Portal:History

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The History Portal

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

History is the systematic study of the past. As an academic discipline, it analyzes and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened, focusing primarily on the human past. Some theorists categorize history as a social science, while others see it as part of the humanities or consider it a hybrid discipline. Similar debates surround the purpose of history—for example, whether its main aim is theoretical, to uncover the truth, or practical, to learn lessons from the past. In a slightly different sense, the term history refers not to an academic field but to the past itself or to individual texts about the past.

Historical research relies on primary and secondary sources to reconstruct past events and validate interpretations. Source criticism is used to evaluate these sources, assessing their authenticity, content, and reliability. Historians integrate the perspectives of several individual sources to develop a coherent narrative. Different schools of thought, such as positivism, the Annales school, Marxism, and postmodernism, have distinct methodological approaches.

History is a broad discipline encompassing many branches. Some focus on specific time periods, such as ancient history, while others concentrate on particular geographic regions, such as the history of Africa. Thematic categorizations include political history, social history, and economic history. Branches associated with specific research methods include quantitative history, comparative history, and oral history.

History emerged as a field of inquiry in the ancient period to replace myth-infused narratives, with influential early traditions originating in Greece, China, and later also in the Islamic world. Historical writing evolved throughout the ages and became increasingly professional, particularly during the 19th century, when a rigorous methodology and various academic institutions were established. History is related to many fields, including historiography, philosophy, education, and politics. (Full article...)

Featured articles –

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

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  Portrayal of Stephen I on the Hungarian coronation pall (chasuble) from 1031

  
  Stephen I, also known as King Saint Stephen (Hungarian: Szent István király [ˌsɛnt ˈiʃtvaːn kiraːj]; Latin: Sanctus Stephanus; Slovak: Štefan I. or Štefan Veľký; c. 975 – 15 August 1038), was the last grand prince of the Hungarians between 997 and 1000 or 1001, and the first king of Hungary from 1000 or 1001 until his death in 1038. The year of his birth is uncertain, but many details of his life suggest that he was born in, or after, 975, in Esztergom. He was given the pagan name Vajk at birth, but the date of his baptism is unknown. He was the only son of Grand Prince Géza and his wife, Sarolt, who was descended from a prominent family of gyulas. Although both of his parents were baptized, Stephen was the first member of his family to become a devout Christian. He married Gisela of Bavaria, a scion of the imperial Ottonian dynasty.
  
  After succeeding his father in 997, Stephen had to fight for the throne against his relative, Koppány, who was supported by large numbers of pagan warriors. He defeated Koppány with the assistance of foreign knights including Vecelin, Hont and Pázmány, and native lords. He was crowned on 25 December 1000 or 1 January 1001 with a crown sent by Pope Sylvester II. In a series of wars against semi-independent tribes and chieftains—including the Black Hungarians and his uncle, Gyula the Younger—he unified the Carpathian Basin. He protected the independence of his kingdom by forcing the invading troops of Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor, to withdraw from Hungary in 1030. (Full article...)
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  Courtroom during the trial

  
  On 15 March 1921, Armenian student Soghomon Tehlirian assassinated Talaat Pasha—former grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire and the main architect of the Armenian genocide—in Berlin. At his trial, Tehlirian argued, "I have killed a man, but I am not a murderer"; the jury acquitted him.
  
  Tehlirian came from Erzindjan in the Ottoman Empire but moved to Serbia before the war. He served in the Armenian volunteer units of the Russian army and lost most of his family in the genocide. Deciding to take revenge, he assassinated Harutiun Mgrditichian, who helped the Ottoman secret police, in Constantinople. Tehlirian joined Operation Nemesis, a clandestine program carried out by the Dashnaktsutyun (the Armenian Revolutionary Federation); he was chosen for the mission to assassinate Talaat due to his previous success. Talaat had already been convicted and sentenced to death by an Ottoman court-martial, but was living in Berlin with the permission of the Government of Germany. Many prominent Germans attended Talaat's funeral; the German Foreign Office sent a wreath saying, "To a great statesman and a faithful friend." (Full article...)
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  The Grand Hotel on the morning after the bombing

  
  On 12 October 1984 the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) attempted to assassinate members of the British government, including the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England. Five people were killed, including the Conservative MP Sir Anthony Berry; more than thirty people were injured. Thatcher was uninjured. The bombing was a key moment in the Troubles, the conflict in Northern Ireland between unionists and republicans over the constitutional position of Northern Ireland, which took place between the late 1960s and 1998.
  
