Portal:History

The History Portal

History by Frederick Dielman

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 analyse 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 artefacts, 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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  Official portrait, 1972

  
  Spiro Theodore Agnew (/ˈspɪəroʊ ˈæɡnjuː/; November 9, 1918 – September 17, 1996) was the 39th vice president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1973. He is the second of two vice presidents to resign, the first being John C. Calhoun in 1832.
  
  Agnew was born in Baltimore to a Greek immigrant father and an American mother. He attended Johns Hopkins University and graduated from the University of Baltimore School of Law. He was a campaign aide for U.S. Representative James Devereux in the 1950s, and was appointed to the Baltimore County Board of Zoning Appeals in 1957. In 1962, he was elected Baltimore county executive. In 1966, Agnew was elected governor of Maryland, defeating his Democratic opponent George P. Mahoney and independent candidate Hyman A. Pressman. (Full article...)
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  Captain William Hardham, April 1916

  
  William James Hardham, VC (31 July 1876 – 13 April 1928) was a New Zealand soldier who was a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry "in the face of the enemy" that could be awarded at the time to military personnel of the British Empire.
  
  Born in Wellington, Hardham was a blacksmith and part-time soldier in the local militia when he volunteered to serve with the New Zealand Military Forces in the Second Boer War. Posted to the 4th Contingent in 1900, he was on a patrol in the South African Transvaal when it was ambushed. He rode his horse to the rescue of a wounded soldier while under heavy fire and for this he was awarded the Victoria Cross. Discharged from the New Zealand Military Forces in 1901, he rejoined for another period of service in the Second Boer War but was only briefly in South Africa before being sent to England for the coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. (Full article...)
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  A Slovak propaganda poster exhorts readers not to "be a servant to the Jew".

  
  The Holocaust in Slovakia was the systematic dispossession, deportation, and murder of Jews in the Slovak Republic, a client state of Nazi Germany, during World War II. Out of 89,000 Jews in the country in 1940, an estimated 69,000 were murdered in the Holocaust.
  
  After the September 1938 Munich Agreement, Slovakia unilaterally declared its autonomy within Czechoslovakia, but lost significant territory to Hungary in the First Vienna Award, signed in November. The following year, with German encouragement, the ruling ethnonationalist Slovak People's Party declared independence from Czechoslovakia. The Slovak government blamed the Jews for the territorial losses. Jews were targeted for discrimination and harassment, including the confiscation of their property and businesses. The exclusion of Jews from the economy impoverished the community, which encouraged the government to conscript them for forced labor. On 9 September 1941, the government passed the Jewish Code, which it claimed to be the strictest anti-Jewish law in Europe. (Full article...)
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  Ove Jørgensen (Danish pronunciation: [ˈoːvə ˈjœˀnsən]; 5 September 1877 – 31 October 1950) was a Danish scholar of classics, literature and ballet. He formulated Jørgensen's law, which describes the narrative conventions used in Homeric poetry when relating the actions of the gods.
  
  The son of Sophus Mads Jørgensen, a professor of chemistry, Jørgensen was born and lived for most of his life in Copenhagen. He was educated at the prestigious Metropolitanskolen and at the University of Copenhagen, where he began his study of the Homeric poems. In 1904, following academic travels to Berlin, Athens, Italy and Constantinople, he published "The Appearances of the Gods in Books 9–12 of the Odyssey", an article in which he outlined the distinctions in the poem between how the actions of deities are described by mortal characters and by the narrator and gods. The principles he set out became known as "Jørgensen's law". (Full article...)
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  The Second War of Scottish Independence broke out in 1332, when Edward Balliol led an English-backed invasion of Scotland. Balliol, the son of former Scottish king John Balliol, was attempting to make good his claim to the Scottish throne. He was opposed by Scots loyal to the occupant of the throne, eight-year-old David II. At the Battle of Dupplin Moor Balliol's force defeated a Scottish army ten times their size and Balliol was crowned king. Within three months David's partisans had regrouped and forced Balliol out of Scotland. He appealed to the English king, Edward III, who invaded Scotland in 1333 and besieged the important trading town of Berwick. A large Scottish army attempted to relieve it but was heavily defeated at the Battle of Halidon Hill. Balliol established his authority over most of Scotland, ceded to England the eight counties of south-east Scotland and did homage to Edward for the rest of the country as a fief.
  
