Portal:History

The History Portal

Herodotus (c. 484 BC – c. 425 BC) is often
considered the "father of history"

History (derived from Ancient Greek ἱστορία (historía) 'inquiry; knowledge acquired by investigation') is the systematic study and documentation of the human past. History is an academic discipline which uses a narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect. Historians debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effects. Historians debate the nature of history as an end in itself, and its usefulness in giving perspective on the problems of the present.

The period of events before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of these events. Historians seek knowledge of the past using historical sources such as written documents, oral accounts or traditional oral histories, art and material artifacts, and ecological markers.

Stories common to a particular culture, but not supported by external sources (such as the tales surrounding King Arthur), are usually classified as cultural heritage or legends. History differs from myth in that it is supported by verifiable evidence. However, ancient cultural influences have helped create variant interpretations of the nature of history, which have evolved over the centuries and continue to change today. The modern study of history is wide-ranging, and includes the study of specific regions and certain topical or thematic elements of historical investigation. History is taught as a part of primary and secondary education, and the academic study of history is a major discipline in universities.

Herodotus, a 5th-century BCE Greek historian, is often considered the "father of history", as one of the first historians in the Western tradition, though he has been criticized as the "father of lies". Along with his contemporary Thucydides, he helped form the foundations for the modern study of past events and societies. Their works continue to be read today, and the gap between the culture-focused Herodotus and the military-focused Thucydides remains a point of contention or approach in modern historical writing. In East Asia a state chronicle, the Spring and Autumn Annals, was reputed to date from as early as 722 BCE, though only 2nd-century BCE texts have survived. The title "father of history" has also been attributed, in their respective societies, to Sima Qian, Ibn Khaldun, and Kenneth Dike. (Full article...)

Featured articles –

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

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  Portrait by Mathew Brady, c. 1870–1880

  
  James Baird Weaver (June 12, 1833 – February 12, 1912) was an American politician in Iowa who was a member of the United States House of Representatives and two-time candidate for President of the United States.
  
  Born in Ohio, he moved to Iowa as a boy when his family claimed a homestead on the frontier. He became politically active as a young man and was an advocate for farmers and laborers. He joined and quit several political parties in the furtherance of the progressive causes in which he believed. After serving in the Union Army in the American Civil War, Weaver returned to Iowa and worked for the election of Republican candidates. (Full article...)
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  White in Melbourne, c. 1940

  
  Sir Thomas Walter White, KBE, DFC, VD (26 April 1888 – 13 October 1957) was an Australian politician and pilot in the First World War. In 1914 he became one of the first airmen trained for the Australian Flying Corps (AFC), and the following year he was among the first AFC members to see action when he was deployed to the Middle East with the Mesopotamian Half Flight. After carrying out several missions behind Turkish lines, he was captured in November 1915 but escaped in July 1918. White was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and twice mentioned in despatches for his war service. He married Vera Deakin, a Red Cross worker and daughter of former Australian prime minister Alfred Deakin, in 1920.
  
  White began his parliamentary career in 1929 when he was elected to the House of Representatives as the Member for Balaclava in Victoria. He served as Minister for Trade and Customs in Joseph Lyons's United Australia Party government from 1933 to 1938, but resigned when he was excluded from Lyons's inner cabinet. He joined the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War and saw service in Australia and the United Kingdom. Returning to parliament as a member of the newly formed Liberal Party in 1945, he served as Minister for Air and Minister for Civil Aviation in Robert Menzies's government from 1949 to 1951. His term coincided with the commitment of RAAF squadrons to the Korean War and the Malayan Emergency. Australia's high commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1951 to 1956, White was knighted in 1952 and died in 1957. (Full article...)
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  The Gudovac massacre was the mass killing of around 190 Bjelovar Serbs by the Croatian nationalist Ustaše movement on 28 April 1941, during World War II. The massacre occurred shortly after the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia and the establishment of the Ustaše-led Axis puppet state known as the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). It was the first act of mass murder committed by the Ustaše upon coming to power, and presaged a wider Ustaše-perpetrated campaign of genocide against Serbs in the NDH that lasted until the end of the war.
  
