Portal:History

The History Portal

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History (derived from Ancient Greek ἱστορία (historía) 'inquiry; knowledge acquired by investigation') is the systematic study and documentation of the human past.

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, art and material artifacts, and ecological markers. History is incomplete and still has debatable mysteries.

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.

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 BC 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 BC, though only 2nd-century BC texts have survived. (Full article...)

Featured articles –

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

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  ARA Rivadavia

  
  ARA Rivadavia (Spanish: [riβaˈðaβja]) was an Argentine battleship built during the South American dreadnought race. Named after the first Argentine president, Bernardino Rivadavia, it was the lead ship of its class. Moreno was Rivadavia's only sister ship.
  
  In 1907, the Brazilian government placed an order for two of the powerful new "dreadnought" warships as part of a larger naval construction program. Argentina quickly responded, as the Brazilian ships outclassed anything in the Argentine fleet. After an extended bidding process, contracts to design and build Rivadavia and Moreno were given to the American Fore River Shipbuilding Company. During their construction, there were rumors that the ships might be sold to a country engaged in the First World War, but both were commissioned into the Argentine Navy. Rivadavia underwent extensive refits in the United States in 1924 and 1925. The ship saw no active service during the Second World War, and its last cruise was made in 1946. Stricken from the naval register in 1957, Rivadavia was sold later that year and broken up for scrap starting in 1959. (Full article...)
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  SMS Prinz Adalbert

  
  SMS Prinz Adalbert ('His Majesty's Ship Prince Adalbert') was an armored cruiser built in the early 1900s for the Imperial German Navy. She was named after Prince Adalbert of Prussia, former Commander-in-Chief of the Prussian Navy, and was the lead ship of her class.
  Prinz Adalbert was built at the Imperial Dockyard in Kiel. Her keel was laid in April 1900, and she was launched in June 1901. Her completion in January 1904 had been delayed by an excess of construction projects at the Imperial Dockyard. She was armed with a main battery of four 21 cm (8.3 in) guns, a significant improvement over the previous armored cruiser, Prinz Heinrich, which carried only two 24 cm (9.4 in) guns. The ship was capable of a top speed of 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph). (Full article...)
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  Slayback's Missouri Cavalry Regiment was a cavalry regiment of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Originally formed as Slayback's Missouri Cavalry Battalion, the unit consisted of men recruited in Missouri by Lieutenant Colonel Alonzo W. Slayback during Price's Raid in 1864. The battalion's first action was at the Battle of Pilot Knob on September 27; it later participated in actions at Sedalia, Lexington, and the Little Blue River. In October, the unit was used to find an alternate river crossing during the Battle of the Big Blue River. Later that month, Slayback's unit saw action at the battles of Westport, Marmiton River, and Second Newtonia. The battalion was briefly furloughed in Arkansas before rejoining Major General Sterling Price in Texas in December. Probably around February 1865, the battalion reached official regimental strength after more recruits joined.
  
  On June 2, 1865, the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department surrendered. The men of the regiment were located at different points in Louisiana and Arkansas when they were paroled twelve days later, leading the historian James McGhee to believe that the regiment had disbanded before the surrender. (Full article...)
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  Air Commodore Raymond J. Brownell, c. 1945

  
  Air Commodore Raymond James Brownell, CBE, MC, MM (17 May 1894 – 12 April 1974) was a senior officer in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and a First World War flying ace. Born in Hobart, Tasmania, Brownell was working as a clerk with a firm of accountants when he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on the outbreak of the First World War. He served during the Gallipoli Campaign before transferring to the Western Front. Awarded the Military Medal for his actions during the Battle of Pozières, he was accepted for a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps in 1917. After flight training in the United Kingdom, Brownell was commissioned as a second lieutenant and posted for operational service over the Western Front in September 1917. Moving with his squadron to Italy, he was awarded the Military Cross and credited with shooting down 12 aircraft by war's end. Taking his discharge in 1919, Brownell returned to Australia.
  
