Portal:History

The History Portal

Library of Alexandria

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 analyse 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 artefacts, 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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  Collingwood at anchor, 1912

  
  HMS Collingwood was a St Vincent-class dreadnought battleship built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. She spent her whole career assigned to the Home and Grand Fleets and often served as a flagship. Prince Albert (later King George VI) spent several years aboard the ship before and during World War I. At the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, Collingwood was in the middle of the battleline and lightly damaged a German battlecruiser. Other than that battle, and the inconclusive action of 19 August, her service during the war generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea. The ship was deemed obsolete after the war; she was reduced to reserve and used as a training ship before being sold for scrap in 1922. (Full article...)
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  Sir Hector MacLean's charge at Inverkeithing (1873 illustration)

  
  The Battle of Inverkeithing was fought on 20 July 1651 between an English army under John Lambert and a Scottish army led by James Holborne as part of an English invasion of Scotland. The battle was fought near the isthmus of the Ferry Peninsula, to the south of Inverkeithing, after which it is named.
  
  An English Parliamentary regime had tried, convicted, and executed Charles I, who was king of both Scotland and England in a personal union, in January 1649. The Scots recognised his son, also named Charles, as king of Britain and set about recruiting an army. An English army, under Oliver Cromwell, invaded Scotland in July 1650. The Scottish army, commanded by David Leslie, refused battle until 3 September when it was heavily defeated at the Battle of Dunbar. The English occupied Edinburgh and the Scots withdrew to the choke point of Stirling. For nearly a year all attempts to storm or bypass Stirling, or to draw the Scots out into another battle, failed. On 17 July 1651 1,600 English soldiers crossed the Firth of Forth at its narrowest point in specially constructed flat-bottomed boats and landed at North Queensferry on the Ferry Peninsula. The Scots sent forces to pen the English in and the English reinforced their landing. On 20 July the Scots moved against the English and in a short engagement were routed. (Full article...)
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  The school's exact location is uncertain, but it is thought to have lain just north of Nejmeh Square (pictured), next to the Saint George Greek Orthodox Cathedral.

  
  The law school of Berytus (also known as the law school of Beirut) was a center for the study of Roman law in classical antiquity located in Berytus (modern-day Beirut, Lebanon). It flourished under the patronage of the Roman emperors and functioned as the Roman Empire's preeminent center of jurisprudence until its destruction in AD 551.
  
  The law schools of the Roman Empire established organized repositories of imperial constitutions and institutionalized the study and practice of jurisprudence to relieve the busy imperial courts. The archiving of imperial constitutions facilitated the task of jurists in referring to legal precedents. The origins of the law school of Beirut are obscure, but probably it was under Augustus in the first century. The earliest written mention of the school dates to 238–239 AD, when its reputation had already been established. The school attracted young, affluent Roman citizens, and its professors made major contributions to the Codex of Justinian. The school achieved such wide recognition throughout the Empire that Beirut was known as the "Mother of Laws". Beirut was one of the few schools allowed to continue teaching jurisprudence when Byzantine emperor Justinian I shut down other provincial law schools. (Full article...)
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  USS Enterprise maneuvering radically under aerial attack and afire on 24 August 1942. Anti-aircraft shell bursts are visible above the carrier.

  
  The naval Battle of the Eastern Solomons (also known as the Battle of the Stewart Islands and in Japanese sources as the Second Battle of the Solomon Sea) took place on 24–25 August 1942 and was the third carrier battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II and the second major engagement fought between the United States Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the Guadalcanal campaign. As at the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway, the ships of the two adversaries were never within sight of each other. Instead, all attacks were carried out by carrier-based or land-based aircraft.
  
