Portal:History

The History Portal

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History (derived from Ancient Greek ἱστορία (historía) 'inquiry; knowledge acquired by investigation') is the systematic study and documentation of the human past. History is an academic discipline which uses a narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect. Historians debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effects. Historians debate the nature of history as an end in itself, and its usefulness in giving perspective on the problems of the present.

The period of events before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of these events. Historians seek knowledge of the past using historical sources such as written documents, oral accounts or traditional oral histories, art and material artifacts, and ecological markers.

Stories common to a particular culture, but not supported by external sources (such as the tales surrounding King Arthur), are usually classified as cultural heritage or legends. History differs from myth in that it is supported by verifiable evidence. However, ancient cultural influences have helped create variant interpretations of the nature of history, which have evolved over the centuries and continue to change today. The modern study of history is wide-ranging, and includes the study of specific regions and certain topical or thematic elements of historical investigation. History is taught as a part of primary and secondary education, and the academic study of history is a major discipline in universities.

Herodotus, a 5th-century BCE Greek historian, is often considered the "father of history", as one of the first historians in the Western tradition, though he has been criticized as the "father of lies". Along with his contemporary Thucydides, he helped form the foundations for the modern study of past events and societies. Their works continue to be read today, and the gap between the culture-focused Herodotus and the military-focused Thucydides remains a point of contention or approach in modern historical writing. In East Asia a state chronicle, the Spring and Autumn Annals, was reputed to date from as early as 722 BCE, though only 2nd-century BCE texts have survived. The title "father of history" has also been attributed, in their respective societies, to Sima Qian, Ibn Khaldun, and Kenneth Dike. (Full article...)

Featured articles –

Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

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  Display case reconstructing the arrangement of the hoard treasure when excavated.

  
  The Hoxne Hoard (/ˈhɒksən/ HOK-sən) is the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold discovered in Britain, and the largest collection of gold and silver coins of the fourth and fifth centuries found anywhere within the former Roman Empire. It was found by Eric Lawes, a metal detectorist in the village of Hoxne in Suffolk, England in 1992. The hoard consists of 14,865 Roman gold, silver, and bronze coins and approximately 200 items of silver tableware and gold jewellery. The objects are now in the British Museum in London, where the most important pieces and a selection of the rest are on permanent display. In 1993, the Treasure Valuation Committee valued the hoard at £1.75 million (about £4.5 million in 2023).
  
  The hoard was buried in an oak box or small chest filled with items in precious metal, sorted mostly by type, with some in smaller wooden boxes and others in bags or wrapped in fabric. Remnants of the chest and fittings, such as hinges and locks, were recovered in the excavation. The coins of the hoard date it after AD 407, which coincides with the end of Britain as a Roman province. The owners and reasons for burial of the hoard are unknown, but it was carefully packed and the contents appear consistent with what a single very wealthy family might have owned. It is likely that the hoard represents only a part of the wealth of its owner, given the lack of large silver serving vessels and of some of the most common types of jewellery. (Full article...)
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  Hobart Amory Hare "Hobey" Baker (January 15, 1892 – December 21, 1918) was an American amateur athlete of the early twentieth century. Considered the first American star in ice hockey by the Hockey Hall of Fame, he was also an accomplished American football player. Born into a prominent family from the Philadelphia area, he enrolled at Princeton University in 1910. Baker excelled on the university's hockey and football teams, and became a noted amateur hockey player for the St. Nicholas Hockey Club in New York City. He was a member of three national championship teams, for football in 1911 and hockey in 1912 and 1914, and helped the St. Nicholas Club win a national amateur championship in 1915. Baker graduated from Princeton in 1914 and worked for J.P. Morgan Bank until he enlisted in the United States Army Air Service. During World War I he served with the 103rd and the 13th Aero Squadrons before being promoted to captain and named commander of the 141st Aero Squadron. Baker died in December 1918 after a plane he was test-piloting crashed, hours before he was due to leave France and return to America.
  
