Portal:History

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.

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.

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 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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  Australian soldiers with a Japanese flag captured during the fighting at Goodenough Island

  
  The Battle of Goodenough Island (22–27 October 1942), also known as Operation Drake, was a battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II. The Allies landed on Goodenough Island, Papua, and clashed with a Japanese Kaigun Rikusentai (Special Naval Landing Force). The Japanese troops had been stranded on the island during the Battle of Milne Bay in late August 1942. "Drake Force", consisting of the Australian 2/12th Battalion and attachments, landed on the southern tip of Goodenough Island at Mud Bay and Taleba Bay on 22 October, tasked with denying the Japanese use of the island prior to the Buna campaign. Following a short but intense fight, the Japanese forces withdrew to Fergusson Island on 27 October. After the battle, Goodenough Island was developed into a major Allied base for operations later in the war. (Full article...)
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  View of the Close of the Action Between the British and French Fleets, off Port L'Orient on 23 June 1795, Robert Dodd

  
  The Battle of Groix ([ɡʁwa], g'r-wah) was a large naval engagement which took place near the island of Groix off the Biscay coast of Brittany on 23 June 1795 (5 messidor an III) during the French Revolutionary Wars. The battle was fought between elements of the British Channel Fleet and the French Atlantic Fleet, which were cruising in the region on separate missions. The British fleet, commanded by Admiral Lord Bridport, was covering an invasion convoy carrying a French Royalist army to invade Quiberon, while the French under Vice-admiral Villaret de Joyeuse had sailed a week earlier to rescue a French convoy from attack by a British squadron. The French fleet had driven off the British squadron in a battle on 17 June known as Cornwallis's Retreat, and were attempting to return to their base at Brest when Bridport's force of 14 ships of the line appeared on 22 June.
  
  Villaret, believing that the stronger British fleet would destroy his own 12 ships of the line, ordered his force to fall back to the inshore anchorage off Groix, hoping to take shelter in protected coastal waters. Several of his ships were too slow, falling behind so that early in the morning of 23 June the rearmost ships of his fleet were caught by the British vanguard, overhauled one by one and brought to battle. Although Villaret fought a determined rearguard action, three French ships were captured, all with very heavy casualties, and the remainder of the French fleet was left scattered across miles of coastline. In this position they were highly vulnerable to continued British attack, but after only a few hours' engagement, concerned that his ships might be wrecked on the rocky coastline, Bridport called off the action and allowed Villaret to regroup inshore and retreat to Lorient. (Full article...)
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  Moosally (at podium) speaks at a ceremony on USS Iowa on January 4, 1990, to unveil a plaque commemorating the 47 crewmen killed in the turret explosion on April 19, 1989.

  
  Fred P. Moosally (born 4 October 1944) is a former captain in the United States Navy. During his naval career, Moosally served in many different assignments, including commander of a destroyer and the battleship USS Iowa. Moosally was captain of the Iowa when the center gun of one of the ship's main gun turrets exploded on April 19, 1989, killing 47 crewmen.
  
  During the investigation into the cause of the explosion, Moosally testified that the Navy had assigned personnel of inferior quality to the Iowa. The investigation found that Iowa had been operating with severe deficiencies in safety and training procedures, for which Moosally was disciplined. The Navy stated that the deficiencies were unrelated to the turret explosion. (Full article...)
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  Australian troops at Milne Bay

  Australian troops at Milne Bay in 1942, shortly after the battle

  
  The Battle of Milne Bay (25 August – 7 September 1942), also known as Operation RE or the Battle of Rabi (ラビの戦い) by the Japanese, was a battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II. Japanese naval infantry, known as Kaigun Tokubetsu Rikusentai (Special Naval Landing Forces), with two small tanks attacked the Allied airfields at Milne Bay that had been established on the eastern tip of New Guinea. Due to poor intelligence work, the Japanese miscalculated the size of the predominantly Australian garrison and, believing that the airfields were defended by only two or three companies, initially landed a force roughly equivalent in size to one battalion on 25 August 1942. The Allies, forewarned by intelligence from Ultra, had heavily reinforced the garrison.
  
