Portal:History

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The History Portal

Historia by Nikolaos Gyzis

History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categorize history as a social science, while others see it as part of the humanities or consider it a hybrid discipline. Similar debates surround the purpose of history—for example, whether its main aim is theoretical, to uncover the truth, or practical, to learn lessons from the past. In a more general sense, the term history refers not to an academic field but to the past itself, times in the past, or to individual texts about the past.

Historical research relies on primary and secondary sources to reconstruct past events and validate interpretations. Source criticism is used to evaluate these sources, assessing their authenticity, content, and reliability. Historians strive to integrate the perspectives of several sources to develop a coherent narrative. Different schools of thought, such as positivism, the Annales school, Marxism, and postmodernism, have distinct methodological approaches.

History is a broad discipline encompassing many branches. Some focus on specific time periods, such as ancient history, while others concentrate on particular geographic regions, such as the history of Africa. Thematic categorizations include political history, military history, social history, and economic history. Branches associated with specific research methods and sources include quantitative history, comparative history, and oral history.

History emerged as a field of inquiry in antiquity to replace myth-infused narratives, with influential early traditions originating in Greece, China, and later in the Islamic world. Historical writing evolved throughout the ages and became increasingly professional, particularly during the 19th century, when a rigorous methodology and various academic institutions were established. History is related to many fields, including historiography, philosophy, education, and politics. (Full article...)

Featured articles –

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

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  Sullivan c. 1919

  
  Arthur Percy Sullivan VC (27 November 1896 – 9 April 1937) was an Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to a member of the British Armed Forces. Born in South Australia, Sullivan worked for the National Bank of Australasia prior to enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in April 1918 for service in World War I. He had arrived in the United Kingdom, but had not completed training when the Armistice came into effect on 11 November. Sullivan was promoted to corporal in March 1919, but wanting to see active service he sought and received his discharge from the AIF on 28 May. On the same day, he enlisted in the British Army for service with the North Russia Relief Force, part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War.
  
  Sullivan was deployed to northern Russia with the relief force. Following a successful attack, he was a member of the rearguard of a column withdrawing across the Sheika River. As his platoon crossed the river on a crude one-plank bridge in the early hours of 11 August 1919, it came under intense fire from Bolshevik troops, and four members fell into the river. Sullivan immediately jumped in and rescued them all, one by one, and was awarded the VC for his actions. Demobilised from the British Army after completing his service, Sullivan returned to Australia and resumed his civilian career as a banker. He was in London for the coronation of King George VI as part of the Australian Coronation Contingent in 1937, when he died of head injuries received in a fall. His medal set is displayed in the Hall of Valour at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. (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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  Woodcut vignette of Alboin in the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle

  
  Alboin (530s – 28 June 572) was king of the Lombards from about 560 until 572. During his reign the Lombards ended their migrations by settling in Italy, the northern part of which Alboin conquered between 569 and 572. He had a lasting effect on Italy and the Pannonian Basin; in the former, his invasion marked the beginning of centuries of Lombard rule, and in the latter, his defeat of the Gepids and his departure from Pannonia ended the dominance there of the Germanic peoples.
  
  The period of Alboin's reign as king in Pannonia following the death of his father, Audoin, was one of confrontation and conflict between the Lombards and their main neighbours, the Gepids. The Gepids initially gained the upper hand, but in 567, thanks to his alliance with the Avars, Alboin inflicted a decisive defeat on his enemies, whose lands the Avars subsequently occupied. The increasing power of his new neighbours caused Alboin some unease however, and he therefore decided to leave Pannonia for Italy, hoping to take advantage of the Byzantine Empire's vulnerability in defending its territory in the wake of the Gothic War. (Full article...)
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  The National Union of Freedom Fighters (NUFF) was an armed Marxist revolutionary group in Trinidad and Tobago. Active in the aftermath of the 1970 Black Power Revolution, the group fought a guerrilla warfare campaign to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Eric Williams following the failed Black Power uprising and an unsuccessful mutiny in the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment.
  