  After several damaging air attacks, the naval surface combatants from both America and Japan withdrew from the battle area. Although neither side secured a clear victory, the U.S. and its allies gained a tactical and strategic advantage. Japan's losses were greater and included dozens of aircraft and their experienced aircrews. Also, Japanese reinforcements intended for Guadalcanal were delayed and eventually delivered by warships rather than transport ships, giving the Allies more time to prepare for the Japanese counteroffensive and preventing the Japanese from landing heavy artillery, ammunition, and other supplies. (Full article...)
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  R. V. C. Bodley, c. 1914

  
  Ronald Victor Courtenay Bodley, MC (3 March 1892 – 26 May 1970) was a British Army officer, author and journalist. Born to English parents in Paris, he lived in France until he was nine, before attending Eton College and then the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was commissioned in the King's Royal Rifle Corps and served with them during the First World War. After the war he spent seven years in the Sahara desert, and then travelled through Asia. Bodley wrote several books about his travels. He was considered among the most distinguished British writers on the Sahara, as well as one of the main western sources of information on the South Seas Mandate.
  
  Bodley moved to the United States in 1935, where he worked as a screenwriter. He rejoined the British Army at the outbreak of the Second World War and was sent to Paris to work for the Ministry of Information. He later immigrated to the United States, where he continued to work as a writer and also as an advisor to the United States Office of War Information. (Full article...)
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  Fictional 17th-century drawing

  
  Causantín mac Áeda (Modern Gaelic: Còiseam mac Aoidh, anglicised Constantine II; born no later than 879; died 952) was an early King of Scotland, known then by the Gaelic name Alba. The Kingdom of Alba, a name which first appears in Constantine's lifetime, was situated in what is now Northern Scotland.
  
  The core of the kingdom was formed by the lands around the River Tay. Its southern limit was the River Forth, northwards it extended towards the Moray Firth and perhaps to Caithness, while its western limits are uncertain. Constantine's grandfather Kenneth I (Cináed mac Ailpín, died 858) was the first of the family recorded as a king, but as king of the Picts. This change of title, from king of the Picts to king of Alba, is part of a broader transformation of Pictland and the origins of the Kingdom of Alba are traced to Constantine's lifetime. (Full article...)
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  William Cragh (c. 1262 – after 1307) was a medieval Welsh warrior and supporter of Rhys ap Maredudd, lord of the lands of Ystrad Tywi, in his rebellion against King Edward I of England. Captured in 1290 by the son of William de Briouze, the Cambro-Norman Lord of Gower, he was tried and found guilty of having killed thirteen men. Cragh was hanged just outside Swansea within sight of de Briouze's Swansea Castle, twice, as the gallows collapsed during his first hanging. Lady Mary de Briouze interceded on Cragh's behalf and prayed to the deceased Bishop of Hereford, Thomas de Cantilupe, requesting him to ask God to bring Cragh back from the dead. Cragh began to show signs of life the day after his execution and over the subsequent few weeks made a full recovery, living at least another eighteen years.
  
  The main primary source for Cragh's story is the record of the investigation into the canonisation of Thomas de Cantilupe, which is held in the Vatican Library. Cragh's resurrection was one of thirty-eight miracles presented to the papal commissioners who in 1307 were charged with examining the evidence for Cantilupe's saintliness. The hanged man himself gave evidence to the commission, after which nothing more is known of him. Cantilupe was formally canonised by Pope John XXII on 17 April 1320. (Full article...)
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  Alan John Bayard Wace FBA FSA (13 July 1879 – 9 November 1957) was an English archaeologist who served as director of the British School at Athens (BSA) between 1914 and 1923. He excavated widely in Thessaly, Laconia, and Egypt and at the Bronze Age site of Mycenae in Greece. He was also an authority on Greek textiles and a prolific collector of Greek embroidery.
  
