Portal:History
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The History Portal
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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James Arthur Lovell Jr. (/ˈlʌvəl/ LUV-əl; born March 25, 1928) is an American retired astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot and mechanical engineer. In 1968, as command module pilot of Apollo 8, he became, with Frank Borman and William Anders, one of the first three astronauts to fly to and orbit the Moon. He then commanded the Apollo 13 lunar mission in 1970 which, after a critical failure en route, looped around the Moon and returned safely to Earth.
A graduate of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in the class of 1952, Lovell flew F2H Banshee night fighters. This included a Western Pacific deployment aboard the aircraft carrier USS Shangri-La. In January 1958, he entered a six-month test pilot training course at the Naval Air Test Center at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, with Class 20 and graduated at the top of the class. He was then assigned to Electronics Test, working with radar, and in 1960 he became the Navy's McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II program manager. The following year he became a flight instructor and safety engineering officer at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and completed Aviation Safety School at the University of Southern California. (Full article...) -
The Battle of Barnet was a decisive engagement in the Wars of the Roses, a dynastic conflict of 15th-century England. The military action, along with the subsequent Battle of Tewkesbury, secured the throne for Edward IV.
On Sunday 14 April 1471, Easter Day, near Barnet, then a small Hertfordshire town north of London, Edward led the House of York in a fight against the House of Lancaster, which backed Henry VI for the throne. Leading the Lancastrian army was Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, who played a crucial role in the fate of each king. Historians regard the battle as one of the most important clashes in the Wars of the Roses, since it brought about a decisive turn in the fortunes of the two houses. Edward's victory was followed by 14 years of Yorkist rule over England. (Full article...) -
Helicopter 66 is a United States Navy Sikorsky Sea King helicopter used during the late 1960s for the water recovery of astronauts during five missions of the Apollo program. It has been called "one of the most famous, or at least most iconic, helicopters in history", was the subject of a 1969 song by Manuela, and was made into a die-cast model by Dinky Toys. In addition to its work in support of NASA, Helicopter 66 also transported the Shah of Iran during his 1973 visit to the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk.
Helicopter 66 was delivered to the U.S. Navy in 1967 and formed part of the inventory of U.S. Navy Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Four for the duration of its active life. Among its pilots during this period was Donald S. Jones, who would go on to command the United States Third Fleet. Later re-numbered Helicopter 740, the aircraft crashed in the Pacific Ocean in 1975 during a training exercise. At the time of its crash, it had logged more than 3,200 hours of service. (Full article...) -
SMS Moltke was the lead ship of the Moltke-class battlecruisers of the German Imperial Navy, named after the 19th-century German Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke. Commissioned on 30 September 1911, the ship was the second battlecruiser of the Imperial Navy. Moltke, along with her sister ship Goeben, was an enlarged version of the previous German battlecruiser design, Von der Tann, with increased armor protection and two more main guns in an additional turret. Compared to her British rivals—the Indefatigable class—Moltke and her sister Goeben were significantly larger and better armored.
The ship participated in most of the major fleet actions conducted by the German Navy during the First World War, including the Battles of Dogger Bank and Jutland in the North Sea in 1915 and 1916, respectively. She also took part in the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in 1915 and Operation Albion in 1917 in the Baltic. Moltke was damaged several times during the war: the ship was hit by heavy-caliber gunfire at Jutland, and torpedoed twice by British submarines while on fleet advances. (Full article...) -
Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. MWT (11:29:21 GMT) on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project.
The test was of an implosion-design plutonium bomb, nicknamed the "gadget", of the same design as the Fat Man bomb later detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. Concerns about whether the complex Fat Man design would work led to a decision to conduct the first nuclear test.
The code name "Trinity" was assigned by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, inspired by the poetry of John Donne.
The test, both planned and directed by Kenneth Bainbridge, was conducted in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, on what was the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range (renamed the White Sands Proving Ground just before the test). The only structures originally in the immediate vicinity were the McDonald Ranch House and its ancillary buildings, which scientists used as a laboratory for testing bomb components.