  The Ustaše used the mysterious deaths of two of their local followers as a pretext for the killings. The victims were drawn from Gudovac and its surroundings on 28 April. Most were arrested under the guise that they were rebels loyal to the ousted Yugoslav government. They were taken to a nearby field and collectively shot by a firing squad of up to 70 Ustaše guards. Five of the prisoners managed to survive the initial volley and crawled away to safety. The Ustaše forced Gudovac's surviving inhabitants to dig a mass grave for the victims and pour quicklime on the bodies to speed up decomposition. The following day, relatives of one of the victims informed the Germans of what had transpired. The Germans ordered a partial exhumation of the mass grave, and had 40 suspected perpetrators arrested. Mladen Lorković, a senior Ustaše official, used his influence to have the detained men released and promised German ambassador Siegfried Kasche that the Croatian authorities would carry out a thorough investigation. No investigation took place. (Full article...)
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  Ise in 1943

  Operation Kita (北号作戦, Hoku-gō sakusen, "North") was conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the Pacific War in February 1945. Its purpose was to return two Ise-class hybrid battleship-aircraft carriers and four escort ships to Japan from Singapore, where they had been based since November the previous year. The movement of the Japanese force was detected by the Allies, but all attempts to attack it with submarines and aircraft failed. Nevertheless, as a result of the intensifying Allied blockade of Japan, the Ise-class battleship-carriers and their escorts were among the last IJN warships to safely reach the country from the Southwest Pacific before the end of the war.
  
  Before departing Singapore, the Japanese ships, which were designated the Completion Force, were loaded with supplies of oil and other important raw materials. This formed part of an effort to run increased quantities of supplies through the Allied blockade of Japan before the country was cut off from its empire. The Allies had learned of the Completion Force's composition and goals through intelligence gained from decrypting Japanese radio signals, and plans were developed for coordinated attacks on it by submarines and United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) aircraft. As part of these preparations, 26 submarines were eventually positioned along the ships' expected route. (Full article...)
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  Station Sergeant Thomas Green, killed in the Epsom riot, June 1919

  
  
  The Epsom riot took place on 17 June 1919 when between 300 and 800 Canadian soldiers rioted and attacked the police station in Epsom, Surrey, England. Station Sergeant Thomas Green, a British police officer, was injured during the incident and died the following day.
  
  The Canadians were from the nearby Woodcote Park Convalescent Hospital, a former temporary military base that had been converted for use as a convalescent hospital. With the First World War over, discipline at the camp was relaxed. Delays in repatriating Canadian soldiers had resulted in thirteen riots by troops in British camps between November 1918 and June 1919. The riot began when two Canadian servicemen were arrested following a disturbance at a local public house. Their comrades marched on the town police station to demand their release. The soldiers ripped up the railings surrounding the station to use as projectiles and clubs. In the ensuing fighting, Private Allan McMaster, a former blacksmith, picked up a metal bar and struck Green on the head. The sergeant died the following day, having never regained consciousness. (Full article...)
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  Charles Green at Wewak, New Guinea, in September 1945

  
  Charles Hercules Green DSO (26 December 1919 – 1 November 1950) was an Australian military officer who was the youngest Australian Army infantry battalion commander during World War II. He went on to command the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3 RAR), during the Korean War, where he died of wounds. He remains the only commanding officer of a Royal Australian Regiment battalion to die on active service. Green joined the part-time Militia in 1936, and before the outbreak of World War II had been commissioned as a lieutenant. He volunteered for overseas service soon after the war began in September 1939, and served in the Middle East and the Battle of Greece with the 2/2nd Battalion. After the action at Pineios Gorge on 18 April 1941, Green became separated from the main body of the battalion, and made his way through Turkey to Palestine, to rejoin the reformed 2/2nd Battalion. The 2/2nd Battalion returned to Australia in August 1942 via Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), to meet the threat posed by the Japanese.
  
