Portal:History

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The History Portal

Historia by Nikolaos Gyzis

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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  A Prussian infantry advance during the Battle of Hohenfriedberg, as depicted by Carl Röchling

  
  The Second Silesian War (German: Zweiter Schlesischer Krieg) was a war between Prussia and Austria that lasted from 1744 to 1745 and confirmed Prussia's control of the region of Silesia (now in south-western Poland). The war was fought mainly in Silesia, Bohemia, and Upper Saxony and formed one theatre of the wider War of the Austrian Succession. It was the second of three Silesian Wars fought between Frederick the Great's Prussia and Maria Theresa's Austria in the mid-18th century, all three of which ended in Prussian control of Silesia.
  
  The conflict has been viewed as a continuation of the First Silesian War, which had concluded only two years before. After the Treaty of Berlin ended hostilities between Austria and Prussia in 1742, the Habsburg monarchy's fortunes improved greatly in the continuing War of the Austrian Succession. As Austria expanded its alliances with the 1743 Treaty of Worms, Prussia entered a renewed alliance with Austria's enemies in the League of Frankfurt and rejoined the war, hoping to prevent a resurgent Austria from taking back Silesia. (Full article...)
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  Massachusetts in 1901

  
  USS Massachusetts was an Indiana-class, pre-dreadnought battleship and the second United States Navy ship comparable to foreign battleships of its time. Authorized in 1890, and commissioned six years later, she was a small battleship, though with heavy armor and ordnance. The ship class also pioneered the use of an intermediate battery. She was designed for coastal defense and as a result, her decks were not safe from high waves on the open ocean.
  
  Massachusetts served in the Spanish–American War as part of the Flying Squadron and took part in the blockades of Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba. She missed the decisive Battle of Santiago de Cuba after steaming to Guantánamo Bay the night before to resupply coal. After the war she served with the North Atlantic Squadron, performing training maneuvers and gunnery practice. During this period she suffered an explosion in an 8-inch (203 mm) gun turret, killing nine, and ran aground twice, requiring several months of repair both times. She was decommissioned in 1906, for modernization. (Full article...)
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  The empire in 661, when it reached its greatest extent

  
  The Tang dynasty (/tɑːŋ/, [tʰǎŋ]; Chinese: 唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. Historians generally regard the Tang as a high point in Chinese civilisation, and a golden age of cosmopolitan culture. Tang territory, acquired through the military campaigns of its early rulers, rivalled that of the Han dynasty.
  
  The Li family founded the dynasty after taking advantage of a period of Sui decline and precipitating their final collapse, in turn inaugurating a period of progress and stability in the first half of the dynasty's rule. The dynasty was formally interrupted during 690–705 when Empress Wu Zetian seized the throne, proclaiming the Wu Zhou dynasty and becoming the only legitimate Chinese empress regnant. The An Lushan rebellion (755–763) led to devastation and the decline of central authority during the latter half of the dynasty. Like the previous Sui dynasty, the Tang maintained a civil-service system by recruiting scholar-officials through standardised examinations and recommendations to office. The rise of regional military governors known as jiedushi during the 9th century undermined this civil order. The dynasty and central government went into decline by the latter half of the 9th century; agrarian rebellions resulted in mass population loss and displacement, widespread poverty, and further government dysfunction that ultimately ended the dynasty in 907. (Full article...)
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  USS Siboney with camouflage paint

  "Periscope" view of the Siboney in convoy, by Musician Loren C. Holmberg, USN (c. 1919), shows the dazzle camouflage applied to the ship during World War I.

  
  USS Siboney (ID-2999) was a United States Navy troopship in World War I. She was the sister ship of USS Orizaba (ID-1536). Launched as SS Oriente, she was soon renamed after Siboney, Cuba, a landing site of United States forces during the Spanish–American War. After her navy service ended, she was SS Siboney for the New York & Cuba Mail Steamship Co. (commonly called the Ward Line). The ship was operated under charter by American Export Lines beginning in late 1940. During World War II she served the U.S. Army as transport USAT Siboney and as hospital ship USAHS Charles A. Stafford.
  
