Portal:History

The History Portal

The Historians' History of the World

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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  The Benty Grange helmet, on a modern transparent support

  
  The Benty Grange helmet is an Anglo-Saxon boar-crested helmet from the seventh century AD. It was excavated by Thomas Bateman in 1848 from a tumulus at the Benty Grange farm in Monyash in western Derbyshire. The grave had probably been looted by the time of Bateman's excavation, but still contained other high-status objects suggestive of a richly furnished burial, such as the fragmentary remains of a hanging bowl. The helmet is displayed at Sheffield's Weston Park Museum, which purchased it from Bateman's estate in 1893.
  
  The helmet was constructed by covering the outside of an iron framework with plates of horn and the inside with cloth or leather; the organic material has since decayed. It would have provided some protection against weapons, but was also ornate and may have been intended for ceremonial use. It was the first Anglo-Saxon helmet to be discovered, with five others found since: Sutton Hoo (1939), Coppergate (1982), Wollaston (1997), Shorwell (2004) and Staffordshire (2009). The helmet features a unique combination of structural and technical attributes, but contemporaneous parallels exist for its individual characteristics. It is classified as one of the "crested helmets" used in Northern Europe from the 6th to 11th centuries AD. (Full article...)
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  Furious circa 1935–1936

  
  HMS Furious was a modified Courageous-class battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy (RN) during the First World War. Designed to support the Baltic Project championed by the First Sea Lord, Lord Fisher, the ship was very lightly armoured and designed with a main battery of only two 18-inch (457 mm) guns. Furious was modified as an aircraft carrier while under construction. Her forward turret was removed and a flight deck was added in its place, such that aircraft had to manoeuvre around the superstructure to land. Later in the war, the ship had her rear turret removed and a second flight deck installed aft of the superstructure, but this was less than satisfactory due to air turbulence. Furious was briefly laid up after the war before she was reconstructed with a full-length flight deck in the early 1920s.
  
  After her conversion, Furious was used extensively for trials of naval aircraft, and later as a training ship once large, modern fleet carriers such as Ark Royal entered service in the 1930s. During the early months of the Second World War, the carrier spent her time hunting for German raiders in the North Atlantic and escorting convoys. This changed dramatically during the Norwegian Campaign in early 1940, when her aircraft provided air support to British troops ashore in addition to attacking German shipping. The first of what would be numerous aircraft ferry missions was made by the carrier during the campaign. After the withdrawal of British troops in May, Furious made several anti-shipping strikes in Norway with little result before beginning a steady routine of ferrying aircraft for the Royal Air Force. (Full article...)
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  A young woman weeps during the deportation of the Romaniote Jews of Ioannina on 25 March 1944. Almost all were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

  
  
  The Holocaust in Greece was the mass murder of Greek Jews, mostly as a result of their deportation to Auschwitz concentration camp, during World War II. By 1945, between 82 and 92 percent of Greek Jews had been murdered, one of the highest proportions in Europe.
  
  Before the war, approximately 72,000 to 77,000 Jews lived in 27 communities in Greece. The majority, about 50,000, lived in Salonica (Thessaloniki), a former Ottoman city captured and annexed by Greece in 1912. Most Greek Jews were Judeo-Spanish-speaking Sephardim (Jews originating on the Iberian peninsula) with some being Greek-speaking Romaniotes (an ancient Jewish community native to Greece). Germany, Italy, and Bulgaria invaded and occupied Greece in April 1941. During the first year of the occupation, Greek Jews as well as Christians suffered from famine, property confiscation, and hostage killings. (Full article...)
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  Continental Army riflemen skirmishing with enemy troops at the Battle of Saratoga. Painting by H. Charles McBarron Jr.

  
  The Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment, most commonly known as Rawlings' Regiment in period documents, was organized in June 1776 as a specialized light infantry unit of riflemen in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. The American rifle units complemented the predominant, musket-equipped, line infantry forces of the war with their long-range marksmanship capability and were typically deployed with the line infantry as forward skirmishers and flanking elements. Scouting, escort, and outpost duties were also routine. The rifle units' battle formation was not nearly as structured as that of the line infantry units, which employed short-range massed firing in ordered linear formations. The riflemen could therefore respond with more adaptability to changing battle conditions.
  