  Educated at Shrewsbury School and Pembroke College, Cambridge, Wace initially focused his scholarly interests on Ancient Greek sculpture and modern Greek anthropology. He first attended the BSA in 1902, before moving to the British School at Rome (BSR). While a member of the BSR, he participated in the BSA's excavations at Sparta and in the region of Laconia in southern Greece. Between 1907 and 1912, he surveyed widely in the northern Greek region of Thessaly, before taking a post at the Scottish University of St Andrews in 1912. (Full article...)
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  Stephen Trigg (c. 1744 – August 19, 1782) was an American pioneer and soldier from Virginia. He was killed ten months after the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in one of the last battles of the American Revolution while leading the Lincoln County militia at the Battle of Blue Licks, Kentucky.
  
  A son of William and Mary (Johns) Trigg, he mainly worked as a public servant and militia officer during the early years of the frontier counties of southwest Virginia, which then included Kentucky. He was reportedly one of the wealthiest men on the frontier. Trigg was a delegate to the first Virginia revolutionary conventions, and was a member of the Fincastle Committee of Safety that drafted the Fincastle Resolutions, a precursor to the Declaration of Independence passed by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. He was also elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. (Full article...)
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  RAAF officers at No. 90 Wing headquarters, Malaya, c. 1950

  
  No. 90 (Composite) Wing was a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) wing that operated during the early years of the Malayan Emergency. Its purpose was to serve as an umbrella organisation for the RAAF units deployed in the conflict, No. 1 (Bomber) Squadron, flying Avro Lincolns, and No. 38 (Transport) Squadron, flying Douglas C-47 Dakotas. The wing was established in July 1950 and headquartered at Changi, on the east coast of Singapore. No. 1 Squadron operated from Tengah, in Singapore's west. No. 38 Squadron was based at Changi and, from April 1951 to February 1952, at Kuala Lumpur in central Malaya. The Lincolns generally conducted area bombing missions, as well as precision strikes, to harass communist insurgents. The Dakotas were tasked with airlifting cargo, VIPs, troops and casualties, as well as courier flights and supply drops. Following No. 38 Squadron's departure in December 1952, No. 90 Wing was disbanded, leaving No. 1 Squadron to carry on as the sole RAAF unit in the Malayan air campaign until its withdrawal to Australia in July 1958. (Full article...)
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  Aerial view of Indefatigable at sea, 7 November 1944

  
  HMS Indefatigable was one of two Implacable-class aircraft carriers built for the Royal Navy (RN) during World War II. Completed in 1944, her aircraft made several attacks that year against the German battleship Tirpitz, inflicting only light damage; they also raided targets in Norway. The ship was transferred to the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) at the end of the year and attacked Japanese-controlled oil refineries in Sumatra in January 1945 before joining the American forces in March as they prepared to invade the island of Okinawa in Operation Iceberg. Indefatigable and the BPF joined the Americans in attacking the Japanese Home Islands in July and August. Following the end of hostilities she visited ports in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
  
  After returning to the UK in early 1946, Indefatigable was modified for transport duties, and ferried troops and civilians for the rest of the year before she was reduced to reserve. She was recommissioned in 1950 as a training ship for service with the Home Fleet Training Squadron, participating in exercises and making several port visits overseas. The Board of Admiralty decided that she was redundant in early 1954 and decommissioned her later that year. Indefatigable was sold for scrap the following year. (Full article...)
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  Nimmo in 1945

  
  Lieutenant General Robert Harold Nimmo, CBE (22 November 1893 – 4 January 1966) was a senior Australian Army officer who served in World War I, in World War II, with the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan, as general officer commanding (GOC) Northern Command in Australia, and finally as the chief military observer of the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan from 1950 until his death in 1966. Raised on a sheep station in far north Queensland, Nimmo attended the Southport School in southern Queensland before entering the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1912. He was the senior cadet of his class, graduating early to participate in World War I. He served with the 5th Light Horse Regiment during the Gallipoli and Sinai and Palestine campaigns, reaching the rank of major. He was praised for his leadership as a light horse squadron commander and for his skills as the brigade major of the 1st Light Horse Brigade in the final stages of the war.
  
