Portal:History

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The History Portal

Chivalry

History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyzes and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. 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 more general sense, the term history refers not to an academic field but to the past itself, times in the past, or to individual texts about the past.

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

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

History emerged as a field of inquiry in antiquity to replace myth-infused narratives, with influential early traditions originating in Greece, China, and later 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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  Air Vice-Marshal Drummond in the Middle East, 1940

  
  Air Marshal Sir Peter Roy Maxwell Drummond, KCB, DSO & Bar, OBE, MC (2 June 1894 – 27 March 1945) was an Australian-born senior commander in the Royal Air Force (RAF). He rose from private soldier in World War I to air marshal in World War II. Drummond enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in 1914 and the following year saw service as a medical orderly during the Gallipoli campaign. He joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1916 and became a fighter ace in the Middle Eastern theatre, where he was awarded the Military Cross and the Distinguished Service Order and Bar. Transferring to the RAF on its formation in 1918, he remained in the British armed forces for the rest of his life.
  
  Between the wars, Drummond saw action in the Sudan—earning appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire—and was posted to Australia on secondment to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) as Director of Operations and Intelligence. In Britain, he commanded RAF stations Tangmere and Northolt. Ranked air commodore at the outbreak of World War II, he was Air Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder's Deputy Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief RAF Middle East from 1941 to 1943. Drummond was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1941 for his services in the Middle East, and knighted in the same order two years later. He was twice offered command of the RAAF during the war but the RAF was unwilling to release him to take up the position. Britain's Air Member for Training from 1943, Drummond was killed in a plane crash at sea in 1945. (Full article...)
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  The Secretum (Latin for 'hidden away') was a British Museum collection of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that held artefacts and images deemed sexually graphic. Many of the items were amulets, charms and votive offerings, often from pre-Christian traditions, including the worship of Priapus, a Greco-Roman god of fertility and male genitalia. Items from other cultures covered wide ranges of human history, including ancient Egypt, the classical era Greco-Roman world, the ancient Near East, medieval England, Japan and India.
  
  Many of the early donations or sales to the museum, including those from the collectors Sir Hans Sloane, Sir William Hamilton, Richard Payne Knight and Charles Townley, contained items with erotic or sexually graphic images; these were separated out by museum staff and not put on public display. Modern scholars believe the segregation was probably motivated by a paternalistic stance from the museum to keep what they considered morally dangerous material away from all except scholars and members of the clergy. By the 1860s there were around 700 such items held by the museum. In 1865 the antiquarian George Witt donated his phallocentric collection of 434 artefacts to the museum, which led to the formal setting up of the Secretum to hold his collection and similar items. (Full article...)
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  Tiger at anchor in her 1916–1917 configuration with only a foremast

  
  HMS Tiger was a battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy during the 1910s. The ship was the most heavily armoured British battlecruiser at the start of the First World War in 1914, but was not yet ready for service. The ship was assigned to the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron (1st BCS) for the duration of the war and participated in the Battle of Dogger Bank in early 1915, though she was still shaking down and did not perform well. Tiger next participated in the Battle of Jutland in 1916, where she was only lightly damaged despite suffering many hits by German shells. Apart from providing distant cover during the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in 1917, she spent the rest of the war on uneventful patrols in the North Sea.
  
  The ship was the oldest battlecruiser retained by the Royal Navy after the tonnage limits of the Washington Naval Treaty came into effect in 1922. She became a gunnery training ship in 1924 and then joined the Battlecruiser Squadron in 1929 when its flagship, Hood, underwent a lengthy refit. Upon Hood's return to service in 1931, Tiger was decommissioned and sold for scrap in 1932 in accordance with the terms of the London Naval Treaty of 1930. (Full article...)
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  Edward as Colonel of the Welsh Guards in 1919

  
  Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David; 23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972), later known as the Duke of Windsor, was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire, and Emperor of India, from 20 January 1936 until his abdication in December of the same year to marry American divorcée Wallis Simpson.
  
