Portal:History
The History Portal
History by Frederick Dielman
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 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, 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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The Roman temple of Bziza is a well-preserved first century AD building dedicated to Azizos, a personification of the morning star in ancient Arab polytheism. This Roman temple lends the modern Lebanese town of Bziza its current name, as Bziza is a corruption of Beth Azizo meaning the house or temple of Azizos. Azizos was identified as Ares by Emperor Julian.
The tetrastyle prostyle building has two doors that connect the pronaos to a square cella. To the back of the temple lie the remains of the adyton where images of the deity once stood. The ancient temple functioned as an aedes, the dwelling place of the deity. The temple of Bziza was converted into a church and underwent architectural modification during two phases of Christianization; in the Early Byzantine period and later in the Middle Ages. The church, colloquially known until modern times as the Lady of the Pillars, fell into disrepair. Despite the church's condition, Christian devotion was still maintained in the nineteenth century in one of the temple's niches. The temple of Bziza is featured on multiple stamps issued by the Lebanese state. (Full article...) -
Charles Eaton, OBE, AFC (21 December 1895 – 12 November 1979) was a senior officer and aviator in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), and later served as a diplomat. Born in London, he joined the British Army upon the outbreak of World War I and saw action on the Western Front before transferring to the Royal Flying Corps in 1917. Posted as a bomber pilot to No. 206 Squadron, he was twice captured by German forces, and twice escaped. Eaton left the military in 1920 and worked in India until moving to Australia in 1923. Two years later he joined the RAAF, serving initially as an instructor at No. 1 Flying Training School. Between 1929 and 1931, he was chosen to lead three expeditions to search for lost aircraft in Central Australia, gaining national attention and earning the Air Force Cross for his "zeal and devotion to duty".
In 1939, on the eve of World War II, Eaton became the inaugural commanding officer of No. 12 (General Purpose) Squadron at the newly established RAAF Station Darwin in Northern Australia. He was promoted group captain in 1940, and appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire the following year. In 1943, he took command of No. 79 Wing at Batchelor, Northern Territory, and was mentioned in despatches during operations in the South West Pacific. Retiring from the RAAF in December 1945, Eaton took up diplomatic posts in the Dutch East Indies, heading a United Nations commission as Consul-General during the Indonesian National Revolution. He returned to Australia in 1950, and served in Canberra for a further two years. Popularly known as "Moth" Eaton, he was a farmer in later life, and died in 1979 aged 83. He is commemorated by several memorials in the Northern Territory. (Full article...) -
Siward (/ˈsuːwərd/ or more recently /ˈsiːwərd/; Old English: Siƿard) or Sigurd (Old English: Sigeweard, Old Norse: Sigurðr digri) was an important earl of 11th-century northern England. The Old Norse nickname Digri and its Latin translation Grossus ("the stout") are given to him by near-contemporary texts. It is possible Siward may have been of Scandinavian or Anglo-Scandinavian origin, perhaps a relative of Earl Ulf, although this is speculative. He emerged as a regional strongman in England during the reign of Cnut ("Canute the Great", 1016–1035). Cnut was a Scandinavian ruler who conquered most of England in the 1010s, and Siward was one of many Scandinavians who came to England in the aftermath, rising to become sub-ruler of most of northern England. From 1033 at the latest, he was in control of southern Northumbria, present-day Yorkshire, governing as earl on Cnut's behalf.
Siward entrenched his position in northern England by marrying Ælfflæd, the daughter of Ealdred, Earl of Bamburgh. After killing Ealdred's successor Eadulf in 1041, Siward gained control of all Northumbria. He supported Cnut's successors Harthacnut and Edward with vital military aid and counsel, and probably gained control of the middle shires of Northampton and Huntingdon by the 1050s. There is some evidence that he spread Northumbrian control into Cumberland. In the early 1050s, Siward turned against the Scottish king Mac Bethad mac Findlaích ("Macbeth"). Despite the death of his son Osbjorn, Siward defeated Mac Bethad in battle in 1054. More than half a millennium later the adventure in Scotland earned him a place in William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Siward died in 1055, leaving one son, Waltheof, who would eventually succeed to Northumbria. St Olave's church in York and nearby Heslington Hill are associated with Siward. (Full article...) -
Josip "Jozo" Tomasevich (1908 – October 15, 1994; Serbo-Croatian: Josip Tomašević) was an American economist and historian whose speciality was the economic and social history of Yugoslavia. Tomasevich was born in the Kingdom of Dalmatia, then part of Austria-Hungary, and after completing high school and attending a commercial academy, he earned a doctorate in economics from the University of Basel in Switzerland. In the mid-1930s, he worked at the National Bank of Yugoslavia in Belgrade and published three well-received books on Yugoslavia's national debt, fiscal policy, and money and credit respectively.