  As allies of Scotland via the Auld Alliance, the French were unhappy about an English expansion into Scotland and so covertly supported and financed David's loyalists. Balliol's allies fell out among themselves and he lost control of most of Scotland again by late 1334. In early 1335, the French attempted to broker a peace. However, the Scots were unable to agree on a position and Edward prevaricated while building a large army. He invaded in July and again overran most of Scotland. Tensions with France increased. Further French-sponsored peace talks failed in 1336; in May 1337, King Philip VI of France engineered a clear break between France and England, starting the Hundred Years' War. The Anglo-Scottish war became a subsidiary theatre of this larger Anglo-French war. Edward sent what troops he could spare to Scotland, in spite of which the English slowly lost ground in Scotland as they were forced to focus on the French theatre. Achieving his majority, David returned to Scotland from France in 1341; by 1342, the English had been cleared from north of the border. (Full article...)
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  Tatsuguchi soon after his induction into the Imperial Japanese Army in 1941 and his initial assignment to the First Imperial Guard Regiment in Tokyo

  Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi (辰口 信夫, Tatsuguchi Nobuo), sometimes mistakenly referred to as Nebu Tatsuguchi (August 31, 1911 – May 30, 1943), was a Japanese soldier and surgeon who served in the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II. He was killed during the Battle of Attu on Attu Island, Alaska, United States, on May 30, 1943.
  
  A devout Seventh-day Adventist, Tatsuguchi studied medicine and was licensed as a physician in the United States (US). He returned to his native Japan to practice medicine at the Tokyo Adventist Sanitarium, where he received further medical training. In 1941, he was ordered to cease his medical practice and conscripted into the IJA as an acting medical officer, although he was given an enlisted rather than officer rank because of his American connections. In late 1942, Tatsuguchi was sent to Attu, which had been occupied by Japanese forces in June 1942. On May 11, 1943, The United States Army landed on the island, intending to retake American soil from the Japanese. (Full article...)
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  Ruins of St Oswald's Priory, Gloucester, where Æthelred and Æthelflæd were buried

  
  Æthelred (died 911) became Lord of the Mercians in England shortly after the death or disappearance of Mercia's last king, Ceolwulf II, in 879. He is also sometimes called the Ealdorman of Mercia. Æthelred's rule was confined to the western half, as eastern Mercia was then part of the Viking-ruled Danelaw. His ancestry is unknown. He was probably the leader of an unsuccessful Mercian invasion of Wales in 881, and soon afterwards he acknowledged the lordship of King Alfred the Great of Wessex. This alliance was cemented by the marriage of Æthelred to Alfred's daughter Æthelflæd.
  
  In 886, Alfred took possession of London, which had suffered greatly from several Viking occupations. Alfred then handed London over to Æthelred, as it had traditionally been a Mercian town. In 892, the Vikings renewed their attacks, and the following year, Æthelred led an army of Mercians, West Saxons and Welsh to victory over a Viking army at the Battle of Buttington. He spent the next three years fighting them alongside Alfred's son, the future King Edward the Elder. At some time after 899 Æthelred's health may have declined, and Æthelflæd may have become the effective ruler of Mercia. (Full article...)
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  Sir Hector MacLean's charge at Inverkeithing (1873 illustration)

  
  The Battle of Inverkeithing was fought on 20 July 1651 between an English army under John Lambert and a Scottish army led by James Holborne as part of an English invasion of Scotland. The battle was fought near the isthmus of the Ferry Peninsula, to the south of Inverkeithing, after which it is named.
  