  The Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment consisted of nine companies—four from Maryland and five from Virginia. The two-state composition of the new unit precluded it from being managed through a single state government, and it was therefore directly responsible to national authority as an Extra Continental regiment. (Full article...)
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  Aquitania (at left) and Île de France during Operation Pamphlet

  The converted ocean liners Aquitania (at left) and Île de France travelling in convoy during Operation Pamphlet

  
  Operation Pamphlet, also called Convoy Pamphlet, was a World War II convoy operation conducted during January and February 1943 to transport the 9th Australian Division home from Egypt. The convoy involved five transports, which were protected from Japanese warships by several Allied naval task forces during the trip across the Indian Ocean and along the Australian coast. The division embarked in late January 1943 and the convoy operation began on 4 February. No contact was made between Allied and Japanese ships, and the division arrived in Australian ports during late February with no losses from enemy action.
  
  The operation came after the British and United States governments agreed to an Australian government request that the 9th Division be returned home, and ended the role of the Second Australian Imperial Force in the Western Desert Campaign. This followed a lengthy debate between the respective national leaders, with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt attempting to convince the Australian Prime Minister John Curtin to withdraw his request until the Allied victory in North Africa was complete. Curtin was unwilling to delay, as he and the Allied military leaders in the South West Pacific believed that the veteran division was needed to bolster the forces for offensive operations in New Guinea. (Full article...)
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  The FitzWalter coat of arms: d'or ung fece entre deux cheverons de goules ('Or, a fess gules between two chevrons of the last'). The arms are a differenced version of those of de Clare, the senior branch of the family.

  
  
  John FitzWalter, 2nd Baron FitzWalter (Fitzwalter or Fitz Wauter; c. 1315 – 18 October 1361) was a prominent Essex landowner best known for his criminal activities, particularly around Colchester. His family was of a noble and ancient lineage, with connections to the powerful de Clare family, who had arrived in England at the time of the Norman Conquest. The FitzWalters held estates across Essex, as well as properties in London and Norfolk. John FitzWalter played a prominent role during the early years of King Edward III's wars in France, and at some point, FitzWalter was married to Eleanor Percy, the daughter of Henry, Lord Percy.
  
  FitzWalter built a strong affinity around him, mainly from among leading members of the county's gentry, but also including men from elsewhere, such as a Norfolk parson. At their head, FitzWalter waged an armed campaign against the neighbouring town of Colchester, almost from the moment he reached adulthood. The townsmen seem to have exacerbated the dispute by illegally entering FitzWalter's park in Lexden; in return, FitzWalter banned them from one of their own watermills and then, in 1342, he besieged the town, preventing anyone entering or leaving for some weeks, as well as ransacking much property and destroying the market. One historian has described him, in his activities, as the medieval equivalent of a 20th-century American racketeer. Other victims of his Essex gang were local jurors, royal officials, a man forced to abjure the realm, and the prior of Little Dunmow Abbey. (Full article...)
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  Royal Oak at anchor in 1937

  
  HMS Royal Oak was one of five Revenge-class battleships built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Completed in 1916, the ship first saw combat at the Battle of Jutland as part of the Grand Fleet. In peacetime, she served in the Atlantic, Home and Mediterranean fleets, more than once coming under accidental attack. Royal Oak drew worldwide attention in 1928 when her senior officers were controversially court-martialled, an event that brought considerable embarrassment to what was then the world's largest navy. Attempts to modernise Royal Oak throughout her 25-year career could not fix her fundamental lack of speed and, by the start of the Second World War, she was no longer suitable for front-line duty.
  
  On 14 October 1939, Royal Oak was anchored at Scapa Flow in Orkney, Scotland, when she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-47. Of Royal Oak's complement of 1,234 men and boys, 835 were killed that night or died later of their wounds. The loss of the outdated ship—the first of five Royal Navy battleships and battlecruisers sunk in the Second World War—did little to affect the numerical superiority enjoyed by the British navy and its Allies, but it had a considerable effect on wartime morale. The raid made an immediate celebrity and war hero of the U-boat commander, Günther Prien, who became the first German submarine officer to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Before the sinking of Royal Oak, the Royal Navy had considered the naval base at Scapa Flow impregnable to submarine attack, but U-47's raid demonstrated that the German navy was capable of bringing the war to British home waters. The shock resulted in rapid changes to dockland security and the construction of the Churchill Barriers around Scapa Flow, with the added advantage of being topped by roads running between the islands. (Full article...)
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  Bill Newton, c. 1942

  
  William Ellis Newton, VC (8 June 1919 – 29 March 1943) was an Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest decoration for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to a member of the British and Commonwealth armed forces. He was honoured for his actions as a bomber pilot in Papua New Guinea during March 1943 when, despite intense anti-aircraft fire, he pressed home a series of attacks on the Salamaua Isthmus, the last of which saw him forced to ditch his aircraft in the sea. Newton was still officially posted as missing when the award was made in October 1943. It later emerged that he had been taken captive by the Japanese, and executed by beheading on 29 March.
  