  As a transport during World War I, Siboney made 17 transatlantic voyages for the navy carrying troops to and from Europe, and had the shortest average in-port turnaround time of all navy transports. During her maiden voyage, her steering gear malfunctioned which resulted in a collision between two other troopships in the convoy. (Full article...)
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  Dubrovnik (left) and Beograd (right) photographed in the Bay of Kotor in 1941 after being captured by Italian forces.

  
  Dubrovnik was a flotilla leader built for the Royal Yugoslav Navy by Yarrow Shipbuilders in Glasgow in 1930 and 1931. She was one of the largest destroyers of her time. Resembling contemporary British designs, Dubrovnik was a fast ship with a main armament of four Czechoslovak-built Škoda 140 mm (5.5 in) guns in single mounts. She was intended to be the first of three flotilla leaders built for Yugoslavia, but was the only one completed. During her service with the Royal Yugoslav Navy, Dubrovnik undertook several peacetime cruises through the Mediterranean, the Turkish Straits and the Black Sea. In October 1934, she conveyed King Alexander to France for a state visit, and carried his body back to Yugoslavia following his assassination in Marseille.
  
  During the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, Dubrovnik was captured by the Italians. After a refit, which included the replacement of some of her weapons and the shortening of her mainmast and funnels, she was commissioned into the Royal Italian Navy as Premuda. In Italian service she was mainly used as an escort and troop transport. In June 1942, she was part of the Italian force that attacked the Allied Operation Harpoon convoy attempting to relieve the island of Malta. In July 1943, she broke down and was brought to Genoa for repair and a refit. Premuda was the most important and effective Italian war prize ship of World War II. (Full article...)
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  Lombardy in 1522. The location of the battle is marked.

  
  The Battle of Bicocca or La Bicocca (Italian: Battaglia della Bicocca) was fought on 27 April 1522, during the Italian War of 1521–26. A combined French and Venetian force under Odet de Foix, Vicomte de Lautrec, was decisively defeated by an Imperial–Spanish and Papal army under the overall command of Prospero Colonna. Lautrec then withdrew from Lombardy, leaving the Duchy of Milan in Imperial hands.
  
  Having been driven from Milan by an Imperial advance in late 1521, Lautrec had regrouped, attempting to strike at Colonna's lines of communication. When the Swiss mercenaries in French service did not receive their pay, however, they demanded an immediate battle, and Lautrec was forced to attack Colonna's fortified position in the park of the Arcimboldi Villa Bicocca, north of Milan. The Swiss pikemen advanced over open fields under heavy artillery fire to assault the enemy positions, but were halted at a sunken road backed by earthworks. Having suffered massive casualties from the fire of Imperial-Spanish arquebusiers, the Swiss retreated. Meanwhile, an attempt by French cavalry to flank Colonna's position proved equally ineffective. The Swiss, unwilling to fight further, marched off to their cantons a few days later, and Lautrec retreated into Venetian territory with the remnants of his army. (Full article...)
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  Æthelred as depicted in the early fourteenth-century Genealogical Roll of the Kings of England.

  
  Æthelred I (alt. Aethelred, Ethelred; Old English: Æthel-ræd, lit. 'noble counsel'; 845/848 to 871) was King of Wessex from 865 until his death in 871. He was the fourth of five sons of King Æthelwulf of Wessex, four of whom in turn became king. Æthelred succeeded his elder brother Æthelberht and was followed by his youngest brother, Alfred the Great. Æthelred had two sons, Æthelhelm and Æthelwold, who were passed over for the kingship on their father's death because they were still infants. Alfred was succeeded by his son, Edward the Elder, and Æthelwold unsuccessfully disputed the throne with him.
  