  Commissioned in the RAAF in 1921, Brownell had risen to the rank of group captain by the beginning of the Second World War. Establishing the RAAF base in Singapore, he returned to Australia in 1941 as an air commodore and was appointed to lead No. 1 Training Group. He was Air Officer Commanding Western Area from January 1943 until July 1945, when he took charge of the recently formed No. 11 Group on Morotai. Retiring from the Air Force in 1947, Brownell assumed a partnership in a stockbroking firm. He died in 1974 aged 79; his autobiography, From Khaki to Blue, was published posthumously. (Full article...)
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  The Battle of Arras, April 1917

  
  The Battle of Arras (also known as the Second Battle of Arras) was a British offensive on the Western Front during the First World War. From 9 April to 16 May 1917, British troops attacked German defences near the French city of Arras on the Western Front. The British achieved the longest advance since trench warfare had begun, surpassing the record set by the French Sixth Army on 1 July 1916. The British advance slowed in the next few days and the German defence recovered. The battle became a costly stalemate for both sides and by the end of the battle, the British Third Army and the First Army had suffered about 160,000 casualties and the German 6th Army about 125,000.
  
  For much of the war, the opposing armies on the Western Front were at stalemate, with a continuous line of trenches from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border. The Allied objective from early 1915 was to break through the German defences into the open ground beyond and engage the numerically inferior German Army (Westheer) in a war of movement. The British attack at Arras was part of the Anglo-French Nivelle Offensive, the main part of which was the Second Battle of the Aisne 50 mi (80 km) to the south. The aim of the French offensive was to break through the German defences in forty-eight hours. At Arras the Canadians were to capture Vimy Ridge, dominating the Douai Plain to the east, advance towards Cambrai and divert German reserves from the French front. (Full article...)
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  Peresvet at anchor, 1901

  
  Peresvet (Russian: Пересвет) was the lead ship of the three Peresvet-class pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy at the end of the nineteenth century. The ship was transferred to the Pacific Squadron upon completion and based at Port Arthur from 1903. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, she participated in the Battle of Port Arthur and was seriously damaged during the Battle of the Yellow Sea and again in the siege of Port Arthur. The ship was scuttled before the Russians surrendered, then salvaged by the Japanese and placed into service with the name Sagami (相模).
  
  Partially rearmed, Sagami was reclassified by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) as a coastal defense ship in 1912. In 1916, the Japanese sold her to the Russians, their allies since the beginning of World War I. En route to the White Sea in early 1917, she sank off Port Said, Egypt, after striking mines laid by a German submarine. (Full article...)
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  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 a member of the royal Capetian dynasty and the founder of the second House of Anjou. He was Count of Provence (1246–1285) and Forcalquier (1246–1248, 1256–1285) in the Holy Roman Empire, Count of Anjou and Maine (1246–1285) in France; he was also King of Sicily (1266–1285) and Prince of Achaea (1278–1285). In 1272, he was proclaimed King of Albania, and in 1277 he purchased a claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
  
  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. 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...)
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  Beato c. 1866

  
  Felice Beato (c. 1832 – 29 January 1909), also known as Felix Beato, was an Italian–British photographer. He was one of the first people to take photographs in East Asia and one of the first war photographers. He is noted for his genre works, portraits, and views and panoramas of the architecture and landscapes of Asia and the Mediterranean region. Beato's travels gave him the opportunity to create images of countries, people, and events that were unfamiliar and remote to most people in Europe and North America. His work provides images of such events as the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the Second Opium War, and represents the first substantial body of photojournalism. He influenced other photographers, and his influence in Japan, where he taught and worked with numerous other photographers and artists, was particularly deep and lasting. (Full article...)
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  Ian Lancaster Fleming (28 May 1908 – 12 August 1964) was a British writer, best known for his postwar James Bond series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., and his father was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley from 1910 until his death on the Western Front in 1917. Educated at Eton, Sandhurst, and, briefly, the universities of Munich and Geneva, Fleming moved through several jobs before he started writing.
  
  While working for Britain's Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War, Fleming was involved in planning Operation Goldeneye and in the planning and oversight of two intelligence units: 30 Assault Unit and T-Force. He drew from his wartime service and his career as a journalist for much of the background, detail, and depth of his James Bond novels. (Full article...)
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  The Baltimore railroad strike of 1877 involved several days of work stoppage and violence in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1877. It formed a part of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, during which widespread civil unrest spread nationwide following the global depression and economic downturns of the mid-1870s. Strikes broke out along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) on July 16, the same day that 10% wage reductions were scheduled.
  
