Portal:History

The History Portal

Library of Alexandria

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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  The battle of Utica was fought in 203 BC between a Roman army commanded by Publius Cornelius Scipio and the allied armies of Carthage and Numidia, commanded by Hasdrubal Gisgo and Syphax respectively. The battle was part of the Second Punic War and resulted in a heavy defeat for Carthage.
  
  In the wake of its defeat in the First Punic War (264–241 BC) Carthage expanded its territory in south-east Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal). When the Second Punic War broke out in 218 BC a Roman army landed in north-east Iberia. After a disastrous Roman setback in 210 BC Scipio took command and cleared the peninsula of Carthaginians in five years. He returned to Rome determined to carry the war to the Carthaginian homeland in North Africa. Appointed consul in 205 BC Scipio spent a year in Sicily training his army and accumulating supplies. In 204 BC the Romans landed near the Carthaginian port of Utica with four legions. The Romans defeated two large Carthaginian scouting parties, besieged Utica and set up a fortified camp. (Full article...)
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  Shrine of Remembrance

  
  The Shrine of Remembrance (commonly referred to as The Shrine) is a war memorial in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, located in Kings Domain on St Kilda Road. It was built to honour the men and women of Victoria who served in World War I, but now functions as a memorial to all Australians who have served in any war. It is a site of annual observances for Anzac Day (25 April) and Remembrance Day (11 November), and is one of the largest war memorials in Australia.
  
  Designed by architects Phillip Hudson and James Wardrop, both World War I veterans, the Shrine is in classical style, based on the Tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus and the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. The crowning element at the top of the ziggurat roof references the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates.
  Built from Tynong granite, the Shrine originally consisted only of the central sanctuary surrounded by the ambulatory. The sanctuary contains the marble Stone of Remembrance, upon which is engraved the words "Greater love hath no man" (John 15:13); once per year, on 11 November at 11 a.m. (Remembrance Day), a ray of sunlight shines through an aperture in the roof to light up the word "Love" in the inscription. Beneath the sanctuary lies the crypt, which contains a bronze statue of a soldier father and son, and panels listing every unit of the Australian Imperial Force. (Full article...)
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  Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King with U. S. President Franklin D Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the Quebec Conference, 18 August 1943, at which the mechanism for cooperation on Tube Alloys was agreed upon

  
  The Montreal Laboratory was a program established by the National Research Council of Canada during World War II to undertake nuclear research in collaboration with the United Kingdom, and to absorb some of the scientists and work of the Tube Alloys nuclear project in Britain. It became part of the Manhattan Project, and designed and built some of the world's first nuclear reactors.
  
  After the Fall of France, some French scientists escaped to Britain with their stock of heavy water. They were temporarily installed in the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, where they worked on reactor design. The MAUD Committee was uncertain whether this was relevant to the main task of Tube Alloys, that of building an atomic bomb, although there remained a possibility that a reactor could be used to breed plutonium, which might be used in one. It therefore recommended that they be relocated to the United States, and co-located with the Manhattan Project's reactor effort. Due to American concerns about security (many of the scientists were foreign nationals) and patent claims by the French scientists and Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), it was decided to relocate them to Canada instead. (Full article...)
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  A clay tessera bearing a possible depiction of Odaenathus wearing a diadem

  
  
  Odaenathus, the king of Palmyra from 260 to 267 CE, has been identified by modern scholars as the subject of sculptures, seal impressions, and mosaic pieces. His city was part of the Roman Empire, and he came to dominate the Roman East when in 260 he defeated Shapur I, the Sasanian emperor of Persia, who had invaded the Roman Empire. Odaenathus besieged the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon in 263, and although the city did not fall, the campaign led to a full restoration of Roman provinces taken by Shapur I. In the aftermath of his Persian war, Odaenathus assumed the title King of Kings, which was a challenge to the Persian monarch's claims of authority in the region. Odaenathus ruled the Roman East unopposed with imperial consent. In 267, he was assassinated alongside his eldest son Herodianus while conducting a campaign against Germanic raiders in Bithynia; he was succeeded by his son Vaballathus under the regency of the widow queen Zenobia.
  