  Despite suffering a significant setback at the outset, when part of their small invasion force had its landing craft destroyed by Royal Australian Air Force aircraft as they attempted to land on the coast behind the Australian defenders, the Japanese quickly pushed inland and began their advance towards the airfields. Heavy fighting followed as they encountered the Australian Militia troops that formed the first line of defence. These troops were steadily pushed back, but the Australians brought forward veteran Second Australian Imperial Force units that the Japanese had not expected. Allied air superiority helped tip the balance, providing close support to troops in combat and targeting Japanese logistics. Finding themselves heavily outnumbered, lacking supplies and suffering heavy casualties, the Japanese withdrew their forces, with fighting coming to an end on 7 September 1942. (Full article...)
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  One of the anti-aircraft guns assigned to the defence of Fremantle in November 1943

  One of the anti-aircraft guns assigned to the defence of Fremantle in November 1943

  
  During March 1944, the Allies of World War II rapidly reinforced the military units located in the state of Western Australia to defend against the possibility that Japanese warships would attack the cities of Fremantle and Perth. This redeployment began on 8 March after concerns were raised about the purpose of Japanese warship movements near the Dutch East Indies, and ended on 20 March, after it was concluded that an attack was unlikely.
  
  In February 1944, the Allies became alarmed that the movement of the main Japanese fleet to Singapore could be a precursor to raids in the Indian Ocean, including against Western Australia. The emergency began when Allied code breakers detected the movement of a powerful force of Japanese warships in the Netherlands East Indies in early March. After a United States Navy submarine made radar contact with two Japanese warships near one of the entrances to the Indian Ocean on 6 March, the Allied military authorities and Australian Government judged that a fleet may have been heading towards the Perth area. In reality, these warships were undertaking a patrol while awaiting a small raiding force to return from attacking ships in the central Indian Ocean. (Full article...)
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  Nairana in dazzle camouflage

  
  HMS Nairana (/naɪˈrɑːnə/) was a passenger ferry that was requisitioned by the Royal Navy (RN) as a seaplane carrier in 1917. She was laid down in Scotland in 1914 as TSS Nairana for the Australian shipping line Huddart Parker, but construction was suspended after the outbreak of the First World War. Following resumption of work, the ship was launched in 1915, and converted to operate wheeled aircraft from her forward flying-off deck, as well as floatplanes that were lowered into the water. She saw service during the war with the Grand Fleet, and in 1918–19 supported the British intervention in the Russian Civil War.
  
  Nairana was returned to her former owners in 1921 and refitted in her original planned configuration, and spent the next 27 years ferrying passengers and cargo between Tasmania and Melbourne. She was twice struck by rogue waves in Bass Strait, and nearly capsized on both occasions. Nairana was the only Bass Strait ferry not requisitioned for military service in the Second World War, and so became the sole passenger ship with service to Tasmania during the conflict. She was laid up in 1948, wrecked in a storm three years later and scrapped in situ in 1953–54. (Full article...)
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  Portrait by Alexander Bassano, 1882

  
  Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days—which was longer than those of any of her predecessors—constituted the Victorian era. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, the British parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India.
  
  Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the fourth son of King George III), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After the deaths of her father and grandfather in 1820, she was raised under close supervision by her mother and her comptroller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her father's three elder brothers died without surviving legitimate issue. Victoria, a constitutional monarch, attempted privately to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality. (Full article...)
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  Eardwulf (fl. 790 – c. 830) was king of Northumbria from 796 to 806, when he was deposed and went into exile. He may have had a second reign from 808 until perhaps 811 or 830. Northumbria in the last years of the eighth century was the scene of dynastic strife between several noble families: in 790, king Æthelred I attempted to have Eardwulf assassinated. Eardwulf's survival may have been viewed as a sign of divine favour. A group of nobles conspired to assassinate Æthelred in April 796 and he was succeeded by Osbald: Osbald's reign lasted only twenty-seven days before he was deposed and Eardwulf became king on 14 May 796.
  
  Little is recorded of Eardwulf's family, though his father, also named Eardwulf, is known to have been a nobleman. Eardwulf was married by the time he became king, though his wife's name is not recorded. It is possible he later wed an illegitimate daughter of Charlemagne. In 798, early in his reign, Eardwulf fought a battle at Billington Moor against a nobleman named Wada, who had been one of those who killed King Æthelred. Wada was defeated and driven into exile. In 801, Eardwulf led an army against Coenwulf of Mercia, perhaps because of Coenwulf's support for other claimants to the Northumbrian throne. (Full article...)
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  The tomb of Philippe Pot is a funerary monument in the Louvre in Paris. It was commissioned by the military leader and diplomat Philippe Pot around the year 1480 to be used for his burial at the chapel of Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Cîteaux Abbey, Dijon, France. His effigy shows him recumbent on a slab, his hands raised in prayer, and wearing armour and a heraldic tunic. The eight mourners (pleurants) are dressed in black hoods and act as pallbearers carrying him towards his grave. Pot commissioned the tomb when he was around 52 years old, 13 years before he died in 1493. The detailed inscriptions on the slab's sides emphasise his achievements and social standing.
  