In 1938, he moved to the United States as the recipient of a two-year Rockefeller fellowship and conducted research at Harvard University before joining the academic staff of Stanford University. During World War II, Tomasevich worked for the Board of Economic Warfare and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and post-war he joined the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco. In 1948, he joined the staff at San Francisco State College (later San Francisco State University). He combined research and teaching there for twenty-five years until his retirement in 1973, which was broken by a year of teaching at Columbia University in 1954. Between 1943 and 1955, Tomasevich published two positively reviewed books on economic matters; one focused on marine resources and the other on the peasant economy of Yugoslavia. (Full article...) -
The Battle of Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William, Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon king Harold Godwinson, beginning the Norman Conquest of England. It took place approximately 7 mi (11 km) northwest of Hastings, close to the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, and was a decisive Norman victory.
The background to the battle was the death of the childless king Edward the Confessor in January 1066, which set up a succession struggle between several claimants to his throne. Harold was crowned king shortly after Edward's death but faced invasions by William, his own brother Tostig, and the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada (Harold III of Norway). Hardrada and Tostig defeated a hastily gathered army of Englishmen at the Battle of Fulford on 20 September 1066. They were in turn defeated by Harold at the Battle of Stamford Bridge five days later. The deaths of Tostig and Hardrada at Stamford Bridge left William as Harold's only serious opponent. While Harold and his forces were recovering, William landed his invasion forces in the south of England at Pevensey on 28 September 1066 and established a beachhead for his conquest of the kingdom. Harold was forced to march south swiftly, gathering forces as he went. (Full article...) -
CSS Baltic was an ironclad warship that served in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War. A towboat before the war, she was purchased by the state of Alabama in December 1861 for conversion into an ironclad. After being transferred to the Confederate Navy in May 1862 as an ironclad, she served on Mobile Bay off the Gulf of Mexico. Baltic's condition in Confederate service was such that naval historian William N. Still Jr. has described her as "a nondescript vessel in many ways". Over the next two years, parts of the ship's wooden structure were affected by wood rot. Her armor was removed to be put onto the ironclad CSS Nashville in 1864. By that August, Baltic had been decommissioned. Near the end of the war, she was taken up the Tombigbee River, where she was captured by Union forces on May 10, 1865. An inspection of Baltic the next month found that her upper hull and deck were rotten and that her boilers were unsafe. She was sold on December 31, and was likely broken up in 1866. (Full article...) -
The Battle of Sio, fought between December 1943 and March 1944, was the break-out and pursuit phase of General Douglas MacArthur's Huon Peninsula campaign, part of the New Guinea campaign of World War II.
After the defeat of the Japanese in the Battle of Sattelberg, Australian Army forces broke through the Japanese positions around Finschhafen. Constant pressure from United States Navy PT boats, Australian land forces and Allied aircraft brought the Japanese logistical system to the brink of collapse, resulting in disease, malnutrition, and privation for the Japanese soldiers. Meanwhile, the Allied supply system grappled with the problems of terrain and climate, particularly inclement weather and rough monsoonal seas that hampered and occasionally prevented delivery of supplies by sea. (Full article...) -
The 1st Provisional Marine Brigade was a marine brigade of the United States Marine Corps (USMC) that existed periodically from 1912 to 1950. It was an ad hoc unit formed for specific operations and not considered a "permanent" USMC unit.
The brigade saw five brief activations for service over a 40-year span. First created in 1912 for duty in Cuba following the Negro Rebellion, the brigade was not activated again until 1941 when it was hastily constructed from the 6th Marine Regiment to garrison Iceland after British forces occupied the country during World War II. The brigade saw service once more in the war during the Battle of Guam in the Pacific War, conducting an amphibious landing on that island's southern sector and subduing resistance from Japanese forces. It was activated once more in a brief organizational shift after the war. (Full article...) -
Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808 – December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the only president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party before the American Civil War. He was the United States Secretary of War from 1853 to 1857.