  An English Parliamentary regime had tried, convicted, and executed Charles I, who was king of both Scotland and England in a personal union, in January 1649. The Scots recognised his son, also named Charles, as king of Britain and set about recruiting an army. An English army, under Oliver Cromwell, invaded Scotland in July 1650. The Scottish army, commanded by David Leslie, refused battle until 3 September when it was heavily defeated at the Battle of Dunbar. The English occupied Edinburgh and the Scots withdrew to the choke point of Stirling. For nearly a year all attempts to storm or bypass Stirling, or to draw the Scots out into another battle, failed. On 17 July 1651 1,600 English soldiers crossed the Firth of Forth at its narrowest point in specially constructed flat-bottomed boats and landed at North Queensferry on the Ferry Peninsula. The Scots sent forces to pen the English in and the English reinforced their landing. On 20 July the Scots moved against the English and in a short engagement were routed. (Full article...)
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  Portrait by Thomas Hudson, 1744

  
  George II (George Augustus; German: Georg August; 30 October / 9 November 1683 – 25 October 1760) was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) and a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 (O.S.) until his death in 1760.
  
  Born and brought up in northern Germany, George is the most recent British monarch born outside Great Britain. The Act of Settlement 1701 and the Acts of Union 1707 positioned his grandmother Sophia of Hanover and her Protestant descendants to inherit the British throne. George married Princess Caroline of Ansbach, with whom he had eight children. After the deaths of George's grandmother and Anne, Queen of Great Britain, George's father, the Elector of Hanover, ascended the British throne as George I in 1714. In the first years of his father's reign as king, Prince George was associated with opposition politicians until they rejoined the governing party. (Full article...)
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  Official RAAF portrait of Sir Colin Hannah

  
  Air Marshal Sir Colin Thomas Hannah, KCMG, KCVO, KBE, CB (22 December 1914 – 22 May 1978) was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and a Governor of Queensland. Born in Western Australia, he was a member of the Militia before joining the RAAF in 1935. After graduating as a pilot, Hannah served in Nos. 22 and 23 Squadrons from 1936 to 1939. During the early years of World War II, he was the RAAF's Deputy Director of Armament. He then saw action in the South West Pacific as commander of No. 6 Squadron and, later, No. 71 Wing, operating Bristol Beaufort bombers. By 1944, he had risen to the rank of group captain, and at the end of the war was in charge of Western Area Command in Perth.
  
  Hannah commanded RAAF Station Amberley, Queensland, in 1949–50, and saw service during the Malayan Emergency as senior air staff officer at RAF Far East Air Force Headquarters, Singapore, from 1956 to 1959. His other post-war appointments included Deputy Chief of the Air Staff from 1961 to 1965, Air Officer Commanding (AOC) Operational Command from 1965 to 1967, and AOC Support Command from 1968 to 1969. In January 1970, he was promoted to air marshal and became Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), the RAAF's senior position. Knighted in 1971, Hannah concluded his three-year appointment as CAS a year early, in March 1972, to become Governor of Queensland. He attracted controversy in this role after making comments critical of the Federal government of the day, and the British government refused to agree to his term being extended. Hannah retired in March 1977, and died the following year. (Full article...)
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  A diagram of the M256 gun

  
  The Rheinmetall Rh-120 is a 120 mm smoothbore tank gun designed and produced in former West Germany by the Rheinmetall Waffe Munition GmbH company. It was developed in response to Soviet advances in armour technology and development of new armoured threats. Production began in 1974, with the first version of the gun, known as the L/44 as it was 44 calibres long, used on the German Leopard 2 tank and soon produced under license for the American M1A1 Abrams and other tanks. The 120-millimetre (4.7 in) L/44 gun has a length of 5.28 metres (17.3 ft), and the gun system weighs approximately 3,317 kilograms (7,313 lb).
  
  By 1990, the L/44 was not considered powerful enough to defeat future Soviet armour, which stimulated an effort by Rheinmetall to develop a better main armament. This first involved a 140-millimeter (5.5 in) tank gun named Neue Panzerkanone 140 ('new tank gun 140'), but later turned into a compromise which led to the development of an advanced 120 mm gun, the L/55, based on the same internal geometry as the L/44 and installed in the same breech and mount. The L/55 is 1.32 metres (4.3 ft) longer, generating increased muzzle velocity for rounds fired through it. As the L/55 retains the same barrel geometry, it can fire the same ammunition as the L/44. (Full article...)
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  A Hawker Hurricane Mk IV of No. 351 Squadron RAF at the Museum of Aviation in Belgrade