  NUFF formed out of the Western United Liberation Front (WOLF), a loose grouping of largely unemployed men in the western suburbs of Port of Spain. After the failed mutiny, members of WOLF decided to overthrow the government through armed rebellion. In 1971 they attempted to assassinate the lead prosecutor of the mutineers and a coast guard officer who helped suppress the army mutiny. (Full article...)
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  Independence Palace before the bombing

  
  On 27 February 1962, the Independence Palace in Saigon, South Vietnam, was bombed by two dissident Republic of Vietnam Air Force pilots, Second Lieutenant Nguyễn Văn Cử and First Lieutenant Phạm Phú Quốc. The pilots targeted the building, the official residence of the President of South Vietnam, with the aim of assassinating President Ngô Đình Diệm and his immediate family, who acted as political advisors.
  
  The pilots later said they attempted the assassination in response to Diệm's autocratic rule, in which he focused more on remaining in power than on confronting the Viet Cong (VC), a Marxist–Leninist guerilla army who were threatening to overthrow the South Vietnamese government. Cử and Quốc hoped that the airstrike would expose Diệm's vulnerability and trigger a general uprising, but this failed to materialize. (Full article...)
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  Colonel Lê Quang Tung (13 June 1919 – 1 November 1963) was the commander of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces under the command of Ngô Đình Nhu. Nhu was the brother of South Vietnam's president, Ngô Đình Diệm. A former servant of the Ngô family, Tung's military background was in security and counterespionage.
  
  During the 1950s, Tung was a high-ranking official in Nhu's Cần Lao, a secret political apparatus which maintained the Ngô family's grip on power, extorting money from wealthy businessmen. In 1960, Tung was promoted directly to the rank of colonel and became the commander of the special forces. His period at the helm of South Vietnam's elite troops was noted mostly for his work in repressing dissidents, rather than fighting the Viet Cong insurgents. His best-known attack was the raid on Xá Lợi pagoda on 21 August 1963, in which hundreds died or disappeared. (Full article...)
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  The Empire of Brazil was a 19th-century state that broadly comprised the territories which form modern Brazil and Uruguay until the latter achieved independence in 1828. The empire's government was a representative parliamentary constitutional monarchy under the rule of Emperors Pedro I and his son Pedro II. A colony of the Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil became the seat of the Portuguese Empire in 1808, when the Portuguese Prince regent, later King Dom John VI, fled from Napoleon's invasion of Portugal and established himself and his government in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. John VI later returned to Portugal, leaving his eldest son and heir-apparent, Pedro, to rule the Kingdom of Brazil as regent. On 7 September 1822, Pedro declared the independence of Brazil and, after waging a successful war against his father's kingdom, was acclaimed on 12 October as Pedro I, the first Emperor of Brazil. The new country was huge, sparsely populated, and ethnically diverse.
  
  Unlike most of the neighboring Hispanic American republics, Brazil had political stability, vibrant economic growth, constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech, and respect for civil rights of its subjects, albeit with legal restrictions on women and slaves, the latter regarded as property and not citizens. The Empire's bicameral parliament was elected under comparatively democratic methods for the era, as were the provincial and local legislatures. This led to a long ideological conflict between Pedro I and a sizable parliamentary faction over the role of the monarch in the government. He also had to face other obstacles. The unsuccessful Cisplatine War against the neighboring United Provinces of the Río de la Plata in 1828 led to the secession of the province of Cisplatina (later to become Uruguay). In 1826, despite his role in Brazilian independence, he became the king of Portugal; he abdicated the Portuguese throne in favor of Maria, his eldest daughter. Two years later, she was usurped by Pedro I's younger brother Miguel. Unable to deal with both Brazilian and Portuguese affairs, Pedro I abdicated his Brazilian throne on 7 April 1831 and immediately departed for Europe to restore his daughter to the Portuguese throne. (Full article...)
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  Lê Quang Vinh (c. 1923 – 13 July 1956), popularly known as Ba Cụt (Vietnamese: [ɓāː kût]), was a Vietnamese military commander of the Hòa Hảo religious sect, which operated from the Mekong Delta and controlled various parts of southern Vietnam during the 1940s and early 1950s.
  