  The IRA decided to assassinate Thatcher during the 1981 Irish hunger strike. Her stance against the return of Special Category Status to republican prisoners—the status that meant they were treated as political prisoners, rather than as criminals—meant the strike was not quickly settled, and ten prisoners died. After two years of planning, including reconnoitering the 1982 and 1983 Conservative Party Conferences, a long-delay time bomb was planted in the hotel by the IRA member Patrick Magee over three weeks before the 1984 conference. The IRA knew the hotel would be occupied by Thatcher and many of her cabinet. (Full article...)
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  Portrait of Lieutenant General Sir Edmund Herring by William Dargie, which won the Archibald Prize in 1945

  
  Lieutenant General Sir Edmund Francis Herring, KCMG, KBE, DSO, MC, KStJ, ED, KC (2 September 1892 – 5 January 1982) was a senior Australian Army officer during the Second World War, Lieutenant Governor of Victoria, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria. A Rhodes scholar, Herring was at New College, Oxford, when the First World War broke out and served with the Royal Field Artillery on the Macedonian front, for which he was awarded the Military Cross and Distinguished Service Order. After the war he carved out a successful career as a barrister and King's Counsel. He also joined the Australian Army, rising to the rank of colonel by 1939.
  
  During the Second World War, Herring commanded the 6th Division Artillery in the Western Desert campaign and the Battle of Greece. In 1942, as a corps commander, he commanded the land forces in the Kokoda Track campaign. The following year, he directed operations in the Salamaua-Lae campaign and Finisterre Range campaign. Herring left his corps to become the longest-serving Chief Justice and Lieutenant Governor of Victoria, serving for three decades. In the latter capacity, he was patron of many charitable organisations. (Full article...)
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  Former Cabanatuan POWs in celebration

  
  The Raid at Cabanatuan (Filipino: Pagsalakay sa Cabanatuan), also known as the Great Raid (Filipino: Ang Dakilang Pagsalakay), was a rescue of Allied prisoners of war (POWs) and civilians from a Japanese camp near Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, Philippines. On January 30, 1945, during World War II, United States Army Rangers, Alamo Scouts and Filipino guerrillas attacked the camp and liberated more than 500 prisoners.
  
  After the surrender of tens of thousands of American troops during the Battle of Bataan, many were sent to the Cabanatuan prison camp after the Bataan Death March. The Japanese shifted most of the prisoners to other areas, leaving just over 500 American and other Allied POWs and civilians in the prison. Facing brutal conditions including disease, torture, and malnourishment, the prisoners feared they would be executed by their captors before the arrival of General Douglas MacArthur and his American forces returning to Luzon. In late January 1945, a plan was developed by Sixth Army leaders and Filipino guerrillas to send a small force to rescue the prisoners. A group of over 100 Rangers and Scouts and 200 guerrillas traveled 30 miles (48 km) behind Japanese lines to reach the camp. (Full article...)
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  The 15th Tank Corps (Russian: 15-й танковый корпус, 15-y tankoviy korpus) was a tank corps of the Soviet Union's Red Army. It formed in 1938 from a mechanized corps and fought in the Soviet invasion of Poland, during which it participated in the capture of the Grodno and Augustów Forest from Poland. The corps was disbanded in January 1940 at Vilnius and Šalčininkai in Lithuania.
  
  In 1942, the corps was reformed under the command of Major General Vasily Koptsov and became part of the 3rd Tank Army. It first saw combat in the unsuccessful Kozelsk Offensive of late August and early September, a relatively small operation to encircle a German salient, which resulted in the corps taking heavy losses in proportion to the territory gained. After spending the rest of the year in reserve, receiving new supplies and equipment, the corps was transferred to the southern front in southwestern Russia to fight in the Ostrogozhsk–Rossosh Offensive during January 1943, in which it played a major role by forming part of the forces that encircled thousands of Axis troops on the middle reaches of the Don River. (Full article...)
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  Map of the Vicksburg area, De Soto Point, and the canal. The positions to the north of Vicksburg are related to the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou

  
  Grant's Canal (also known as Williams's Canal) was an incomplete military effort to construct a canal through De Soto Point in Louisiana, across the Mississippi River from Vicksburg, Mississippi. During the American Civil War, the Union Navy attempted to capture the Confederate-held city of Vicksburg in 1862, but were unable to do so with army support. Union Brigadier-General Thomas Williams was sent to De Soto Point with 3,200 men to dig a canal capable of bypassing the strong defenses around Vicksburg. Despite being assisted by locally enslaved people, Williams was unable to finish constructing the canal due to disease and falling river levels, and the project was abandoned until January 1863, when Union Major-General Ulysses S. Grant took an interest in the project.
  