Fears of a fizzle prompted construction of "Jumbo", a steel containment vessel that could contain the plutonium, allowing it to be recovered; but ultimately Jumbo was not used in the test. On May 7, 1945, a rehearsal was conducted, during which 108 short tons (98 t) of high explosive spiked with radioactive isotopes was detonated. (Full article...) -
T7 was a sea-going torpedo boat operated by the Royal Yugoslav Navy between 1921 and 1941. Originally 96 F, a 250t-class torpedo boat of the Austro-Hungarian Navy built in 1915–1916, she was armed with two 66 mm (2.6 in) guns and four 450 mm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes, and could carry 10–12 naval mines. She saw active service during World War I, performing convoy escort, patrol, and minesweeping tasks, and anti-submarine operations. In 1917 the suffixes of all Austro-Hungarian torpedo boats were removed, and thereafter she was referred to as 96.
Following Austria-Hungary's defeat in 1918, 96 was allocated to the Navy of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which later became the Royal Yugoslav Navy, and was renamed T7. At the time, she and the seven other 250t-class boats were the only modern sea-going vessels of the fledgling maritime force. During the interwar period, T7 and the rest of the navy were involved in training exercises and cruises to friendly ports, but activity was limited by reduced naval budgets. The boat was captured by the Italians during the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941. After her main armament was modernised, she served with the Royal Italian Navy under her Yugoslav designation, conducting coastal and second-line escort duties in the Adriatic Sea. Following the Italian capitulation in September 1943, she was handed over by the Germans to the Navy of the Independent State of Croatia. While sailing to Rijeka for a refit, she was attacked and driven aground by British Royal Navy small high-speed craft in June 1944 and then destroyed by the British Army to prevent her salvage. She was broken up in situ in 1953. (Full article...) -
SMS Friedrich Carl was a German armored cruiser built in the early 1900s for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy). She was the second and final member of the Prinz Adalbert class, which was built to provide scouts for the German fleet and station ships in Germany's colonial empire. Friedrich Carl was built by the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg. She was laid down in August 1901, launched in June 1902, and commissioned in December 1903. She was armed with a main battery of four 21 cm (8.3 in) guns and could reach a top speed of 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph).
Friedrich Carl served with the scouting forces of the Active Battle Fleet for the first few years of her career, including a stint as the flagship of the reconnaissance squadron. She went on cruises abroad, including voyages escorting Kaiser Wilhelm II on tours in the Mediterranean Sea. She also participated in extensive training exercises in the Baltic and North Seas. In 1909, she was withdrawn from front-line service and used as a torpedo training ship until 1914. (Full article...) -
Project Waler was an unsuccessful Australian defence procurement project which sought to replace the Australian Army's M113 armoured personnel carriers with more capable armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs). It was initiated in 1980 and cancelled in 1985 without any vehicles being procured.
The goal of the project was to replace the Army's M113s during the mid-1990s with between 500 and 1,000 AFVs optimised for Australian conditions. These vehicles were to be built in Australia to support the local manufacturing industry. After initial scoping work, proposals were sought from companies during 1981. These proposals were submitted in 1982, and further studies were undertaken in 1983. While the scoping studies demonstrated that it would be feasible to build the vehicles in Australia, a planned tender to acquire them was not issued. Instead, Project Waler was cancelled by the Australian Government in July 1985 due to concerns over the cost and capabilities of the proposed vehicles. The M113s used by the Army's armoured reconnaissance units were replaced by ASLAV wheeled armoured fighting vehicles that were similar to the designs considered under Project Waler. Most of the remaining fleet of M113s were upgraded. (Full article...) -
SMS Nymphe was the lead ship of the Nymphe class of steam corvettes, the first ship of that type to be built for the Prussian Navy. She had one sister ship, Medusa, and the vessels were wooden-hulled ships armed with a battery of sixteen guns. She was ordered as part of a naval expansion program to counter the Danish Navy over the disputed ownership of Schleswig and Holstein. Nymphe was laid down in January 1862, was launched in April 1863, and was completed in October that year.