  Green performed instructional duties and attended courses until July 1943 when he rejoined the 2/2nd Battalion as its second-in-command. At the time, the unit was training in Queensland. From March to July 1945, Green commanded the 2/11th Battalion during the Aitape-Wewak campaign in New Guinea. For his performance during the campaign, Green was appointed a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order. After the war, Green briefly returned to civilian life and part-time military service as commanding officer of the 41st Battalion. When the Regular Army was formed, Green returned to full-time service in early 1949. (Full article...)
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  Courageous as an aircraft carrier in 1935

  
  HMS Courageous was the lead ship of her class of three battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy in the First World War. Designed to support the Baltic Project championed by First Sea Lord John Fisher, the ship was very lightly armoured and armed with only a few heavy guns. Courageous was completed in late 1916 and spent the war patrolling the North Sea. She participated in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in November 1917 and was present when the German High Seas Fleet surrendered a year later.
  
  Courageous was decommissioned after the war, then rebuilt as an aircraft carrier in the mid-1920s. She could carry 48 aircraft, compared with 36 carried by her half-sister Furious on about the same displacement. After recommissioning she spent most of her career operating off Great Britain and Ireland. She briefly became a training ship, but reverted to her normal role a few months before the start of the Second World War in September 1939. A German U-boat sank Courageous by torpedo later that month, with the loss of more than 500 of her crew. (Full article...)
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  Temple of Azizos in Bziza

  
  The Roman temple of Bziza is a well-preserved first century AD building dedicated to Azizos, a personification of the morning star in ancient Arab polytheism. This Roman temple lends the modern Lebanese town of Bziza its current name, as Bziza is a corruption of Beth Azizo meaning the house or temple of Azizos. Azizos was identified as Ares by Emperor Julian.
  
  The tetrastyle prostyle building has two doors that connect the pronaos to a square cella. To the back of the temple lie the remains of the adyton where images of the deity once stood. The ancient temple functioned as an aedes, the dwelling place of the deity. The temple of Bziza was converted into a church and underwent architectural modification during two phases of Christianization; in the Early Byzantine period and later in the Middle Ages. The church, colloquially known until modern times as the Lady of the Pillars, fell into disrepair. Despite the church's condition, Christian devotion was still maintained in the nineteenth century in one of the temple's niches. The temple of Bziza is featured on multiple stamps issued by the Lebanese state. (Full article...)
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  Burnt Candlemas was a failed invasion of Scotland in early 1356 by an English army commanded by King Edward III, and was the last campaign of the Second War of Scottish Independence. Tensions on the Anglo-Scottish border led to a military build-up by both sides in 1355. In September a nine-month truce was agreed, and most of the English forces left for northern France to take part in a campaign of the concurrent Hundred Years' War. A few days after agreeing the truce, the Scots, encouraged and subsidised by the French, broke it, invading and devastating Northumberland. In late December the Scots escaladed and captured the important English-held border town of Berwick-on-Tweed and laid siege to its castle. The English army redeployed from France to Newcastle in northern England.
  
  The English advanced to Berwick, retaking the town, and moved to Roxburgh in southern Scotland by mid-January 1356. From there they advanced on Edinburgh, leaving a trail of devastation 50–60 miles (80–100 km) wide behind them. The Scots practised a scorched earth policy, refusing battle and removing or destroying all food in their own territory. The English reached and burnt Edinburgh and were resupplied by sea at Haddington. Edward intended to march on Perth, but contrary winds prevented the movement of the fleet he would need to supply his army. While waiting for a better wind, the English despoiled Lothian so thoroughly that the episode became known as "Burnt Candlemas". This was a reference to the custom of the time of taking one's annual stock of candles to the local church on 2 February to be blessed in a ceremony known as candlemas; they were then used over the rest of the year. (Full article...)
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  On 30 September 2000, the second day of the Second Intifada, 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durrah (Arabic: محمد الدرة, romanized: Muḥammad ad-Durra) was killed at the Netzarim Junction in the Gaza Strip during widespread protests and riots across the Palestinian territories against Israeli military occupation. Jamal al-Durrah and his son Muhammad were filmed by Talal Abu Rahma, a Palestinian television cameraman freelancing for France 2, as they were caught in crossfire between the Israeli military and Palestinian security forces. Footage shows them crouching behind a concrete cylinder, the boy crying and the father waving, then a burst of gunfire and dust. Muhammad is shown slumping as he is mortally wounded by gunfire, dying soon after.
  