  Grant attempted to resolve some of the issues inherent to the concept by moving the upstream entrance to a spot with a stronger current, but the heavy rains and flooding that broke a dam prevented the project from succeeding. Work was abandoned in March, and Grant eventually used other methods to capture Vicksburg, whose Confederate garrison surrendered on July 4, 1863. In 1876, the Mississippi River changed course to cut across De Soto Point, eventually isolating Vicksburg from the river, but the completion of the Yazoo Diversion Canal in 1903 restored Vicksburg's river access. Most of the canal site has since been destroyed by agriculture, but a small section survives. This section was donated by local landowners to the National Park Service and became part of Vicksburg National Military Park in 1990. A 1974 article in The Military Engineer speculated that the canal would likely have been successful if the dam at the downstream end of the canal had been opened. (Full article...)
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  M113s from the 1st Armoured Personnel Carrier Squadron carrying soldiers of the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment in South Vietnam during 1966

  
  
  The M113 armoured personnel carriers are American produced military vehicles that have operated in the Australian Army since 1964. An initial pair of M113s was purchased for trials purposes in 1962. Either 817 or 840 were acquired by 1979, comprising nine different variants. A long-running modernisation program that commenced in the 1990s resulted in 431 M113s being upgraded between 2007 and 2012. All of the upgraded M113s remain in service as of 2020.
  
  In Australian service, the M113 has equipped armoured transport and reconnaissance units as well as mechanised infantry formations. It has also been used as a support vehicle by many other units. The type played an important role in Australia's commitment to the Vietnam War between 1965 and 1972. Some M113s were deployed as part of peacekeeping missions in Somalia during 1993 and Rwanda between 1994 and 1995. Larger numbers of M113s operated in East Timor from 1999 to 2002 and 2006 to 2008. (Full article...)
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  1965 Zanzibar stamp commemorating the revolution

  
  The Zanzibar Revolution (Swahili: Mapinduzi ya Zanzibar; Arabic: ثورة زنجبار, romanized: Thawrat Zanjibār) began on 12 January 1964 and led to the overthrow of the Sultan of Zanzibar Jamshid bin Abdullah and his mainly Arab government by the island's majority Black African population.
  
  Zanzibar was an ethnically diverse state consisting of a number of islands off the east coast of Tanganyika. Formally separated from German East Africa in 1890, it had become fully independent in 1963, with responsibility for its own defense and foreign affairs, as a result of Britain giving up its protectorate over it. In a series of parliamentary elections preceding this change, the Arab minority succeeded in retaining the hold on power it had inherited from Zanzibar's former existence as an overseas territory of Oman. (Full article...)
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  USS Marmora

  Marmora in the foreground

  
  USS Marmora was a sternwheel steamer that served in the Union Navy from 1862 to 1865, during the American Civil War. Built in 1862 at Monongahela, Pennsylvania, as a civilian vessel, she was purchased for military service on September 17 and converted into a tinclad warship. Commissioned on October 21, the vessel served on the Yazoo River beginning the next month. She encountered Confederate naval mines on the Yazoo on December 11, and was present the next day when the ironclad USS Cairo was sunk by two mines. After further service on the Yazoo during the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou in late December, Marmora was assigned in January 1863 to a fleet that was preparing to operate against Confederate Fort Hindman, but was not present when the fort surrendered on January 11.
  