Nymphe saw action during the Second Schleswig War against Denmark in 1864 at the Battle of Jasmund. She was heavily engaged by a Danish frigate in the battle; she received around 70 hits, mostly to her rigging, though she was not seriously damaged. The ship, which had been on a cruise in the Mediterranean Sea, was in the process of being recalled to Germany during the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, and as a result, saw no action during the conflict. During the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, a French squadron of ironclads had anchored off Danzig, and Nymphe launched a surprise night attack on the idle vessels, though she inflicted no serious damage on the armored French ships. Her attack nevertheless convinced the French admiral that his heavy ships were not useful in a close blockade of German ports, and so they left. (Full article...) -
The Ming dynasty (/mɪŋ/ MING), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, the majority ethnic group in China. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng (who established the short-lived Shun dynasty), numerous rump regimes ruled by remnants of the Ming imperial family—collectively called the Southern Ming—survived until 1662.
The Ming dynasty's founder, the Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368–1398), attempted to create a society of self-sufficient rural communities ordered in a rigid, immobile system that would guarantee and support a permanent class of soldiers for his dynasty: the empire's standing army exceeded one million troops and the navy's dockyards in Nanjing were the largest in the world. He also took great care breaking the power of the court eunuchs and unrelated magnates, enfeoffing his many sons throughout China and attempting to guide these princes through the Huang-Ming Zuxun, a set of published dynastic instructions. This failed when his teenage successor, the Jianwen Emperor, attempted to curtail his uncles' power, prompting the Jingnan campaign, an uprising that placed the Prince of Yan upon the throne as the Yongle Emperor in 1402. The Yongle Emperor established Yan as a secondary capital and renamed it Beijing, constructed the Forbidden City, and restored the Grand Canal and the primacy of the imperial examinations in official appointments. He rewarded his eunuch supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. One eunuch, Zheng He, led seven enormous voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia and the eastern coasts of Africa. Hongwu and Yongle emperors had also expanded the empire's rule into Inner Asia. (Full article...) -
On the morning of 6 December 1917 the French cargo ship SS Mont-Blanc collided with the Norwegian vessel SS Imo in the harbour of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Mont-Blanc, laden with high explosives, caught fire and exploded, devastating the Richmond district of Halifax. At least 1,782 people were killed, largely in Halifax and Dartmouth, by the blast, debris, fires, or collapsed buildings, and an estimated 9,000 others were injured. The blast was the largest human-made explosion at the time. It released the equivalent energy of roughly 2.9 kilotons of TNT (12 TJ).
Mont-Blanc was under orders from the French government to carry her cargo from New York City via Halifax to Bordeaux, France. At roughly 8:45 am, she collided at low speed, approximately one knot (1.2 mph or 1.9 km/h), with the unladen Imo, chartered by the Commission for Relief in Belgium to pick up a cargo of relief supplies in New York. On Mont-Blanc, the impact damaged benzol barrels stored on deck, leaking vapours which were ignited by sparks from the collision, setting off a fire on board that quickly grew out of control. Approximately 20 minutes later at 9:04:35 am, Mont-Blanc exploded. (Full article...) -
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...) -
The battle of Babylon Hill was an indecisive skirmish that took place between Royalist and Parliamentarian forces near Yeovil, in South West England, on 7 September 1642, during the early stages of the First English Civil War. The engagement occurred after a failed Parliamentarian siege of nearby Royalist-held Sherborne. After the Parliamentarians had retreated to Yeovil, a force of around 350 Royalists was sent to reconnoitre their movements. Under the command of Sir Ralph Hopton, the Royalist detachment established itself on Babylon Hill, on the outskirts of Yeovil.