  Baker was widely regarded by his contemporaries as one of the best athletes of his time and is considered one of the best early American hockey players. When the Hockey Hall of Fame was founded in 1945, Baker was named one of the first nine inductees, the only American among them. In 1973, he became one of the initial inductees in the United States Hockey Hall of Fame. He was also inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1975, and is the only person to be in both the hockey and college football halls of fame. (Full article...)
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  Nagato on her sea trials, 30 September 1920

  Nagato (Japanese: 長門, named after the ancient Nagato Province) was a super-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). Completed in 1920 as the lead ship of her class, she carried supplies for the survivors of the Great Kantō earthquake in 1923. The ship was modernized in 1934–1936 with improvements to her armor and machinery and a rebuilt superstructure in the pagoda mast style. Nagato briefly participated in the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and was the flagship of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto during the attack on Pearl Harbor. She covered the withdrawal of the attacking ships and did not participate in the attack itself.
  
  Other than participating in the Battle of Midway in June 1942, where she did not see combat, the ship spent most of the first two years of the Pacific War training in home waters. She was transferred to Truk in mid-1943, but did not see any combat until the Battle of the Philippine Sea in mid-1944 when she was attacked by American aircraft. Nagato did not fire her main armament against enemy vessels until the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October. She was lightly damaged during the battle and returned to Japan the following month. The IJN was running out of fuel by this time and decided not to fully repair her. Nagato was converted into a floating anti-aircraft platform and assigned to coastal defense duties. She was attacked in July 1945 as part of the American campaign to destroy the IJN's last remaining capital ships, but was only slightly damaged and went on to be the only Japanese battleship to have survived World War II. In mid-1946, the ship was a target for nuclear weapon tests during Operation Crossroads. She survived the first test with little damage, but was sunk by the second. (Full article...)
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  A retiarius stabs at a secutor with his trident in this mosaic from the villa at Nennig, c. 2nd–3rd century CE.

  
  
  A retiarius (plural retiarii; literally, "net-man" in Latin) was a Roman gladiator who fought with equipment styled on that of a fisherman: a weighted net (rete (3rd decl.), hence the name), a three-pointed trident (fuscina or tridens), and a dagger (pugio). The retiarius was lightly armoured, wearing an arm guard (manica) and a shoulder guard (galerus). Typically, his clothing consisted only of a loincloth (subligaculum) held in place by a wide belt, or of a short tunic with light padding. He wore no head protection or footwear.
  
  The retiarius was routinely pitted against a heavily armed secutor. The net-fighter made up for his lack of protective gear by using his speed and agility to avoid his opponent's attacks and waiting for the opportunity to strike. He first tried to throw his net over his rival. If this succeeded, he attacked with his trident while his adversary was entangled. Another tactic was to ensnare his enemy's weapon in the net and pull it out of his grasp, leaving the opponent defenceless. Should the net miss or the secutor grab hold of it, the retiarius likely discarded the weapon, although he might try to collect it back for a second cast. Usually, the retiarius had to rely on his trident and dagger to finish the fight. The trident, as tall as a human being, permitted the gladiator to jab quickly, keep his distance, and easily cause bleeding. It was not a strong weapon, usually inflicting non-fatal wounds so that the fight could be prolonged for the sake of entertainment. The dagger was the retiarius's final backup should the trident be lost. It was reserved for when close combat or a straight wrestling match had to settle the bout. In some battles, a single retiarius faced two secutores simultaneously. For these situations, the lightly armoured gladiator was placed on a raised platform and given a supply of stones with which to repel his pursuers. (Full article...)
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  Stained glass window in St John's Chester

  
  Æthelred (/ˈæθəlrɛd/; died after 704) was king of Mercia from 675 until 704. He was the son of Penda of Mercia and came to the throne in 675, when his brother, Wulfhere of Mercia, died from an illness. Within a year of his accession he invaded Kent, where his armies destroyed the city of Rochester. In 679 he defeated his brother-in-law, Ecgfrith of Northumbria, at the Battle of the Trent: the battle was a major setback for the Northumbrians, and effectively ended their military involvement in English affairs south of the Humber. It also permanently returned the Kingdom of Lindsey to Mercia's possession. However, Æthelred was unable to re-establish his predecessors' domination of southern Britain.
  