  Fifty-nine seconds of the footage were broadcast on television in France with a voiceover from Charles Enderlin, the station's bureau chief in Israel. Based on information from the cameraman, Enderlin told viewers that the al-Durrahs had been the target of fire from the Israeli positions and that the boy had died. After an emotional public funeral, Muhammad was hailed throughout the Muslim world as a martyr. (Full article...)
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  SMS Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand on gunnery trials in 1908

  
  SMS Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand  was an Austro-Hungarian Radetzky-class pre-dreadnought battleship commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Navy on 5 June 1910. She was named after Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The first ship of her class to be built, she preceded Radetzky by more than six months. Her armament included four 30.5 cm (12 in) guns in two twin turrets, and eight 24 cm (9.4 in) guns in four twin turrets.
  
  She participated in an international naval protest of the Balkan Wars in 1913, during which she helped enforce a blockade of Montenegro. She was also one of the first ships to deploy seaplanes for military use. During World War I, she saw limited service in the 2nd Division of the 1st Battle Squadron, including mobilization to assist the escape of the German ships SMS Goeben and SMS Breslau and the bombardment of Ancona in 1915. At the end of the war, she was ceded to Italy as a war prize and was eventually scrapped in 1926. (Full article...)
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  The US Navy ferries troops across the Rhine at Oberwesel.

  
  American logistics in the Western Allied invasion of Germany supported the American and French operations in Northwest Europe during the Second World War from 26 January 1945 until the end of World War II in Europe on 8 May 1945.
  
  By the end of January 1945, the American forces had recovered from the disruption to the supply system and the large losses of materiel inflicted by the German offensives in the Ardennes and Alsace. Sixty-eight ships loaded with replacement ordnance were dispatched from the United States. Casualties were harder to replace, and about 49,000 men were transferred from service units to the infantry branch. The Allied forces had to advance across the Rhineland, which was in the grip of thaws, rains and floods. They were then confronted by the Rhine, the most formidable barrier to the Allied advance since the English Channel. The river was crossed and bridged, and railways and pipelines were run across it. Most supplies were delivered by rail, and five railway bridges over the Rhine supported the final American advance into the heart of Germany. (Full article...)
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  A Fleet Air Arm crewman chalks a message on the 1,600-pound bomb carried by a Fairey Barracuda of HMS Furious

  A Fleet Air Arm crewman chalks a message on the 1,600-pound bomb carried by a Fairey Barracuda of HMS Furious

  
  Operation Tungsten was a Second World War Royal Navy air raid that targeted the German battleship Tirpitz. The operation sought to damage or destroy Tirpitz at her base in Kaafjord in the far north of Norway before she could become fully operational again following a period of repairs.
  
  The British decision to strike Kaafjord was motivated by fears that the battleship, upon re-entering service, would attack strategically important convoys carrying supplies to the Soviet Union. Removing the threat posed by Tirpitz would also allow the Allies to redeploy the capital ships which had to be held in the North Sea to counter her. After four months of training and preparations, the British Home Fleet sailed on 30 March 1944 and aircraft launched from five aircraft carriers struck Kaafjord on 3 April. The raid achieved surprise, and the British aircraft met little opposition. Fifteen bombs hit the battleship, and strafing by fighter aircraft inflicted heavy casualties on her gun crews. Four British aircraft and nine airmen were lost during the operation. (Full article...)
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  North View of Gibraltar from Spanish Lines by John Mace (1782)

  
  The history of Gibraltar, a small peninsula on the southern Iberian coast near the entrance of the Mediterranean Sea, spans over 2,900 years. The peninsula has evolved from a place of reverence in ancient times into "one of the most densely fortified and fought-over places in Europe", as one historian has put it. Gibraltar's location has given it an outsized significance in the history of Europe and its fortified town, established in the Middle Ages, has hosted garrisons that sustained numerous sieges and battles over the centuries.
  