  Edward was born during the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria as the eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George V and Queen Mary. He was created Prince of Wales on his 16th birthday, seven weeks after his father succeeded as king. As a young man, Edward served in the British Army during the First World War and undertook several overseas tours on behalf of his father. The Prince of Wales gained popularity due to his charm and charisma, and his fashion sense became a hallmark of the era. After the war, his conduct began to give cause for concern; he engaged in a series of sexual affairs that worried both his father and the British prime minister, Stanley Baldwin. (Full article...)
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  The tree of life as depicted by Ernst Haeckel in The Evolution of Man (1879) illustrates the 19th-century view of evolution as a progressive process leading towards man.

  
  Evolutionary thought, the recognition that species change over time and the perceived understanding of how such processes work, has roots in antiquity. With the beginnings of modern biological taxonomy in the late 17th century, two opposed ideas influenced Western biological thinking: essentialism, the belief that every species has essential characteristics that are unalterable, a concept which had developed from medieval Aristotelian metaphysics, and that fit well with natural theology; and the development of the new anti-Aristotelian approach to science. Naturalists began to focus on the variability of species; the emergence of palaeontology with the concept of extinction further undermined static views of nature. In the early 19th century prior to Darwinism, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed his theory of the transmutation of species, the first fully formed theory of evolution.
  
  In 1858 Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace published a new evolutionary theory, explained in detail in Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859). Darwin's theory, originally called descent with modification is known contemporarily as Darwinism or Darwinian theory. Unlike Lamarck, Darwin proposed common descent and a branching tree of life, meaning that two very different species could share a common ancestor. Darwin based his theory on the idea of natural selection: it synthesized a broad range of evidence from animal husbandry, biogeography, geology, morphology, and embryology. Debate over Darwin's work led to the rapid acceptance of the general concept of evolution, but the specific mechanism he proposed, natural selection, was not widely accepted until it was revived by developments in biology that occurred during the 1920s through the 1940s. Before that time most biologists regarded other factors as responsible for evolution. Alternatives to natural selection suggested during "the eclipse of Darwinism" (c. 1880 to 1920) included inheritance of acquired characteristics (neo-Lamarckism), an innate drive for change (orthogenesis), and sudden large mutations (saltationism). Mendelian genetics, a series of 19th-century experiments with pea plant variations rediscovered in 1900, was integrated with natural selection by Ronald Fisher, J. B. S. Haldane, and Sewall Wright during the 1910s to 1930s, and resulted in the founding of the new discipline of population genetics. During the 1930s and 1940s population genetics became integrated with other biological fields, resulting in a widely applicable theory of evolution that encompassed much of biology—the modern synthesis. (Full article...)
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  Lenin in 1920

  
  Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until his death in 1924, and of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death. As the founder and leader of the Bolsheviks, Lenin led the October Revolution which established the world's first socialist state. His government won the Russian Civil War and created a one-party state under the Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments to the ideology are called Leninism.
  
  
  Born into a middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brother's execution in 1887. He was expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Tsarist government, and devoted the following years to a law degree before relocating to Saint Petersburg in 1893 and becoming a leading Marxist activist. In 1897, Lenin was arrested for sedition and exiled to Siberia for three years, after which he moved to Western Europe and became a key figure in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In the party's 1903 schism, he led his Bolshevik faction against the Mensheviks. Lenin briefly returned to Russia during the failed Revolution of 1905, and during the First World War campaigned for its transformation into a Europe-wide proletarian revolution, which he believed would cause the collapse of capitalism and the rise of socialism. After the February Revolution of 1917 ousted Tsar Nicholas II, Lenin returned to Russia and played a leading role in the October Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government. (Full article...)
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  Gallaher in 1905 during the Originals' tour

  
  David Gallaher (30 October 1873 – 4 October 1917) was an Irish-born New Zealand rugby union footballer best remembered as the captain of the "Original All Blacks"—the 1905–06 New Zealand national team, the first representative New Zealand side to tour the British Isles. Under Gallaher's leadership the Originals won 34 out of 35 matches over the course of tour, including legs in France and North America; the New Zealanders scored 976 points and conceded only 59. Before returning home he co-wrote the classic rugby text The Complete Rugby Footballer with his vice-captain Billy Stead. Gallaher retired as a player after the 1905–06 tour and took up coaching and selecting; he was a selector for both Auckland and New Zealand for most of the following decade.
  