Around half an hour before sunset, the Royalists decided to withdraw and began marching their infantry off the hill. As they were doing so, they spotted Parliamentarian soldiers approaching, and Hopton hurriedly recalled the infantry and set his men to meet the attack. The battle became chaotic, mostly due to the inexperience of the soldiers involved. The Parliamentarian force, which also numbered around 350, made a three-pronged cavalry attack, which the Royalists were able to repel, though sections of both forces were routed. In the confusion, they were eventually able to pull back under the cover of darkness. (Full article...) -
The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, sometimes referred to as the Third and Fourth Battles of Savo Island, the Battle of the Solomons, The Battle of Friday the 13th, The Night of the Big Guns, or, in Japanese sources, the Third Battle of the Solomon Sea (第三次ソロモン海戦, Dai-san-ji Soromon Kaisen), took place from 12 to 15 November 1942 and was the decisive engagement in a series of naval battles between Allied (primarily American) and Imperial Japanese forces during the months-long Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands during World War II. The action consisted of combined air and sea engagements over four days, most near Guadalcanal and all related to a Japanese effort to reinforce land forces on the island. The only two U.S. Navy admirals to be killed in a surface engagement in the war were lost in this battle.
Allied forces landed on Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942 and seized an airfield, later called Henderson Field, that was under construction by the Japanese military. There were several subsequent attempts to recapture the airfield by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy using reinforcements delivered to Guadalcanal by ship, efforts which ultimately failed. In early November 1942, the Japanese organized a transport convoy to take 7,000 infantry troops and their equipment to Guadalcanal to attempt once again to retake the airfield. Several Japanese warship forces were assigned to bombard Henderson Field with the goal of destroying Allied aircraft that posed a threat to the convoy. Learning of the Japanese reinforcement effort, U.S. forces launched aircraft and warship attacks to defend Henderson Field and prevent the Japanese ground troops from reaching Guadalcanal. (Full article...) -
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...)
Featured picture
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Painting: Henry WaltonEdward Gibbon (1737–1794) was an English historian who published The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in six volumes between 1776 and 1788. Born in Putney, Surrey, he became a voracious reader while being raised by his aunt, and was sent to study at Magdalen College, Oxford, and in Switzerland. Returning to England, in 1761 Gibbon published his first book, Essai sur l'Étude de la Littérature. This was well received, but Gibbon's next book was a failure. In the early 1770s Gibbon began writing his history of the Roman Empire, which was received with great praise. -
The "Theatre" at PetraPhoto: Douglas PerkinsPetra 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. -
Banknote credit: Bank of Finland; photographed by Andrew ShivaThe Finnish markka was the currency of Finland from 1860 to 2002. The currency was divided into 100 pennies and was first introduced by the Bank of Finland to replace the Russian ruble at a rate of four markkaa to one ruble. The markka was replaced by the euro on 1 January 2002 and ceased to be legal tender on 28 February later that year.
This picture shows a 20-markka banknote issued in 1862, as part of the first issue of markka banknotes (1860 to 1862), for the Grand Duchy of Finland, then an autonomous part of the Russian Empire; 1862 was also the first year of issue for this particular denomination. The banknote's obverse depicts the coat of arms of Finland on a Russian double-headed eagle, and was personally signed by the director and the cashier of the Bank of Finland. The text on the obverse is in Swedish, whereas the reverse is primarily in Russian and Finnish. -
Photo credit: USHMMJews 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. -
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. -
Painting credit: John TrumbullJohn 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. -
Photo: William Henry Jackson; restoration: Tom dl and MmxxAn 1899 photochrom showing Temple Square, a 10-acre (4.0 ha) complex located in the center of Salt Lake City, Utah, US. The location is owned by and serves as headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was selected by Church president Brigham Young in 1846. Temple Square is home to several buildings; depicted here are the Salt Lake Temple, Salt Lake Tabernacle and Salt Lake Assembly Hall. -
Artist: UnknownA 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. -
Photo credit: J.F. Fitzpatrick, Jr., SPC5, U.S. Army Signal CorpsThis twelve-year old ARVN Airborne trooper poses with an M79 grenade launcher during a sweep through the devastated Plantation Road area after a day-long battle near Tan Son Nhut during the Vietnam War. The young soldier had been "adopted" by the US Army Airborne Division. -