  At the end of the war, Nimmo transferred to the permanent Australian Staff Corps, and served as a company commander and instructor at Duntroon before a series of staff postings at cavalry formations in Victoria. He was also a talented sportsman, representing Australia in field hockey, and the state of Victoria in a range of sports. After attending the British Army's Senior Officers' School, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and served as a senior staff officer on the headquarters of two cavalry divisions. At the outbreak of World War II, he was initially retained in Australia to help develop an Australian armoured force, and was subsequently promoted to brigadier and commanded a cavalry and then an armoured brigade in Australia. Following this he was posted as a senior staff officer at corps and then at army headquarters level in Australia. Nimmo administered command of Northern Territory Force before deploying to the island of Bougainville in the Territory of New Guinea to command the 4th Base Sub Area, the logistics organisation supporting the Bougainville campaign. His final posting of the war was as a senior staff officer on First Australian Army headquarters in Lae in New Guinea. (Full article...)
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  King Alexander c. 1917

  
  Alexander (Greek: Αλέξανδρος, romanized: Aléxandros; 1 August 1893 – 25 October 1920) was King of Greece from 11 June 1917 until his death on 25 October 1920.
  
  The second son of King Constantine I, Alexander was born in the summer palace of Tatoi on the outskirts of Athens. He succeeded his father in 1917, during World War I, after the Entente Powers and the followers of Eleftherios Venizelos pushed King Constantine and his eldest son, Crown Prince George, into exile. Having no real political experience, the new king was stripped of his powers by the Venizelists and effectively imprisoned in his own palace. Venizelos, as prime minister, was the effective ruler with the support of the Entente. Though reduced to the status of a puppet king, Alexander supported Greek troops during their war against the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. Under his reign, the territorial extent of Greece considerably increased, following the victory of the Entente and their Allies in the First World War and the early stages of the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922. (Full article...)
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  RAAF area command boundaries in 1944

  
  Area commands were the major operational and administrative formations of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) between 1940 and 1954. Established in response to the outbreak of World War II, they underpinned the Air Force's geographically based command-and-control system for the duration of the conflict and into the early years of the Cold War, until being superseded by a functional control system made up of Home, Training, and Maintenance Commands.
  
  The area commands and their responsibilities evolved over time according to changing circumstances. The RAAF established four commands to begin with in 1940–41: Southern Area, Central Area, Western Area, and Northern Area. They oversaw most of the operations, training and maintenance within their boundaries. A concession to functional control occurred in mid-1941, when the Air Force formed two groups that assumed the training role of the southern and eastern states; Central Area was disbanded and most of its units taken over by Northern and Southern Areas, and the newly formed No. 2 (Training) Group. The area structure was further revised in 1942, following the outbreak of the Pacific War; Northern Area was split into North-Eastern Area and North-Western Area, and a new command, Eastern Area, was created, making a total of five commands. The same year, the RAAF formed two functional groups that assumed the maintenance role of the area commands; the latter focussed on operations until the end of hostilities. A new area command covering RAAF units in New Guinea, Northern Command, was formed in 1944 and dissolved soon after the war. (Full article...)
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  Boone depicted in an 1820 portrait by Chester Harding, the only known portrait of him made during his lifetime

  
  Daniel Boone (November 2 [O.S. October 22], 1734 – September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyond the western borders of the Thirteen Colonies. In 1775, Boone founded the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky, in the face of resistance from Native Americans. He founded Boonesborough, one of the first English-speaking settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains. By the end of the 18th century, more than 200,000 people had entered Kentucky by following the route marked by Boone.
  
  He served as a militia officer during the Revolutionary War (1775–1783), which in Kentucky was fought primarily between American settlers and British-allied Indians. Boone was taken in by Shawnees in 1778 and adopted into the tribe, but he resigned and continued to help protect the Kentucky settlements. He also left due to the Shawnee Indians torturing and killing one of his sons. He was elected to the first of his three terms in the Virginia General Assembly during the war and fought in the Battle of Blue Licks in 1782, one of the last battles of the American Revolution. He worked as a surveyor and merchant after the war, but went deep into debt as a Kentucky land speculator. He resettled in Missouri in 1799, where he spent most of the last two decades of his life, frustrated with legal problems resulting from his land claims. (Full article...)