  From February to April, Marmora participated in the Yazoo Pass expedition, and in June burned and destroyed the settlements of Eunice and Gaines Landing, Arkansas, after Union vessels were fired on by Confederate troops. In August, the tinclad participated in some activities on the White River while the Little Rock campaign was beginning, and patrolled on the Mississippi River late that year. In February 1864, she participated in another movement up the Yazoo River, and fought in the Battle of Yazoo City on March 5. Continuing to serve on the Mississippi River, Marmora was declared surplus in May 1865 and was put in reserve status at Mound City, Illinois, the next month. On July 7, she was decommissioned, and was sold at public auction on August 17. Nothing further is known about Marmora after her sale. (Full article...)
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  Air Vice-Marshal Drummond in the Middle East, 1940

  
  Air Marshal Sir Peter Roy Maxwell Drummond, KCB, DSO & Bar, OBE, MC (2 June 1894 – 27 March 1945) was an Australian-born senior commander in the Royal Air Force (RAF). He rose from private soldier in World War I to air marshal in World War II. Drummond enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in 1914 and the following year saw service as a medical orderly during the Gallipoli campaign. He joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1916 and became a fighter ace in the Middle Eastern theatre, where he was awarded the Military Cross and the Distinguished Service Order and Bar. Transferring to the RAF on its formation in 1918, he remained in the British armed forces for the rest of his life.
  
  Between the wars, Drummond saw action in the Sudan—earning appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire—and was posted to Australia on secondment to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) as Director of Operations and Intelligence. In Britain, he commanded RAF stations Tangmere and Northolt. Ranked air commodore at the outbreak of World War II, he was Air Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder's Deputy Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief RAF Middle East from 1941 to 1943. Drummond was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1941 for his services in the Middle East, and knighted in the same order two years later. He was twice offered command of the RAAF during the war but the RAF was unwilling to release him to take up the position. Britain's Air Member for Training from 1943, Drummond was killed in a plane crash at sea in 1945. (Full article...)
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  Bust in the Louvre

  
  Domitian (/dəˈmɪʃən, -iən/ də-MISH-ən, -⁠ee-ən; Latin: Domitianus; 24 October 51 – 18 September 96) was Roman emperor from 81 to 96. The son of Vespasian and the younger brother of Titus, his two predecessors on the throne, he was the last member of the Flavian dynasty. Described as "a ruthless but efficient autocrat", his authoritarian style of ruling put him at sharp odds with the Senate, whose powers he drastically curtailed.
  
  Domitian had a minor and largely ceremonial role during the reigns of his father and brother. After the death of his brother, Domitian was declared emperor by the Praetorian Guard. His 15-year reign was the longest since Tiberius. As emperor, Domitian strengthened the economy by revaluing the Roman coinage, expanded the border defenses of the empire, and initiated a massive building program to restore the damaged city of Rome. Significant wars were fought in Britain, where his general Agricola made significant gains in his attempt to conquer Caledonia (Scotland), and in Dacia (Modern-day Romania), where Domitian was unable to achieve a decisive victory against King Decebalus. Domitian's government exhibited strong authoritarian characteristics. Religious, military, and cultural propaganda fostered a cult of personality, and by nominating himself as perpetual censor, he sought to control public and private morals. (Full article...)
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  Bismarck in 1940

  
  Bismarck was the first of two Bismarck-class battleships built for Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine. Named after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in July 1936 and launched in February 1939. Work was completed in August 1940, when she was commissioned into the German fleet. Bismarck and her sister ship Tirpitz were the largest battleships ever built by Germany, and two of the largest built by any European power.
  
  In the course of the warship's eight-month career, Bismarck conducted only one offensive operation that lasted eight days in May 1941, codenamed Rheinübung. The ship, along with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, was to break into the Atlantic Ocean and raid Allied shipping from North America to Great Britain. The two ships were detected several times off Scandinavia, and British naval units were deployed to block their route. At the Battle of the Denmark Strait, the battlecruiser HMS Hood initially engaged Prinz Eugen, probably by mistake, while HMS Prince of Wales engaged Bismarck. In the ensuing battle Hood was destroyed by the combined fire of Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, which then damaged Prince of Wales and forced her retreat. Bismarck suffered sufficient damage from three hits by Prince of Wales to force an end to the raiding mission. (Full article...)
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  Logo for celebrations commemorating the 50th anniversary of the treaty in 2008

  
  The US–UK Mutual Defense Agreement, or the 1958 UK–US Mutual Defence Agreement, is a bilateral treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom on nuclear weapons co-operation. The treaty's full name is Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for Cooperation on the uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defense Purposes. It allows the US and the UK to exchange nuclear materials, technology and information. The US has nuclear co-operation agreements with other countries, including France and other NATO countries, but this agreement is by far the most comprehensive. Because of the agreement's strategic value to Britain, Harold Macmillan (the Prime Minister who presided over the United Kingdom's entry into the agreement) called it "the Great Prize".
  