  
  In late 1937, the Royal Yugoslav Air Force (Serbo-Croatian Latin: Vazduhoplovstvo Vojske Kraljevine Jugoslavije, VVKJ) placed an order with Hawker Aircraft for twelve Hawker Hurricane Mk I fighters, the first foreign purchase of the aircraft. The VVKJ operated the British Hawker Hurricane Mk I from 1938 to 1941. Between 1938 and 1940, the VVKJ obtained 24 Hurricane Mk Is from early production batches, marking the first foreign sale of the aircraft. Twenty additional aircraft were built by Zmaj under licence in Yugoslavia. When the country was drawn into World War II by the German-led Axis invasion of April 1941, a total of 41 Hurricane Mk I's were in service as fighters. They achieved some successes against Luftwaffe aircraft, but all Yugoslav Hurricanes were destroyed or captured during the 11-day invasion.
  
  In mid-1944, the Yugoslav Partisans formed two Royal Air Force squadrons, Nos. 351 and 352, which both operated Hurricane fighter-bombers. No. 351 Squadron flew Hurricane Mk IICs during training and was later equipped with Hurricane Mk IVs, and No. 352 briefly flew Hurricane Mk IICs during training before re-equipping with Supermarine Spitfire Mk Vs. Both squadrons operated as part of No. 281 Wing RAF of the Balkan Air Force, conducting ground attack missions in support of Partisan operations until the end of the war. Hurricanes remained in service with the post-war Yugoslav Air Force until the early 1950s. (Full article...)
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  Air Marshal Sir James Anthony Rowland, AC, KBE, DFC, AFC (1 November 1922 – 27 May 1999) was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), serving as Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) from 1975 to 1979. He held office as Governor of New South Wales from 1981 to 1989, and was Chancellor of the University of Sydney from 1990 to 1991.
  
  Born in rural New South Wales, Rowland cut short his aeronautical engineering studies at the University of Sydney to join the RAAF in 1942. He was posted to Britain and served as a bomber pilot with the Pathfinders in the air war over Europe, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1944. The following year he was forced to bail out over Germany following a collision with another Allied aircraft, and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner. (Full article...)
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  AHS Centaur following her conversion to a hospital ship. The Red Cross designation "47" can be seen on the bow.

  
  Australian Hospital Ship (AHS) Centaur was a hospital ship which was attacked and sunk by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Queensland, Australia, on 14 May 1943. Of the 332 medical personnel and civilian crew aboard, 268 died, including 63 of the 65 army personnel.
  
  The Scottish-built vessel was launched in 1924 as a combination passenger liner and refrigerated cargo ship and operated a trade route between Western Australia and Singapore via the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), carrying passengers, cargo, and livestock. At the start of World War II, Centaur (like all British Merchant Navy vessels) was placed under British Admiralty control, but after being fitted with defensive equipment, was allowed to continue normal operations. In November 1941, the ship rescued German survivors of the engagement between Kormoran and HMAS Sydney. Centaur was relocated to Australia's east coast in October 1942, and used to transport materiel to New Guinea. (Full article...)
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  Augustus of Prima Porta, 1st century

  
  Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (Latin: Octavianus), was the founder of the Roman Empire. He reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. The reign of Augustus initiated an imperial cult, as well as an era of imperial peace (the Pax Romana or Pax Augusta) in which the Roman world was largely free of armed conflict. The Principate system of government was established during his reign and lasted until the Crisis of the Third Century.
  
  Octavian was born into an equestrian branch of the plebeian gens Octavia. His maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, and Octavian was named in Caesar's will as his adopted son and heir; as a result, he inherited Caesar's name, estate, and the loyalty of his legions. He, Mark Antony, and Marcus Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate to defeat the assassins of Caesar. Following their victory at the Battle of Philippi (42 BC), the Triumvirate divided the Roman Republic among themselves and ruled as de facto dictators. The Triumvirate was eventually torn apart by the competing ambitions of its members; Lepidus was exiled in 36 BC, and Antony was defeated by Octavian at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. Antony and his wife Cleopatra, the Ptolemaic queen of Egypt, killed themselves during Octavian's invasion of Egypt, which then became a Roman province. (Full article...)