  Æthelred's accession coincided with the arrival of the Viking Great Heathen Army in England. Over the next five years the Vikings conquered Northumbria and East Anglia, and at the end of 870 they launched a full-scale attack on Wessex. In early January 871, Æthelred was defeated at the Battle of Reading. Four days later, he scored a victory in the Battle of Ashdown, but this was followed by two defeats at Basing and Meretun. He died shortly after Easter. Alfred was forced to pay off the Vikings, but he scored a decisive victory over them seven years later at the Battle of Edington. (Full article...)
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  SMS Roon in the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, c. 1910

  
  SMS Roon was the lead ship of her class of armored cruisers built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the early 1900s as part of a major naval expansion program aimed at strengthening the fleet. The ship was named after Field Marshal Albrecht von Roon. She was built at the Kaiserliche Werft in Kiel, being laid down in August 1902, launched in June 1903, and commissioned in April 1906. The ship was armed with a main battery of four 21 cm (8.3 in) guns and had a top speed of 20.4 knots (37.8 km/h; 23.5 mph). Like many of the late armored cruisers, Roon was quickly rendered obsolescent by the advent of the battlecruiser; as a result, her career was limited.
  Roon served in I Scouting Group, the reconnaissance force of the High Seas Fleet, for the duration of her peacetime career, including several stints as the flagship of the group's deputy commander. During this period, the ship was occupied with training exercises and made several cruises in the Atlantic Ocean. In 1907, she visited the United States to represent Germany during the Jamestown Exposition. In September 1911 she was decommissioned and placed in reserve. (Full article...)
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  The Devon County War Memorial is a First World War memorial, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and situated on Cathedral Green in Exeter, the county town of Devon, in the south west of England. It is one of fifteen War Crosses designed by Lutyens with similar characteristics, and one of two to serve as a civic memorial in a city. The first proposal for the county's war memorial was to complete the construction of a cloister at Exeter Cathedral to be dedicated to Devon's war dead, but this scheme was abandoned due to lack of funds. After considering multiple proposals, the Devon County War Memorial Committee commissioned Lutyens to design a War Cross instead. The committee chose to site the memorial on the green of Exeter Cathedral after scouting several locations. A war memorial for Exeter itself was being considered concurrently, but the committees for the two projects failed to work together, resulting in two separate memorials—the county memorial by the cathedral and Exeter City War Memorial in Northernhay Gardens.
  
  The memorial takes the form of a simple cross. Hewn from a single block of granite quarried from Haytor on Dartmoor, it stands just to the west of the cathedral, in alignment with the altar. The cross stands on a granite plinth, which itself sits on three steps. It was unveiled by the Prince of Wales on 16 May 1921. After archaeological excavations took place in the 1970s, the area was remodelled to create a processional way between the memorial and the cathedral. The memorial is a grade II* listed building, part of a "national collection" of Lutyens' war memorials. Since 2015, all of Lutyens' memorials in England have been protected by listed building status. (Full article...)
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  Jethro Exum Sumner (c. 1733 – c. March 18, 1785) was a senior officer of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Born in Virginia, Sumner's military service began in the French and Indian War as a member of the state's Provincial forces. After the conclusion of that conflict, he moved to Bute County, North Carolina, where he acquired a substantial area of land and operated a tavern. He served as Sheriff of Bute County, but with the coming of the American Revolution, he became a strident patriot, and was elected to North Carolina's Provincial Congress.
  