  Ba Cụt and his forces fought the Vietnamese National Army (VNA), the Việt Minh, and the Cao Đài religious movement from 1943 until his capture in 1956. Known for his idiosyncrasies, he was regarded as an erratic and cruel leader who fought with little ideological purpose. His sobriquet came from the self-amputation of his left index finger (although it was erroneously reported that it was his middle or "third cut finger"). He later swore not to cut his hair until the communist Việt Minh were defeated. Ba Cụt frequently made alliances with various Vietnamese factions and the French. He invariably accepted the material support offered in return for his cooperation, and then broke the agreement—nevertheless, the French made deals with him on five occasions. The French position was weak because their military forces had been depleted by World War II, and they had great difficulty in re-establishing control over French Indochina, which had been left with a power vacuum after the defeat of Japan. (Full article...)
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  Eastick in Sarawak in late 1945

  
  Sir Thomas Charles Eastick, CMG, DSO, ED, JP (3 May 1900 – 16 December 1988) was a senior Australian Army artillery officer during World War II and a post-war leader of the principal ex-service organisation in South Australia. He commanded the 2/7th Field Regiment during the First and Second Battles of El Alamein in the Western Desert campaign in North Africa in 1942, leading to his appointment as a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order. Upon return from the Middle East, he commanded the artillery of the 7th Division during the final stage of the Salamaua–Lae campaign and during the Markham, Ramu and Finisterre campaigns in New Guinea between August 1943 and April 1944. He commanded the artillery of the 9th Division in the Borneo campaign in 1945. Eastick was the military governor of the Raj of Sarawak after taking the Japanese surrender at Kuching, and the commander of the Headquarters Group of Central Command in South Australia from 1950 to 1953.
  
  Eastick was the state president of the Returned Sailors', Soldiers' and Airmen's Imperial League of Australia (the Returned & Services League from 1965) between 1950 and 1954 and again from 1961 to 1972. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1953, and knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1970, for his volunteer work on behalf of ex-servicemen. (Full article...)
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  B-29 Superfortress bombers dropping incendiary bombs on Yokohama in May 1945

  
  During the Pacific War, Allied forces conducted air raids on Japan from 1942 to 1945, causing extensive destruction to the country's cities and killing between 241,000 and 900,000 people. During the first years of the Pacific War these attacks were limited to the Doolittle Raid in April 1942 and small-scale raids on Japanese military positions in the Kuril Islands from mid-1943. Strategic bombing raids began in June 1944 and continued with increasing intensity until the end of the war in August 1945. Allied naval and land-based tactical air units also attacked Japan during 1945.
  
  The United States Army Air Forces campaign against Japan began in earnest in mid-1944 and intensified during the final months of the war. While plans for attacks on the Japanese home islands had been prepared prior to the Pacific War, these could not begin until the long-range Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber was ready for combat and in production at scale. From June 1944 until January 1945, B-29s stationed in India and staged through bases in China made a series of nine raids on targets in western Japan, but this effort proved ineffective. The strategic bombing campaign was greatly expanded from November 1944, when airfields in the Mariana Islands became available as a result of the Mariana Islands Campaign. Initial attempts to target industrial facilities using high-altitude daylight "precision" bombing were ineffective in significantly degrading Japanese war economy, due to a mix of poor weather conditions, Japanese air defenses, and the jet stream impeding accuracy. (Full article...)
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  Mayan city-states that have existed in Central America

  
  The Maya civilization (/ˈmaɪə/) was a Mesoamerican civilization that existed from antiquity to the early modern period. It is known by its ancient temples and glyphs (script). The Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. The civilization is also noted for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical system.
  
