiversity
  Free learning tools

• 

  Wiktionary
  Dictionary and thesaurus

Discover Wikipedia using portals

• 

  List of all portals

• 

  The arts portal

• 

  Biography portal

• 

  Current events portal

• 

  Geography portal

• 

  History portal

• 

  Mathematics portal

• 

  Science portal

• 

  Society portal

• 

  Technology portal

• 

  Random portal

• 

  WikiProject Portals