  Sumner was named the commanding officer of the 3rd North Carolina Regiment of the North Carolina Line, a formation of the Continental Army, in 1776, and served in both the Southern theater and Philadelphia campaign. He was one of five brigadier generals from North Carolina in the Continental Army, in which capacity he served between 1779 and 1783. He served with distinction in the battles of Stono Ferry and Eutaw Springs, but recurring bouts of poor health often forced him to play an administrative role, or to convalesce in North Carolina. Following a drastic reduction in the number of North Carolinians serving with the Continental Army, Sumner became a general in the state's militia but resigned in protest after the North Carolina Board of War awarded overall command of the militia to William Smallwood, a Continental Army general from Maryland. At the end of the war in 1783, Sumner helped to establish the North Carolina Chapter of the Society of the Cincinnati, and became its first president. He died in 1785 with extensive landholdings and 35 slaves. (Full article...)
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  The English assault on Caen, from Froissart's Chronicles

  
  The Crécy campaign was a series of large-scale raids (chevauchées) conducted by the Kingdom of England throughout northern France in 1346 that devastated the French countryside on a wide front, culminating in the Battle of Crécy. The campaign was part of the Hundred Years' War.
  
  The campaign began on 12 July 1346, with the landing of English troops in Normandy, and ended with the capitulation of Calais on 3 August 1347. The English army was led by King Edward III, and the French by King Philip VI. (Full article...)
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  British and Canadian forces attacking Arnold's column in the Sault-au-Matelot, Charles William Jefferys

  
  The Battle of Quebec (French: Bataille de Québec) was fought on December 31, 1775, between American Continental Army forces and the British defenders of Quebec City early in the American Revolutionary War. The battle was the first major defeat of the war for the Americans, and it came with heavy losses. General Richard Montgomery was killed, Benedict Arnold was wounded, and Daniel Morgan and more than 400 men were taken prisoner. The city's garrison, a motley assortment of regular troops and militia led by Quebec's provincial governor, General Guy Carleton, suffered a small number of casualties.
  
  Montgomery's army had captured Montreal on November 13, and early in December they became one force that was led by Arnold, whose men had made an arduous trek through the wilderness of northern New England. Governor Carleton had escaped from Montreal to Quebec, the Americans' next objective, and last-minute reinforcements arrived to bolster the city's limited defenses before the attacking force's arrival. Concerned that expiring enlistments would reduce his force, Montgomery made the end-of-year attack in a blinding snowstorm to conceal his army's movements. The plan was for separate forces led by Montgomery and Arnold to converge in the lower city before scaling the walls protecting the upper city. Montgomery's force turned back after he was killed by cannon fire early in the battle, but Arnold's force penetrated further into the lower city. Arnold was injured early in the attack, and Morgan led the assault in his place before he became trapped in the lower city and was forced to surrender. Arnold and the Americans maintained an ineffectual blockade of the city until spring, when British reinforcements arrived. (Full article...)
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  The defences of the city of Carthage

  
  The Third Punic War (149–146 BC) was the third and last of the Punic Wars fought between Carthage and Rome. The war was fought entirely within Carthaginian territory, in what is now northern Tunisia. When the Second Punic War ended in 201 BC one of the terms of the peace treaty prohibited Carthage from waging war without Rome's permission. Rome's ally, King Masinissa of Numidia, exploited this to repeatedly raid and seize Carthaginian territory with impunity. In 149 BC Carthage sent an army, under Hasdrubal, against Masinissa, the treaty notwithstanding. The campaign ended in disaster as the Battle of Oroscopa ended with a Carthaginian defeat and the surrender of the Carthaginian army. Anti-Carthaginian factions in Rome used the illicit military action as a pretext to prepare a punitive expedition.
  
  Later in 149 BC a large Roman army landed at Utica in North Africa. The Carthaginians hoped to appease the Romans, but despite the Carthaginians surrendering all of their weapons, the Romans pressed on to besiege the city of Carthage. The Roman campaign suffered repeated setbacks through 149 BC, only alleviated by Scipio Aemilianus, a middle-ranking officer, distinguishing himself several times. A new Roman commander took over in 148 BC and fared equally badly. At the annual election of Roman magistrates in the spring of 147 BC the public support for Scipio was so great that the usual age restrictions were lifted to allow him to be appointed consul and commander in Africa. (Full article...)
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  Reproduction of a 1278 portrait taken from a Yuan-era album

  
  Genghis Khan (born Temüjin; c. 1162 – August 1227), also known as Chinggis Khan, was the founder and first khan of the Mongol Empire. After spending most of his life uniting the Mongol tribes, he launched a series of military campaigns, conquering large parts of China and Central Asia.
  