  He was known as a pious and devout Christian king, and he made many grants of land to the church. It was during his reign that Theodore, the Archbishop of Canterbury, reorganized the church's diocesan structure, creating several new sees in Mercia and Northumbria. Æthelred befriended Bishop Wilfrid of York when Wilfrid was expelled from his see in Northumbria; Æthelred made Wilfrid Bishop of the Middle Angles during his exile and supported him at the synod of Austerfield in about 702, when Wilfrid argued his case for the return of the ecclesiastical lands he had been deprived of in Northumbria. (Full article...)
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  The 4th Missouri Infantry Regiment was formed on April 28, 1862, and served in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. The infantry regiment did not see action at the Battle of Farmington on May 9, and the Battle of Iuka on September 19 despite being part of the Confederate force present at those battles. As part of Brigadier General Martin E. Green's brigade, the regiment participated in three charges against Union lines on October 3, 1862, during the Second Battle of Corinth. The following day, the regiment, along with the rest of Green's brigade, attacked the new Union lines. Despite initial success, the attack was repulsed by a Union counterattack. The regiment ceased to exist as a separate unit when it was combined with the 1st Missouri Infantry Regiment on November 7, 1862, to form the 1st and 4th Missouri Infantry Regiment (Consolidated).
  
  The combined unit served in the Vicksburg campaign in 1863, before surrendering at the end of the siege of Vicksburg. After undergoing a prisoner exchange, the men rejoined the Confederate Army and served in the Atlanta Campaign and the Battle of Franklin in 1864, still as part of the 1st and 4th Missouri Infantry Regiment (Consolidated). On May 9, 1865, near the end of the war, the consolidated regiment surrendered during the Battle of Fort Blakely, ending the unit's existence. The 4th Missouri Infantry's battle flag is displayed at the American Civil War Museum. (Full article...)
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  The western Mediterranean in 218 BC

  
  The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of three wars fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy, primarily in Italy and Iberia, but also on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and, towards the end of the war, in North Africa. After immense materiel and human losses on both sides, the Carthaginians were once again defeated. Macedonia, Syracuse and several Numidian kingdoms were drawn into the fighting, and Iberian and Gallic forces fought on both sides. There were three main military theatres during the war: Italy, where Hannibal defeated the Roman legions repeatedly, with occasional subsidiary campaigns in Sicily, Sardinia and Greece; Iberia, where Hasdrubal, a younger brother of Hannibal, defended the Carthaginian colonial cities with mixed success before moving into Italy; and Africa, where Rome finally won the war.
  
  The First Punic War had ended in a Roman victory in 241 BC after 23 years and enormous losses on both sides. After the war Carthage expanded its holdings in Iberia where in 219 BC a Carthaginian army under Hannibal besieged, captured and sacked the pro-Roman city of Saguntum. In early 218 BC Rome declared war on Carthage, beginning the Second Punic War. Later that year, Hannibal surprised the Romans by marching his army overland from Iberia, through Gaul and over the Alps to Cisalpine Gaul (modern northern Italy). Reinforced by Gallic allies he obtained crushing victories over the Romans at the battles of Trebia (218) and Lake Trasimene (217). Moving to southern Italy in 216 Hannibal defeated the Romans again at the battle of Cannae, where he annihilated the largest army the Romans had ever assembled. After the death or capture of more than 120,000 Roman troops in less than three years, many of Rome's Italian allies, notably Capua, defected to Carthage, giving Hannibal control over much of southern Italy. As Syracuse and Macedonia joined the Carthaginian side after Cannae, the conflict spread. Between 215 and 210 BC the Carthaginians attempted to capture Roman-held Sicily and Sardinia, but were unsuccessful. The Romans took drastic steps to raise new legions: enrolling slaves, criminals and those who did not meet the usual property qualification; this vastly increased the number of men they had under arms. For the next decade the war in southern Italy continued, with Roman armies slowly recapturing most of the Italian cities that had joined Carthage. (Full article...)
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  USS New Ironsides under steam and sail

  
  USS New Ironsides was a wooden-hulled broadside ironclad built for the United States Navy during the American Civil War. The ship spent most of her career blockading the Confederate ports of Charleston, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1863–65. New Ironsides bombarded the fortifications defending Charleston in 1863 during the First and Second Battles of Charleston Harbor. At the end of 1864 and the beginning of 1865 she bombarded the defenses of Wilmington in the First and Second Battles of Fort Fisher.
  
  Although she was struck many times by Confederate shells, gunfire never significantly damaged the ship or injured the crew. Her only casualty in combat occurred when she was struck by a spar torpedo carried by the CSS David. Eight crewmen were awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions during the Second Battle of Fort Fisher in 1865. The ship was destroyed by fire in 1865 after she was placed in reserve. (Full article...)
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  The Berlin Cleopatra, a Roman sculpture of Cleopatra wearing a royal diadem, mid-1st century BC, now in the Altes Museum, Germany

  
  Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (Koinē Greek: Κλεοπάτρα Θεά Φιλοπάτωρ lit. 'Cleopatra father-loving goddess'; 70/69 BC – 10 August 30 BC) was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and its last active ruler. A member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, she was a descendant of its founder Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great. Her first language was Koine Greek, and she is the only Ptolemaic ruler known to have learned the Egyptian language. After her death, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, marking the end of the last Hellenistic-period state in the Mediterranean, a period which had lasted since the reign of Alexander (336–323 BC).
  
