World History



Nok terracotta sculpture, c. 250 BC (Minneapolis Institute of Arts - Enlarge on linked site)
History of African art

By one of the strange coincidences of history, the 5th century BC produces the first masterpieces in two incompatible styles of sculpture. Nearly 2500 years later, these styles become bitter rivals in the studios of our own time.

One is the classical realism which will prevail from the Renaissance to the end of the 19th century. The other is the sculpture of Africa, distorting human features and limbs in a dramatically expressive manner. ...

Read more



Richard Arkwright, 1789-90, studio of Joseph Wright (National Portrait Gallery, London)
History of Great Britain: 1767-1792

By the 1780s Britain is a society profoundly changed from a century earlier. There is now political power in middle-class hands. And new opportunities are available in the developing Industrial Revolution.

There is no more striking example of this flexible society, in which merit can find its own rewards, than the career of Richard Arkwright. Born the youngest of seven children of a barber and wigmaker ...

Read more



Caravaggio, The Supper at Emmaus, 1610 (National Gallery, London)
History of Painting: 1593-1610

One of the most startling and salutary shocks ever administered to fashionable art is the work of Caravaggio in the last few years of the 16th century. In about 1593 he arrives, at the age of twenty, in a Rome which is still attracted to the esoteric niceties of mannerism. The young man soon introduces two invigorating new elements in his paintings: a use of composition and light which gives the viewer an immediate sense of drama; and an intense realism ...

Read more



Santa Sophia, Istanbul, interior: completed AD 537 (Fotofile CG)
History of Architecture: Santa Sophia

In Santa Sophia in Constantinople (completed astonishingly in only five years) the architects working for Justinian achieve with triumphant skill a new and difficult feat of technology - that of placing a vast circular dome on top of a square formed of four arches.

The link between the curves of two arches (diverging from a shared supporting pillar) and the curve round the base of the dome is made by a complex triangular shape known as a pendentive ...

Read more



The Venus of Willendorf, c. 25,000 BC (Natural History Museum, Vienna - Enlarge on linked site)
History of Primitive Art

In the recesses of caves, people begin to decorate the rock face with an important theme in their daily lives, the bison and reindeer which are their prey as Ice Age hunters. And sculptors carve portable images of another predominant interest of mankind - the swelling curves of the female form, emphasizing the fertility on which the survival of the tribe depends.

Perhaps the most famous of early sculptures is the so-called Venus of Willendorf ...

Read more



Brady accompanying the Union Army, with one of his darkroom wagons, 1862 (Library of Congress - Enlarge on linked site)
Note on Brady's Men

When the Civil War begins, in 1861, Mathew Brady is the most successful portrait photographer in the USA.

Deciding to undertake a photographic record of the conflict, as a commercial venture funded by himself (eventually at a cost of some $100,000), he equips a number of photographic teams with darkroom wagons ...

Read more



The Iron Bridge at Coalbrookdale, erected in a few months in 1779 (Ironbridge Gorge Museums)
History of Metallurgy

In 1709 Abraham Darby, an ironmaster with a furnace at Coalbrookdale on the river Severn, discovers that coke can be used instead of charcoal for the smelting of pig iron (used for cast-iron products). This Severn region becomes Britain's centre of iron production in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution.

Its pre-eminence is seen in the Darby family's own construction of the world's first iron bridge ...

Read more



The Mark V Tank in World War One, 1917 (Tank Museum, Bovington)
History of the First World War

There is one briefly effective campaign in late November 1917. A suitable terrain is chosen near Cambrai for the first serious outing of a British innovation, the tank.

These strange vehicles achieve a rapid advance. But there are not enough infantry in support to consolidate the gain ...

Read more



Anthony van Dyck, Lord John Stuart and his brother, Lord Bernard Stuart, c. 1638 (National Gallery, London)
History of British Art

The noblemen at the court of Charles I are keen to use the services of Van Dyck. They glow in his canvases, handsome and arrogant Cavaliers in fine fabrics (John and Bernard Stuart in London's National Gallery are a perfect example).

