Portal:History

The History Portal

History by Frederick Dielman

History is the systematic study of the past. As an academic discipline, it analyzes and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened, focusing primarily on the human past. 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 slightly different sense, the term history refers not to an academic field but to the past itself or to individual texts about the past.

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, social history, and economic history. Branches associated with specific research methods include quantitative history, comparative history, and oral history.

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 integrate the perspectives of several individual sources to develop a coherent narrative. Different schools of thought, such as positivism, the Annales school, Marxism, and postmodernism, have distinct methodological approaches.

History emerged as a field of inquiry in the ancient period to replace myth-infused narratives, with influential early traditions originating in Greece, China, and later also 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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  Garfield in 1881

  
  James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881) was the 20th president of the United States, serving from March 1881 until his assassination in July led to his death in September that year. A preacher, lawyer, and Civil War general, Garfield served nine terms in the United States House of Representatives and is the only sitting member of the House to be elected president. Before his candidacy for the presidency, he had been elected to the U.S. Senate by the Ohio General Assembly—a position he declined when he became president-elect.
  
  Garfield was born into poverty in a log cabin and grew up in northeastern Ohio. After graduating from Williams College in 1856, he studied law and became an attorney. He was a preacher in the Stone–Campbell Movement and president of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, affiliated with the Disciples. Garfield was elected as a Republican member of the Ohio State Senate in 1859, serving until 1861. He opposed Confederate secession, was a major general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and fought in the battles of Middle Creek, Shiloh, and Chickamauga. He was elected to Congress in 1862 to represent Ohio's 19th district. Throughout his congressional service, he firmly supported the gold standard and gained a reputation as a skilled orator. He initially agreed with Radical Republican views on Reconstruction but later favored a Moderate Republican–aligned approach to civil rights enforcement for freedmen. Garfield's aptitude for mathematics extended to his own proof of the Pythagorean theorem, which he published in 1876. (Full article...)
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  M249 Para equipped with an ACOG scope

  
  The M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon), formally the Light Machine Gun, 5.56 mm, M249, is the United States Armed Forces adaptation of the Belgian FN Minimi, a light machine gun manufactured by FN Herstal (FN).
  
  The M249 SAW is manufactured in the United States by the subsidiary FN Manufacturing LLC, a company in Columbia, South Carolina (FN America), and is widely used in the U.S. Armed Forces. The weapon was introduced in 1984 to address a lack of sustained automatic fire capability at the squad level. The M249 SAW combines the rate of fire of a machine gun with the accuracy and portability of an assault rifle. (Full article...)
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  SS West Conob shortly after completion in 1919. She was renamed Mauna Loa in 1934.

  SS West Conob shortly after completion in 1919. She was renamed Mauna Loa in 1934.

  
  SS Mauna Loa was a steam-powered cargo ship of the Matson Navigation Company that was sunk in the bombing of Darwin in February 1942. She was christened SS West Conob in 1919 and renamed SS Golden Eagle in 1928. At the time of her completion in 1919, the ship was inspected by the United States Navy for possible use as USS West Conob (ID-4033) but was neither taken into the Navy nor commissioned.
  
  West Conob was built in 1919 for the United States Shipping Board (USSB), part of the West series of ships—steel-hulled cargo ships built on the West Coast of the United States for the World War I war effort—and was the 14th ship built at Los Angeles Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company in San Pedro, California. She initially sailed for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and had circumnavigated the globe twice by 1921. She began sailing to South America for Swayne & Hoyt Lines in 1925, and then, to Australia and New Zealand. When Swayne & Hoyt's operation was taken over by the Oceanic and Oriental Navigation Company a few years later, she sailed under the name Golden Eagle until 1934, when she was transferred to Oceanic and Oriental's parent, the Matson Navigation Company. Matson renamed her Mauna Loa, after the large shield volcano on the island of Hawaii, and put her into service between Hawaii and the U.S. mainland. (Full article...)
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  Æthelred as depicted in the early fourteenth-century Genealogical Roll of the Kings of England.