  Pot was a godson of Philip the Good and became a knight of the Golden Fleece. He served under two of the last Valois Dukes of Burgundy, Philip the Good and Charles the Bold. After the latter's defeat by René II, Duke of Lorraine at the Battle of Nancy in 1477, Pot switched allegiance to the French king, Louis XI, who appointed him grand seneschal of Burgundy. After the king died in 1483, Pot served under Louis's son, Charles VIII. (Full article...)
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  Portrait, c. 1920

  
  Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents while in office. After his death, a number of scandals were exposed, including Teapot Dome, as well as an extramarital affair with Nan Britton, which tarnished his reputation.
  
  Harding lived in rural Ohio all his life, except when political service took him elsewhere. As a young man, he bought The Marion Star and built it into a successful newspaper. Harding served in the Ohio State Senate from 1900 to 1904, and was lieutenant governor for two years. He was defeated for governor in 1910, but was elected to the United States Senate in 1914—the state's first direct election for that office. Harding ran for the Republican nomination for president in 1920, but was considered a long shot before the convention. When the leading candidates could not garner a majority, and the convention deadlocked, support for Harding increased, and he was nominated on the tenth ballot. He conducted a front porch campaign, remaining mostly in Marion and allowing people to come to him. He promised a return to normalcy of the pre–World War I period, and defeated Democratic nominee James M. Cox in a landslide to become the first sitting senator elected president. (Full article...)
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  The IFF Mark II antenna on this Spitfire can just be made out, stretching across the rear fuselage from the roundel to the tip of the horizontal stabiliser.

  
  
  IFF Mark II was the first operational identification friend or foe system. It was developed by the Royal Air Force just before the start of World War II. After a short run of prototype Mark Is, used experimentally in 1939, the Mark II began widespread deployment at the end of the Battle of Britain in late 1940. It remained in use until 1943, when it began to be replaced by the standardised IFF Mark III, which was used by all Allied aircraft until long after the war ended.
  
  The Mark I was a simple system that amplified the signals of the British Chain Home radar systems, causing the aircraft's "blip" to extend on the radar display, identifying the aircraft as friendly. Mark I had the problem that the gain had to be adjusted in flight to keep it working; in the field, it was correct only half the time. Another problem was that it was sensitive to only one frequency and had to be manually tuned to different radar stations. In 1939, Chain Home was the only radar of interest and operated on a limited set of frequencies but new radars were already entering service and the number of frequencies was beginning to multiply. (Full article...)
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  USS New Jersey underway in January 1985

  
  USS New Jersey (BB-62) is an Iowa-class battleship, and was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named after the U.S. state of New Jersey. She was often referred to fondly as "Big J". New Jersey earned more battle stars for combat actions than the other three completed Iowa-class battleships, and was the only US battleship used to provide gunfire support during the Vietnam War.
  
  During World War II, New Jersey shelled targets on Guam and Okinawa, and screened aircraft carriers conducting raids in the Marshall Islands. During the Korean War, she was involved in raids along the North Korean coast, after which she was decommissioned into the United States Navy reserve fleets, better known as the "mothball fleet". She was briefly reactivated in 1968 and sent to Vietnam to support US troops before returning to the mothball fleet in 1969. Reactivated once more in the 1980s as part of the 600-ship Navy program, New Jersey was modernized to carry missiles and recommissioned for service. In 1983, she participated in US operations during the Lebanese Civil War. (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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  Swedish UN peacekeepers led by Major Sture Fagerström plan their attack on the town of Kamina during the operation

  
  Operation Grandslam was an offensive undertaken by United Nations peacekeeping forces from 28 December 1962 to 15 January 1963 against the forces of the State of Katanga, a secessionist state rebelling against the Republic of the Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in Central Africa. The Katangese forces were decisively defeated and Katanga was forcibly reintegrated into the Congo.
  