Nemesis awaits them when civil war breaks out in 1642. But the painter who gives them immortality has died in the previous year ...

Read more



Windmill at Opusztaszer in Hungary (David Vigh)
History of Inventions and Discoveries

An Arabic document of the year 644 contains the first known reference to a windmill. The man who in this year assassinates the caliph Omar in the mosque at Medina is described as a Persian builder of windmills . ...

Read more



Sketch of a Welsh archer , 13th century (National Archives, Kew)
History of Arms and Armour

The longbow, probably developed in Wales during the 12th century, derives its range, accuracy and power of penetration from two characteristics.

It is about 6 feet long, giving a much greater acceleration to the released arrow than is possible from a shorter conventional bow. And the craftsmen make it from strips of yew cut where the hardened heart of the tree joins the sap wood . ...

Read more



Bronze head of Augustus, c. 26 BC (British Museum)
History of Augustus Caesar

Gaius Octavius, known to history first as Octavian and then as Augustus Caesar, is born in 63 BC in a relatively obscure patrician family.

His only evident advantage in life is that his grandmother is Julia, sister of Julius Caesar. His great-uncle sees talent in the boy and encourages him. ...

Read more



Cuneiform tablet recording the allocation of beer, probably southern Iraq, c. 3000 BC (British Museum)
History of Writing

In about 3200 BC temple officials in Sumer develop a reliable and lasting method of keeping track of the animals and other goods which are the temple's wealth.

On lumps of wet clay the scribes draw a simpified picture of the item in question. They then make a similar mark in the clay for the number counted and recorded. When allowed to bake hard in the sun, the clay tablet becomes a permanent document. ...

Read more



Eamonn de Valera as a wasp stinging the British prime minister, Lloyd George, 1920 - Enlarge on linked site
History of Ireland

The Sinn Fein members have no intention of taking their seats at Westminster. Instead, they assemble in Dublin as the Dáil Eireann (Assembly of Eire). Officers are elected: Collins for Finance, de Valera as President.

De Valera is once again in gaol in Britain; this is as yet a national assembly only in name. But two years of violence will change that . ...

Read more



Chartres Cathedral - some of the biblical kings and queens flanking the entrance in the west façade (Fotofile CG)
History of French art

The earliest porch of Chartres cathedral - the triple entrance in the west façade - introduces Gothic sculpture in its most extreme form.

Each of the biblical kings and queens stands on a tiny platform projecting from a tall, thin pillar. To suit their circumstance, their bodies are impossibly elongated within the tumbling pleats of their full-length robes. Yet their faces, by contrast, are realistic and benign . ...

Read more



  




A-B   C-D   E-G   H-L   M-O   P-R   S   T-Z

The site contains more than 300 narrative Histories, weaving through time and interconnecting.


World History


Nok terracotta sculpture, c. 250 BC (Minneapolis Institute of Arts - Enlarge on linked site)
History of African art

By one of the strange coincidences of history, the 5th century BC produces the first masterpieces in two incompatible styles of sculpture. Nearly 2500 years later, these styles become bitter rivals in the studios of our own time.

One is the classical realism which will prevail from the Renaissance to the end of the 19th century. The other is the sculpture of Africa, distorting human features and limbs in a dramatically expressive manner. ...

Read more



Richard Arkwright, 1789-90, studio of Joseph Wright (National Portrait Gallery, London)
History of Great Britain: 1767-1792

By the 1780s Britain is a society profoundly changed from a century earlier. There is now political power in middle-class hands. And new opportunities are available in the developing Industrial Revolution.

There is no more striking example of this flexible society, in which merit can find its own rewards, than the career of Richard Arkwright. Born the youngest of seven children of a barber and wigmaker ...

Read more



Caravaggio, The Supper at Emmaus, 1610 (National Gallery, London)
History of Painting: 1593-1610

One of the most startling and salutary shocks ever administered to fashionable art is the work of Caravaggio in the last few years of the 16th century. In about 1593 he arrives, at the age of twenty, in a Rome which is still attracted to the esoteric niceties of mannerism. The young man soon introduces two invigorating new elements in his paintings: a use of composition and light which gives the viewer an immediate sense of drama; and an intense realism ...