  
  Æthelred I (alt. Aethelred, Ethelred; Old English: Æthel-ræd, lit. 'noble counsel'; 845/848 to 871) was King of Wessex from 865 until his death in 871. He was the fourth of five sons of King Æthelwulf of Wessex, four of whom in turn became king. Æthelred succeeded his elder brother Æthelberht and was followed by his youngest brother, Alfred the Great. Æthelred had two sons, Æthelhelm and Æthelwold, who were passed over for the kingship on their father's death because they were still infants. Alfred was succeeded by his son, Edward the Elder, and Æthelwold unsuccessfully disputed the throne with him.
  
  Æthelred's accession coincided with the arrival of the Viking Great Heathen Army in England. Over the next five years the Vikings conquered Northumbria and East Anglia, and at the end of 870 they launched a full-scale attack on Wessex. In early January 871, Æthelred was defeated at the Battle of Reading. Four days later, he scored a victory in the Battle of Ashdown, but this was followed by two defeats at Basing and Meretun. He died shortly after Easter. Alfred was forced to pay off the Vikings, but he scored a decisive victory over them seven years later at the Battle of Edington. (Full article...)
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  Supplies being unloaded from a ship at the Mulberry B artificial harbour in July 1944

  
  British logistics played a key role in the success of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of France in June 1944. The objective of the campaign was to secure a lodgement on the mainland of Europe for further operations. The Allies had to land sufficient forces to overcome the initial opposition and build them up faster than the Germans could respond. Planning for this operation had begun in 1942. The Anglo-Canadian force, the 21st Army Group, consisted of the British Second Army and Canadian First Army. Between them, they had six armoured divisions (including the Polish 1st Armoured Division), ten infantry divisions, two airborne divisions, nine independent armoured brigades and two commando brigades. Logistical units included six supply unit headquarters, 25 Base Supply Depots (BSDs), 83 Detail Issue Depots (DIDs), 25 field bakeries, 14 field butcheries and 18 port detachments. The army group was supported over the beaches and through the Mulberry artificial port specially constructed for the purpose.
  
  During the first seven weeks after the British and Canadian landings in Normandy on D-Day, 6 June 1944, the advance was much slower than anticipated, and the lodgement area was much smaller. The short lines of communication provided an opportunity to accumulate reserves of supplies. Two army roadheads were created. No. 1 Army Roadhead for I Corps and No. 2 Army Roadhead for XXX Corps, these being the two corps ashore at the time. When the Canadian First Army assumed control of the British I Corps on 21 June, the No. 1 Army Roadhead also passed into its control. No. 2 Army Roadhead formed the nucleus of what became the Rear Maintenance Area (RMA) of the 21st Army Group. By 26 July, 675,000 personnel, 150,000 vehicles and 690,000 tonnes (680,000 long tons) of stores and 69,000 tonnes (68,000 long tons) of bulk petrol had been landed. Ammunition usage was high, exceeding the daily allocation for the 25-pounder field guns by 8 per cent and for the 5.5-inch medium guns by 24 per cent. Greater priority was given to ammunition shipments, with petrol, oil and lubricant (POL) shipments cut to compensate. (Full article...)
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  The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, the majority ethnic group in China. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng (who established the short-lived Shun dynasty), numerous rump regimes ruled by remnants of the Ming imperial family, collectively called the Southern Ming, survived until 1662.
  
  The Ming dynasty's founder, the Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368–1398), attempted to create a society of self-sufficient rural communities ordered in a rigid, immobile system that would guarantee and support a permanent class of soldiers for his dynasty: the empire's standing army exceeded one million troops and the navy's dockyards in Nanjing were the largest in the world. He also took great care breaking the power of the court eunuchs and unrelated magnates, enfeoffing his many sons throughout China and attempting to guide these princes through the Huang-Ming Zuxun, a set of published dynastic instructions. This failed when his teenage successor, the Jianwen Emperor, attempted to curtail his uncle's power, prompting the Jingnan campaign, an uprising that placed the Prince of Yan upon the throne as the Yongle Emperor in 1402. The Yongle Emperor established Yan as a secondary capital and renamed it Beijing, constructed the Forbidden City, and restored the Grand Canal and the primacy of the imperial examinations in official appointments. He rewarded his eunuch supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. One eunuch, Zheng He, led seven enormous voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia and the eastern coasts of Africa. Hongwu and Yongle emperors had also expanded the empire's rule into Inner Asia. (Full article...)
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  Henry Clifford
  10th Baron Clifford
  Arms of Clifford, Chequy or and azure a fess gules
  Predecessor	John Clifford, 9th Baron Clifford
  Successor	Henry Clifford, 1st Earl of Cumberland
  Born	c. 1454
  Died	23 April 1523