  Born between 1155 and 1167 and given the name Temüjin, he was the eldest child of Yesugei, a Mongol chieftain of the Borjigin clan, and his wife Hö'elün. When Temüjin was eight, his father died and his family was abandoned by its tribe. Reduced to near-poverty, Temüjin killed his older half-brother to secure his familial position. His charismatic personality helped to attract his first followers and to form alliances with two prominent steppe leaders named Jamukha and Toghrul; they worked together to retrieve Temüjin's newlywed wife Börte, who had been kidnapped by raiders. As his reputation grew, his relationship with Jamukha deteriorated into open warfare. Temüjin was badly defeated in c. 1187, and may have spent the following years as a subject of the Jin dynasty; upon reemerging in 1196, he swiftly began gaining power. Toghrul came to view Temüjin as a threat and launched a surprise attack on him in 1203. Temüjin retreated, then regrouped and overpowered Toghrul; after defeating the Naiman tribe and executing Jamukha, he was left as the sole ruler on the Mongolian steppe. (Full article...)
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  Air Marshal Selwyn David Evans AC, DSO, AFC (3 June 1925 – 2 September 2020) was a senior commander of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), and a writer and consultant on defence matters. He served as Chief of the Air Staff from 1982 until 1985. After leaving the RAAF he published two military treatises, A Fatal Rivalry: Australia's Defence at Risk and War: A Matter of Principles, as well as an autobiography.
  
  Enlisting in the Air Force in 1943, Evans graduated from flying school as a sergeant pilot, and was converting to Beaufort bombers when World War II ended. He gained his commission as a pilot officer in 1947. From 1948 to 1949, he was a member of the Australian contingent operating C-47 Dakota transports in the Berlin Airlift. He was a flying instructor in the early 1950s, before becoming a VIP captain with the Governor-General's Flight in 1954. His service in the flight earned him the Air Force Cross in 1957. In the 1960s Evans was twice posted to No. 2 Squadron, flying Canberra jet bombers: first as a flight commander when the unit was based in Malaysia from 1960 to 1962 and then as its commanding officer during the Vietnam War from 1967 to 1968. The Canberras achieved a high degree of accuracy on their bombing missions under his leadership, and he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order after completing his tour in Vietnam. (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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  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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  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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  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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  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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  First permanent photograph

  Photo credit: Nicéphore Niépce

  The first successful permanent photograph, created in 1826, is titled "View from the Window at Le Gras". It required an eight-hour exposure in bright sunshine and was printed on a polished pewter plate covered with a petroleum derivative called bitumen of Judea. Due to the long exposure, the buildings are illuminated by the sun from both right and left.
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  Khoikhoi

  Artist: Samuel Daniell

  An 1805 depiction of a Khoikhoi family dismantling their huts, preparing to move to new pastures. The Khoikhoi are a native people of southwestern Africa, closely related to the Bushmen. Most of the Khoikhoi have largely disappeared as a group, except for the largest group, the Namas.
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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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  Rajputs

  Image: The Illustrated London News
  Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  An 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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  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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  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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  Masada

  Photograph: Andrew Shiva

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

  Photo: United States Department of Energy

  The mushroom cloud from the Ivy Mike nuclear test, one of two tests conducted as part of Operation Ivy at the Pacific Proving Grounds on Elugelab in the Marshall Islands. Mike was the first successful full-scale test of a multi-megaton thermonuclear weapon, and it left an underwater crater 6,240 ft (1,900 m) wide and 164 ft (50 m) deep where the island had been.
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  Arecibo message