Davis, the youngest of ten children, was born in Fairview, Kentucky, but spent most of his childhood in Wilkinson County, Mississippi. His eldest brother Joseph Emory Davis secured the younger Davis's appointment to the United States Military Academy. Upon graduating, he served six years as a lieutenant in the United States Army. After leaving the army in 1835, Davis married Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of general and future President Zachary Taylor. Sarah died from malaria three months after the wedding. Davis became a cotton planter, building Brierfield Plantation in Mississippi on his brother Joseph's land and eventually owning as many as 113 slaves. (Full article...) -
General Sir John Gordon Noel Wilton, KBE, CB, DSO (22 November 1910 – 10 May 1981) was a senior commander in the Australian Army. He served as Chief of the General Staff (CGS), the Army's professional head, from 1963 until 1966, and as Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (CCOSC), forerunner of the role of Australia's Chief of the Defence Force, from 1966 until 1970. His eight-year tenure as senior officer of first the Army and then the Australian military spanned almost the entire period of the nation's involvement in the Vietnam War.
Born in Sydney, Wilton entered the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1927. Owing to lack of opportunity in the Australian military at the time, he took a commission in the British Army following his graduation in 1930. He spent most of the remainder of the decade with the Royal Artillery in India. Wilton returned to Australia on the eve of World War II and was commissioned into the Royal Australian Artillery. He saw action with the 7th Division in Syria and the 3rd Division in New Guinea, earning a mention in despatches in the former campaign and the Distinguished Service Order in the latter. Finishing the war a temporary colonel, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1947. Wilton was posted to Korea in 1953 to take command of the 28th Commonwealth Brigade, leading it in its final action of the war in July. He was raised to Commander of the Order of the British Empire and awarded the US Legion of Merit for his performance in Korea. (Full article...) -
The Trundle is an Iron Age hillfort on St Roche's Hill about 4 miles (6 km) north of Chichester, West Sussex, England. It was built on the site of a causewayed enclosure, a form of early Neolithic earthwork found in northwestern Europe.
Causewayed enclosures were built in England from shortly before 3700 BC until at least 3500 BC; they are characterized by the full or partial enclosure of an area with ditches that are interrupted by gaps, or causeways. Their purpose is not known; they may have been settlements, meeting places, or ritual sites. Hillforts were built as early as 1000 BC, in the Late Bronze Age, and continued to be built through the Iron Age until shortly before the Roman occupation. (Full article...) -
William Lloyd Brill, DSO, DFC & Bar (17 May 1916 – 12 October 1964) was a senior officer and bomber pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Born in the Riverina district of New South Wales, he was a farmer and a member of the Militia before joining the RAAF in 1940. After training in Australia and Canada, he was posted to Britain in 1941 to take part in the air war over Europe. Brill first saw combat with No. 460 Squadron RAAF, flying Vickers Wellington medium bombers. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) in May 1942 for attacking a target after his plane was badly damaged by anti-aircraft fire. Following assignment as an instructor with the Royal Air Force (RAF), he returned to the bombing campaign in January 1944 as a flight commander with No. 463 Squadron RAAF, flying Avro Lancaster heavy bombers.
Brill's leadership and determination to complete his missions despite damage to his aircraft—on one occasion inflicted by another Lancaster's bombs from above—earned him the Distinguished Service Order. Promoted to wing commander in May 1944, he took over No. 467 Squadron RAAF after the death in combat of its then-commander, Group Captain John Balmer. Brill was awarded a bar to his DFC in July, for his skill in evading three German night fighters. Returning to Australia, he remained in the Air Force after the war and led No. 10 Squadron in 1949–50. He went on to command air bases at Rathmines, Canberra and Townsville during the 1950s and 1960s. Brill served two terms as RAAF Director of Personnel Services, in 1956–59 and 1960–63, by which time he had been promoted to group captain. His final posting was at the Department of Air in Canberra. He died of a heart attack in October 1964. (Full article...) -
William Yarnel Slack (August 1, 1816 – March 21, 1862) was an American lawyer, politician, and military officer who fought for the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. Born in Kentucky, Slack moved to Missouri as a child and later entered the legal profession. After serving in the Missouri General Assembly from 1842 to 1843, he fought as a captain in the United States Army for fourteen months during the Mexican–American War, beginning in 1846. He saw action at the Battle of Embudo Pass and the Siege of Pueblo de Taos. Returning to a legal career, Slack became influential in his area.
