History
History is the study of the past. One knows about what has happened in the past by looking at things from the past: books, newspapers, letters, coins, paintings or other materials. These tend to be held in libraries, archives or museums. A person who studies such things and writes about history is called a historian.Sometimes one can learn about the past by talking to people who remember things that occurred long ago: this is called oral history. When former slaves and U.S. Civil War survivors got old, it became important to some historians to record everything they knew and said, so that history would not be lost. Later this method was used for World War I, the Shoah, and World War II. It has also been used to learn about Africa and the Native American history, for instance the Haudenosaunee Iroquois democracy.
Some periods of history are named for places, if place names are no longer used. If the same name exists in the past and present, usually a word like "ancient" is used as prefix, to make clear it is the older and not the modern history involved. "Early" and "late" may be used for periods of time that are very long.
Ancient history was often propaganda - it was to promote or to justify some action or person. The modern idea of history that is fair to everyone began with Islam and The Muqadimmah by Ibn Khaldun. Before him, almost everything had strong bias and was supposed to convince readers rulers were good. Khaldun would be happy with the NPOV rules of the Simple English Wikipedia since he proposed very similar rules, and the tradition of isnah in Islam is actually a form of early NPOV.
The whole Earth was not well mapped until the 19th century. So before that time, history is kept separately by people with little or no contact with each other. Ancient Rome and Ancient China both believe they ruled the only parts of the world that mattered - others were "barbarian".
- Ancient history
- Sumeria
- Ancient Egypt
- Babylonia
- Ancient Greece
- Ancient India
- Ancient China and Japan, Korea, Mongolia
- Ancient Southeast Asia - Cambodia - Thailand - Indonesia
- Ancient North America - Iroquois, Mohawk, Huron, Haida, Delaware, Mohican, Cree, Sioux, Inuit, Dene
- Ancient Central America
- Ancient South America
- Ancient Africa
- Ancient Australia
- Roman Empire
- Christian Rome - Justinian to the rise of Byzantium
- Early Chinese Dynasties
- Late Chinese Dynasties
- Byzantine Empire
- Early Islamic Caliphate - Muhammad to The Crusades
- Early Middle Ages - end of European Dark Ages to rise of Roman Catholic Church
- High Middle Ages and The Crusades - conflict with Islam, Cathars, pagan tribes in Lithuania, etc.
- Late Middle Ages - 13th century to 15th century
- Late Islamic Caliphate - to fall of Muslim Spain
- Renaissance - 15th century renewal of science etc., based on texts from Ancient Greece and Roman Empire that were preserved by Muslims and captured by Christians
- Colonizing the Americas - 15th century impact on America
- Baroque era - mid 16th century to mid-late 18th century - conflict of Ottoman Empire with Austria-Hungary
- Enlightenment - mid 17th century to late 18th century
- 19th century
- 20th century
- History of Australia since Colonizing Australia
- History of the United States since American Revolution
- Modern History and origins of modern world power structure
- World War I
- World War II
- United Nations ascendance - how it became so central
- Chinese Revolution, Partition of India, NATO
- US-Soviet Cold War including Korean War, Vietnam War, Soviet-Afghan War
- Recent conflicts in the Muslim World - Arab-Israeli Wars, UN-Iraq War, US invasion of Afghanistan, US invasion of Iraq
- Recent conflicts in West Africa - Uganda, Chad,Rwanda, Congo, Liberia, Ivory Coast, and etc.