  Henry Clifford, 10th Baron Clifford KB (c. 1454 – 23 April 1523) was an English nobleman. His father, John Clifford, 9th Baron Clifford, was killed in the Wars of the Roses fighting for the House of Lancaster when Henry was around five years old. A local legend later developed that—on account of John Clifford having killed one of the House of York's royal princes in battle, and the new Yorkist King Edward IV seeking revenge—Henry was spirited away by his mother. As a result, it was said, he grew up ill-educated, living a pastoral life in the care of a shepherd family. Thus, ran the story, Clifford was known as the "shepherd lord". More recently, historians have questioned this narrative, noting that for a supposedly ill-educated man, he was signing charters only a few years after his father's death, and that in any case, Clifford was officially pardoned by King Edward in 1472. It may be that he deliberately avoided attracting Yorkist attention in his early years, although probably not to the extent portrayed in the local mythology.
  
  The Yorkist regime came to an end in 1485 with the invasion of Henry Tudor, who defeated Edward's brother, Richard III, at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Henry's victory meant that he needed men to control the North of England for him, and Clifford's career as a loyal Tudor servant began. Soon after Bosworth, the King gave him responsibility for crushing the last remnants of rebellion in the north. Clifford was not always successful in this, and his actions were not always popular. On more than one occasion, he found himself at loggerheads with the city of York, the civic leadership of which was particularly independently minded. When another Yorkist rebellion broke out in 1487, Clifford suffered an embarrassing military defeat by the rebels outside the city walls. Generally, however, royal service was extremely profitable for him: King Henry needed trustworthy men in the region and was willing to build up their authority in order to protect his own. (Full article...)
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  75 mm pack howitzers of the 11th U.S. Marine Regiment fire in support of the operation against Japanese forces around Koli Point.

  
  The Kali Point action, during 3–12 November 1942, was an engagement between U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army forces and Imperial Japanese Army forces around Koli Point on Guadalcanal during the Guadalcanal campaign. The U.S. forces were under the overall command of Major General Alexander Vandegrift, while the Japanese forces were under the overall command of Lieutenant General Harukichi Hyakutake.
  
  U.S. Marines from the 7th Marine Regiment and U.S. Army soldiers from the 164th Infantry Regiment under the tactical command of William H. Rupertus and Edmund B. Sebree, attacked a concentration of Japanese Army troops, most of whom belonged to the 230th Infantry Regiment, commanded by Toshinari Shōji. Shōji's troops had marched to the Koli Point area after the failed Japanese assaults on U.S. defenses during the Battle for Henderson Field in late October 1942. (Full article...)
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  A map of Mexico, 1835–46, showing administrative divisions.

  
  The Runaway Scrape events took place mainly between September 1835 and April 1836 and were the evacuations by Texas residents fleeing the Mexican Army of Operations during the Texas Revolution, from the Battle of the Alamo through the decisive Battle of San Jacinto. The ad interim government of the new Republic of Texas and much of the civilian population fled eastward ahead of the Mexican forces. The conflict arose after Antonio López de Santa Anna abrogated the 1824 Constitution of Mexico and established martial law in Coahuila y Tejas. The Texians resisted and declared their independence. It was Sam Houston's responsibility, as the appointed commander-in-chief of the Provisional Army of Texas (before such an army actually existed), to recruit and train a military force to defend the population against troops led by Santa Anna.
  