  Violence erupted in Baltimore on July 20, with police and soldiers of the Maryland National Guard clashing with crowds of thousands gathered throughout the city. In response, President Rutherford B. Hayes ordered federal troops to Baltimore, local officials recruited 500 additional police, and two new national guard regiments were formed. Peace was restored on July 22. Between 10 and 22 were killed, more than 150 were injured, and many more were arrested. (Full article...)
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  Levant's sister ship in the Coventry class, HMS Carysfort

  
  HMS Levant was a 28-gun sixth-rate frigate of the Coventry class, which saw Royal Navy service against France in the Seven Years' War, and against France, Spain and the American colonies during the American Revolutionary War. Principally a hunter of privateers, she was also designed to be a match for small French frigates, but with a broader hull and sturdier build at the expense of some speed and manoeuvrability. Launched in 1758, Levant was assigned to the Royal Navy's Jamaica station from 1759 and proved her worth by defeating nine French vessels during her first three years at sea. She was also part of the British expedition against Martinique in 1762 but played no role in the landings or subsequent defeat of French forces at Fort Royal.
  
  The frigate was decommissioned following Britain's declaration of peace with France in 1763, but returned to service in 1766 for patrol duties in the Caribbean. Decommissioned for a second time in 1770, she was reinstated at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War and sent to the Mediterranean as part of a small British squadron based at Gibraltar. Over the next three years she captured or sank a total of fourteen enemy craft including an 18-gun American privateer. In 1779 she brought home news of an impending Spanish assault on Gibraltar, ahead of Spain's declaration of war on Great Britain. (Full article...)
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  Conquistador Pedro de Alvarado led the initial efforts to conquer Guatemala.

  
  In a protracted conflict during the Spanish colonization of the Americas, Spanish colonisers gradually incorporated the territory that became the modern country of Guatemala into the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain. Before the conquest, this territory contained a number of competing Mesoamerican kingdoms, the majority of which were Maya. Many conquistadors viewed the Maya as "infidels" who needed to be forcefully converted and pacified, disregarding the achievements of their civilization. The first contact between the Maya and European explorers came in the early 16th century when a Spanish ship sailing from Panama to Santo Domingo was wrecked on the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in 1511. Several Spanish expeditions followed in 1517 and 1519, making landfall on various parts of the Yucatán coast. The Spanish conquest of the Maya was a prolonged affair; the Maya kingdoms resisted integration into the Spanish Empire with such tenacity that their defeat took almost two centuries.
  
  Pedro de Alvarado arrived in Guatemala from the newly conquered Mexico in early 1524, commanding a mixed force of Spanish conquistadors and native allies, mostly from Tlaxcala and Cholula. Geographic features across Guatemala now bear Nahuatl placenames owing to the influence of these Mexican allies, who translated for the Spanish. The Kaqchikel Maya initially allied themselves with the Spanish, but soon rebelled against excessive demands for tribute and did not finally surrender until 1530. In the meantime the other major highland Maya kingdoms had each been defeated in turn by the Spanish and allied warriors from Mexico and already subjugated Maya kingdoms in Guatemala. The Itza Maya and other lowland groups in the Petén Basin were first contacted by Hernán Cortés in 1525, but remained independent and hostile to the encroaching Spanish until 1697, when a concerted Spanish assault led by Martín de Ursúa y Arizmendi finally defeated the last independent Maya kingdom. (Full article...)
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  View of the Zarafshan Mountains from the Takhtakaracha Pass today

  
  The Battle of the Defile or Battle of the Pass (Arabic: وقعة الشعب, romanized: Waqʿat al-Shʿib) was fought in the Takhtakaracha Pass (in modern Uzbekistan) between a large army of the Umayyad Caliphate and the Turkic Türgesh khaganate over three days in July 731 CE. The Türgesh had been besieging Samarkand, and Samarkand's commander, Sawra ibn al-Hurr al-Abani, had sent a request for relief to the newly appointed governor of Khurasan, Junayd ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Murri. Junayd's 28,000-strong army was attacked by the Türgesh in the pass, and although the Umayyad army managed to extricate itself and reach Samarkand, it suffered enormous casualties; Sawra's 12,000 men, who had been commanded to attack the Türgesh from the rear in a relief effort, were almost annihilated.
  
  The battle, for which one of the most detailed accounts of the entire Umayyad era survives in the History of al-Tabari, halted or reversed Muslim expansion into Central Asia for a decade. The losses suffered by the Khurasani army also led to the transfer of reinforcements from the metropolitan regions of the Caliphate, which in the long term weakened the Umayyad regime and helped bring about its collapse twenty years later in the Abbasid Revolution that began in Khurasan. (Full article...)
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  The first illustration of the first roll of the Anthony Roll, depicting the Henry Grace à Dieu, the largest ship in the English navy during the reign of King Henry VIII.