  The Maya civilization developed in the Maya Region, an area that today comprises southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador. It includes the northern lowlands of the Yucatán Peninsula and the Guatemalan Highlands of the Sierra Madre, the Mexican state of Chiapas, southern Guatemala, El Salvador, and the southern lowlands of the Pacific littoral plain. Today, their descendants, known collectively as the Maya, number well over 6 million individuals, speak more than twenty-eight surviving Mayan languages, and reside in nearly the same area as their ancestors. (Full article...)
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  Aircraft on display at No. 1 Aircraft Depot, September 1955

  
  No. 1 Aircraft Depot (No. 1 AD) was a maintenance unit of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Formed in July 1921 at RAAF Point Cook, Victoria, it relocated to the nearby RAAF Laverton in March 1926. As well as servicing aircraft and other equipment, in its early years the depot supported survey flights in Australia and the Pacific region. It was also responsible for training maintenance staff.
  
  No. 1 AD's strength increased from 350 staff in the 1930s to over 2,000 during World War II, when it assembled, tested and repaired aircraft ranging from Tiger Moth trainers to Spitfire fighters to B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers. It also undertook aircraft research and development. (Full article...)
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  The Mongols chasing the Seljuks of Rum. Hayton of Corycus, Fleur des histoires d'orient.

  
  The Battle of Köse Dağ took place in eastern Anatolia on 26 June 1243 when an army of the Sultanate of Rum, led by Sultan Kaykhusraw II, confronted an invading Mongol army under the general Baiju and was decisively defeated. The battle was the pivotal event of the Mongol conquest of Anatolia: Rum, previously a significant independent power in the eastern Mediterranean, was reduced to the status of a client kingdom, and its territories were later absorbed into the Mongol Ilkhanate.
  
  The Mongol Empire first achieved territorial contact with Rum in the early 1230s by conquering a large swathe of western Iran, but largely left it alone over the next decade. Instead, under their general Chormaqan, Mongol armies subjugated Transcaucasia and reduced the Kingdom of Georgia to a vassal state. Relations deteriorated after the accession of Kaykhusraw II to the Rum throne in 1237, and Mongol raids on Rum territory began in 1240. Two years later, Baiju, who had replaced Chormaqan after the latter became disabled, captured and pillaged the city of Erzurum, escalating hostilities into open war. He again invaded Rum in 1243, with an army of 30,000 Mongol troops accompanied by Georgian and Armenian auxiliaries. (Full article...)
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  View of the south side of the Blockhaus d'Éperlecques

  
  The Blockhaus d'Éperlecques (English: Bunker of Éperlecques, also referred to as "the Watten bunker" or simply "Watten") is a Second World War bunker, now part of a museum, near Saint-Omer in the northern Pas-de-Calais département of France, and only some 14.4 kilometers (8.9 miles) north-northwest from the more developed La Coupole V-2 launch facility, in the same general area.
  
  The bunker, built by Nazi Germany under the codename Kraftwerk Nord West (Powerplant Northwest) between March 1943 and July 1944, was originally intended to be a launching facility for the V-2 (A-4) ballistic missile. It was designed to accommodate over 100 missiles at a time and to launch up to 36 daily. (Full article...)
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  An Australian light machine gun team in action during the Aitape–Wewak campaign, June 1945.

  
  Australia entered World War II on 3 September 1939, following the government's acceptance of the United Kingdom's declaration of war on Nazi Germany. Australia later entered into a state of war with other members of the Axis powers, including the Kingdom of Italy on 11 June 1940, and the Empire of Japan on 9 December 1941. By the end of the war almost one million Australians had served in the armed forces, whose military units fought primarily in the European theatre, North African campaign, and the South West Pacific theatre. In addition, Australia came under direct attack for the first time in its post-colonial history. Its casualties from enemy action during the war were 27,073 killed and 23,477 wounded. Many more suffered from tropical disease, hunger, and harsh conditions in captivity; of the 21,467 Australian prisoners taken by the Japanese, only 14,000 survived.
  