Read more



Santa Sophia, Istanbul, interior: completed AD 537 (Fotofile CG)
History of Architecture: Santa Sophia

In Santa Sophia in Constantinople (completed astonishingly in only five years) the architects working for Justinian achieve with triumphant skill a new and difficult feat of technology - that of placing a vast circular dome on top of a square formed of four arches.

The link between the curves of two arches (diverging from a shared supporting pillar) and the curve round the base of the dome is made by a complex triangular shape known as a pendentive ...

Read more



The Venus of Willendorf, c. 25,000 BC (Natural History Museum, Vienna - Enlarge on linked site)
History of Primitive Art

In the recesses of caves, people begin to decorate the rock face with an important theme in their daily lives, the bison and reindeer which are their prey as Ice Age hunters. And sculptors carve portable images of another predominant interest of mankind - the swelling curves of the female form, emphasizing the fertility on which the survival of the tribe depends.

Perhaps the most famous of early sculptures is the so-called Venus of Willendorf ...

Read more



Brady accompanying the Union Army, with one of his darkroom wagons, 1862 (Library of Congress - Enlarge on linked site)
Note on Brady's Men

When the Civil War begins, in 1861, Mathew Brady is the most successful portrait photographer in the USA.

Deciding to undertake a photographic record of the conflict, as a commercial venture funded by himself (eventually at a cost of some $100,000), he equips a number of photographic teams with darkroom wagons ...

Read more



The Iron Bridge at Coalbrookdale, erected in a few months in 1779 (Ironbridge Gorge Museums)
History of Metallurgy

In 1709 Abraham Darby, an ironmaster with a furnace at Coalbrookdale on the river Severn, discovers that coke can be used instead of charcoal for the smelting of pig iron (used for cast-iron products). This Severn region becomes Britain's centre of iron production in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution.

Its pre-eminence is seen in the Darby family's own construction of the world's first iron bridge ...

Read more



The Mark V Tank in World War One, 1917 (Tank Museum, Bovington)
History of the First World War

There is one briefly effective campaign in late November 1917. A suitable terrain is chosen near Cambrai for the first serious outing of a British innovation, the tank.

These strange vehicles achieve a rapid advance. But there are not enough infantry in support to consolidate the gain ...

Read more



Anthony van Dyck, Lord John Stuart and his brother, Lord Bernard Stuart, c. 1638 (National Gallery, London)
History of British Art

The noblemen at the court of Charles I are keen to use the services of Van Dyck. They glow in his canvases, handsome and arrogant Cavaliers in fine fabrics (John and Bernard Stuart in London's National Gallery are a perfect example).

Nemesis awaits them when civil war breaks out in 1642. But the painter who gives them immortality has died in the previous year ...

Read more



Windmill at Opusztaszer in Hungary (David Vigh)
History of Inventions and Discoveries

An Arabic document of the year 644 contains the first known reference to a windmill. The man who in this year assassinates the caliph Omar in the mosque at Medina is described as a Persian builder of windmills . ...

Read more



Sketch of a Welsh archer , 13th century (National Archives, Kew)
History of Arms and Armour

The longbow, probably developed in Wales during the 12th century, derives its range, accuracy and power of penetration from two characteristics.

It is about 6 feet long, giving a much greater acceleration to the released arrow than is possible from a shorter conventional bow. And the craftsmen make it from strips of yew cut where the hardened heart of the tree joins the sap wood . ...

Read more



Bronze head of Augustus, c. 26 BC (British Museum)
History of Augustus Caesar

Gaius Octavius, known to history first as Octavian and then as Augustus Caesar, is born in 63 BC in a relatively obscure patrician family.

His only evident advantage in life is that his grandmother is Julia, sister of Julius Caesar. His great-uncle sees talent in the boy and encourages him. ...

Read more



Cuneiform tablet recording the allocation of beer, probably southern Iraq, c. 3000 BC (British Museum)
History of Writing

In about 3200 BC temple officials in Sumer develop a reliable and lasting method of keeping track of the animals and other goods which are the temple's wealth.