  Raised in Melbourne, Newton excelled at sport, playing cricket at youth state level. He joined the Citizen Military Forces in 1938, and enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in February 1940. Described as having the dash of "an Errol Flynn or a Keith Miller", Newton served as a flying instructor in Australia before being posted to No. 22 Squadron, which began operating Boston light bombers in New Guinea late in 1942. Having just taken part in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, he was on his fifty-second mission when he was shot down and captured. Newton was the only Australian airman to receive a Victoria Cross for action in the South West Pacific theatre of World War II, and the sole Australian to be so decorated while flying with an RAAF squadron. (Full article...)
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  Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 American epic war film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Rodat. Set in 1944 in France during World War II, it follows a group of soldiers, led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks), on their mission to locate Private James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon) and bring him home safely after his three brothers are killed in action. The cast also includes Edward Burns, Tom Sizemore, Barry Pepper, Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Adam Goldberg, and Jeremy Davies.
  
  Inspired by the books of Stephen E. Ambrose and accounts of casualties among members of a single family such as the Niland brothers, Rodat drafted the script and Paramount Pictures hired him to finish the writing. The project came to the attention of Hanks and Spielberg, whose previous successes secured the project's development. Spielberg wanted to make Saving Private Ryan as authentic as possible, and hired Frank Darabont and Scott Frank to perform uncredited rewrites based on research and interviews with veterans. The main cast went through a week-long boot camp to understand the soldier experience. Filming took place from June to September 1997, on a $65–$70 million budget, almost entirely on location in England and Ireland. The opening Omaha Beach battle was the most demanding scene, costing $12 million to film over four weeks with 1,500 extras. (Full article...)
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  Z39 underway under American control, 1945

  
  The Z39 was a Type 1936A (Mob) destroyer built for Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. She was laid down in August 1940 and completed three years later. Her anti-aircraft armament was increased extensively during the war. Z39 served with the 6th Destroyer Flotilla her entire German career, which she spent escorting transports in the Baltic Sea, laying mines, and bombarding land forces. The destroyer served the navies of a total of three different countries: from 1943 to 1945 with the Kriegsmarine as Z39, from 1945 to 1947 with the US Navy as DD-939, and from 1948 to 1964 with the French Navy as Q-128.
  
  Throughout her German service, the ship laid numerous barrages (explosives concentrated over a wide area) of mines in the Baltic Sea and bombarded Soviet forces several times. In the last months of the war, Z39 helped escort steamships that were evacuating German soldiers and civilians from Eastern Europe to Denmark. Z39 was damaged twice, once by Soviet planes while in Paldiski and then by British planes while in Kiel. At the end of the war, the destroyer was transferred to the United States Navy. It conducted experiments testing her equipment—her high-pressure steam propulsion plant in particular. After the US Navy deemed her obsolete, the ship was transferred to the French Navy, where she was cannibalized for parts, and made into a pontoon boat for minesweepers. (Full article...)
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  Lieutenant General Brian Horrocks commanding XIII Corps in North Africa, 1942

  
  Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Gwynne Horrocks, KCB, KBE, DSO, MC (7 September 1895 – 4 January 1985) was a British Army officer, chiefly remembered as the commander of XXX Corps in Operation Market Garden and other operations during the Second World War. He also served in the First World War and the Russian Civil War, was taken prisoner twice, and competed in the modern pentathlon at the 1924 Paris Olympics. Later he was a television presenter, wrote books on military history, and was Black Rod in the House of Lords for 14 years.
  