  In 58 BC, Cleopatra presumably accompanied her father, Ptolemy XII Auletes, during his exile to Rome after a revolt in Egypt (a Roman client state) allowed his daughter and rival, Berenice IV, to claim his throne. Berenice was killed in 55 BC when Ptolemy returned to Egypt with Roman military assistance. When he died in 51 BC, Cleopatra began reigning alongside her brother Ptolemy XIII, but a falling-out between them led to an open civil war. Roman statesman Pompey fled to Egypt after losing the 48 BC Battle of Pharsalus in Greece against his rival Julius Caesar (a Roman dictator and consul) in Caesar's civil war. Pompey had been a political ally of Ptolemy XII, but Ptolemy XIII, at the urging of his court eunuchs, had Pompey ambushed and killed before Caesar arrived and occupied Alexandria. Caesar then attempted to reconcile the rival Ptolemaic siblings, but Ptolemy's chief adviser, Potheinos, viewed Caesar's terms as favoring Cleopatra, so his forces besieged her and Caesar at the palace. Shortly after the siege was lifted by reinforcements, Ptolemy XIII died in the Battle of the Nile; Cleopatra's half-sister Arsinoe IV was eventually exiled to Ephesus for her role in carrying out the siege. Caesar declared Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIV joint rulers but maintained a private affair with Cleopatra that produced a son, Caesarion. Cleopatra traveled to Rome as a client queen in 46 and 44 BC, where she stayed at Caesar's villa. After Caesar's assassination, followed shortly afterwards by that of Ptolemy XIV (on Cleopatra's orders), she named Caesarion co-ruler as Ptolemy XV. (Full article...)
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  L 20e α was a design for a class of battleships to be built in 1918 for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) during World War I. Design work on the class of battleship to succeed the Bayern-class battleships began in 1914, but the outbreak of World War I in July 1914 led to these plans being shelved. Work resumed in early 1916 and lessons from the Battle of Jutland, fought later that year, were incorporated into the design. Reinhard Scheer, the commander of the fleet, wanted larger main guns and a higher top speed than earlier vessels, to combat the latest ships in the British Royal Navy. A variety of proposals were submitted, with armament ranging from the same eight 38 cm (15 in) guns of the Bayern class to eight 42 cm (16.5 in) guns.
  
  Work on the design was completed by September 1918, but by then there was no chance for them to be built. Germany's declining war situation and the reallocation of resources to support the U-boat campaign meant the ships would never be built. The ships would have been significantly larger than the preceding Bayern-class battleships, at 238 m (780 ft 10 in) long, compared to 180 m (590 ft 7 in) for the preceding ships. The L 20e α class would have been significantly faster, with a top speed of 26 knots (48 km/h; 30 mph), compared to the 21-knot (39 km/h; 24 mph) maximum of the Bayerns and would have been the first German warships to have mounted guns larger than 38 cm. (Full article...)
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  Illustration of Esmeralda by Norman Davis for the Illustrated London News, 1891

  
  The Chilean cruiser Esmeralda was the first protected cruiser, a ship type named for the arched armored deck that protected vital areas like propulsion machinery and ammunition magazines.
  
  The British shipbuilder Armstrong Mitchell constructed Esmeralda in the early 1880s, and the company's founder hailed the new ship as "the swiftest and most powerfully armed cruiser in the world". After it entered service, the Chileans deployed Esmeralda to Panama in 1885 to show the flag during an emerging crisis in the region. The cruiser was later used to support the Congressionalist cause during the 1891 Chilean Civil War. (Full article...)
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  Brigadier Garrett, February 1944

  
  Lieutenant General Sir Alwyn Ragnar Garrett, KBE, CB (12 February 1900 – 4 November 1977) was a senior commander in the Australian Army. He served as Chief of the General Staff (CGS) from 1958 to 1960.
  