  Palmyrene portraits were usually abstract, depicting little individuality. Most reported portraits of Odaenathus are undated and have no inscriptions, making identification speculative. Generally, the criteria for determining whether a piece represents the king are its material (imported marble, in contrast to local limestone) and iconography, such as the presence of royal attributes (crowns or diadems). Several limestone head portraits from Palmyra were identified by several twentieth-century scholars as depicting Odaenathus, based on criteria such as the size of the portrait and the presence of a wreath; the latter element was not special in Palmyrene portraits, as priests were also depicted with wreaths. More recent research on the limestone portraits indicates that these pieces were probably funerary objects depicting private citizens. (Full article...)
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  Oswald Watt, Australian Flying Corps

  
  Walter Oswald Watt, OBE (11 February 1878 – 21 May 1921) was an Australian aviator and businessman. He served as a pilot during World War I with, firstly, the French Foreign Legion and, secondly, the Australian Flying Corps (AFC).
  
  The son of a Scottish-Australian merchant and politician, Watt was born in England and moved to Sydney when he was one year old, returning to Britain at the age of eleven for education at Bristol and Cambridge. In 1900 he returned to Australia, and enlisted in the Militia, before acquiring cattle stations in New South Wales and Queensland. He was also a partner in the family shipping firm. (Full article...)
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  Liberté in New York City, September 1909

  
  The Liberté class consisted of four pre-dreadnought battleships built for the French Navy in the early 1900s. The class comprised Liberté, Justice, Vérité, and Démocratie. They were ordered as part of a naval expansion program directed at countering German warship construction authorized by the German Naval Law of 1898; the French program called for six new battleships, which began with the two République-class battleships. During construction of the first two vessels, foreign adoption of heavier secondary batteries prompted the French to re-design the last four members to carry a secondary battery of 194 mm (7.6 in) guns, producing the Liberté class. Like the Républiques, their main armament consisted of four 305 mm (12 in) guns in two twin-gun turrets, and they had the same top speed of 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph).
  
  Their peacetime careers were largely uneventful, consisting of a normal routine of training exercises, visits to various French and foreign ports, and naval reviews for French politicians and foreign dignitaries. In 1909, Liberté, Justice, and Vérité visited the United States during the Hudson–Fulton Celebration. Liberté was destroyed by an accidental explosion of unstable propellant charges in Toulon in 1911, prompting the fleet to enact strict handling controls to prevent further accidents. The three surviving ships were deployed to guard troop convoys from North Africa to France in the early days of World War I, thereafter deploying to the Adriatic Sea in an attempt to bring the Austro-Hungarian Navy to battle. The fleet sank an Austro-Hungarian cruiser in the Battle of Antivari but was otherwise unsuccessful in its attempt to engage the Austro-Hungarians. Vérité was briefly deployed to the Dardanelles in September 1914, where she bombarded Ottoman coastal defenses. (Full article...)
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  The Freedom Monument (Latvian: Brīvības piemineklis) is a monument located in Riga, Latvia, honouring soldiers killed during the Latvian War of Independence (1918–1920). It is considered an important symbol of the freedom, independence, and sovereignty of Latvia. Unveiled in 1935, the 42-metre (138 ft) high monument of granite, travertine, and copper often serves as the focal point of public gatherings and official ceremonies in Riga.
  
  The sculptures and bas-reliefs of the monument, arranged in thirteen groups, depict Latvian culture and history. The core of the monument is composed of tetragonal shapes on top of each other, decreasing in size towards the top, completed by a 19-metre (62 ft) high travertine column bearing the copper figure of Liberty lifting three gilded stars. The concept for the monument first emerged in the early 1920s when the Latvian prime minister, Zigfrīds Anna Meierovics, ordered rules to be drawn up for a contest for designs of a "memorial column". After several contests the monument was finally built at the beginning of the 1930s according to the scheme "Mirdzi kā zvaigzne!" ("Shine like a star!") submitted by Latvian sculptor Kārlis Zāle. Construction works were financed by private donations. (Full article...)
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  A 1901 engraving of the grave of the British soldiers killed at Bronkhorstspruit