  Residents on the Gulf Coast and at San Antonio de Béxar began evacuating in January upon learning of the Mexican army's troop movements into their area, an event that was ultimately replayed across Texas. During early skirmishes, some Texian soldiers surrendered, believing that they would become prisoners of war — but Santa Anna demanded their executions. The news of the Battle of the Alamo and the Goliad massacre instilled fear in the population and resulted in the mass exodus of the civilian population of Gonzales, where the opening battle of the Texian revolution had begun and where, only days before the fall of the Alamo, they had sent a militia to reinforce the defenders at the mission. The civilian refugees were accompanied by the newly forming provisional army, as Houston bought time to train soldiers and create a military structure that could oppose Santa Anna's greater forces. Houston's actions were viewed as cowardice by the ad interim government, as well as by some of his own troops. As he and the refugees from Gonzales escaped first to the Colorado River and then to the Brazos, evacuees from other areas trickled in and new militia groups arrived to join with Houston's force. (Full article...)
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  Illustration of Esmeralda by Norman Davis for the Illustrated London News, 1891

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

  Vasa's port bow

  
  Vasa (previously Wasa) (Swedish pronunciation: [²vɑːsa] ^ⓘ) is a Swedish warship built between 1626 and 1628. The ship sank after sailing roughly 1,300 m (1,400 yd) into her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. She fell into obscurity after most of her valuable bronze cannons were salvaged in the 17th century, until she was located again in the late 1950s in a busy shipping area in Stockholm harbor. The ship was salvaged with a largely intact hull in 1961. She was housed in a temporary museum called Wasavarvet ("The Vasa Shipyard") until 1988 and then moved permanently to the Vasa Museum in the Royal National City Park in Stockholm. As the most visited museum in Scandinavia, the ship is one of Sweden's most popular tourist attractions and has been seen by over 45 million visitors since 1961. Since her recovery, Vasa has become a widely recognized symbol of the Swedish Empire.
  
  The ship was built on the orders of the King of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus as part of the military expansion he initiated in a war with Poland-Lithuania (1621–1629). She was constructed at the navy yard in Stockholm under a contract with private entrepreneurs in 1626–1627 and armed primarily with bronze cannons cast in Stockholm specifically for the ship. Richly decorated as a symbol of the king's ambitions for Sweden and himself, upon completion she was one of the most powerfully armed vessels in the world. However, Vasa was dangerously unstable, with too much weight in the upper structure of the hull. Despite this lack of stability, she was ordered to sea and sank only a few minutes after encountering a wind stronger than a breeze. (Full article...)
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  Seleucus VI's portrait on the obverse of a tetradrachm minted in Antioch

  
  Seleucus VI Epiphanes Nicator (Ancient Greek: Σέλευκος Ἐπιφανής Νικάτωρ, romanized: Séleukos Epiphanís Nikátor; between 124 and 109 BC – 94 BC) was a Hellenistic Seleucid monarch who ruled Syria between 96 and 94 BC. He was the son of Antiochus VIII and his Ptolemaic Egyptian wife Tryphaena. Seleucus VI lived during a period of civil war between his father and his uncle Antiochus IX, which ended in 96 BC when Antiochus VIII was assassinated. Antiochus IX then occupied the capital Antioch while Seleucus VI established his power-base in western Cilicia and himself prepared for war. In 95 BC, Antiochus IX marched against his nephew, but lost the battle and was killed. Seleucus VI became the master of the capital but had to share Syria with his brother Demetrius III, based in Damascus, and his cousin, Antiochus IX's son Antiochus X.
  
  According to the ancient historian Appian, Seleucus VI was a violent ruler. He taxed his dominions extensively to support his wars, and resisted allowing the cities a measure of autonomy, as had been the practice of former kings. His reign did not last long; in 94 BC, he was expelled from Antioch by Antiochus X, who followed him to the Cilician city of Mopsuestia. Seleucus took shelter in the city where his attempts to raise money led to riots that eventually claimed his life in 94 BC. Ancient traditions have different versions of his death, but he was most probably burned alive by the rioters. Following his demise, his brothers Antiochus XI and Philip I destroyed Mopsuestia as an act of revenge and their armies fought those of Antiochus X. (Full article...)
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  The Iğdır Genocide Memorial and Museum promotes the false view that Armenians committed genocide against Turks, rather than vice versa.

  
  
  Armenian genocide denial is the negationist claim that the Ottoman Empire and its ruling party, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), did not commit genocide against its Armenian citizens during World War I—a crime documented in a large body of evidence and affirmed by the vast majority of scholars. The perpetrators denied the genocide as they carried it out, claiming that Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were resettled for military reasons, not exterminated. In its aftermath, incriminating documents were systematically destroyed. Denial has been the policy of every government of the Ottoman Empire's successor state, the Republic of Turkey, as of 2024.
  