  In 1940 Horrocks commanded a battalion during the Battle of France, the first time he served under Bernard Montgomery, the most prominent British commander of the war. Montgomery later identified Horrocks as one of his most able officers, appointing him to corps commands in both North Africa and Europe. In 1943, Horrocks was seriously wounded and took more than a year to recover before returning to command a corps in Europe. It is likely that this period out of action meant he missed out on promotion; his contemporary corps commanders in North Africa, Oliver Leese and Miles Dempsey, went on to command at army level and above. Horrocks' wound continued to impair his health and led to his early retirement from the army after the war. (Full article...)
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  Woods c. 1918–1919

  
  James Park Woods VC (4 January 1886 – 18 January 1963) was an Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross during World War I; the Victoria Cross was the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that could be awarded to members of the Australian armed forces at the time. Woods enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in September 1916 and, after training in Australia and the United Kingdom, joined his unit, the 48th Battalion, in France in September 1917. Along with the rest of his battalion, he participated in the First Battle of Passchendaele the following month. In early 1918, Woods was hospitalised for several months before rejoining his unit in May. He again reported sick in July, and did not return to the 48th Battalion until mid-August.
  
  On 18 September 1918, the 48th Battalion was involved in the attack on the Hindenburg Outpost Line during the Hundred Days Offensive. After the first phase of the attack, some elements of Woods' unit were tasked to support another battalion as it conducted a further assault. When it was suspected that flanking British troops had not gone forward to their objective as reported, a four-man patrol including Woods attempted to make contact with them. Instead of finding British troops, they encountered a strong German post and, after calling for reinforcements, attacked it, driving more than thirty Germans from the position. Woods' actions during this assault and subsequent defence of the captured post resulted in him being awarded the Victoria Cross. Woods survived the war, returned to Australia and operated a vineyard and orchard in Western Australia. He retired early due to ill health and died in 1963. His medals are displayed in the Hall of Valour at the Australian War Memorial. (Full article...)
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  Hull at RAF Wick in Scotland in early 1940

  
  Caesar Barrand Hull, DFC (26 February 1914 – 7 September 1940) was a Royal Air Force (RAF) flying ace during the Second World War, noted especially for his part in the fighting for Narvik during the Norwegian Campaign in 1940, and for being one of "The Few"—the Allied pilots of the Battle of Britain, in which he was shot down and killed. From a farming family, Hull's early years were spent in Southern Rhodesia, South Africa and Swaziland. He boxed for South Africa at the 1934 Empire Games. After being turned down by the South African Air Force because he did not speak Afrikaans, he joined the RAF and, on becoming a pilot officer in August 1936, mustered into No. 43 Squadron at RAF Tangmere in Sussex.
  
  A skilful pilot, Hull dedicated much of his pre-war service to aerobatics, flying Hawker Audaxes, Furies and Hurricanes. He reacted to the outbreak of war with enthusiasm and achieved No. 43 Squadron's first victory of the conflict in late January 1940. Reassigned to Norway in May 1940 to command a flight of Gloster Gladiator biplanes belonging to No. 263 Squadron, he downed four German aircraft in an hour over the Bodø area south-west of Narvik on 26 May, a feat that earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross. He was shot down the next day, and invalided back to England. Hull returned to action at the end of August, when he was made commander of No. 43 Squadron with the rank of squadron leader. A week later, he died in a dogfight over south London. (Full article...)
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  Lithograph of Mecklenburg from 1902

  
  SMS Mecklenburg ("His Majesty's Ship Mecklenburg") was the fifth ship of the Wittelsbach class of pre-dreadnought battleships of the German Imperial Navy. Laid down in May 1900 at the AG Vulcan shipyard in Stettin, Germany (now Szczecin, Poland), she was finished in May 1903. Her sister ships were Wittelsbach, Zähringen, Wettin, and Schwaben; they were the first capital ships built under the Navy Law of 1898, championed by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. Mecklenburg was armed with a main battery of four 24-centimeter (9.4 in) guns and had a top speed of 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph).
  Mecklenburg spent the early period of her career in I Squadron of the German fleet, participating in the peacetime routine of training cruises and exercises. After World War I began in August 1914, the ship was mobilized with her sisters as IV Battle Squadron. She saw limited duty in the Baltic Sea against Russian naval forces, and as a guard ship in the North Sea. The German High Command withdrew the ship from active service in January 1916 due to a threat from submarines and naval mines, together with severe shortages in personnel. For the remainder of her career, Mecklenburg served as a prison ship and as a barracks ship based in Kiel. She was stricken from the navy list in January 1920 and sold for scrapping the following year. (Full article...)
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  Depiction of Ecgberht from the Genealogical Chronicle of the English Kings, a late 13th-century manuscript in the British Library

  
  Ecgberht (770/775 – 839), also spelled Egbert, Ecgbert, Ecgbriht, Ecgbeorht, and Ecbert, was King of Wessex from 802 until his death in 839. His father was King Ealhmund of Kent. In the 780s, Ecgberht was forced into exile to Charlemagne's court in the Frankish Empire by the kings Offa of Mercia and Beorhtric of Wessex, but on Beorhtric's death in 802, Ecgberht returned and took the throne.
  