  
  The battle of Bronkhorstspruit was the first major engagement of the First Boer War. It took place by the Bronkhorstspruit river, near the town of Bronkhorstspruit, Transvaal, on 20 December 1880. Threatened by the growing numbers of militant Boers in the Pretoria region, the British recalled the 94th Regiment of Foot, which had several companies garrisoned in towns and villages across the wider area. The regiment's commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Philip Robert Anstruther, led a 34-wagon column consisting of roughly 250 men on a 188-mile (303 km) journey from Lydenburg back to Pretoria. A similar-sized Boer commando force, led by Francois Gerhardus Joubert, was ordered to intercept and stop the British.
  
  Despite several warnings of the threat of attack, the British travelled largely unprepared for combat, and the many wagons they travelled with slowed their progress significantly. On 20 December, 24 days after receiving the order to return, Anstruther's column was confronted by the Boers, who demanded under truce that the British stop their march. Anstruther refused, and the Boers attacked while the British soldiers were still preparing. The British took heavy casualties and surrendered after about 15 minutes; their surviving men were captured. Anstruther was badly wounded and died of his injuries a few days later. (Full article...)
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  Dobroslav Jevđević (Serbian Cyrillic: Доброслав Јевђевић, pronounced [dǒbroslaʋ jêʋdʑevitɕ]; 28 December 1895 – October 1962) was a Bosnian Serb politician and self-appointed Chetnik commander (Serbo-Croatian Latin: vojvoda, војвода) in the Herzegovina region of the Axis-occupied Kingdom of Yugoslavia during World War II. He was a member of the interwar Chetnik Association and the Organisation of Yugoslav Nationalists, a Yugoslav National Party member of the National Assembly, and a leader of the opposition to King Alexander between 1929 and 1934. The following year, he became the propaganda chief for the Yugoslav government.
  
  Following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, he became a Chetnik leader in Herzegovina and joined the Chetnik movement of Draža Mihailović. Jevđević collaborated with the Italians and later the Germans in actions against the Yugoslav Partisans. Although Jevđević recognised the authority of Mihailović, who was aware of and approved of his collaboration with Axis forces, a number of factors effectively rendered him independent of Mihailović's command, except when he worked closely with Ilija Trifunović-Birčanin, Mihailović's designated commander in Dalmatia, Herzegovina, western Bosnia and southwestern Croatia. (Full article...)
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  McCann as a captain in 1917–1918

  
  Lieutenant Colonel William Francis James McCann, CMG, DSO, OBE, MC & Bar, JP (19 April 1892 – 14 December 1957) was an Australian soldier of World War I, a barrister, and a prominent figure in the military and ex-service community of South Australia during the interwar period. Born and raised in Adelaide, he worked as a teacher before the war. He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force as a private in 1914, and rose through the ranks to be commissioned during the Gallipoli campaign of 1915. In 1916–1918 he fought on the Western Front in France and Belgium, was wounded twice, and rose to the rank of major. For his gallantry during the war, he was made a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order and twice awarded the Military Cross. After the war, he served as commanding officer of the 10th Battalion until its disbandment in 1919.
  
  Returning home, McCann became a barrister and formed a legal partnership with Victoria Cross recipient Arthur Blackburn. McCann was active in returned servicemen's organisations, as president of the South Australian branch of the Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Imperial League from 1924 to 1931, and as a state vice-president from 1938 to 1949. He was a foundation member of the Legacy Club of Adelaide, looking after the dependents of deceased servicemen. His service in the part-time Citizen Military Forces saw him reach the rank of lieutenant colonel and command the 43rd Battalion between 1927 and 1930. Appointed as state prices commissioner and deputy Commonwealth prices commissioner from 1938 to 1954; in 1946 an arson attack on his home was linked to his anti–black marketeering work in those roles. In recognition of his work with the ex-service community, McCann was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1935, and a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1956. (Full article...)
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  Title page of volume 1

  
  A History of the Birds of Europe, Including all the Species Inhabiting the Western Palearctic Region is a nine-volume ornithological book published in parts between 1871 and 1896. It was mainly written by Henry Eeles Dresser, although Richard Bowdler Sharpe co-authored the earlier volumes. It describes all the bird species reliably recorded in the wild in Europe and adjacent geographical areas with similar fauna, giving their worldwide distribution, variations in appearance and migratory movements.
  