  Borrowing arguments used by the CUP to justify its actions, Armenian genocide denial rests on the assumption that the deportation of Armenians was a legitimate state action in response to a real or perceived Armenian uprising that threatened the empire's existence during wartime. Deniers assert the CUP intended to resettle Armenians, not kill them. They claim the death toll is exaggerated or attribute the deaths to other factors, such as a purported civil war, disease, bad weather, rogue local officials, or bands of Kurds and outlaws. The historian Ronald Grigor Suny summarizes the main argument as "there was no genocide, and the Armenians were to blame for it". (Full article...)
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  No. 34 Squadron is a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) VIP transport squadron. It operates Boeing 737 Business Jets and Dassault Falcon 7Xs from Defence Establishment Fairbairn in Canberra. The squadron was formed in February 1942 for standard transport duties during World War II, initially flying de Havilland DH.84 Dragons in Northern Australia. In 1943 it re-equipped with Douglas C-47 Dakotas, which it operated in New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies prior to disbanding in June 1946.
  
  The unit was re-established in March 1948 as No. 34 (Communications) Squadron at RAAF Station Mallala, South Australia, where it supported activities at the Woomera Rocket Range before disbanding in October 1955. It was re-raised as No. 34 (VIP) Flight in March 1956 at RAAF Base Canberra (later Fairbairn). No. 34 Flight was redesignated No. 34 (Special Transport) Squadron in July 1959, and No. 34 Squadron in June 1963. During the 1960s it operated Dakotas, Convair Metropolitans, Vickers Viscounts, Dassault Falcon-Mysteres, Hawker Siddeley HS 748s, and BAC 1-11s, the last three types continuing in service until the late 1980s. The squadron's fleet consisted solely of Dassault Falcon 900s from 1989 until 2002, when it began operating the 737 and Bombardier Challenger 604s. The Challengers were replaced with the Falcon 7Xs in 2019. (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...)

Featured picture

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  Temple Square

  Photo: William Henry Jackson; restoration: Tom dl and Mmxx

  An 1899 photochrom showing Temple Square, a 10-acre (4.0 ha) complex located in the center of Salt Lake City, Utah, US. The location is owned by and serves as headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was selected by Church president Brigham Young in 1846. Temple Square is home to several buildings; depicted here are the Salt Lake Temple, Salt Lake Tabernacle and Salt Lake Assembly Hall.
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  Anti-Slavery Society

  Painting by Benjamin Haydon

  Benjamin Haydon's painting of Thomas Clarkson addressing the 1840 Anti-Slavery Convention, held by the Anti-Slavery Society at Exeter Hall in London. The organisation was the second to bear that name and was dedicated to the abolishment of slavery worldwide. It continues to function today as Anti-Slavery International.
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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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  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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  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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  Samurai

  Photograph: Felice Beato

  A samurai with his sword and armor, photographed by Felice Beato c. 1860. The samurai, records of which date back to the early 10th-century Kokin Wakashū, were the military nobility of medieval and early-modern Japan. As Japan modernized during the Meiji period beginning in the late 1860s, the samurai lost much of their power, and the status was ultimately dissolved. However, samurai values remain common in Japanese society.
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  Dust Bowl

  Photo credit: Sloan, USDA

  Buried machinery in a barn lot, Dallas, South Dakota, United States, due to Dust Bowl conditions, May 1936. Dust storms from 1930–1939 caused major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands. This ecological disaster was a result of drought conditions coupled with decades of extensive farming using techniques that promoted erosion.
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  Arecibo message

  Graphic: Arne Nordmann

  A color visual interpretation of the digital signal in the Arecibo message, sent in 1974 from the Arecibo Observatory. Broadcast into space via frequency modulated radio waves at a ceremony to mark the remodeling of the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, the message consisted of 1,679 binary digits, approximately 210 bytes, transmitted at a frequency of 2,380 MHz. It was aimed at the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, some 25,000 light-years away, and contains information related to mathematics, chemistry, and astronomy.
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  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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  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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  Kamianets-Podilskyi

  Map credit: Nicolas de Fer

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

  Painting credit: John Trumbull

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

  Banknote credit: Bank of Finland; photographed by Andrew Shiva

  The Finnish markka was the currency of Finland from 1860 to 2002. The currency was divided into 100 pennies and was first introduced by the Bank of Finland to replace the Russian ruble at a rate of four markkaa to one ruble. The markka was replaced by the euro on 1 January 2002 and ceased to be legal tender on 28 February later that year.
  
