Portal:History
The History Portal
History (from Greek ἱστορία, historia, meaning "inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation") is the study of the past as it is described in written documents. Events occurring before written record are considered prehistory. It is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events. Scholars who write about history are called historians.
History can also refer to the academic discipline which uses a narrative to examine and analyse a sequence of past events, and objectively determine the patterns of cause and effect that determine them. Historians sometimes debate the nature of history and its usefulness by discussing the study of the discipline as an end in itself and as a way of providing "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, because they do not show the "disinterested investigation" required of the discipline of history. Herodotus, a 5th-century BC Greek historian is considered within the Western tradition to be the "father of history", and, along with his contemporary Thucydides, helped form the foundations for the modern study of human history. 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 known to be compiled from as early as 722 BC although only 2nd-century BC texts survived.
Ancient 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 thematical elements of historical investigation. Often history is taught as part of primary and secondary education, and the academic study of history is a major discipline in university studies.
Selected article
Near the completion of World War II the advancing Soviet Red Army pushed out the Nazi German army from occupied Poland. At the insistence of Joseph Stalin, the Yalta Conference sanctioned the formation of a new Polish provisional and pro-Communist coalition government in Moscow, which ignored the Polish government-in-exile based in London. This has been described as a Western betrayal of Poland on the part of Allied Powers to appease the Soviet leader and avoid a direct conflict. The Potsdam Agreement of 1945 ratified the westerly shift of Polish borders and approved its new territory between the Oder–Neisse line and the Curzon Line. Poland, as a result of World War II, for the first time in history became an ethnically homogeneous nation state without prominent minorities due to destruction of indigenous Polish-Jewish population in the Holocaust, the flight and expulsion of Germans in the west, resettlement of Ukrainians in the east, and the repatriation of Poles from Kresy. The new communist government in Warsaw solidified its political power over the next two years, while the Communist Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) under Bolesław Bierut gained firm control over the country, which would become part of the postwar Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. Following Stalin's death in 1953, a political "thaw" in Eastern Europe caused a more liberal faction of the Polish Communists of Władysław Gomułka to gain power. By the mid-1960s, Poland began experiencing increasing economic, as well as political, difficulties. In December 1970, a price hike led to a wave of strikes. The government introduced a new economic program based on large-scale borrowing from the West, which resulted in an immediate rise in living standards and expectations, but the program faltered because of the 1973 oil crisis. In the late 1970s the government of Edward Gierek was finally forced to raise prices, and this led to another wave of public protests.
Selected biography
Boone was a militia officer during the Revolutionary War (1775–82), which in Kentucky was fought primarily between the European settlers and the British-aided Native Americans. Boone was captured by Shawnee warriors in 1778, who after a while adopted him into their tribe. Later, he left the Indians and returned to Boonesborough to help defend the European settlements in Kentucky/Virginia.
Boone was elected to the first of his three terms in the Virginia General Assembly during the Revolutionary War, and fought in the Battle of Blue Licks in 1782. Blue Lick was one of the last battles of the Revolutionary War, coming after Lord Cornwallis surrendered to Washington in October of 1781.
Did you know...
- ... that, when Ghenadie Petrescu (pictured) was ousted from his post of Metropolitan-Primate, Romania experienced protests and riots?
- ... that the British destroyer HMS Highlander escorted Convoy SC 122 through the largest convoy battle of World War II in March 1943 and was unsuccessfully attacked by U-441 and U-608?
- ... that in 1911, John Gaunt's second biplane nearly crashed because a bystander bent the aircraft's elevator before a flight?
- ... that Themistokli Gërmenji, an Albanian nationalist, received the French Croix de Guerre in November 1917, but was executed shortly thereafter by a French military court?
- ... that fish-knives inscribed with Elokeshi's name were sold after her husband decapitated her with a fish-knife following her adulterous affair with a Hindu head-priest?
- ... that the ancient Roman dancer Galeria Copiola reached the age of 104?
- ... that to escape burning at the 1393 Bal des Ardents Charles VI of France huddled under the gown of the Duchesse de Berry, while a lord leaped into a wine vat?
- ... that a junior officer on the USS Ancon refused King George VI entry to the ship's intelligence centre because no one told him the King "was a Bigot"?
Selected image
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The San Francisco Mission District burning in the aftermath of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, April 18, 1906. The majority of the city's buildings were wood; taken on a rooftop near the fire by H. D. Chadwick, this image shows them burning heavily following the 7.9 MW earthquake.
On this day
- 1643 – First English Civil War: Roundhead forces serving under Sir William Waller led a successful surprise attack on a winter garrison of Royalist infantry and cavalry.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Union forces under Ambrose Burnside suffered severe casualties against entrenched Confederate defenders at the Battle of Fredericksburg in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
- 1928 – The premiere of An American in Paris, a jazz-influenced orchestral piece by George Gershwin (pictured), took place at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
- 1960 – With Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia, out of the country, four conspirators staged a coup attempt and installed Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen as the new Emperor.
- 2001 – The Parliament of India was attacked by five gunmen, resulting in 12 deaths, including those of the perpetrators.
Francesco Bianchini (b. 1662) · Ana Néri (b. 1814) · Dora Marsden (d. 1960)
Selected quote
Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
— Sun Tzu, Ancient Chinese military strategist
Selected portal
"If you ask me what is my native country, I answer: I was born in Fiume, grew up in Belgrade, Budapest, Pressburg, Vienna and Munich, and I have a Hungarian passport; but I have no fatherland. I am a very typical mix of old Austria-Hungary: at once Magyar, Croatian, German and Czech; my country is Hungary, my mother tongue is German."
— Ödön von Horváth
Things you can do
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WikiProjects
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List of time periods – Prehistory • Protohistory • Ancient history • Modern history • Future history
- The Ages of history – Stone Age • Copper Age • Bronze Age • Iron Age • Dark Ages (historiography) • Middle Ages • Age of Discovery • Renaissance • Age of Enlightenment • Industrial Age • Space Age • Information Age
History by subject
- History of science – Theories/sociology • Historiography • Mathematics • Pseudoscience • Scientific method
- History of science by era – In early cultures • In Classical Antiquity • In the Middle Ages • In the Renaissance • Scientific Revolution
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