  Little is known of the first 20 years of Ecgberht's reign, but it is thought that he was able to maintain the independence of Wessex against the kingdom of Mercia, which at that time dominated the other southern English kingdoms. In 825, Ecgberht defeated Beornwulf of Mercia, ended Mercia's supremacy at the Battle of Ellandun, and proceeded to take control of the Mercian dependencies in southeastern England. In 829, he defeated Wiglaf of Mercia and drove him out of his kingdom, temporarily ruling Mercia directly. Later that year Ecgberht received the submission of the Northumbrian king at Dore. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle subsequently described Ecgberht as a bretwalda or 'wide-ruler' of Anglo-Saxon lands. (Full article...)

Featured picture

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  German occupation of Czechoslovakia

  Photo credit: Völkischer Beobachter

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

  Photo: Douglas Perkins

  Petra is an archaeological site in Jordan, lying in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Wadi Araba, the great valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. It is famous for having many stone structures carved into the rock.
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  Photograph of glassworkers by Lewis Hine

  Photograph: Lewis Hine; restoration: Lise Broer

  A baseball team composed mostly of child laborers from an Indiana glassmaking factory, as photographed by Lewis Hine in August 1908. Hine (1874–1940) was an American sociologist who promoted the use of photography as an educational medium and means for social change. Beginning in 1908, he spent ten years photographing child labor for the National Child Labor Committee. The project was a dangerous one, and Hine had to disguise himself – at times as a fire inspector, post card vendor, Bible salesman or industrial photographer – to avoid the factory police and foremen.
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  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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  Poison gas in World War I

  Photo credit: Frank Hurley

  A group of Australian infantry wearing Small Box Respirators (SBRs) at the Third Battle of Ypres in September 1917. After the introduction of poison gas in World War I, countermeasures were developed. SBRs represented the pinnacle of gas mask development during the war, a mouthpiece connected via a hose to a box filter (hanging around the wearer's neck in this picture), which in turn contained granules of chemicals that neutralised the gas. The SBR was the prized possession of the ordinary infantryman; when the British were forced to retreat during the German Spring Offensive of 1918, it was found that while some troops had discarded their rifles, hardly any had left behind their respirators.
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  Second Battle of Gaza

  Photo: American Colony, Jerusalem
  Restoration: Lise Broer/Fir0002

  Ottoman machine gun corps, before the Second Battle of Gaza, which took place on 19 April 1917. The First Battle of Gaza, just three weeks prior, had ended in defeat for the British Empire, and this second attempt to break through Turkish defenses was also unsuccessful. Six months later, on the third attempt, the Allied forces were finally able to break the Gaza–Beersheba line.
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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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  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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  Timeline of lighting technology

  Illustration: Maurice Dessertenne
  Restoration: Michel Vuijlsteke

  An illustration from Volume IV (E–G) of the encyclopedia Nouveau Larousse illustré showing various methods of lighting through the ages, starting from prehistoric times in the upper left (No. 1) to carbide lamps at the beginning of the 20th century (No. 54, lower right), with a separate section for Japanese lighting (No. 55–58, lower left).
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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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  Masada

  Photograph: Andrew Shiva

  An aerial view of Masada, an ancient fortification in the Southern District of Israel. Found atop an isolated rock plateau, it overlooks the Dead Sea. The first fortifications on the mountain were built by Alexander Jannaeus, and significantly strengthened by the Roman client king Herod between 37 and 31 BCE. During the First Jewish–Roman War of 66–73 CE, the fortress was besieged, falling only after the 960 Sicarii defending it committed mass suicide.
  