  This picture shows a 20-markka banknote issued in 1862, as part of the first issue of markka banknotes (1860 to 1862), for the Grand Duchy of Finland, then an autonomous part of the Russian Empire; 1862 was also the first year of issue for this particular denomination. The banknote's obverse depicts the coat of arms of Finland on a Russian double-headed eagle, and was personally signed by the director and the cashier of the Bank of Finland. The text on the obverse is in Swedish, whereas the reverse is primarily in Russian and Finnish.
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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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  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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  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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  Army of the Republic of Vietnam

  Photo credit: J.F. Fitzpatrick, Jr., SPC5, U.S. Army Signal Corps

  This twelve-year old ARVN Airborne trooper poses with an M79 grenade launcher during a sweep through the devastated Plantation Road area after a day-long battle near Tan Son Nhut during the Vietnam War. The young soldier had been "adopted" by the US Army Airborne Division.

Did you know (auto generated)

• ... that the Balconcillo mutiny is considered to be the first coup d'état in the history of Peru?
• ... that public health measures and advances in medical science in modern human history helped raise global life expectancy from about 31 years in 1900 to over 66 years in 2000?
• ... that Voyager 2 has been transmitting data for more than 46 years, making it the oldest active space probe in history?
• ... that the 1892 Biddle vs. Livingstone football game was the first college football game ever played between historically black schools?
• ... that the historic mansion Bulgur Palas in Istanbul hosted a birdhouse for hundreds of domestic canaries in one room during its ownership by the Ottoman Bank?
• ... that The Fader praised "Montgomery Brawl" as "a hilarious recap" of the brawl and a "song a piece of history deserves"?

Featured biography –

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

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Masako Katsura (桂 マサ子, Katsura Masako, listen; 7 March 1913 – 20 December 1995), nicknamed "Katsy" and sometimes called the "First Lady of Billiards", was a Japanese carom billiards player who was most active in the 1950s. She was the first woman to compete and place among the best in the male-dominated world of professional billiards. First learning the game from her brother-in-law and then under the tutelage of Japanese champion Kinrey Matsuyama, Katsura became Japan's only female professional player. In competition in Japan, she took second place in the country's national three-cushion billiards championship three times. In exhibition she was noted for running 10,000 points at the game of straight rail.

After marrying a U.S. Army non-commissioned officer in 1950, Katsura emigrated to the United States in 1951. There she was invited to play in the 1952 U.S.-sponsored World Three-Cushion Championship, ultimately taking seventh place at that competition. Katsura was the first woman ever to be included in any world billiards tournament. Her fame cemented, Katsura went on an exhibition tour of the United States with eight-time world champion Welker Cochran, and later with 51-time world champion Willie Hoppe. In 1953 and 1954, she again competed for the world three-cushion crown, taking fifth and fourth places respectively. (Full article...)

On this day

February 13

Coso artifact

• 1660 – The four-year-old Charles XI became King of Sweden upon his father's death.
• 1891 – Frances Coles was killed in the last of eleven unsolved murders of women that took place in or near the impoverished Whitechapel district in the East End of London.
• 1961 – Geode prospectors near Olancha, California, discovered what they claimed to be a 500,000-year-old rock with a 1920s-era spark plug encased within (pictured).
• 2017 – Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was assassinated using VX nerve agent in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

• Muhammad ibn Ra'iq (d. 942)
• Isabella d'Este (d. 1539)
• Dorothy Bliss (b. 1916)
• Balu Mahendra (d. 2014)

More anniversaries:

• February 12
• February 13
• February 14

Selected quote

Even as the fingers of the two hands are equal, so are human beings equal to one another. No one has any right, nor any preference to claim over another. You are brothers.

— Muhammad, 7th century Islamic prophet

Related portals

More Did you know...

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

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