On lumps of wet clay the scribes draw a simpified picture of the item in question. They then make a similar mark in the clay for the number counted and recorded. When allowed to bake hard in the sun, the clay tablet becomes a permanent document. ...

Read more



Eamonn de Valera as a wasp stinging the British prime minister, Lloyd George, 1920 - Enlarge on linked site
History of Ireland

The Sinn Fein members have no intention of taking their seats at Westminster. Instead, they assemble in Dublin as the Dáil Eireann (Assembly of Eire). Officers are elected: Collins for Finance, de Valera as President.

De Valera is once again in gaol in Britain; this is as yet a national assembly only in name. But two years of violence will change that . ...

Read more



Chartres Cathedral - some of the biblical kings and queens flanking the entrance in the west façade (Fotofile CG)
History of French art

The earliest porch of Chartres cathedral - the triple entrance in the west façade - introduces Gothic sculpture in its most extreme form.

Each of the biblical kings and queens stands on a tiny platform projecting from a tall, thin pillar. To suit their circumstance, their bodies are impossibly elongated within the tumbling pleats of their full-length robes. Yet their faces, by contrast, are realistic and benign . ...

Read more

> World History

A-B   C-D   E-G   H-L   M-O   P-R   S   T-Z

The site contains more than 300 narrative Histories, weaving through time and interconnecting.



Nok terracotta sculpture, c. 250 BC (Minneapolis Institute of Arts - Enlarge on linked site)
History of African art

By one of the strange coincidences of history, the 5th century BC produces the first masterpieces in two incompatible styles of sculpture. Nearly 2500 years later, these styles become bitter rivals in the studios of our own time.

One is the classical realism which will prevail from the Renaissance to the end of the 19th century. The other is the sculpture of Africa, distorting human features and limbs in a dramatically expressive manner. ...

Read more



Richard Arkwright, 1789-90, studio of Joseph Wright (National Portrait Gallery, London)
History of Great Britain: 1767-1792

By the 1780s Britain is a society profoundly changed from a century earlier. There is now political power in middle-class hands. And new opportunities are available in the developing Industrial Revolution.

There is no more striking example of this flexible society, in which merit can find its own rewards, than the career of Richard Arkwright. Born the youngest of seven children of a barber and wigmaker ...

Read more



Caravaggio, The Supper at Emmaus, 1610 (National Gallery, London)
History of Painting: 1593-1610

One of the most startling and salutary shocks ever administered to fashionable art is the work of Caravaggio in the last few years of the 16th century. In about 1593 he arrives, at the age of twenty, in a Rome which is still attracted to the esoteric niceties of mannerism. The young man soon introduces two invigorating new elements in his paintings: a use of composition and light which gives the viewer an immediate sense of drama; and an intense realism ...

Read more



Santa Sophia, Istanbul, interior: completed AD 537 (Fotofile CG)
History of Architecture: Santa Sophia

In Santa Sophia in Constantinople (completed astonishingly in only five years) the architects working for Justinian achieve with triumphant skill a new and difficult feat of technology - that of placing a vast circular dome on top of a square formed of four arches.

The link between the curves of two arches (diverging from a shared supporting pillar) and the curve round the base of the dome is made by a complex triangular shape known as a pendentive ...

Read more



The Venus of Willendorf, c. 25,000 BC (Natural History Museum, Vienna - Enlarge on linked site)
History of Primitive Art

In the recesses of caves, people begin to decorate the rock face with an important theme in their daily lives, the bison and reindeer which are their prey as Ice Age hunters. And sculptors carve portable images of another predominant interest of mankind - the swelling curves of the female form, emphasizing the fertility on which the survival of the tribe depends.

Perhaps the most famous of early sculptures is the so-called Venus of Willendorf ...

Read more



Brady accompanying the Union Army, with one of his darkroom wagons, 1862 (Library of Congress - Enlarge on linked site)
Note on Brady's Men

When the Civil War begins, in 1861, Mathew Brady is the most successful portrait photographer in the USA.