  Born in Ramelton, Ireland, Gallaher migrated to New Zealand with his family as a small child. After moving to Auckland, in 1895 he joined Ponsonby RFC and was selected for his province in 1896. In 1901–02 he served with the New Zealand Contingent in the Anglo–Boer War. He first appeared on the New Zealand national team for their unbeaten tour of Australia in 1903, and played in New Zealand's first ever Test match, against Australia in Sydney. The Originals Gallaher captained during 1905–06 helped to cement rugby as New Zealand's national sport, but he was relentlessly pilloried by the British press for his role as wing-forward. The use of a wing-forward, which critics felt was a tactic to deliberately obstruct opponents, contributed to decades of strain between the rugby authorities of New Zealand and the Home Nations; the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB) effectively outlawed the position in 1931. (Full article...)
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  Fuji at anchor

  
  The Fuji class (富士型戦艦, Fuji-gata senkan) was a two-ship class of pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the mid-1890s. They were the first battleships in the IJN, and were constructed in the UK as Japan lacked the industrial facilities needed to build them. Their design was based on the battleships being built for the Royal Navy at that time.
  
  The ships participated in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, including the Battle of Port Arthur in February 1904 and two bombardments of Port Arthur during the following month. Yashima struck a mine off Port Arthur in May and capsized while under tow several hours later. Fuji fought in the Battles of the Yellow Sea and Tsushima and was lightly damaged in the latter action. She was reclassified as a coast defence ship in 1910 and served as a training ship for the rest of her active career. The ship was hulked in 1922 and converted into a barracks ship fitted with classrooms. Fuji was finally broken up for scrap in 1948. (Full article...)
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  SMS Niobe in Kiel in 1901

  
  SMS Niobe was the second of ten Gazelle-class light cruisers that were built for the German Kaiserliche Marine ('Imperial Navy') in the late 1890s and early 1900s. The Gazelle class was the culmination of earlier unprotected cruiser and aviso designs, combining the best aspects of both types in what became the progenitor of all future light cruisers of the Imperial fleet. Built to serve with the main German fleet and also in German colonies, she was armed with a battery of ten 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns and had a top speed of 21.5 knots (39.8 km/h; 24.7 mph). The ship had a long career, serving in the German, Yugoslav, and Italian fleets over the span of more than forty years.
  Niobe served in both home and overseas waters in the Imperial Navy, serving in a variety of roles, including as a flotilla leader for torpedo boats, as a scout for the main fleet, and as a station ship with the East Asia Squadron. After the outbreak of World War I, the ship joined the vessels tasked with defending Germany's North Sea coast. By late 1915, she was withdrawn from active service and used as a headquarters ship for various commands. She was disarmed in 1917, but as one of the cruisers permitted to the postwar Reichsmarine (Navy of the Realm) by the Treaty of Versailles, she was modernized and rearmed in the early 1920s. (Full article...)
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  A gold half stater of Philip II of Macedon produced at the government mint of Pella, bearing the head of a young Heracles wearing the Nemean Lion's skin on the obverse and on the reverse the lion's forepart

  
  
  The first government of ancient Macedonia was established by the Argead dynasty of Macedonian kings during the Archaic period (8th–5th centuries BC). The early history of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia is obscure because of shortcomings in the historical record; little is known of governmental institutions before the reign of Philip II during the late Classical period (480–336 BC). These bureaucratic organizations evolved in complexity under his successor Alexander the Great and the subsequent Antipatrid and Antigonid dynasties of Hellenistic Greece (336–146 BC). Following the Roman victory in the Third Macedonian War over Perseus of Macedon in 168 BC, the Macedonian monarchy was abolished and replaced by four client state republics. After a brief revival of the monarchy in 150–148 BC, the Fourth Macedonian War resulted in another Roman victory and the establishment of the Roman province of Macedonia.
  