  Masada is among the more popular tourist attractions in Israel, and in 2001 it was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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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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  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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  History of the Australian Army

  Artist: Norman Lindsay

  "The Trumpet Calls", a recruitment poster for the Australian Army in World War I. When the United Kingdom declared war on Germany, Australia followed without hesitation. This was considered to be expected by the Australian public, because of the very large number of British-born citizens and first generation Anglo-Australians at the time. A total of 331,814 Australians were sent overseas to serve as part of the Australian Imperial Force with a casualty rate (killed or wounded) of 64%.
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  Arecibo message

  Graphic: Arne Nordmann

  A color visual interpretation of the digital signal in the Arecibo message, sent in 1974 from the Arecibo Observatory. Broadcast into space via frequency modulated radio waves at a ceremony to mark the remodeling of the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, the message consisted of 1,679 binary digits, approximately 210 bytes, transmitted at a frequency of 2,380 MHz. It was aimed at the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, some 25,000 light-years away, and contains information related to mathematics, chemistry, and astronomy.
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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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  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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  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.

Did you know (auto generated)

• ... that British philatelist Alma Lee specialised in the "standing Helvetia" stamps of Switzerland?
• ... that although Ronteza slipped and fell chasing a cow in competition, she made Arabian horse history?
• ... that at the age of 28, Mason Morelli became the first player in Vegas Golden Knights franchise history to record two points in their National Hockey League debut game?
• ... 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 the cultural scholar Hermann Bausinger wrote a book about the history of literature from Swabia from the 18th century to the present, published for his 90th birthday?
• ... that Historia narodu polskiego, the first modern history of Poland, was never finished but was highly influential on emerging Polish historiography?

Featured biography –

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Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Ṭughj ibn Juff ibn Yiltakīn ibn Fūrān ibn Fūrī ibn Khāqān (8 February 882 – 24 July 946), better known by the title al-Ikhshīd (Arabic: الإخشيد) after 939, was an Abbasid commander and governor who became the autonomous ruler of Egypt and parts of Syria (Levant) from 935 until his death in 946. He was the founder of the Ikhshidid dynasty, which ruled the region until the Fatimid conquest of 969.

The son of Tughj ibn Juff, a general of Turkic origin who served both the Abbasids and the autonomous Tulunid rulers of Egypt and Syria, Muhammad ibn Tughj was born in Baghdad but grew up in Syria and acquired his first military and administrative experiences at his father's side. He had a turbulent early career: he was imprisoned along with his father by the Abbasids in 905, was released in 906, participated in the murder of the vizier al-Abbas ibn al-Hasan al-Jarjara'i in 908, and fled Iraq to enter the service of the governor of Egypt, Takin al-Khazari. Eventually he acquired the patronage of several influential Abbasid magnates, chiefly the powerful commander-in-chief Mu'nis al-Muzaffar. These ties led him to being named governor first of Palestine and then of Damascus. In 933, he was briefly named governor of Egypt, but this order was revoked after the death of Mu'nis, and Ibn Tughj had to fight to preserve even his governorship of Damascus. In 935, he was re-appointed to Egypt, where he quickly defeated a Fatimid invasion and stabilized the turbulent country. His reign marks a rare period of domestic peace, stability and good government in the annals of early Islamic Egypt. In 938 Caliph al-Radi granted his request for the title of al-Ikhshid, which had been borne by the rulers of his ancestral Farghana Valley. It is by this title that he was known thereafter. (Full article...)

On this day

May 28: Republic Day in Armenia (1918); Independence Day in Azerbaijan (1918)

Mozaffar ad-Din

• 585 BC – According to the Greek historian Herodotus, a solar eclipse, accurately predicted by Thales of Miletus, abruptly ended the Battle of Halys between the Lydians and the Medes.
• 1644 – English Civil War: Royalist troops stormed and captured the Parliamentarian stronghold of Bolton, leading to a massacre of defenders and local residents.
• 1754 – French and Indian War: Led by 22-year-old George Washington, a company of Virginia colonial militiamen ambushed a force of 35 Canadiens at the Battle of Jumonville Glen .
• 1901 – Mozaffar ad-Din (pictured), Shah of Persia, granted exclusive rights to prospect for oil in the country to William Knox D'Arcy.
• 1937 – The rise of Neville Chamberlain culminated with his accession as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, being summoned to Buckingham Palace to "kiss hands".
• 2002 – An independent commission appointed by the Football Association voted two-to-one to allow Wimbledon F.C. to relocate from London to Milton Keynes.

• Robert Baldock (d. 1327)
• Francis Gleeson (priest) (b. 1884)
• Carroll Baker (b. 1931)
• Kylie Minogue (b. 1968)

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