Deciding to undertake a photographic record of the conflict, as a commercial venture funded by himself (eventually at a cost of some $100,000), he equips a number of photographic teams with darkroom wagons ...

Read more



The Iron Bridge at Coalbrookdale, erected in a few months in 1779 (Ironbridge Gorge Museums)
History of Metallurgy

In 1709 Abraham Darby, an ironmaster with a furnace at Coalbrookdale on the river Severn, discovers that coke can be used instead of charcoal for the smelting of pig iron (used for cast-iron products). This Severn region becomes Britain's centre of iron production in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution.

Its pre-eminence is seen in the Darby family's own construction of the world's first iron bridge ...

Read more



The Mark V Tank in World War One, 1917 (Tank Museum, Bovington)
History of the First World War

There is one briefly effective campaign in late November 1917. A suitable terrain is chosen near Cambrai for the first serious outing of a British innovation, the tank.

These strange vehicles achieve a rapid advance. But there are not enough infantry in support to consolidate the gain ...

Read more



Anthony van Dyck, Lord John Stuart and his brother, Lord Bernard Stuart, c. 1638 (National Gallery, London)
History of British Art

The noblemen at the court of Charles I are keen to use the services of Van Dyck. They glow in his canvases, handsome and arrogant Cavaliers in fine fabrics (John and Bernard Stuart in London's National Gallery are a perfect example).

Nemesis awaits them when civil war breaks out in 1642. But the painter who gives them immortality has died in the previous year ...

Read more



Windmill at Opusztaszer in Hungary (David Vigh)
History of Inventions and Discoveries

An Arabic document of the year 644 contains the first known reference to a windmill. The man who in this year assassinates the caliph Omar in the mosque at Medina is described as a Persian builder of windmills . ...

Read more



Sketch of a Welsh archer , 13th century (National Archives, Kew)
History of Arms and Armour

The longbow, probably developed in Wales during the 12th century, derives its range, accuracy and power of penetration from two characteristics.

It is about 6 feet long, giving a much greater acceleration to the released arrow than is possible from a shorter conventional bow. And the craftsmen make it from strips of yew cut where the hardened heart of the tree joins the sap wood . ...

Read more



Bronze head of Augustus, c. 26 BC (British Museum)
History of Augustus Caesar

Gaius Octavius, known to history first as Octavian and then as Augustus Caesar, is born in 63 BC in a relatively obscure patrician family.

His only evident advantage in life is that his grandmother is Julia, sister of Julius Caesar. His great-uncle sees talent in the boy and encourages him. ...

Read more



Cuneiform tablet recording the allocation of beer, probably southern Iraq, c. 3000 BC (British Museum)
History of Writing

In about 3200 BC temple officials in Sumer develop a reliable and lasting method of keeping track of the animals and other goods which are the temple's wealth.

On lumps of wet clay the scribes draw a simpified picture of the item in question. They then make a similar mark in the clay for the number counted and recorded. When allowed to bake hard in the sun, the clay tablet becomes a permanent document. ...

Read more



Eamonn de Valera as a wasp stinging the British prime minister, Lloyd George, 1920 - Enlarge on linked site
History of Ireland

The Sinn Fein members have no intention of taking their seats at Westminster. Instead, they assemble in Dublin as the Dáil Eireann (Assembly of Eire). Officers are elected: Collins for Finance, de Valera as President.

De Valera is once again in gaol in Britain; this is as yet a national assembly only in name. But two years of violence will change that . ...

Read more



Chartres Cathedral - some of the biblical kings and queens flanking the entrance in the west façade (Fotofile CG)
History of French art

The earliest porch of Chartres cathedral - the triple entrance in the west façade - introduces Gothic sculpture in its most extreme form.

Each of the biblical kings and queens stands on a tiny platform projecting from a tall, thin pillar. To suit their circumstance, their bodies are impossibly elongated within the tumbling pleats of their full-length robes. Yet their faces, by contrast, are realistic and benign . ...

Read more





 



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