  The treaty was signed on 3 July 1958 after the Soviet Union had shocked the American public with the launch of Sputnik on 4 October 1957, and the British hydrogen bomb programme had successfully tested a thermonuclear device in the Operation Grapple test on 8 November. The special relationship proved mutually beneficial, both militarily and economically. Britain soon became dependent on the United States for its nuclear weapons since it agreed to limit their nuclear program with the agreement of shared technology. The treaty allowed American nuclear weapons to be supplied to Britain through Project E for use by the Royal Air Force and British Army of the Rhine until the early 1990s when the UK became fully independent in designing and manufacturing its own warheads. (Full article...)
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  Memorial to the First Homosexual Emancipation Movement in Berlin-Moabit, unveiled in 2017

  
  
  The first homosexual movement thrived in Germany from the late nineteenth century until 1933. The movement began in Germany because of a confluence of factors, including the criminalization of sex between men (Paragraph 175) and the country's relatively lax censorship. German writers in the mid-nineteenth century coined the word homosexual and criticized its criminalization. In 1897, Magnus Hirschfeld founded the world's first homosexual organization, the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, whose aim was to use science to improve public tolerance of homosexuality and repeal Paragraph 175. During the German Empire, the movement was restricted to the wealthy elite, but it greatly expanded in the aftermath of World War I and the German Revolution.
  
  Reduced censorship and the growth of homosexual subcultures in German cities helped the movement to flourish during the Weimar Republic. The first publicly sold, mass-market periodicals intended for a gay, lesbian, or transvestite readership appeared after 1919, although they faced censorship lawsuits and bans on public sale after the 1926 Trash and Smut Law. The first mass organizations for homosexuals, the German Friendship Society and the League for Human Rights, were founded in the aftermath of the war. These organizations emphasized human rights and respectability politics, and they excluded prostitutes and effeminate homosexual men, who were considered harmful to the movement's public image. The homosexual movement had limited success with the general public, in part because many Germans believed that homosexuality could be spread as a communicable disease. (Full article...)

Featured picture

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  Invasion of Normandy

  Photo credit: United States Coast Guard

  Landing ships putting ashore on Omaha Beach at low tide during the first days of the Invasion of Normandy, mid-June, 1944. Barrage balloons fly overhead and U.S. Army "half-tracks" form a convoy on the beach. The Normandy landing was the largest seaborne invasion in history, with almost three million troops crossing the English Channel.
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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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  US Brig Niagara

  Photo credit: Unknown

  The original US Brig Niagara, which played a pivotal role in defeating the British at the Battle of Lake Erie. It was sunk in 1820 for preservation but raised again in 1913 for the centennial anniversary of the battle (seen here). A modern replica based out of Erie, Pennsylvania now travels the Great Lakes as an educational and training vessel.
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  Trumbull's Declaration of Independence

  Painting credit: John Trumbull

  John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence, a 12 by 18 feet (3.7 by 5.5 m) oil painting depicting the presentation of a draft of the United States Declaration of Independence to the Second Continental Congress. While this event did take place, it was not actually in the presence of all the people in the picture. The painting can be found in the rotunda of the United States Capitol.
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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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  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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  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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  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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  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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  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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  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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  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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  Selimiye Barracks

  Lithography: Day & Son; Restoration: Jake Wartenberg

  An 1856 lithograph of the Selimiye Barracks, located in Istanbul, Turkey, being used as a hospital during the Crimean War. Florence Nightingale's experiences here during this time helped her develop the foundations of modern nursing. As such, the barracks now contain a museum dedicated to her and her staff.
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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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  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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  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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  Slavery in the United States

  Photo credit: McPherson and Oliver

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

  Photo credit: Sloan, USDA

  Buried machinery in a barn lot, Dallas, South Dakota, United States, due to Dust Bowl conditions, May 1936. Dust storms from 1930–1939 caused major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands. This ecological disaster was a result of drought conditions coupled with decades of extensive farming using techniques that promoted erosion.