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. -
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. -
Photograph: Andrew ShivaAn 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. -
Photo credit: Berlyn BrixnerThe 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. -
Photograph: Lewis Hine; restoration: Lise BroerA 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. -
Artist: Unknown, after Johann ZahnA drawing of the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (Agnus scythicus), a zoophyte of Central Asia. Botanist Henry Lee described it as both a true animal and a living plant, although he did allow for the possibility that the lamb was the fruit of the plant. The lamb was believed to have blood, bones, and flesh like that of a normal lamb. It was connected to the earth by a stem similar to an umbilical cord that propped the lamb up above ground. The cord could flex downward allowing the lamb to feed on the grass and plants surrounding it. Once the plants within reach were eaten, the lamb died, at which point its cotton-like wool would be harvested and used to make textiles. -
Photo: Martin St-AmantMachu Picchu, a 15th-century Peruvian Inca site located 2,430 metres (7,970 ft) above sea level, as viewed from Huayna Picchu. Established c. 1450, the settlement was abandoned at the time of the Spanish Conquest the following century. Although it remained known locally, it was not brought to international attention until after Hiram Bingham visited the site in 1911. Machu Picchu is now a popular tourist destination and UNESCO World Heritage Site, and restoration efforts are ongoing. -
Photo: William Henry Jackson; Restoration: Lise BroerA man climbs a statue of a Buddhist idol at Borobudur, a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist monument near Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia, in this 1895 hand-tinted lantern slide. The monument comprises six square platforms topped by three circular platforms, and is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. The monument is both a shrine to the Lord Buddha and a place for Buddhist pilgrimage. Evidence suggests Borobudur was abandoned following the 14th-century decline of Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms in Java, and the Javanese conversion to Islam. The monument is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is the most popular tourist attraction in the country. -
Image: The Illustrated London News
Restoration: Adam CuerdenAn 1876 engraving of Khokar Rajputs of Punjab. The Rajputs are one of the major Hindu Kshatriya (warrior) groups of India. Rajputs rose to prominence during the 9th to 11th centuries, and by the time of Indian independence, they ruled more than two-thirds of the estimated six hundred princely states, including three-quarters of the salute states.
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Did you know (auto generated)
- ... that the elite men's race at today's London Marathon is expected to feature three of the five fastest men in history?
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- ... that Art Rooney Jr. presided over what one Pro Football Hall of Fame selector described as "the best drafting run in NFL history"?
- ... that local regulation and law enforcement in Brighton's early history was carried out by the Society of Twelve, a beadle "in cocked hat and full regalia", and two "Old Charlies"?
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Featured biography –
This is a Featured article, which represents some of the best content on English Wikipedia.
William Shakespeare (c. 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others. (Full article...)On this day
June 16: First day of Eid al-Adha (Islam, 2024)
James Joyce
- 632 – The final king of the Sasanian Empire of Iran, Yazdegerd III, ascended the throne at the age of eight.
- 1819 – A strong earthquake in the Kutch district of Gujarat, India, caused a local zone of uplift that dammed the Nara River, which was later named the Allah Bund ('Dam of God').
- 1904 – Irish author James Joyce (pictured) began a relationship with Nora Barnacle, and subsequently used the date to set the actions for his 1922 novel Ulysses, commemorated as Bloomsday.
- 1936 – A Junkers Ju 52 aircraft of Norwegian Air Lines crashed into a mountainside near Hyllestad, Norway, killing all seven people on board.
- 1997 – The English rock band Radiohead released their landmark third album OK Computer.
- John Cheke (b. 1514)
- Tomás Yepes (d. 1674)
- Helen Traubel (b. 1899)
- Tony Gwynn (d. 2014)
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If you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the ocean.
— Henry Clay, American statesman
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- ... that Olympic gold medals have been made out of silver, jade, and glass?
- ... that in 1945 a Japanese battalion was rearmed to serve alongside the British 5th Parachute Brigade in the Far East?
- ... that Solomon was accidentally castrated as an infant?
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