  Australian Army units were gradually withdrawn from the Mediterranean and Europe following the outbreak of war with Japan. However, Royal Australian Air Force and Royal Australian Navy units and personnel continued to take part in the war against Germany and Italy. From 1942 until early 1944, Australian forces played a key role in the Pacific War, making up the majority of Allied strength throughout much of the fighting in the South West Pacific theatre. While the military was largely relegated to subsidiary fronts from mid-1944, it continued offensive operations against the Japanese until the war ended. (Full article...)

Featured picture

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  Trinity nuclear test

  Photo credit: Berlyn Brixner

  The Trinity nuclear test explosion, .016 seconds after detonation. The fireball is about 200 metres (700 ft) wide. Conducted by the United States on July 16, 1945, at a location 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, on what is now White Sands Missile Range, Trinity was the first test of technology for a nuclear weapon.
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  Sheep husbandry

  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".
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  Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855)

  Artist: William Simpson; Restoration: Lise Broer

  A lithograph of a watercolour painting depicting soldiers transporting winter clothing, lumber for huts, and other supplies through a snow-covered landscape, with partially buried dead horses along the roadside, to the British camps, during the Siege of Sevastopol of the Crimean War. In the winter, a storm ruined the camps and supply lines of the Allied forces (France, Britain and the Ottoman Empire). Men and horses became sick and starved in the poor conditions.
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  Kalmar Union

  Image credit: Julius Magnus Petersen

  A medieval ship flag captured by forces from Lübeck in the 1420s showed the arms of Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Pomerania. At the time, Denmark, Norway and Sweden were united in the Kalmar Union. The flag is believed to originate from the reign of king Eric of Pomerania due to its inclusion of Pomerania's griffin symbol. For the following five hundred years, the flag was displayed as a war trophy in a Lübeck church until destroyed during a World War II air raid on the city. An 1880s copy of the flag is preserved in the museum at Frederiksborg Palace, Denmark. The saint accompanying the Virgin Mary and infant Christ is Saint James the Greater, identified by his scallop shell emblem. The flag was made of coarse linen. All figures and heraldic insignia were created using oil-based paint.
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  Operation Ivy

  Photo: United States Department of Energy

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

  Image: The Illustrated London News
  Restoration: Adam Cuerden

  An 1876 engraving of Khokar Rajputs of Punjab. The Rajputs are one of the major Hindu Kshatriya (warrior) groups of India. Rajputs rose to prominence during the 9th to 11th centuries, and by the time of Indian independence, they ruled more than two-thirds of the estimated six hundred princely states, including three-quarters of the salute states.
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  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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  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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  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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  Edward Gibbon

  Painting: Henry Walton

  Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) was an English historian who published The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in six volumes between 1776 and 1788. Born in Putney, Surrey, he became a voracious reader while being raised by his aunt, and was sent to study at Magdalen College, Oxford, and in Switzerland. Returning to England, in 1761 Gibbon published his first book, Essai sur l'Étude de la Littérature. This was well received, but Gibbon's next book was a failure. In the early 1770s Gibbon began writing his history of the Roman Empire, which was received with great praise.
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  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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  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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  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 "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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  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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  Yellow badge

  Photograph credit: Ronald Torfs

  Yellow badges are badges that Jews were ordered to wear in public during periods of the Middle Ages by the ruling Christians and Muslims, and in Nazi Germany in the 1940s. The badges served to mark the wearer as a religious or ethnic outsider, and often served as a badge of shame. The badge pictured is in the collection of the Kazerne Dossin Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre in Mechelen, Belgium.
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  Timeline of lighting technology

  Illustration: Maurice Dessertenne
  Restoration: Michel Vuijlsteke

  An 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).
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  Cliff Palace

  Photo credit: Gustaf Nordenskiöld

  An 1891 photograph of Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling—a structure built within caves and under outcroppings in cliffs—in North America, located in what is now Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, USA. There are about 150 rooms in the 288 ft (88 m) long structure, although only 25 to 30 of those were used as living space by Ancient Pueblo peoples. it is estimated that the population of Cliff Palace was roughly 100–150 people.