Featured picture

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  Jean-Paul Marat

  Credit: anonymous

  A 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.
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  Poison gas in World War I

  Photo credit: Frank Hurley

  A 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.
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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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  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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  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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  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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  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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  Great Sphinx of Giza

  Photo: Maison Bonfils; Restoration: Lise Broer

  A late nineteenth century photo of the partially excavated Great Sphinx of Giza, with the Pyramid of Khafre (left) and the Great Pyramid of Giza (right) behind it. The Sphinx is the oldest known monumental sculpture, and is commonly believed to have been built by ancient Egyptians of the Old Kingdom in the reign of the pharaoh Khafra.
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  Slavery in the United States

  Photo credit: McPherson and Oliver

  Scars of a whipped slave named Peter, photo taken at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1863. In his own words, "Overseer Artayou Carrier whipped me. I was two months in bed sore from the whipping. My master come after I was whipped; he discharged the overseer." The slave pictured here escaped from a plantation in Mississippi, made his way to Union forces, and joined the U.S. Army at the Union garrison located at Baton Rouge.
  
  Slavery in the United States began soon after the English colonists first settled in North America. From about the 1640s until 1865, people of African descent were legally enslaved within the boundaries of the present U.S. mostly by whites, but also by a comparatively tiny number of American Indians and free blacks. By 1860, the slave population in the U.S. had grown to 4 million.
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  US Brig Niagara

  Photo credit: Unknown

  The 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.
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  Apollo 11

  Photograph credit: Neil Armstrong

  Apollo 11 was the fifth crewed mission of NASA's Apollo program. After launching from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 16, 1969, commander Neil Armstrong and Apollo Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed Eagle in Mare Tranquillitatis on July 20, at 20:17:40 UTC, while command module pilot Michael Collins remained on Columbia in lunar orbit. Armstrong was the first to exit the spacecraft, stepping onto the surface 6 hours and 39 minutes later, on July 21, at 02:56:15 UTC; nineteen minutes later, Aldrin joined him on extravehicular activity, which lasted 2 hours, 31 minutes and 40 seconds. Armstrong and Aldrin lifted off from Tranquility Base after almost 22 hours on the lunar surface and rejoined Collins in the command module, before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24.
  
  The mission was planned to the minute, with the majority of the photographic tasks performed by Armstrong with a single Hasselblad camera. Most of the photographs taken on the Moon that include an astronaut are of Aldrin; there are only five images of Armstrong partly shown or reflected, as in this photograph, with Armstrong and the lunar module reflected in Aldrin's helmet visor. "As the sequence of lunar operations evolved," Aldrin explained, "Neil had the camera most of the time [...] It wasn't until we were back on Earth and in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory looking over the pictures that we realized there were few pictures of Neil."
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  1895 train wreck, Gare Montparnasse

  Photo credit: Studio Lévy and Sons

  On 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.
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  Wilhelmina of the Netherlands

  Engraver: George J. Verbeck, after Thérèse van Duyl Schwarze
  Restoration: Lise Broer

  A 1901 etching of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, based on an 1898 painting of her in her coronation robe. Having assumed the throne at the age of ten after the death of her father, King William III, Wilhemina ruled for fifty-eight years (1890–1948), longer than any other Dutch monarch. In 1948 she abdicated in favor of her daughter Juliana, thereafter making few public appearances until the country was devastated by the North Sea flood of 1953.
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  Trumbull's Declaration of Independence

  Painting credit: John Trumbull

  John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence, a 12 by 18 feet (3.7 by 5.5 m) oil painting depicting the presentation of a draft of the United States Declaration of Independence to the Second Continental Congress. While this event did take place, it was not actually in the presence of all the people in the picture. The painting can be found in the rotunda of the United States Capitol.
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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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  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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  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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  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.

Did you know (auto generated)

• ... that the developers of The Pale Beyond were inspired by stories from historical Antarctic and Arctic expeditions?
• ... that "Rich Men North of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony was the first single to debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 with no previous chart history for its artist?
• ... that the Pulitzer jury said that Ford Strikers Riot is "a brutal picture, it sums up much of the labor history of 1941"?
• ... that the bankruptcy of Penn Central in 1970 was the largest in American history at the time?
• ... that Maggio di Accettura, a festival in Italy dedicated to the Christian martyr Saint Julian, might have pagan origins or be linked to Langobard history?
• ... that the Oxtongue River, historically a canoe route for indigenous people, is still used for recreational canoeing?