  Born in Western Australia, Garrett graduated from the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1921. He was adjutant and quartermaster in several regiments of the Australian Light Horse before undertaking staff training in England, which he completed just as the Second World War broke out. Garrett joined the Second Australian Imperial Force soon afterwards, and commanded the 2/31st Battalion in England before seeing action with Australian brigades in Greece and Crete in 1941. Promoted to colonel the following year, he held senior positions with I Corps in New Guinea and II Corps on Bougainville in 1944–1945. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his staff work. (Full article...)
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  Composite image of Isis's most distinctive Egyptian iconography, based partly on images from the tomb of Nefertari

  
  Isis was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingdom (c. 2686 – c. 2181 BCE) as one of the main characters of the Osiris myth, in which she resurrects her slain brother and husband, the divine king Osiris, and produces and protects his heir, Horus. She was believed to help the dead enter the afterlife as she had helped Osiris, and she was considered the divine mother of the pharaoh, who was likened to Horus. Her maternal aid was invoked in healing spells to benefit ordinary people. Originally, she played a limited role in royal rituals and temple rites, although she was more prominent in funerary practices and magical texts. She was usually portrayed in art as a human woman wearing a throne-like hieroglyph on her head. During the New Kingdom (c. 1550 – c. 1070 BCE), as she took on traits that originally belonged to Hathor, the preeminent goddess of earlier times, Isis was portrayed wearing Hathor's headdress: a sun disk between the horns of a cow.
  
  In the first millennium BCE, Osiris and Isis became the most widely worshipped Egyptian deities, and Isis absorbed traits from many other goddesses. Rulers in Egypt and its southern neighbor Nubia built temples dedicated primarily to Isis, and her temple at Philae was a religious center for Egyptians and Nubians alike. Her reputed magical power was greater than that of all other gods, and she was said to govern the natural world and wield power over fate itself. (Full article...)
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  B Reactor and water treatment area in 1944

  
  
  The Hanford Engineer Works (HEW) was a nuclear production complex in Benton County, Washington, established by the United States federal government in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II. It built and operated the B Reactor, the first full-scale plutonium production reactor. Plutonium manufactured at the HEW was used in the atomic bomb detonated in the Trinity test in July 1945, and in the Fat Man bomb used in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in August 1945. The plant continued producing plutonium for nuclear weapons until 1971. The HEW was commanded by Colonel Franklin T. Matthias until January 1946, and then by Colonel Frederick J. Clarke.
  
  The director of the Manhattan Project, Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves Jr., engaged DuPont as the prime contractor for the design, construction and operation of the HEW. DuPont recommended that it be located far from densely populated areas, and a site on the Columbia River, codenamed Site W, was chosen. The federal government acquired the land under its war powers authority and relocated some 1,500 nearby residents. The acquisition was one of the largest in US history. Disputes arose with farmers over the value of the land and compensation for crops that had already been planted. The acquisition was not completed before the Manhattan Project ended in December 1946. (Full article...)
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  Divizijski đeneral Dušan Trifunović commanded the Yugoslav 7th Army during the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia

  
  The 7th Army was a Royal Yugoslav Army formation raised prior to the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, during World War II. It consisted of two divisions, two brigade-strength mountain detachments, and a brigade-strength infantry detachment. It formed part of the 1st Army Group, and was responsible for the defence of Yugoslavia's north-western frontier with Italy and Germany. Like all Yugoslav formations at the time, the 7th Army had serious deficiencies in both mobility and firepower.
  
  Despite concerns over a possible Axis invasion, orders for the general mobilisation of the Royal Yugoslav Army were not issued by the government until 3 April 1941, not to provoke Germany any further following the military coup d'état and precipitate war. When the invasion commenced on 6 April, the 7th Army was only partially mobilised, and on the first day the Germans seized several mountain passes and bridges over the Drava river. Slovene politicians formed a National Council of Slovenia with the intent of separating from Yugoslavia, and on the right flank of the 7th Army, the 4th Army was seriously weakened by Croat fifth column activities within its major units and higher headquarters from the outset. This alarmed the 7th Army commander, Divizijski đeneral Dušan Trifunović, but he was not permitted to withdraw from the border areas until the night of 7/8 April, and this was followed by the German capture of Maribor on 8 April as they continued to expand their bridgeheads, supported by the Luftwaffe. (Full article...)