  The United Nations had tried several times to reconcile the government of the Congo with the State of Katanga, which had declared independence under Moïse Tshombe with Belgian support in 1960. Though initially limiting its actions, the United Nations Operation in the Congo became increasingly impatient towards Katanga and Tshombe, drawing up plans to resolve the situation through force. Tshombe continuously violated agreements he had made with the United Nations and the Congolese government by building up his forces and bringing foreign mercenaries into the conflict. The situation reached a breaking point in December 1962 when Katangese gendarmes attacked peacekeeping forces in Katanga. United Nations Secretary-General U Thant authorised a retaliatory offensive to eliminate secessionist opposition. (Full article...)
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  Lieutenant General George S. Patton, commander of the Seventh United States Army, in 1943

  
  In early August 1943, Lieutenant General George S. Patton slapped two United States Army soldiers under his command during the Sicily Campaign of World War II. Patton's hard-driving personality and lack of belief in the medical condition of combat stress reaction, then known as "battle fatigue" or "shell shock", led to the soldiers' becoming the subject of his ire in incidents on August 3 and 10, when Patton struck and berated them after discovering they were patients at evacuation hospitals away from the front lines without apparent physical injuries.
  
  Word of the incidents spread, eventually reaching Patton's superior, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who ordered him to apologize to the men. Patton's actions were initially suppressed in the news until journalist Drew Pearson publicized them in the United States. The reactions of the U.S. Congress and the general public were divided between support and disdain for Patton's actions. Eisenhower and Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall opted not to fire Patton as a commander. (Full article...)

Featured picture

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  Astrolabe

  Photograph: Masoud Safarniya

  An Iranian astrolabe, handmade from brass by Jacopo Koushan in 2013. Astrolabes are elaborate inclinometers used by astronomers, navigators, and astrologers from classical antiquity, through the Islamic Golden Age and European Middle Ages, until the Renaissance. These could be used for a variety of purposes, including predicting the positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars; determining local time given local latitude; surveying; triangulation; calculating the qibla; and finding the times for salat.
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  Schutterij

  De Magere Compagnie (completed 1637), which depicts a company of schutterij, a voluntary city guard or citizen militia in the medieval and early modern Netherlands. Frans Hals was commissioned to create this, but he was unable to complete it after three years, and the company hired Pieter Codde to finish it. Group portraits such as this of schutterij were known as schuttersstuk, and were popular among the guards themselves.
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  Apollo 11

  Photograph credit: Neil Armstrong

  Apollo 11 was the fifth crewed mission of NASA's Apollo program. After launching from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 16, 1969, commander Neil Armstrong and Apollo Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed Eagle in Mare Tranquillitatis on July 20, at 20:17:40 UTC, while command module pilot Michael Collins remained on Columbia in lunar orbit. Armstrong was the first to exit the spacecraft, stepping onto the surface 6 hours and 39 minutes later, on July 21, at 02:56:15 UTC; nineteen minutes later, Aldrin joined him on extravehicular activity, which lasted 2 hours, 31 minutes and 40 seconds. Armstrong and Aldrin lifted off from Tranquility Base after almost 22 hours on the lunar surface and rejoined Collins in the command module, before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24.
  
  The mission was planned to the minute, with the majority of the photographic tasks performed by Armstrong with a single Hasselblad camera. Most of the photographs taken on the Moon that include an astronaut are of Aldrin; there are only five images of Armstrong partly shown or reflected, as in this photograph, with Armstrong and the lunar module reflected in Aldrin's helmet visor. "As the sequence of lunar operations evolved," Aldrin explained, "Neil had the camera most of the time [...] It wasn't until we were back on Earth and in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory looking over the pictures that we realized there were few pictures of Neil."
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  Arg-e Bam

  Photograph credit: Diego Delso

  The Arg-e Bam, in Kerman Province in southeastern Iran, is the largest adobe building in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The ancient citadel has a history dating back around two thousand years, to the Parthian Empire (248 BC – 224 AD), but most of its buildings were constructed during the Safavid dynasty. A strong earthquake on 26 December 2003 largely devastated the fortress and the nearby modern city of Bam. The Arg-e Bam, including the governor's residence, the main tower, the Four Seasons Palace and the hammam, were nearly totally destroyed; this photograph from 2016 shows the citadel partially reconstructed.
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  First flying machine

  Artist: Unknown

  A 1786 depiction of the first hot air balloon to carry humans, built by the Montgolfier brothers of Annonay, France. The flight occurred on 21 November 1783 from the grounds of the Château de la Muette in the western outskirts of Paris. Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, a physician, and François Laurent d'Arlandes, an army officer, flew aloft about 3,000 feet (1,000 m) above the city for a distance of 9 kilometres (6 mi), with a total flying time of 25 minutes.
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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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  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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  Check used for the Alaska Purchase

  Check: William H. Seward; scan: Our Documents initiative

  The check used for the Alaska Purchase, issued on August 1, 1868, and signed by US Secretary of State William H. Seward. For a total of $7.2 million, the United States government purchased Russian America from the Russian Empire (represented here by Russian Minister to the United States Eduard de Stoeckl). The lands involved became the modern state of Alaska in 1959.
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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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  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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  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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  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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  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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  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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  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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  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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  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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  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.