  Graphic: Arne Nordmann

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

  Illustration: Edward Linley Sambourne

  The Rhodes Colossus is an iconic editorial cartoon of the Scramble for Africa period, depicting British colonialist Cecil John Rhodes as a giant standing over the continent, after his announcement of plans to extend an electrical telegraph line from Cape Town to Cairo. Rhodes is shown in a visual pun as the ancient Greek statue the Colossus of Rhodes, with his right foot in Cape Town and his left in Cairo, illustrating his broader "Cape to Cairo" concept for British domination of Africa.
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  Knight

  Illustration: Anton Sorg; Restoration: Lise Broer

  A knight, a member of the warrior class of the Middle Ages in Europe, in Gothic plate armour, from a German book illustration published 1483. The modern concept of the knight is as an elite warrior sworn to uphold the values of chivalry, faith, loyalty, courage and honour. Knighthood as known in Medieval Europe was characterized by the combination of two elements: feudalism and service as a mounted combatant. Both arose under the reign of the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne, from which the knighthood of the Middle Ages can be seen to have had its genesis.

Did you know (auto generated)

• ... that Montenegrin historian Radoje Pajović refused to engage in historical revisionism to rehabilitate Chetniks who collaborated with the Axis powers?
• ... that the Pulitzer jury said that Ford Strikers Riot is "a brutal picture, it sums up much of the labor history of 1941"?
• ... that Dean Faithfull was the oldest player in NCAA Division II football history?
• ... that Kang Ju-hyeok became the youngest player in FC Seoul's history at the age of 17 years, 9 months, and 6 days?
• ... that The Use and Abuse of History: Or How the Past Is Taught explores how school textbooks across the world distort history to serve political interests?
• ... that throughout the history of education in Wales, schools have been held in monastic settlements, cathedrals, residential houses, marketplaces, barns, churches, and village halls?

Featured biography –

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

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Wodehouse in 1930

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, (/ˈwʊdhaʊs/ WUUD-howss; 15 October 1881 – 14 February 1975) was an English writer and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jeeves; the immaculate and loquacious Psmith; Lord Emsworth and the Blandings Castle set; the Oldest Member, with stories about golf; and Mr. Mulliner, with tall tales on subjects ranging from bibulous bishops to megalomaniac movie moguls.

Born in Guildford, the third son of a British magistrate based in Hong Kong, Wodehouse spent happy teenage years at Dulwich College, to which he remained devoted all his life. After leaving school he was employed by a bank but disliked the work and turned to writing in his spare time. His early novels were mostly school stories, but he later switched to comic fiction. Most of Wodehouse's fiction is set in his native United Kingdom, although he spent much of his life in the US and used New York and Hollywood as settings for some of his novels and short stories. He wrote a series of Broadway musical comedies during and after the First World War, together with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, that played an important part in the development of the American musical. He began the 1930s writing for MGM in Hollywood. In a 1931 interview, his naive revelations of incompetence and extravagance in the studios caused a furore. In the same decade, his literary career reached a new peak. (Full article...)

On this day

April 2: World Autism Awareness Day; feast day of Saint Francis of Paola (Catholicism); Malvinas Day in Argentina (1982)

Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd

• 1968 – 2001: A Space Odyssey, the epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, premiered at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C.
• 1979 – Spores of anthrax were accidentally released from a military research facility near the city of Sverdlovsk, causing at least 68 deaths.
• 1982 – Argentine special forces invaded the Falkland Islands, sparking the Falklands War against the United Kingdom.
• 1992 – Bosnian War: At least 48 civilians were massacred in the town of Bijeljina in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• 2015 – Six elderly men burgled a safe-deposit facility (pictured) in Hatton Garden, London, and stole items worth up to an estimated £14 million.

• Prince George of Denmark (b. 1653)
• Wilhelmine Reichard (b. 1788)
• Sir James Montgomery, 1st Baronet (d. 1803)
• Elizabeth Catlett (d. 2012)

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Selected quote

Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.

— Thomas Edison, scientist and inventor

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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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