  
  The Anthony Roll is a written record of ships of the English Tudor navy of the 1540s, named after its creator, Anthony Anthony. It originally consisted of three rolls of vellum, depicting 58 naval vessels along with information on their size, crew, armament, and basic equipment. The rolls were presented to King Henry VIII in 1546, and were kept in the royal library. In 1680 King Charles II gave two of the rolls to Samuel Pepys, who had them cut up and bound as a single volume book, which is now in the Pepys Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge. The third roll remained in the royal collection until it was given by King William IV to his daughter Lady Mary Fox, who sold it to the British Museum in 1858; it is now owned by the British Library.
  
  The Anthony Roll is the only known fully illustrated inventory of ships of the English navy in the Tudor period. As the work of a successful state official in 16th century England, the artistic value of the Anthony Roll has been described as being characterised by "naive draughtsmanship and conformity to a pattern" though its artistic aspects display "a decent amateur grasp of form and colour". While the inventories listed in its text have proven to be highly accurate, most of the ship illustrations are rudimentary and made according to a set formula. The level of detail of the ship design, armament and especially rigging has therefore proven to be only approximate. Nevertheless, through their depiction of the ceremonial ornamentation the illustrations in the Roll have provided relevant secondary information to the study of Tudor period heraldry, flags and ship ornamentation. (Full article...)
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  The Count of Porto Alegre around age 61, c. 1865

  
  Manuel Marques de Sousa, Count of Porto Alegre (13 June 1804 – 18 July 1875), nicknamed "the Gloved Centaur", was an army officer, politician and abolitionist of the Empire of Brazil. Born into a wealthy family of military background, Manuel Marques de Sousa joined the Portuguese Army in Brazil in 1817 when he was little more than a child. His military initiation occurred in the conquest of the Banda Oriental (Eastern Bank), which was annexed and became the southernmost Brazilian province of Cisplatina in 1821. For most of the 1820s, he was embroiled in the Brazilian effort to keep Cisplatina as part of its territory: first during the struggle for Brazilian independence and then in the Cisplatine War. It would ultimately prove a futile attempt, as Cisplatina successfully separated from Brazil to become the independent nation of Uruguay in 1828.
  
  A few years later, in 1835 his native province of Rio Grande do Sul was engulfed in a secessionist rebellion, the Ragamuffin War. The conflict lasted for almost ten years, and the Count was leading military engagements for most of that time. He played a decisive role in saving the provincial capital from the Ragamuffin rebels, allowing forces loyal to the legitimate government to secure a key foothold. In 1852, he led a Brazilian division during the Platine War in an invasion of the Argentine Confederation that overthrew its dictator. He was awarded a noble title, eventually raised from baron to viscount and finally to count. (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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  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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  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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  Borobudur

  Photo: William Henry Jackson; Restoration: Lise Broer

  A man climbs a statue of a Buddhist idol at Borobudur, a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist monument near Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia, in this 1895 hand-tinted lantern slide. The monument comprises six square platforms topped by three circular platforms, and is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. The monument is both a shrine to the Lord Buddha and a place for Buddhist pilgrimage. Evidence suggests Borobudur was abandoned following the 14th-century decline of Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms in Java, and the Javanese conversion to Islam. The monument is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is the most popular tourist attraction in the country.
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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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  Constantinople

  Map credit: Konstantinos Plakidas

  A map of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Throughout the Middle Ages, Constantinople, strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara at the point where Europe meets Asia, was Europe's largest and wealthiest city. It was officially renamed to its modern name Istanbul (Turkish: İstanbul) in 1930.
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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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  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.
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  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.
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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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  Kalmar Union

  Image credit: Julius Magnus Petersen

  A medieval ship flag captured by forces from Lübeck in the 1420s showed the arms of Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Pomerania. At the time, Denmark, Norway and Sweden were united in the Kalmar Union. The flag is believed to originate from the reign of king Eric of Pomerania due to its inclusion of Pomerania's griffin symbol. For the following five hundred years, the flag was displayed as a war trophy in a Lübeck church until destroyed during a World War II air raid on the city. An 1880s copy of the flag is preserved in the museum at Frederiksborg Palace, Denmark. The saint accompanying the Virgin Mary and infant Christ is Saint James the Greater, identified by his scallop shell emblem. The flag was made of coarse linen. All figures and heraldic insignia were created using oil-based paint.
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  Alexander the Great