Did you know (auto generated)

• ... that What Hath God Wrought, the 2007 history of Jacksonian America written by Daniel Walker Howe, is dedicated to Andrew Jackson's "political nemesis" John Quincy Adams?
• ... that the Harlem Park Three were awarded US$48 million, the largest sum in Baltimore history, after being falsely imprisoned for murder?
• ... that despite his distinguished family history, musicologist Yuri Shcherbinin told friends that "what matters most is what you are, not who your ancestors were"?
• ... that Cyclone Freddy was the longest-lasting tropical cyclone recorded?
• ... that Art Rooney Jr. presided over what one Pro Football Hall of Fame selector described as "the best drafting run in NFL history"?
• ... that Nakba denial is a form of historical negationism pertaining to the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight?

Featured biography –

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

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Portrait of Boz's Juba from an 1848 London playbill

Master Juba (ca. 1825 – ca. 1852 or 1853) was an African-American dancer active in the 1840s. He was one of the first black performers in the United States to play onstage for white audiences and the only one of the era to tour with a white minstrel group. His real name was believed to be William Henry Lane, and he was also known as "Boz's Juba" following Dickens's graphic description of him in American Notes.

As a teenager, he began his career in the rough saloons and dance halls of Manhattan's Five Points neighborhood, moving on to minstrel shows in the mid-1840s. "Master Juba" frequently challenged and defeated the best white dancers, including the period favorite, John Diamond. At the height of his American career, Juba's act featured a sequence in which he imitated a series of famous dancers of the day and closed by performing in his own style. Being a black man, he appeared with minstrel troupes in which he imitated white minstrel dancers caricaturing black dance, obscuring his underlying ethnic identity with blackface . Even with his success in America, his greatest success came in England. (Full article...)

On this day

February 15: National Flag of Canada Day; Statehood Day in Serbia; Susan B. Anthony Day in some parts of the United States

Don Dunstan

• 438 – The Codex Theodosianus, a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire, was published.
• 1763 – Prussia, Saxony and the Habsburg monarchy signed the Treaty of Hubertusburg, ending the Third Silesian War.
• 1940 – The official premiere of Paul Creston's Saxophone Sonata took place at the Carnegie Chamber Hall, with saxophonist Cecil Leeson, who commissioned the work, and Creston on piano.
• 1979 – Don Dunstan (pictured) resigned as Premier of South Australia, ending a decade of sweeping social liberalisation.
• 2018 – Following nationwide protests, Hailemariam Desalegn announced his resignation as prime minister of Ethiopia, remaining in post as a caretaker until he was succeeded by Abiy Ahmed.

• Gisela of Swabia (d. 1043)
• Matt Groening (b. 1954)
• Mo Tae-bum (b. 1989)
• Dawa Dem (d. 2018)

More anniversaries:

• February 14
• February 15
• February 16

Selected quote

Time's glory is to command contending kings,
To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.

— William Shakespeare, playwright

Related portals

More Did you know...

• ... that on 26 April 1881 HMS Doterel (pictured) exploded, killing 143 of the 155 crew members?
• ... that causes of the deaths at the Berlin Wall included shooting, drowning, suffocation, suicide, and falling from a balloon?
• ... that the 19th-century swindler Bertha Heyman, known as "The Confidence Queen," conned men by pretending to be a wealthy woman who was unable to access her fortune?
• ... that only four great uncial codices have survived until the present day?
• ... that after World War II, Polish resistance organizer and Warsaw Uprising fighter Jan Mazurkiewicz was brutally tortured by the authorities in communist Poland?
• ... that tiny Paederus beetles may have caused some of the ten Plagues of Egypt?
• ... that the only known report of bloodshed during the simulated Nazi invasion of Winnipeg was from a woman who cut her thumb while preparing toast?
• ... that Dacian bracelets were used as currency and votive offerings?

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Things you can do

Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Article requests : Requested articles/Social sciences/History Copyedit : History articles needing copy editing Photo : Wikipedia requested photographs of history Stubs : Expand history stub articles Are you a historian : i.e. one who studies and writes history, and who has a keen interest in writing outstanding articles? Join our group by adding Category:Wikipedian historians to the bottom of your user page.

Associated Wikimedia

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