  It is unclear if there was a formally established constitution dictating the laws, organization, and divisions of power in ancient Macedonia's government, although some tangential evidence suggests this. The king (basileus) served as the head of state and was assisted by his noble companions and royal pages. Kings served as the chief judges of the kingdom, although little is known about Macedonia's judiciary. The kings were also expected to serve as high priests of the nation, using their wealth to sponsor various religious cults. The Macedonian kings had command over certain natural resources such as gold from mining and timber from logging. The right to mint gold, silver, and bronze coins was shared by the central and local governments. (Full article...)
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  The Battle at St. Charles, White River, Arkansas—Explosion of the "Mound City" by Alexander Simplot

  
  The Battle of St. Charles was fought on June 17, 1862, at St. Charles, Arkansas, during the American Civil War. Earlier in 1862, a Union Army force commanded by Major General Samuel R. Curtis moved against Little Rock, Arkansas, but became bogged down in the Batesville area due to lack of supplies. The Union leadership decided to send a naval force from Memphis, Tennessee, up the White River to resupply Curtis's men. Major General Thomas C. Hindman, the Confederate commander in Arkansas, had fortifications constructed near St. Charles to stop the Union movement. Two artillery positions were built, and three ships, including CSS Maurepas, were scuttled to obstruct the river.
  
  The Union ships advanced against the Confederate positions on June 17. The 46th Indiana Infantry Regiment was sent ashore to attack the fortifications on land, while two ironclads and two timberclads attacked the fort from the river. During the fighting, a Confederate solid shot struck the ironclad USS Mound City, puncturing one of the ship's steam drums. In what has been referred to as the deadliest shot of the war, scalding steam filled the ship, killing or wounding all but about 25 of the roughly 175 men on the vessel. The 46th Indiana overran the Confederate defenses on land and the position was taken. The supply mission was unable to make it all the way to Curtis's position, and withdrew back down the river due to low water levels. Thereafter, Curtis's army cut loose from their supply line and marched to Helena, Arkansas. A portion of the battlefield is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the St. Charles Battle Site. (Full article...)
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  Arms of Sir Robert de Umfraville, KG: Gules a cinquefoil within an orle of eight crosses pattée or.

  
  Sir Robert de Umfraville KG, Lord of Redesdale (c. 1363 – 1437) was a knight in late-medieval England who took part in the later stages of the Hundred Years' War, particularly against Scotland. The de Umfraville family had been influential in northeast England for centuries and also held major estates in Yorkshire. His ancestors were mormaers of Angus, and his nephew married into the Percies, a powerful local marcher family with whom de Umfraville was closely associated. Much of Sir Robert's career continued on the same path as his ancestors, being primarily focused on defending the border with Scotland, which had been in a state of near-permanent warfare since the late thirteenth century.
  
  Robert de Umfraville fought under three English kings. Beginning his career under Richard II, he probably fought at the Battle of Otterburn with Henry "Hotspur" Percy in 1388. After Richard was deposed by Henry IV in 1399, de Umfraville loyally served the new Lancastrian regime, waging both offensive and defensive military operations against the Scots. Where necessary, he was also an effective diplomat, taking part in many embassies to Scotland and negotiating treaties. With the exception of Henry V's resumption of the Hundred Years' War in 1415—when de Umfraville travelled with the king to France, where he may have taken part in the Battle of Agincourt—all his military activity was on the Scottish border. He was famed for his martial prowess; one contemporary chronicler, John Hardyng, who was in de Umfraville's service, lauded him as the perfect knight. De Umfraville's successes in the north attracted praise and reward from the king. One campaign deep into Scottish territory resulted in his destroying Peebles and its market; he brought back so much booty that he was popularly nicknamed "Robin Mendmarket". (Full article...)
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  West Bridge shortly before completion in May 1918

  West Bridge in dazzle camouflage shortly before completion in May 1918

  
  USS West Bridge (ID-2888) was a Design 1013 cargo ship in the United States Navy during World War I. She was begun as War Topaz for the British Government but was completed as West Bridge (though referred to in some publications under the spelling Westbridge). After being decommissioned from the Navy, the ship returned to civilian service as West Bridge, but was renamed Barbara Cates, and Pan Gulf over the course of her commercial career under American registry.
  