  Mosaic: Unknown

  Alexander the Great (356–323 BC), the King of Macedonia, as depicted in a detail from the Alexander Mosaic. Originally from the House of the Faun in Pompeii and dated to c. 100 BC, the mosaic depicts a battle between the armies of Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia. It is believed to be a copy of an early 3rd century BC Hellenistic painting, probably by Philoxenos of Eretria. The whole mosaic measures 2.72 × 5.13 m (8 ft 11 in × 16 ft 9 in).
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  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.
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  Jean-Paul Marat

  Credit: anonymous

  A 1793 etching with watercolor of Jean-Paul Marat, a radical journalist and politician from the French Revolution, carried on shoulders with a crown of laurel leaves, celebrating his acquittal by the Revolutionary Tribunal. From January to May 1793, Marat fought bitterly with the Girondins, whom he believed to be covert enemies of republicanism. The National Convention ordered the trial, but his acquittal only served to increase his public profile and popular support.
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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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  Battle of Jerusalem (1917)

  Photo: American Colony; Restoration: Sebastian Kolendo

  The Mayor of Jerusalem Hussein al-Husayni (centre) meets with soldiers of the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force on December 9, 1917, under the white flag of surrender. The Battle of Jerusalem had begun the day before, but the Turkish forces in the city were no match against the British forces. A Turkish counterattack on December 25 was also repulsed, confirming the capture of Jerusalem by the Allies.
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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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  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.

Did you know (auto generated)

• ... that Clement Crisp, a dance critic for the Financial Times from 1956 to 2020, authored or co-authored 17 books on dance and dance history?
• ... that Charles Turzak's book of woodblock prints presenting the life of Abraham Lincoln was the first ever such life of a historic figure presented only in images?
• ... that the 1912 production of Man's Genesis was the first "primitive man" film ever made and created a prehistory film boom in the years following its release?
• ... that Kobe and Vanessa Bryant were founding donors of the National Museum of African American History and Culture?
• ... that the Hawaii Civil Liberties Committee was designated as a Communist front by the House Un-American Activities Committee?
• ... that Puerto Rico's Willie Hernández became the highest paid player in Detroit Tigers history after winning Cy Young and Most Valuable Player awards and a World Series?

Featured biography –

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

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Portrait by August Köhler, c. 1910

Johannes Kepler (/ˈkɛplər/; German: [joˈhanəs ˈkɛplɐ, -nɛs -] ; 27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws of planetary motion, and his books Astronomia nova, Harmonice Mundi, and Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae, influencing among others Isaac Newton, providing one of the foundations for his theory of universal gravitation. The variety and impact of his work made Kepler one of the founders and fathers of modern astronomy, the scientific method, natural and modern science. He has been described as the "father of science fiction" for his novel Somnium.

Kepler was a mathematics teacher at a seminary school in Graz, where he became an associate of Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg. Later he became an assistant to the astronomer Tycho Brahe in Prague, and eventually the imperial mathematician to Emperor Rudolf II and his two successors Matthias and Ferdinand II. He also taught mathematics in Linz, and was an adviser to General Wallenstein.

Additionally, he did fundamental work in the field of optics, being named the father of modern optics, in particular for his Astronomiae pars optica. He also invented an improved version of the refracting telescope, the Keplerian telescope, which became the foundation of the modern refracting telescope, while also improving on the telescope design by Galileo Galilei, who mentioned Kepler's discoveries in his work. (Full article...)

On this day

May 25: Africa Day (1963); Independence Day in Jordan (1946)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

• 1816 – The poems Kubla Khan and Christabel by English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (pictured) were published.
• 1944 – The Wehrmacht and their collaborationist allies launched Operation Rösselsprung, a failed attempt to assassinate the Yugoslav Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito.
• 1961 – A fire broke out at a squatter settlement in Bukit Ho Swee, Singapore, rendering approximately 16,000 people homeless.
• 1979 – During takeoff from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, an engine detached from American Airlines Flight 191, causing a crash that killed 273 people in the deadliest aviation accident in United States history.
• 2009 – North Korea conducted a nuclear test and several other missile tests that were widely condemned internationally and led to sanctions from the United Nations Security Council.

• Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi (d. 1607)
• Anna Maria Rückerschöld (d. 1805)
• Gustav Holst (d. 1934)
• Cillian Murphy (b. 1976)

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It is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.

— Aristotle, 4th-century Greek philosopher

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More 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"?

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