Featured picture

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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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  German occupation of Czechoslovakia

  Photo credit: Völkischer Beobachter

  A crying Sudeten woman salutes Adolf Hitler as German forces sweep into Czechoslovakia, October 1938. Originally published in the Völkischer Beobachter, it supposedly showed the intense emotions of joy which swept the populace as Hitler drove through the streets of Cheb, 99% of whose inhabitants were ardently pro-Nazi Sudeten Germans at the time. In contrast, when the photo was published in the U.S., it was captioned, "The tragedy of this Sudeten woman, unable to conceal her misery as she dutifully salutes the triumphant Hitler, is the tragedy of the silent millions who have been 'won over' to Hitlerism by the 'everlasting use' of ruthless force." It is unknown what the true circumstances surrounding the photo are.
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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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  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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  Ziegler Polar Expedition

  Photo credit: Anthony Fiala

  A panorama from the Ziegler Polar Expedition of 1903–05, an unsuccessful attempt to reach the North Pole. The party remained stranded north of the Arctic Circle for two years before being rescued, yet all but one of its members survived.
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  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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  Armorial of the Holy Roman Empire

  Woodcut: Hans Burgkmair; print: David de Negker

  A woodcut print of the Quaternion Eagle, the double-headed eagle armorial of the Holy Roman Empire. It showed the shields of the various parts of the empire in groups of four on the feathers of the eagle supporting, in place of a shield, Christ on the True Cross. The top, larger shields, are those of the seven Prince-electors, as well as one for the titular "Prefect of Rome".
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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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  Nefertiti Bust

  Photo: Philip Pikart

  The Nefertiti Bust is a 3300-year-old painted limestone bust of Nefertiti, the Great Royal Wife of the Pharaoh Akhenaten and one of the most copied works of Ancient Egypt. It is believed to have been crafted in 1345 BC by the sculptor Thutmose, in whose workshop it was discovered in 1912 by a German archaeological team led by Ludwig Borchardt. It is part of the Egyptian Museum of Berlin collection, currently on display in the Neues Museum and has been the subject of an intense argument between Egypt and Germany over the Egyptian demands for its repatriation.
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  Cliff Palace

  Photo credit: Gustaf Nordenskiöld

  An 1891 photograph of Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling—a structure built within caves and under outcroppings in cliffs—in North America, located in what is now Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, USA. There are about 150 rooms in the 288 ft (88 m) long structure, although only 25 to 30 of those were used as living space by Ancient Pueblo Peoples. it is estimated that the population of Cliff Palace was roughly 100–150 people.
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  Machu Picchu

  Photo: Martin St-Amant

  Machu Picchu, with the peak Huayna Picchu behind it. Perhaps the most famous Inca site, Machu Picchu is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru. It was probably built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti in the 15th century, but abandoned soon after during the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. Although known locally, it was unknown to the outside world before being brought to international attention in 1911 by the American historian Hiram Bingham, and it is now an important tourist attraction.
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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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  Operation Ivy

  Photo: United States Department of Energy

  The mushroom cloud from the Ivy Mike nuclear test, one of two tests conducted as part of Operation Ivy at the Pacific Proving Grounds on Elugelab in the Marshall Islands. Mike was the first successful full-scale test of a multi-megaton thermonuclear weapon, and it left an underwater crater 6,240 ft (1,900 m) wide and 164 ft (50 m) deep where the island had been.
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  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.
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  Vegetable Lamb of Tartary