  The pioneering ornithological work of John Ray and Francis Willughby in the seventeenth century had introduced an effective classification system based on anatomical features, and a dichotomous key to help readers identify birds. This was followed by other English-language ornithologies, notably John Gould's five-volume Birds of Europe published between 1832 and 1837. Sharpe, then librarian of the Zoological Society of London, had worked closely with Gould and wanted to expand on his work by including all species reliably recorded in Europe, North Africa, parts of the Middle East and the Atlantic archipelagos of Madeira, the Canary Islands and the Azores. He lacked the resources to undertake this task on his own, so he proposed to Dresser that they work together on this encyclopaedia, using Dresser's extensive collection of birds and their eggs and network of contacts. (Full article...)
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  HMS Aigle was a 36-gun, fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Ordered on 15 September 1799 and built at Bucklers Hard shipyard, she was launched 23 September 1801. More than fifty of her crew were involved in the Easton Massacre when she visited Portland in April 1803 to press recruits. Her captain and three other officers stood trial for murder but were acquitted. Much of Aigle's career as a frigate was spent trying to keep the English Channel free of enemy warships and merchant vessels. On 22 March 1808, she was first into the action against two large French frigates, compelling one to seek the shelter of the Île de Groix batteries and forcing the other onto the shore.
  
  Aigle saw action at the Battle of Basque Roads in April 1809, when Captain Thomas Cochrane's partially successful action began with an attacking force of fireships against a French fleet, anchored off the Île-d'Aix. Initially providing support to the fireships' crews, Aigle went on to help force the surrender of the stranded French vessels Ville de Varsovie and Aquilon. In July 1809, Aigle took part in the Walcheren Campaign, an amphibious operation against the Kingdom of Holland, carrying out a two-day long bombardment of Flushing that led to its capitulation on 15 August. The campaign was ultimately a failure and the British forces withdrew in September. (Full article...)
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  Approximate location of the Republic of Fredonia

  
  The Fredonian Rebellion or Texan revolt of 1826 (December 21, 1826 – January 31, 1827) was the first attempt by Texans to secede from Mexico. The settlers, led by Empresario Haden Edwards, declared independence from Mexican Texas and created the Republic of Fredonia near Nacogdoches. The short-lived republic encompassed the land the Mexican government had granted to Edwards in 1825 and included areas that had been previously settled. Edwards's actions soon alienated the established residents, and the increasing hostilities between them and settlers recruited by Edwards led Víctor Blanco of the Mexican government to revoke Edwards's contract.
  
  In late December 1826, a group of Edwards's supporters took control of the region by arresting and removing from office several municipality officials affiliated with the established residents. Supporters declared their independence from Mexico. Although the nearby Cherokee tribe initially signed a treaty to support the new republic because a prior agreement with the Mexican government negotiated by Chief Richard Fields was ignored, overtures from Mexican authorities and respected empresario, Stephen F. Austin, convinced tribal leaders to repudiate the rebellion. On January 31, 1827, a force of over 100 Mexican soldiers and 275 Texian Militia marched into Nacogdoches to restore order. Haden Edwards and his brother Benjamin Edwards fled to the United States. Chief Fields was killed by his own tribe. A local merchant was arrested and sentenced to death but later paroled. (Full article...)
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  Kapitän zur See Ernst Lindemann
  as commander of battleship Bismarck on 24 August 1940

  
  Otto Ernst Lindemann (28 March 1894 – 27 May 1941) was a German Kapitän zur See (naval captain). He was the only commander of the battleship Bismarck during its eight months of service in World War II.
  