Featured biography –

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

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Sadler c. 1915

William Samuel Sadler (June 24, 1875 – April 26, 1969) was an American surgeon, self-trained psychiatrist, and author who helped publish The Urantia Book. The book is said to have resulted from Sadler's relationship with a man through whom he believed celestial beings spoke at night. It drew a following of people who studied its teachings.

A native of Indiana, Sadler moved to Michigan as a teenager to work at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. There he met the physician and health-food promoter John Harvey Kellogg, co-inventor of corn flakes breakfast cereal, who became his mentor. Sadler married Kellogg's niece, Lena Celestia Kellogg, in 1897. He worked for several Christian organizations and attended medical school, graduating in 1906. Sadler practiced medicine in Chicago with his wife, who was also a physician. He joined several medical associations and taught at the McCormick Theological Seminary. Although he was a committed member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church for almost twenty years, he left the denomination after it disfellowshipped his wife's uncle, John Harvey Kellogg, in 1907. Sadler and his wife became speakers on the Chautauqua adult education circuit in 1907, and he became a highly paid, popular orator. He eventually wrote over 40 books on a variety of medical and spiritual topics advocating a holistic approach to health. Sadler extolled the value of prayer and religion but was skeptical of mediums, assisting debunker Howard Thurston, and embraced the scientific consensus on evolution. (Full article...)

On this day

January 22: Little New Year in northern China (2025); Day of Unity of Ukraine

Cetshwayo

• 565 – Eutychius of Constantinople was arrested after he refused Byzantine emperor Justinian I's order to adopt the tenets of the Aphthartodocetae, a sect of non-Chalcedonian Christians.
• 1273 – Muhammad II became Sultan of Granada after his father's death in a riding accident.
• 1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: The Zulu forces of King Cetshwayo (pictured) achieved a decisive victory at the Battle of Isandlwana.
• 1973 – The U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in Roe v. Wade struck down laws restricting abortion during the first two trimesters of pregnancy.
• 2006 – Evo Morales was inaugurated as President of Bolivia, becoming the country's first indigenous president.
• 2012 – Croatia held a referendum in which it voted to become a member of the European Union.

• Christian Ramsay (d. 1839)
• Vito Cascio Ferro (b. 1862)
• S. Vithiananthan (d. 1989)
• Ursula K. Le Guin (d. 2018)

More anniversaries:

• January 21
• January 22
• January 23

Selected quote

As long as I breathe I hope. As long as I breathe I shall fight for the future, that radiant future, in which man, strong and beautiful, will become master of the drifting stream of his history and will direct it towards the boundless horizons of beauty, joy and happiness!

— Leon Trotsky, 20th century Russian revolutionary

Related portals

More Did you know...

• ... that in 1898, the United States government annexed the Kingdom of Hawaii despite protestation from Queen Liliuokalani (pictured)?
• ... that Jean Thurel was a soldier in the French Régiment de Touraine for more than 75 years?
• ... that the severed head of Julia Martha Thomas — murdered, boiled and dismembered by her maid in 1879 — was found next door to Sir David Attenborough's house in 2010?
• ... that the 18th-century Indian automaton Tipu's Tiger shows a near life-size European being mauled by a tiger, and emits wails and grunts as well as containing a pipe organ?
• ... that Svið, a traditional Icelandic dish, consists of a sheep's head that has been cut in half, singed, and boiled with the brain removed?
• ... that, despite overseeing the construction of the crematoria and gas chambers at Auschwitz, what specifically shocked SS-Obersturmführer Robert Mulka at the camp was his colleagues' dress sense?
• ... that Tsar Alexander II of Russia had a special crystal bottle of Roederer champagne made for the Three Emperors Dinner in 1867 so that he could admire the bubbles?
• ... that the Gudea cylinders are the longest literary composition ever found in the Sumerian language?

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