  Gibraltar was first inhabited over 50,000 years ago by Neanderthals and archaeological evidence suggests that Gibraltar may have been one of their last places of habitation before evidence of Neanderthal disappears around 25,000 years later. Gibraltar's recorded history began around 950 BC with the Phoenicians amongst the first to recognise and worship the genius loci of the place, followed by various evidence from the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Carthaginians and Romans. There is also evidence of shrines built on the Rock of Gibraltar to Hercules. The Romans named the jutting protrusion of limestone Mons Calpe, the "Hollow Mountain", they regarded it as one of the twin Pillars of Hercules. (Full article...)
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  U.S. Marines cross the Matanikau River on a raft ferry in November 1942

  
  The Matanikau Offensive, from 1–4 November 1942, sometimes referred to as the Fourth Battle of the Matanikau, was an engagement between United States (U.S.) Marine and Army and Imperial Japanese Army forces around the Matanikau River and Point Cruz area on Guadalcanal during the Guadalcanal campaign of World War II. The action was one of the last of a series of engagements between U.S. and Japanese forces near the Matanikau River during the campaign.
  
  In the engagement, seven battalions of U.S. Marine and Army troops under the overall command of Alexander Vandegrift and tactical command of Merritt A. Edson, following up on the U.S. victory in the Battle for Henderson Field, crossed the Matanikau River and attacked Japanese Army units between the river and Point Cruz, on the northern Guadalcanal coast. The area was defended by the Japanese Army's 4th Infantry Regiment under Nomasu Nakaguma along with various other support troops, under the overall command of Harukichi Hyakutake. After inflicting heavy casualties on the Japanese defenders, U.S. forces halted the offensive and temporarily withdrew because of a perceived threat from Japanese forces elsewhere in the Guadalcanal area. (Full article...)

Featured picture

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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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  Events in ballooning

  Chromolithograph: Romanet & cie.

  A 19th-century set of ten cards depicting events in the history of ballooning and parachuting. These cards depict, from left to right:
  
  Top row:
  

  1. Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Jean-Baptiste Biot reaching an altitude of 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) (1804)
  2. André-Jacques Garnerin making a parachute descent in his gondola (1797)
  3. Louis-Sébastien Lenormand making the first witnessed parachute descent (1783)
  4. A series of fantastic flying machines dreamed up during the 18th century
  5. Use of balloons for reconnaissance during the Battle of Mainz (1795)

  
  Bottom row:
  

  1. The coronation balloon of Napoleon I (1804)
  2. The death of Sophie Blanchard (1819)
  3. Francesco Zambeccari and two companions adrift in the Adriatic Sea (1804)
  4. The death of Thomas Harris (1824)
  5. Francesco Arban is rescued by Italian fishermen (1846)

  
  
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  Boxer Rebellion

  Artist: Kasai Torajirō; Restoration: Staxringold

  Japanese and British troops attack members of the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists ("Boxers") at Beijing Castle during the Boxer Rebellion of 1899–1901. The Boxers, angered by foreign imperialist expansion into Qing Dynasty China, had engaged in looting, arson, and killings of foreigners. In 1900, the Empress Dowager Cixi employed the Boxers to attack foreign settlements in Beijing. The uprising was eventually put down by 20,000 troops from the Eight-Nation Alliance.
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  1906 San Francisco earthquake

  Photo credit: H. D. Chadwick

  The Mission District of San Francisco, California, burning in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. As damaging as the earthquake and its aftershocks were, the fires that burned out of control afterward were much more destructive.
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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.
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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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  Trinity nuclear test

  Photo credit: Berlyn Brixner

  The Trinity nuclear test explosion, .016 seconds after detonation. The fireball is about 200 metres (700 ft) wide. Conducted by the United States on July 16, 1945, at a location 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, on what is now White Sands Missile Range, Trinity was the first test of technology for a nuclear weapon.
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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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  Knight

  Illustration: Anton Sorg; Restoration: Lise Broer

  A knight, a member of the warrior class of the Middle Ages in Europe, in Gothic plate armour, from a German book illustration published 1483. The modern concept of the knight is as an elite warrior sworn to uphold the values of chivalry, faith, loyalty, courage and honour. Knighthood as known in Medieval Europe was characterized by the combination of two elements: feudalism and service as a mounted combatant. Both arose under the reign of the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne, from which the knighthood of the Middle Ages can be seen to have had its genesis.
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  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.
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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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  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.
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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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  Yellow badge