  Lindemann joined the German Imperial Navy (German: Kaiserliche Marine) in 1913, and after his basic military training, served on a number of warships during World War I as a wireless telegraphy officer. On board SMS Bayern, he participated in Operation Albion in 1917. After World War I, he served in various staff and naval gunnery training positions. One year after the outbreak of World War II, he was appointed commander of the battleship Bismarck, at the time the largest warship in commission anywhere in the world and the pride of the Kriegsmarine (Nazi Germany's navy). (Full article...)
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  Squadron Leader Waddy at Morotai c. 1945

  
  John Lloyd Waddy, OBE, DFC (10 December 1916 – 11 September 1987) was a senior officer and aviator in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), and later served as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly and as a minister in the New South Wales government. As a fighter pilot during World War II, he shot down 15 enemy aircraft during the North African campaign, becoming one of Australia's top-scoring aces and earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. Waddy went on to command No. 80 Squadron in the South West Pacific, where he was awarded the US Air Medal. He was one of eight senior pilots who took part in the "Morotai Mutiny" of April 1945.
  
  Discharged from the Permanent Air Force at the end of the war, Waddy took a commission in the RAAF Reserve and led the organisation as a group captain in the early 1950s. He was active in business and in veterans' groups, and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1955. From 1962 to 1976, he was the Member for Kirribilli in the New South Wales Parliament, representing the Liberal Party. He held cabinet posts including Minister for Child Welfare and Social Welfare (later Youth and Community Services), Minister for Health, and Minister for Police and Services. Waddy retired from politics in 1976, and died in 1987 at the age of 70. (Full article...)

Featured picture

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  Ivan the Terrible Showing His Treasury to Jerome Horsey

  Artist: Alexander Litovchenko

  Alexander Litovchenko's 1875 painting depicting Ivan IV of Russia seated in the Kremlin Armoury, his half-witted heir Fyodor standing behind, a group of distrustful boyars whispering at a distance, and the Tsar's jester in a skomorokh cap addressing the English diplomat Jerome Horsey. Horsey was a resident of the Russia Company in Moscow from 1572 to 1585.
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  Nefertiti Bust

  Photo: Philip Pikart

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

  Photo: William Henry Jackson; Restoration: Lise Broer

  A man climbs a statue of a Buddhist idol at Borobudur, a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist monument near Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia, in this 1895 hand-tinted lantern slide. The monument comprises six square platforms topped by three circular platforms, and is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. The monument is both a shrine to the Lord Buddha and a place for Buddhist pilgrimage. Evidence suggests Borobudur was abandoned following the 14th-century decline of Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms in Java, and the Javanese conversion to Islam. The monument is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is the most popular tourist attraction in the country.
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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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  Check used for the Alaska Purchase

  Check: William H. Seward; scan: Our Documents initiative

  The check used for the Alaska Purchase, issued on August 1, 1868, and signed by US Secretary of State William H. Seward. For a total of $7.2 million, the United States government purchased Russian America from the Russian Empire (represented here by Russian Minister to the United States Eduard de Stoeckl). The lands involved became the modern state of Alaska in 1959.
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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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  Invasion of Normandy

  Photo credit: United States Coast Guard

  Landing ships putting ashore on Omaha Beach at low tide during the first days of the Invasion of Normandy, mid-June, 1944. Barrage balloons fly overhead and U.S. Army "half-tracks" form a convoy on the beach. The Normandy landing was the largest seaborne invasion in history, with almost three million troops crossing the English Channel.
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  Battle of Jerusalem (1917)

  Photo: American Colony; Restoration: Sebastian Kolendo

  The Mayor of Jerusalem Hussein al-Husayni (centre) meets with soldiers of the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force on December 9, 1917, under the white flag of surrender. The Battle of Jerusalem had begun the day before, but the Turkish forces in the city were no match against the British forces. A Turkish counterattack on December 25 was also repulsed, confirming the capture of Jerusalem by the Allies.
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  Armorial of the Holy Roman Empire

  Woodcut: Hans Burgkmair; print: David de Negker

  A woodcut print of the Quaternion Eagle, the double-headed eagle armorial of the Holy Roman Empire. It showed the shields of the various parts of the empire in groups of four on the feathers of the eagle supporting, in place of a shield, Christ on the True Cross. The top, larger shields, are those of the seven Prince-electors, as well as one for the titular "Prefect of Rome".
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  Boxer Rebellion