Did you know (auto generated)

• ... that according to the official history of the Song dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin's soldiers stormed his bedroom and proclaimed him emperor, to his surprise?
• ... that Cyclone Freddy was the longest-lasting tropical cyclone recorded?
• ... that history sniffing has been used to track Papa John's customers?
• ... that American Colossus, a history book that describes how a banker bailed out the U.S. government in 1895, was published around a time when the U.S. government bailed out banks?
• ... that much of the research in dress history has been done from documents, illustrations, and photographs rather than by studying items of clothing?
• ... that 25 Water Street was designed to blend in with historic brick buildings that no longer exist?

Featured biography –

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

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Ima Hogg, c. 1900

Ima Hogg (July 10, 1882 – August 19, 1975), known as "The First Lady of Texas", was an American society leader, philanthropist, mental health advocate, patron and collector of the arts, and one of the most respected women in Texas during the 20th century. Hogg was an avid art collector, and owned works by Picasso, Klee, and Matisse, among others. Hogg donated hundreds of pieces of artwork to Houston's Museum of Fine Arts and served on a committee to plan the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. An enthusiastic collector of early American antiques, she also served on a committee tasked with locating historical furniture for the White House. She restored and refurbished several properties, including the Varner plantation and Bayou Bend, which she later donated to Texas arts and historical institutions who maintain the facilities and their collections today. Hogg received numerous awards and honors, including the Louise E. du Pont Crowninshield Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Santa Rita Award from the University of Texas System, and an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Southwestern University.

Hogg was the daughter of Sarah Ann "Sallie" Stinson and James Stephen "Big Jim" Hogg, later attorney general and governor of the state. Ima Hogg's first name was taken from The Fate of Marvin, an epic poem written by her uncle Thomas Hogg. She endeavored to downplay her unusual name by signing her first name illegibly and having her stationery printed with "I. Hogg" or "Miss Hogg". Although it was rumored that Hogg had a sister or sisters, whose names were suggested to be "Hoosa Hogg", "Ura Hogg" or "Wera Hogg", she had only brothers. Hogg's father left public office in 1895, and soon after, her mother was diagnosed with tuberculosis. When Sarah died later that year, Jim Hogg's widowed elder sister moved to Austin to care for the Hogg children. Between 1899 and 1901, Hogg attended the University of Texas at Austin; she then moved to New York City to study piano and music theory for two years. After her father's death in 1906, she traveled to Europe and spent two years studying music under Xaver Scharwenka in Vienna. When she returned to Texas, she established and managed the Houston Symphony Orchestra and served as president of the Symphony Society. (Full article...)

On this day

March 15: Ides of March

Julius Caesar

• 44 BC – Julius Caesar (bust pictured), the dictator of the Roman Republic, was stabbed to death by a group of senators led by Marcus Junius Brutus.
• 1823 – American sailor Benjamin Morrell erroneously reported the existence of New South Greenland, a phantom island, near Antarctica.
• 1916 – Six days after Pancho Villa and his cross-border raiders attacked Columbus, New Mexico, U.S. general John J. Pershing led a punitive expedition into Mexico to pursue him.
• 1917 – Russian Revolution: Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate in the February Revolution, ending three centuries of Romanov rule.
• 1943 – The deportation of 50,000 Jews from the Greek city of Thessaloniki began.
• 1951 – The Iranian oil industry was nationalized in a movement led by Mohammad Mosaddegh.

• Albert of Schwarzburg (d. 1327)
• Matthew Charlton (b. 1866)
• Ignace Tonené (d. 1916)
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg (b. 1933)

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• March 14
• March 15
• March 16

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— Thomas Edison, scientist and inventor

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• ... that the anti-religious campaign culminating in the Stalinist show trial of the Kraków Curia (pictured) led to the imprisonment of 123 Polish Roman Catholic priests in just one year?
• ... that Confederate brigadier general Alfred E. Jackson was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson because of his kindness toward Johnson's family during the Civil War?
• ... that after HMS Porcupine was nearly split in two by a torpedo, the halves were nicknamed HMS Pork and HMS Pine?
• ... that the Experiment was a boat powered by horses running on a treadmill and propelled by a then-novel type of screw propeller?
• ... that one of the highest-ranking generals in China was injured in battle nine times?
• ... that in Mesopotamian mythology, the Apkallu were sent by the god Enki, from Dilmun to teach human beings various aspects of civilization?
• ... that Karl Marx's theory of historical trajectory attempted to prove the long-term unsustainability of capitalism?
• ... that in November 1921, the schooner Cymric collided with a tram in Dublin?

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