  West Bridge was one of the West ships, a series of steel-hulled cargo ships built for the United States Shipping Board (USSB) on the West Coast of the United States. She was launched in April 1918 and delivered to the U.S. Navy upon completion in May. After commissioning, USS West Bridge sailed from the Pacific Northwest to the East Coast of the United States and joined a convoy of cargo ships headed to France in August. After the ship suffered an engine breakdown at sea the convoy was attacked by two German submarines and West Bridge was torpedoed and abandoned. A salvage crew from the American destroyer Smith boarded her the following day, and, working with four tugs dispatched from France, successfully brought the ship into port. Four men received the Navy Cross for their efforts. (Full article...)
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  P. Sapph. Obbink: the fragment of papyrus on which the Brothers Poem was discovered

  
  The Brothers Poem or Brothers Song is a series of lines of verse attributed to the archaic Greek poet Sappho (c. 630 – c. 570 BC), which had been lost since antiquity until being rediscovered in 2014. Most of its text, apart from its opening lines, survives. It is known only from a papyrus fragment, comprising one of a series of poems attributed to Sappho. It mentions two of her brothers, Charaxos and Larichos; the only known mention of their names in Sappho's writings, though they are known from other sources. These references, and aspects of the language and style, have been used to establish her authorship.
  
  The poem is structured as an address – possibly by Sappho herself – to an unknown person. The speaker chastises the addressee for saying repeatedly that Charaxos will return (possibly from a trading voyage), maintaining that his safety is in the hands of the gods and offering to pray to Hera for his return. The narrative then switches focus from Charaxos to Larichos, who the speaker hopes will relieve the family of their troubles when he becomes a man. (Full article...)
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  The Naval Battle Near Ecnomus (256 BC)

  
  The Battle of Cape Ecnomus or Eknomos (Ancient Greek: Ἔκνομος) was a naval battle, fought off southern Sicily, in 256 BC, between the fleets of Carthage and the Roman Republic, during the First Punic War (264–241 BC). The Carthaginian fleet was commanded by Hanno and Hamilcar; the Roman fleet jointly by the consuls for the year, Marcus Atilius Regulus and Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus. It resulted in a clear victory for the Romans.
  
  The Roman fleet of 330 warships plus an unknown number of transports had sailed from Ostia, the port of Rome, and had embarked approximately 26,000 picked legionaries shortly before the battle. They planned to cross to Africa and invade the Carthaginian homeland, in what is now Tunisia. The Carthaginians were aware of the Romans' intentions and mustered all available warships, 350, off the south coast of Sicily to intercept them. With a combined total of about 680 warships carrying up to 290,000 crew and marines, the battle was arguably the single largest battle of ancient history, and was possibly the largest naval battle in history by the number of combatants involved. (Full article...)

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  Edward Gibbon

  Painting: Henry Walton

  Edward 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.
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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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  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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  Finnish markka

  Banknote credit: Bank of Finland; photographed by Andrew Shiva

  The 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.
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  Machu Picchu

  Photo: Martin St-Amant

  Machu 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.
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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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  Cliff Palace

  Photo credit: Gustaf Nordenskiöld

  An 1891 photograph of Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling—a structure built within caves and under outcroppings in cliffs—in North America, located in what is now Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, USA. There are about 150 rooms in the 288 ft (88 m) long structure, although only 25 to 30 of those were used as living space by Ancient Pueblo peoples. it is estimated that the population of Cliff Palace was roughly 100–150 people.
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  Ziegler Polar Expedition

  Photo credit: Anthony Fiala

  A panorama from the Ziegler Polar Expedition of 1903–05, an unsuccessful attempt to reach the North Pole. The party remained stranded north of the Arctic Circle for two years before being rescued, yet all but one of its members survived.
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  Ivan the Terrible Showing His Treasury to Jerome Horsey

  Artist: Alexander Litovchenko

  Alexander Litovchenko's 1875 painting depicting Ivan IV of Russia seated in the Kremlin Armoury, his half-witted heir Fyodor standing behind, a group of distrustful boyars whispering at a distance, and the Tsar's jester in a skomorokh cap addressing the English diplomat Jerome Horsey. Horsey was a resident of the Russia Company in Moscow from 1572 to 1585.
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  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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  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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  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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  Great Sphinx of Giza

  Photo: Maison Bonfils; Restoration: Lise Broer

  A late nineteenth century photo of the partially excavated Great Sphinx of Giza, with the Pyramid of Khafre (left) and the Great Pyramid of Giza (right) behind it. The Sphinx is the oldest known monumental sculpture, and is commonly believed to have been built by ancient Egyptians of the Old Kingdom in the reign of the pharaoh Khafra.
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  Armorial of the Holy Roman Empire