  Artist: Kasai Torajirō; Restoration: Staxringold

  Japanese and British troops attack members of the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists ("Boxers") at Beijing Castle during the Boxer Rebellion of 1899–1901. The Boxers, angered by foreign imperialist expansion into Qing Dynasty China, had engaged in looting, arson, and killings of foreigners. In 1900, the Empress Dowager Cixi employed the Boxers to attack foreign settlements in Beijing. The uprising was eventually put down by 20,000 troops from the Eight-Nation Alliance.
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  Knight

  Illustration: Anton Sorg; Restoration: Lise Broer

  A knight, a member of the warrior class of the Middle Ages in Europe, in Gothic plate armour, from a German book illustration published 1483. The modern concept of the knight is as an elite warrior sworn to uphold the values of chivalry, faith, loyalty, courage and honour. Knighthood as known in Medieval Europe was characterized by the combination of two elements: feudalism and service as a mounted combatant. Both arose under the reign of the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne, from which the knighthood of the Middle Ages can be seen to have had its genesis.
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  History of the Australian Army

  Artist: Norman Lindsay

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

  Map credit: Konstantinos Plakidas

  A map of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Throughout the Middle Ages, Constantinople, strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara at the point where Europe meets Asia, was Europe's largest and wealthiest city. It was officially renamed to its modern name Istanbul (Turkish: İstanbul) in 1930.
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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.

Did you know (auto generated)

• ... that "Spotlight", the best-selling digital single in Chinese music history, saw its Douban rating drop from 10.0 to 3.2 less than two days after its release?
• ... that LGBT rights activist Kit Malone helped create the first transgender organized marching group in the Indianapolis Pride Parade's history?
• ... that the leak of the upcoming Grand Theft Auto game was described as one of the biggest leaks in video game history?
• ... that the first game in Georgetown football history was never played?
• ... that What Hath God Wrought, the 2007 history of Jacksonian America written by Daniel Walker Howe, is dedicated to Andrew Jackson's "political nemesis" John Quincy Adams?
• ... 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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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 would make a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current 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 system of public music education. 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 that 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

December 26: Saint Stephen's Day (Western Christianity); Boxing Day in the Commonwealth; Wren Day in Ireland and the Isle of Man; Kwanzaa begins (African diaspora in the Americas)

Flannan Isles Lighthouse

• 1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chickasaw Bayou began with Confederate defenders engaging Union forces who were attempting to capture the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi.
• 1871 – Thespis, the first comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan, premiered at the Gaiety Theatre in London.
• 1900 – A relief crew arrived at the Flannan Isles Lighthouse (pictured) in Scotland and discovered that the previous crew had disappeared.
• 1943 – Second World War: The German battleship Scharnhorst was sunk at the Battle of the North Cape during an attempt to attack Arctic convoys.
• 2004 – A major earthquake and tsunami devastated communities around the Indian Ocean, killing an estimated 227,898 people in 14 countries.

• Willy Corsari (b. 1897)
• Elizabeth David (b. 1913)
• Milagros Benet de Mewton (d. 1948)
• Stanisław Kot (d. 1975)

More anniversaries:

• December 25
• December 26
• December 27

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• ... that on 26 April 1881 HMS Doterel (pictured) exploded, killing 143 of the 155 crew members?
• ... that causes of the deaths at the Berlin Wall included shooting, drowning, suffocation, suicide, and falling from a balloon?
• ... that the 19th-century swindler Bertha Heyman, known as "The Confidence Queen," conned men by pretending to be a wealthy woman who was unable to access her fortune?
• ... that only four great uncial codices have survived until the present day?
• ... that after World War II, Polish resistance organizer and Warsaw Uprising fighter Jan Mazurkiewicz was brutally tortured by the authorities in communist Poland?
• ... that tiny Paederus beetles may have caused some of the ten Plagues of Egypt?
• ... that the only known report of bloodshed during the simulated Nazi invasion of Winnipeg was from a woman who cut her thumb while preparing toast?
• ... that Dacian bracelets were used as currency and votive offerings?

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