After the outbreak of the American Civil War in April 1861, Slack, who held pro-slavery views, supported the Confederate cause. When the Missouri State Guard (MSG) was formed the next month to oppose the Union Army, he was appointed as a brigadier general in the MSG's 4th Division. After participating in the Battle of Carthage in July, he fought in the Battle of Wilson's Creek on August 10. After a surprise Union attack, Slack's deployment of his division gave time for further Confederate States Army and MSG troops to deploy. Suffering a bad hip wound at Wilson's Creek, he was unable to rejoin his command until October. (Full article...) -
Nezamozhnik (Russian and Ukrainian: Незаможник, Ukrainian romanization: Nezamozhnyk, lit. 'poor peasant') was one of eight Fidonisy-class destroyers built for the Imperial Russian Navy during World War I. Originally named Zante (Занте), the ship was left unfinished during the Russian Revolution in 1917 and later captured by Ukrainian and White forces. The mostly complete destroyer was towed from her shipyard by retreating White forces and wrecked during a storm in 1920. She was refloated by the Soviets following their victory in the Russian Civil War and completed in 1923 as Nezamozhny (Незаможный).
Serving with the Black Sea Fleet, she was renamed Nezamozhnik and made several international port visits. Refitted twice during the interwar period, the destroyer served in the Black Sea during World War II, helping to evacuate Odessa, supply besieged Soviet forces in Sevastopol, and support several amphibious operations during the Kerch–Feodosia Offensive and the Battle of the Caucasus. The ship saw no combat after October 1943 after three destroyers were sunk by German aircraft in a single action. She received the Order of the Red Banner for her actions during the war. Nezamozhnik was converted into a target ship at the end of the 1940s and sunk during the early 1950s. (Full article...) -
Captain Robert Falcon Scott CVO (6 June 1868 – c. 29 March 1912) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery expedition of 1901–04 and the Terra Nova expedition of 1910–13.
On the first expedition, he set a new southern record by marching to latitude 82°S and discovered the Antarctic Plateau, on which the South Pole is located. On the second venture, Scott led a party of five which reached the South Pole on 17 January 1912, less than five weeks after Amundsen's South Pole expedition. On the return journey from the Pole, a planned meeting with supporting dog teams from the base camp failed, despite Scott's written instructions, and at a distance of 162 miles (261 km) from their base camp at Hut Point and approximately 12.5 miles (20.1 km) from the next depot, Scott and his companions died. When Scott and his party's bodies were discovered, they had in their possession the first Antarctic fossils discovered. The fossils were determined to be from the Glossopteris tree and proved that Antarctica was once forested and joined to other continents. (Full article...)
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Featured picture
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Woodcut: Hans Burgkmair; print: David de NegkerA 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". -
Illustration: Edward Linley SambourneThe 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. -
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. -
Photo credit: UnknownThe 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. -
The Battle of the Somme was a battle of the First World War fought between 1 July and 18 November 1916 by the armies of the British and French empires against the German Empire. The largest battle of World War I on the Western Front, it was fought on both sides of upper reaches of the River Somme in France. More than one million men were wounded or killed, making it one of the bloodiest battles in human history.