Featured picture

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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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  Vegetable Lamb of Tartary

  Artist: Unknown, after Johann Zahn

  A 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.
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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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  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.
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  Nefertiti Bust

  Photo: Philip Pikart

  The Nefertiti Bust is a 3300-year-old painted limestone bust of Nefertiti, the Great Royal Wife of the Pharaoh Akhenaten and one of the most copied works of Ancient Egypt. It is believed to have been crafted in 1345 BC by the sculptor Thutmose, in whose workshop it was discovered in 1912 by a German archaeological team led by Ludwig Borchardt. It is part of the Egyptian Museum of Berlin collection, currently on display in the Neues Museum and has been the subject of an intense argument between Egypt and Germany over the Egyptian demands for its repatriation.
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  Invasion of Normandy

  Photo credit: United States Coast Guard

  Landing ships putting ashore on Omaha Beach at low tide during the first days of the Invasion of Normandy, mid-June, 1944. Barrage balloons fly overhead and U.S. Army "half-tracks" form a convoy on the beach. The Normandy landing was the largest seaborne invasion in history, with almost three million troops crossing the English Channel.
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  Māori traditional textiles

  Illustration credit: M. Jackson, Illustrated London News

  The traditional clothing of the Māori can be seen in this engraving of a meeting between Māori and settlers in Hawke's Bay Province during the Invasion of Waikato in 1863. Muka, the fibre of New Zealand flax, was the basis of most clothing.
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  Kamianets-Podilskyi

  Map credit: Nicolas de Fer

  A 1691 French map of Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukraine, depicting the city's old town neighborhood and castle, surrounded by the winding Smotrych River. It was originally part of Kievan Rus' and annexed into the First Polish Republic, but at the time of the map's creation, the city was part of the Ottoman Empire. It shortly returned to Poland and later became part of the Russian Empire with the Second Partition of Poland in 1793.
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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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  The Coronation of Napoleon

  Painting by Jacques-Louis David and Georges Rouget

  The Coronation of Napoleon, a painting by Jacques-Louis David depicting Napoleon Bonaparte's self-coronation as Emperor of France on December 2, 1804. The act took place in Notre-Dame de Paris, during which Napoleon, eschewing tradition, took the crown and placed it on his own head. The nearly 10 by 6 m (32.8 by 19.7 ft) work was commissioned before the coronation and completed in 1807.
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  1906 San Francisco earthquake

  Photo credit: H. D. Chadwick

  The Mission District of San Francisco, California, burning in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. As damaging as the earthquake and its aftershocks were, the fires that burned out of control afterward were much more destructive.
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  History of the Australian Army

  Artist: Norman Lindsay

  "The Trumpet Calls", a recruitment poster for the Australian Army in World War I. When the United Kingdom declared war on Germany, Australia followed without hesitation. This was considered to be expected by the Australian public, because of the very large number of British-born citizens and first generation Anglo-Australians at the time. A total of 331,814 Australians were sent overseas to serve as part of the Australian Imperial Force with a casualty rate (killed or wounded) of 64%.
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  Events in ballooning

  Chromolithograph: Romanet & cie.

  A 19th-century set of ten cards depicting events in the history of ballooning and parachuting. These cards depict, from left to right:
  
  Top row:
  

  1. Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Jean-Baptiste Biot reaching an altitude of 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) (1804)
  2. André-Jacques Garnerin making a parachute descent in his gondola (1797)
  3. Louis-Sébastien Lenormand making the first witnessed parachute descent (1783)
  4. A series of fantastic flying machines dreamed up during the 18th century
  5. Use of balloons for reconnaissance during the Battle of Mainz (1795)

  
  Bottom row:
  

  1. The coronation balloon of Napoleon I (1804)
  2. The death of Sophie Blanchard (1819)
  3. Francesco Zambeccari and two companions adrift in the Adriatic Sea (1804)
  4. The death of Thomas Harris (1824)
  5. Francesco Arban is rescued by Italian fishermen (1846)

  
  
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  Map of the Battle of the Somme

  Map: Grandiose

  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.
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  Second Battle of Gaza

  Photo: American Colony, Jerusalem
  Restoration: Lise Broer/Fir0002

  Ottoman machine gun corps, before the Second Battle of Gaza, which took place on 19 April 1917. The First Battle of Gaza, just three weeks prior, had ended in defeat for the British Empire, and this second attempt to break through Turkish defenses was also unsuccessful. Six months later, on the third attempt, the Allied forces were finally able to break the Gaza–Beersheba line.
• 
  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.
• 
  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.
• 
  Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler

  Photo credit: Eva Braun

  The two European Axis leaders during World War II, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, riding in an automobile, circa June 1940. This photo was found in Eva Braun's personal photo albums and is credited to her, though whether she was the true photographer is unknown.