  Artist: Unknown, after Johann Zahn

  A drawing of the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (Agnus scythicus), a zoophyte of Central Asia. Botanist Henry Lee described it as both a true animal and a living plant, although he did allow for the possibility that the lamb was the fruit of the plant. The lamb was believed to have blood, bones, and flesh like that of a normal lamb. It was connected to the earth by a stem similar to an umbilical cord that propped the lamb up above ground. The cord could flex downward allowing the lamb to feed on the grass and plants surrounding it. Once the plants within reach were eaten, the lamb died, at which point its cotton-like wool would be harvested and used to make textiles.
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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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  Rajputs

  Image: The Illustrated London News
  Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  An 1876 engraving of Khokar Rajputs of Punjab. The Rajputs are one of the major Hindu Kshatriya (warrior) groups of India. Rajputs rose to prominence during the 9th to 11th centuries, and by the time of Indian independence, they ruled more than two-thirds of the estimated six hundred princely states, including three-quarters of the salute states.
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  Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler

  Photo credit: Eva Braun

  The two European Axis leaders during World War II, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, riding in an automobile, circa June 1940. This photo was found in Eva Braun's personal photo albums and is credited to her, though whether she was the true photographer is unknown.

Did you know (auto generated)

• ... that LGBT rights activist Kit Malone helped create the first transgender organized marching group in the Indianapolis Pride Parade's history?
• ... that the 2022 Boca Raton Bowl was the first bowl game loss in Liberty program history after three wins in their first three appearances?
• ... that the Balconcillo mutiny is considered to be the first coup d'état in the history of Peru?
• ... that the Al Qarara Cultural Museum, housed in a former grain silo, contained 6000 years of history?
• ... that West Auckland is home to the largest stratovolcano in the geologic history of New Zealand?
• ... that the legal battle over awarding channel 9 in Orlando, Florida, the longest case in FCC history at the time, filled 55 volumes?

Featured biography –

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

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The Darnley Portrait, c. 1575

Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last monarch of the House of Tudor.

Elizabeth was the only surviving child of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. When Elizabeth was two years old, her parents' marriage was annulled, her mother was executed, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. Henry restored her to the line of succession when she was 10, via the Third Succession Act 1543. After Henry's death in 1547, Elizabeth's younger half-brother Edward VI ruled until his own death in 1553, bequeathing the crown to a Protestant cousin, Lady Jane Grey, and ignoring the claims of his two half-sisters, the Catholic Mary and the younger Elizabeth, in spite of statutes to the contrary. Edward's will was set aside within weeks of his death and Mary became queen, deposing and executing Jane. During Mary's reign, Elizabeth was imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels. (Full article...)

On this day

January 22: Little New Year in northern China (2025); Day of Unity of Ukraine

Cetshwayo

• 565 – Eutychius of Constantinople was arrested after he refused Byzantine emperor Justinian I's order to adopt the tenets of the Aphthartodocetae, a sect of non-Chalcedonian Christians.
• 1273 – Muhammad II became Sultan of Granada after his father's death in a riding accident.
• 1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: The Zulu forces of King Cetshwayo (pictured) achieved a decisive victory at the Battle of Isandlwana.
• 1973 – The U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in Roe v. Wade struck down laws restricting abortion during the first two trimesters of pregnancy.
• 2006 – Evo Morales was inaugurated as President of Bolivia, becoming the country's first indigenous president.
• 2012 – Croatia held a referendum in which it voted to become a member of the European Union.

• Christian Ramsay (d. 1839)
• Vito Cascio Ferro (b. 1862)
• S. Vithiananthan (d. 1989)
• Ursula K. Le Guin (d. 2018)

More anniversaries:

• January 21
• January 22
• January 23

Selected quote

As long as I breathe I hope. As long as I breathe I shall fight for the future, that radiant future, in which man, strong and beautiful, will become master of the drifting stream of his history and will direct it towards the boundless horizons of beauty, joy and happiness!

— Leon Trotsky, 20th century Russian revolutionary

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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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