Did you know (auto generated)

• ... that Cliff Christl, who became the Green Bay Packers team historian in 2014, estimated that he had recorded more than 250 oral histories with past players and coaches since the 1990s?
• ... that at the age of 28, Mason Morelli became the first player in Vegas Golden Knights franchise history to record two points in their National Hockey League debut game?
• ... that the government of Victoria, Australia, has a program to remove 110 level crossings by 2030, the fastest rate in the state's history?
• ... that American Colossus is a biography of a man who was "the most famous sportsman in the world" and "the most forgotten great athlete in American history"?
• ... that the 1976 Philippine film Itim was described as "one of the most remarkable debuts in cinema history" in a 2022 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art?
• ... that the NFL listed the 4th and 26 game as one of the greatest in the first 100 years of its history?

Featured biography –

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

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Tchaikovsky, c. 1888

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (/tʃaɪˈkɒfski/ ^ⓘ chy-KOF-skee; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer during the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, the Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, and the opera Eugene Onegin.

Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant as there was little opportunity for a musical career in Russia at the time and no public music education system. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching Tchaikovsky received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nationalist movement embodied by the Russian composers of The Five, with whom his professional relationship was mixed. (Full article...)

On this day

April 23: National Sovereignty and Children's Day in Turkey (1920)

Liberation of Flossenbürg

• 1467 – Ottoman wars in Europe: Albanian leader Skanderbeg defeated an Ottoman army under Ballaban Badera to raise the siege of Krujë.
• 1945 – World War II: The US Army's 90th Infantry Division liberated Flossenbürg concentration camp (pictured) in Germany, freeing 1,500 prisoners.
• 1976 – The American band the Ramones released their debut album, which became highly influential on the emerging punk rock movement.
• 1979 – Blair Peach, a New Zealand teacher, was fatally injured after being knocked unconscious during an Anti-Nazi League demonstration against a National Front election meeting in Southall, London.
• 2018 – A man intentionally struck pedestrians with a van on Yonge Street in Toronto, Canada, leading to 11 deaths.

• Joan of France (b. 1464)
• Pandita Ramabai (b. 1858)
• Satyajit Ray (d. 1992)

More anniversaries:

• April 22
• April 23
• April 24

Selected quote

Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.

— George Orwell, author, in Nineteen-Eighty Four

Related portals

More Did you know...

• ... that Giovanni de Ventura, a plague doctor who may have worn a beak doctor costume (pictured), was restricted by a covenant to treat only infectious patients? In the nose of the mask, there were types of plants that were used to filter the sickness from the wearer.
• ... that in some archaic Greek alphabets, an Ε could look like a Β, a Β like a C, a Γ like an Ι, an Ι like a Σ, or a Σ like an Μ?
• ... that the Chinese government has published a list of sixty-four important cultural relics that are forbidden to be exhibited outside of China?
• ... that the 1886 novel Albertine expedited the abolition of public prostitution in Norway?
• ... that Carl Sagan worked with the US Air Force on detonating a nuclear device on the Moon?
• ... that Olympic gold medals have been made out of silver, jade, and glass?
• ... that in 1945 a Japanese battalion was rearmed to serve alongside the British 5th Parachute Brigade in the Far East?
• ... that Solomon was accidentally castrated as an infant?

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Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Article requests : Requested articles/Social sciences/History Copyedit : History articles needing copy editing Photo : Wikipedia requested photographs of history Stubs : Expand history stub articles Are you a historian : i.e. one who studies and writes history, and who has a keen interest in writing outstanding articles? Join our group by adding Category:Wikipedian historians to the bottom of your user page.

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