Portal:History
The History Portal
History is the systematic study of the past. As an academic discipline, it analyzes and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened, focusing primarily on the human past. Some theorists categorize history as a social science, while others see it as part of the humanities or consider it a hybrid discipline. Similar debates surround the purpose of history, for example, whether its main aim is theoretical, to uncover the truth, or practical, to learn lessons from the past. In a slightly different sense, the term history refers not to an academic field but to the past itself or to individual texts about the past.
History is a broad discipline encompassing many branches. Some focus on specific time periods, such as ancient history, while others concentrate on particular geographic regions, such as the history of Africa. Thematic categorizations include political history, social history, and economic history. Branches associated with specific research methods are quantitative history, comparative history, and oral history.
Historical research relies on primary and secondary sources to reconstruct past events and validate interpretations. Source criticism is used to evaluate these sources, assessing their authenticity, content, and reliability. Historians integrate the perspectives of several individual sources to develop a coherent narrative. Different schools of thought, such as positivism, the Annales school, Marxism, and postmodernism, have distinct methodological implications.
History emerged as a field of inquiry in the ancient period to replace myth-infused narratives, with influential early traditions originating in Greece, China, and later also in the Islamic world. Historical writing evolved throughout the ages and became increasingly professional, particularly during the 19th century, when a rigorous methodology and various academic institutions were established. History is related to many fields, including historiography, philosophy, education, and politics. (Full article...)
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- ... that in 88 BC, Lucius Cornelius Sulla carried out the first coup d'état in Roman history?
- ... that Jake Bates's first in-game field goal was the second-longest in professional football history?
- ... that Songs and Flowers of the Wasatch represented a shift in Mormon history toward a "socially-accepted American cultural and religious heritage", according to historian Jennifer Reeder?
- ... that the radio program Radio City Music Hall of the Air employed approximately 10,000 musicians during the first eight years of its broadcast history?
- ... that Abdul Ghani Azhari wrote Qadim Tarikh-e-Gujjar in Urdu, detailing the ancient history of Gujjars in India?
- ... that Chunyu Yi may have been the "ancient founder of the case history tradition"?
Neferefre Isi (also known as Raneferef, Ranefer and in Greek as Χέρης, Cherês; c. 2480 BC - c. 2458 BC) was an ancient Egyptian king of the Fifth Dynasty during the Old Kingdom period. He was most likely the eldest son of king Neferirkare Kakai and queen Khentkaus II. He was known as prince Ranefer before he ascended to the throne.
Neferefre started a pyramid for himself in the royal necropolis of Abusir called Netjeribau Raneferef, which means "The bas of Neferefre are divine". The pyramid was never finished, with a mason's inscription showing that works on the stone structure were abandoned during or shortly after the king's second year of reign. Together with the sparsity of attestations contemporaneous with his reign, this is taken by Egyptologists as evidence that Neferefre died unexpectedly after two to three years on the throne. Neferefre was nonetheless buried in his pyramid, hastily completed in the form of a mastaba by his second successor and presumably younger brother, pharaoh Nyuserre Ini. Fragments of his mummy were uncovered there, showing that he died in his early twenties. (Full article...)
On this day
January 31: Independence Day in Nauru (1968)
- 1703 – Forty-seven rōnin (depicted) attacked the home of Kira Yoshinaka and killed him in an act of revenge for Asano Naganori, their dead feudal lord.
- 1850 – Ute Wars: On behalf of Utah territorial governor Brigham Young, militia leader Daniel H. Wells drafted an order for the Utah Territorial Militia to exterminate Timpanogos men deemed hostile, leading to the Provo River Massacre.
- 1900 – Datu Muhammad Salleh, leader of a series of major disturbances in North Borneo, was shot dead in Tambunan, but his followers did not give up for five more years.
- 2000 – Alaska Airlines Flight 261, experiencing problems with its horizontal stabilizer system, crashed in the Pacific Ocean off Anacapa Island, California, killing all 88 people on board.
- 2010 – James Cameron's Avatar became the first film to earn over US$2 billion worldwide.
- James G. Blaine (b. 1830)
- Preity Zinta (b. 1975)
- Moira Shearer (d. 2006)
- Lizabeth Scott (d. 2015)
Selected quote
My heart is a stone: heavy with sadness for my people; cold with the knowledge that no treaty will keep whites out of our lands; hard with the determination to resist as long as I live and breathe.
— Tecumseh, Native American tribal chief
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- ... that in some archaic Greek alphabets, an Ε could look like a Β, a Β like a C, a Γ like an Ι, an Ι like a Σ, or a Σ like an Μ?
- ... that the Chinese government has published a list of sixty-four important cultural relics that are forbidden to be exhibited outside of China?
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- ... that Carl Sagan worked with the US Air Force on detonating a nuclear device on the Moon?
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- ... 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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