This map shows the situation on the first day on the Somme, as well as Allied gains up to 19 November 1916. -
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. -
Poster credit: Breuker & Kessler, Co.A World War I-era poster sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture encouraging children to raise sheep to provide wool for the war effort. The poster reads, "Twenty sheep to clothe and equip each soldier / Boys and girls can help / Join a sheep club". -
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. -
1895 train wreck, Gare MontparnassePhoto credit: Studio Lévy and SonsOn October 22, 1895, the Granville–Paris Express train overran the buffer stop at Gare Montparnasse station. The engine careened across almost 30 metres (100 feet) of the station concourse, crashed through a 60 centimetre thick wall, shot across a terrace and sailed out of the station, plummeting onto the Place de Rennes 10 metres (30 feet) below where it stood on its nose. While all of the passengers on board the train survived, one woman on the street below was killed by falling masonry. -
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 credit: Frank HurleyA group of Australian infantry wearing Small Box Respirators (SBRs) at the Third Battle of Ypres in September 1917. After the introduction of poison gas in World War I, countermeasures were developed. SBRs represented the pinnacle of gas mask development during the war, a mouthpiece connected via a hose to a box filter (hanging around the wearer's neck in this picture), which in turn contained granules of chemicals that neutralised the gas. The SBR was the prized possession of the ordinary infantryman; when the British were forced to retreat during the German Spring Offensive of 1918, it was found that while some troops had discarded their rifles, hardly any had left behind their respirators. -
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. -
Ivan the Terrible Showing His Treasury to Jerome HorseyArtist: Alexander LitovchenkoAlexander 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. -
Credit: anonymousA 1793 etching with watercolor of Jean-Paul Marat, a radical journalist and politician from the French Revolution, carried on shoulders with a crown of laurel leaves, celebrating his acquittal by the Revolutionary Tribunal. From January to May 1793, Marat fought bitterly with the Girondins, whom he believed to be covert enemies of republicanism. The National Convention ordered the trial, but his acquittal only served to increase his public profile and popular support. -
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. -
Lithography: Day & Son; Restoration: Jake WartenbergAn 1856 lithograph of the Selimiye Barracks, located in Istanbul, Turkey, being used as a hospital during the Crimean War. Florence Nightingale's experiences here during this time helped her develop the foundations of modern nursing. As such, the barracks now contain a museum dedicated to her and her staff. -
Illustration: Maurice Dessertenne
Restoration: Michel VuijlstekeAn illustration from Volume IV (E–G) of the encyclopedia Nouveau Larousse illustré showing various methods of lighting through the ages, starting from prehistoric times in the upper left (No. 1) to carbide lamps at the beginning of the 20th century (No. 54, lower right), with a separate section for Japanese lighting (No. 55–58, lower left). -
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.
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Featured biography –
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Emmeline Pankhurst (/ˈpæŋkhɜːrst/; née Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was a British political activist who organised the British suffragette movement and helped women to win in 1918 the right to vote in Great Britain and Ireland. In 1999, Time named her as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating that "she shaped an idea of objects for our time" and "shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back". She was widely criticised for her militant tactics, and historians disagree about their effectiveness, but her work is recognised as a crucial element in achieving women's suffrage in the United Kingdom.
Born in the Moss Side district of Manchester to politically active parents, Pankhurst was introduced at the age of 16 to the women's suffrage movement. She founded and became involved with the Women's Franchise League, which advocated suffrage for both married and unmarried women. When that organisation broke apart, she tried to join the left-leaning Independent Labour Party through her friendship with socialist Keir Hardie but was initially refused membership by the local branch on account of her sex. While working as a Poor Law Guardian, she was shocked at the harsh conditions she encountered in Manchester's workhouses. (Full article...)
On this day
March 22: World Water Day; Earth Hour (20:30 local time, 2025)
Charilaos Vasilakos (center) training for the marathon
- 106 – The Bostran era, the official era of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea, began.
- 1638 – Anne Hutchinson was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for her participation in the Antinomian Controversy.
- 1896 – Charilaos Vasilakos (pictured) won the first modern marathon in preparation for the inaugural Summer Olympics.
- 1913 – Phan Xích Long, the self-proclaimed emperor of Vietnam, was arrested for organising a revolt against the colonial rule of French Indochina, which was nevertheless carried out by his supporters the following day.
- 1984 – Teachers at a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were falsely charged with the sexual abuse of schoolchildren, leading to the longest and costliest criminal trial in United States history.
- 1995 – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returned from the space station Mir aboard Soyuz TM-20 after 437 days in space, setting a record for the longest spaceflight.
- John Kemp (d. 1454)
- Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929)
- Abolhassan Banisadr (b. 1933)
- Rob Ford (d. 2016)
Selected quote
Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.
— Gautama Buddha, founder of Buddhism
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- ... that the 1911 Sarez earthquake triggered a huge landslide, forming the tallest dam in the world?
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