Did you know (auto generated)

• ... that Dean Faithfull was the oldest player in NCAA Division II football history?
• ... that Voyager 2 has been transmitting data for more than 46 years, making it the oldest active space probe in history?
• ... that the legal battle over awarding channel 9 in Orlando, Florida, the longest case in FCC history at the time, filled 55 volumes?
• ... that the Chinese government began compiling an official history of the Qing dynasty in 2002, but as of 2023 a protracted political review is forestalling its publication?
• ... that the Lord Chamberlain's plays are a historical archive of play scripts curated through theatrical censorship that provide a unique insight into attitudes to race and sexuality?
• ... that the Blemyomachia is an epic poem describing a historical clash between the Roman Empire and the Blemmyes in the Nile valley?

Featured biography –

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

---

Mandela in October 1994

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (/mænˈdɛlə/ man-DEH-lə; Xhosa: [xolíɬaɬa mandɛ̂ːla]; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997.

A Xhosa, Mandela was born into the Thembu royal family in Mvezo, South Africa. He studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There he became involved in anti-colonial and African nationalist politics, joining the ANC in 1943 and co-founding its Youth League in 1944. After the National Party's white-only government established apartheid, a system of racial segregation that privileged whites, Mandela and the ANC committed themselves to its overthrow. He was appointed president of the ANC's Transvaal branch, rising to prominence for his involvement in the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the 1955 Congress of the People. He was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities and was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the 1956 Treason Trial. Influenced by Marxism, he secretly joined the banned South African Communist Party (SACP). Although initially committed to non-violent protest, in association with the SACP he co-founded the militant uMkhonto we Sizwe in 1961 that led a sabotage campaign against the apartheid government. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1962, and, following the Rivonia Trial, was sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiring to overthrow the state. (Full article...)

On this day

October 30: Mischief Night

Monument to the Gozo luzzu disaster

• 1938 – CBS Radio broadcast the radio drama The War of the Worlds, causing panic among some listeners who believed that an actual Martian invasion was in progress.
• 1948 – A luzzu (Maltese fishing boat) overloaded with passengers capsized and sank in the Gozo Channel off Qala, killing 23 of the 27 people on board (monument pictured).
• 1991 – The Madrid Conference, an attempt by the international community to revive the Israeli–Palestinian peace process through negotiations, convened.
• 1993 – The Troubles: Three members of the Ulster Defence Association opened fire in a crowded pub during a Halloween party, killing eight people and wounding nineteen others.
• 2002 – After his terminal-cancer diagnosis, Warren Zevon made his last public appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, giving the advice to "enjoy every sandwich".

• Miloš Trifunović (b. 1871)
• Dave Gallaher (b. 1873)
• Gustav Ludwig Hertz (d. 1975)
• Jam Master Jay (d. 2002)

More anniversaries:

• October 29
• October 30
• October 31

Selected quote

"Strike an enemy once and for all. Let him cease to exist as a tribe or he will live to fly in your throat again".

— Shaka, 19th century Zulu king

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More Did you know...

• ... that, when Ghenadie Petrescu (pictured) was ousted from his post of Metropolitan-Primate, Romania experienced protests and riots?
• ... that the British destroyer HMS Highlander escorted Convoy SC 122 through the largest convoy battle of World War II in March 1943 and was unsuccessfully attacked by U-441 and U-608?
• ... that in 1911, John Gaunt's second biplane nearly crashed because a bystander bent the aircraft's elevator before a flight?
• ... that Themistokli Gërmenji, an Albanian nationalist, received the French Croix de Guerre in November 1917, but was executed shortly thereafter by a French military court?
• ... that fish-knives inscribed with Elokeshi's name were sold after her husband decapitated her with a fish-knife following her adulterous affair with a Hindu head-priest?
• ... that the ancient Roman dancer Galeria Copiola reached the age of 104?
• ... that to escape burning at the 1393 Bal des Ardents Charles VI of France huddled under the gown of the Duchesse de Berry, while a lord leaped into a wine vat?
• ... that a junior officer on the USS Ancon refused King George VI entry to the ship's intelligence centre because no one told him the King "was a Bigot"?

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