  Woodcut: Hans Burgkmair; print: David de Negker

  A woodcut print of the Quaternion Eagle, the double-headed eagle armorial of the Holy Roman Empire. It showed the shields of the various parts of the empire in groups of four on the feathers of the eagle supporting, in place of a shield, Christ on the True Cross. The top, larger shields, are those of the seven Prince-electors, as well as one for the titular "Prefect of Rome".
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  Machu Picchu

  Photo: Martin St-Amant

  Machu Picchu, with the peak Huayna Picchu behind it. Perhaps the most famous Inca site, Machu Picchu is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru. It was probably built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti in the 15th century, but abandoned soon after during the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. Although known locally, it was unknown to the outside world before being brought to international attention in 1911 by the American historian Hiram Bingham, and it is now an important tourist attraction.
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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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  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.

Did you know (auto generated)

• ... that the Balconcillo mutiny is considered to be the first coup d'état in the history of Peru?
• ... that the first Russian feature film, Stenka Razin, depicts the historical Cossack leader throwing a princess into the Volga?
• ... that the historical lands and fishing grounds of the Skinpah were buried underwater by the construction of The Dalles Dam?
• ... that Veto, inspired by the history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, is considered to be the first Polish collectible card game?
• ... that the compilation of the Wu shu was hampered by the execution of two members of the committee compiling the text?
• ... that public health measures and advances in medical science in modern human history helped raise global life expectancy from about 31 years in 1900 to over 66 years in 2000?

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

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Statue of Simeon I in Vidin

Simeon I the Great (Church Slavonic: цѣсар҄ь Сѷмеѡ́нъ А҃ Вели́къ; Bulgarian: цар Симеон I Велики, romanized: Simeon I Veliki [simɛˈɔn ˈpɤrvi vɛˈliki]; Greek: Συμεών Αʹ ὁ Μέγας, romanized: Sumeṓn prôtos ho Mégas) ruled over Bulgaria from 893 to 927, during the First Bulgarian Empire. Simeon's successful campaigns against the Byzantines, Magyars and Serbs led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion ever, making it the most powerful state in contemporary Eastern and Southeast Europe. His reign was also a period of unmatched cultural prosperity and enlightenment later deemed the Golden Age of Bulgarian culture.

During Simeon's rule, Bulgaria spread over a territory between the Aegean, the Adriatic and the Black seas. The newly independent Bulgarian Orthodox Church became the first new patriarchate besides the Pentarchy, and Bulgarian Glagolitic and Cyrillic translations of Christian texts spread all over the Slavic world of the time. It was at the Preslav Literary School in the 890s that the Cyrillic alphabet was developed. Halfway through his reign, Simeon assumed the title of "emperor" (Tsar), having prior to that been styled "prince" (Knyaz). (Full article...)

On this day

Admiral Scheer capsized in Kiel

April 9: Day of Valor in the Philippines (1942); Vimy Ridge Day in Canada (1917)

• 193 – Year of the Five Emperors: Septimius Severus was proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops at Carnuntum in modern-day Austria.
• 1388 – Despite being vastly outnumbered, forces of the Old Swiss Confederacy defeated an Austrian army at the Battle of Näfels.
• 1945 – The German heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer (pictured), the most successful capital-ship surface raider of the Second World War, was sunk by British bombers in port in Kiel.
• 2005 – Charles, Prince of Wales, married Camilla Parker Bowles in a civil ceremony at the Windsor Guildhall.
• 2021 – Myanmar civil war: Burmese military and police forces killed at least 82 civilians in the Bago massacre, including people protesting a recent coup d'état.

• Pope Benedict VIII (d. 1024)
• Isambard Kingdom Brunel (b. 1806)
• Mary Jackson (b. 1921)

More anniversaries:

• April 8
• April 9
• April 10

Selected quote

Fortune, which has a great deal of power in other matters but especially in war, can bring about great changes in a situation through very slight forces.

— Julius Caesar, Roman consul

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More Did you know...

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

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