  Photograph credit: Ronald Torfs

  Yellow badges are badges that Jews were ordered to wear in public during periods of the Middle Ages by the ruling Christians and Muslims, and in Nazi Germany in the 1940s. The badges served to mark the wearer as a religious or ethnic outsider, and often served as a badge of shame. The badge pictured is in the collection of the Kazerne Dossin Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre in Mechelen, Belgium.
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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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  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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  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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  Ivan the Terrible Showing His Treasury to Jerome Horsey

  Artist: Alexander Litovchenko

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

Did you know (auto generated)

• ... that "End Zone" Jones ran for a career high in his final regular season game with Nebraska to finish third in the school's history in career rushing yards?
• ... that an Armenian Apostolic Church lawsuit over the Zeytun Gospels led Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh to write a history of its separated canon tables?
• ... that West Auckland is home to the largest stratovolcano in the geologic history of New Zealand?
• ... that the Netflix-released film A House in Jerusalem is inspired by the history of the director's Palestinian family, who were expelled in 1948 from what had become Israel during the Nakba?
• ... that Central City College was established as an African American-led alternative to the historically black Atlanta Baptist College?
• ... that Professor of History Lorenzo Kamel deems Umma–Lagash the first recorded war in human history?

Featured biography –

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

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Photograph by Mathew Brady, c. 1876

Dom Pedro II (2 December 1825 – 5 December 1891), nicknamed the Magnanimous (Portuguese: O Magnânimo), was the second and last monarch of the Empire of Brazil, reigning for over 58 years.

Pedro II was born in Rio de Janeiro, the seventh child of Emperor Dom Pedro I of Brazil and Empress Dona Maria Leopoldina and thus a member of the Brazilian branch of the House of Braganza (Portuguese: Bragança). His father's abrupt abdication and departure to Europe in 1831 left the five-year-old as emperor and led to a lonely childhood and adolescence, obliged to spend his time studying in preparation for rule. His experiences with court intrigues and political disputes during this period greatly affected his later character; he grew into a man with a strong sense of duty and devotion toward his country and his people, yet increasingly resentful of his role as monarch. (Full article...)

On this day

October 26

Ida B. Wells

• 1341 – The Byzantine army proclaimed chief minister John VI Kantakouzenos as emperor, triggering a civil war between his supporters and those of John V Palaiologos, the heir to the throne.
• 1871 – Liberian president Edward James Roye was overthrown in modern Africa's first coup d'état.
• 1892 – Ida B. Wells (pictured) began publishing her research on lynching in the United States, for which she was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2020.
• 1955 – Ngô Đình Diệm proclaimed himself president of the newly created Republic of Vietnam after defeating former emperor Bảo Đại in a fraudulent referendum supervised by his brother Ngô Đình Nhu.
• 2004 – Rockstar Games released Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, considered one of the best video games ever made, in North America.

• Cuthbert of Canterbury (d. 760)
• Gómez González (d. 1111)
• Carlo Collodi (d. 1890)
• Yamashita Yoshitsugu (d. 1935)

More anniversaries:

• October 25
• October 26
• October 27

Selected quote

What we find in books is like the fire in our hearths. We fetch it from our neighbors, we kindle it at home, we communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

— Voltaire, 18th century French philosopher

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• ... that in 1898, the United States government annexed the Kingdom of Hawaii despite protestation from Queen Liliuokalani (pictured)?
• ... that Jean Thurel was a soldier in the French Régiment de Touraine for more than 75 years?
• ... that the severed head of Julia Martha Thomas — murdered, boiled and dismembered by her maid in 1879 — was found next door to Sir David Attenborough's house in 2010?
• ... that the 18th-century Indian automaton Tipu's Tiger shows a near life-size European being mauled by a tiger, and emits wails and grunts as well as containing a pipe organ?
• ... that Svið, a traditional Icelandic dish, consists of a sheep's head that has been cut in half, singed, and boiled with the brain removed?
• ... that, despite overseeing the construction of the crematoria and gas chambers at Auschwitz, what specifically shocked SS-Obersturmführer Robert Mulka at the camp was his colleagues' dress sense?
• ... that Tsar Alexander II of Russia had a special crystal bottle of Roederer champagne made for the Three Emperors Dinner in 1867 so that he could admire the bubbles?
• ... that the Gudea cylinders are the longest literary composition ever found in the Sumerian language?

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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.

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