Portal:History
The History Portal
Herodotus (c. 484 BC – c. 425 BC) is often
considered the "father of history"
History (derived from Ancient Greek ἱστορία (historía) 'inquiry; knowledge acquired by investigation') is the systematic study and documentation of human past.
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 artifacts, and ecological markers. History is incomplete and still has debatable mysteries.
History is an academic discipline which uses a narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze 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.
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 and Ibn Khaldun. (Full article...)
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- ... that throughout the history of education in Wales, schools have been held in monastic settlements, cathedrals, residential houses, marketplaces, barns, churches, and village halls?
- ... 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 Chris Wroblewski was the starting point guard for the winningest team in Ivy League history?
- ... that the entire inventory of historic string instruments in Canada's Musical Instrument Bank are loaned to musicians in a competition held every three years?
- ... that Mike Sullivan was the first governor in Wyoming's statehood history to have his veto overridden by the state legislature?
- ... that The Fader praised "Montgomery Brawl" as "a hilarious recap" of the brawl and a "song a piece of history deserves"?
Enrico Fermi ForMemRS (Italian: [enˈriːko ˈfermi]; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian and naturalized American physicist, renowned for being the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, and a member of the Manhattan Project. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and the "architect of the atomic bomb". He was one of very few physicists to excel in both theoretical physics and experimental physics. Fermi was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on induced radioactivity by neutron bombardment and for the discovery of transuranium elements. With his colleagues, Fermi filed several patents related to the use of nuclear power, all of which were taken over by the US government. He made significant contributions to the development of statistical mechanics, quantum theory, and nuclear and particle physics.
Fermi's first major contribution involved the field of statistical mechanics. After Wolfgang Pauli formulated his exclusion principle in 1925, Fermi followed with a paper in which he applied the principle to an ideal gas, employing a statistical formulation now known as Fermi–Dirac statistics. Today, particles that obey the exclusion principle are called "fermions". Pauli later postulated the existence of an uncharged invisible particle emitted along with an electron during beta decay, to satisfy the law of conservation of energy. Fermi took up this idea, developing a model that incorporated the postulated particle, which he named the "neutrino". His theory, later referred to as Fermi's interaction and now called weak interaction, described one of the four fundamental interactions in nature. Through experiments inducing radioactivity with the recently discovered neutron, Fermi discovered that slow neutrons were more easily captured by atomic nuclei than fast ones, and he developed the Fermi age equation to describe this. After bombarding thorium and uranium with slow neutrons, he concluded that he had created new elements. Although he was awarded the Nobel Prize for this discovery, the new elements were later revealed to be nuclear fission products. (Full article...)On this day
August 24: Feast day of Saint Bartholomew (Western Christianity); Independence Day in Ukraine (1991)
- 1704 – War of the Spanish Succession: An Anglo-Dutch fleet engaged a French naval force at the Battle of Málaga in the Mediterranean Sea.
- 1814 – War of 1812: British forces invaded Washington, D.C., setting fire to various U.S. government buildings, including the White House (pictured).
- 1889 – The New Zealand Native football team, predominantly comprising Māori players, concluded their 107-game tour, the longest in rugby union history.
- 1914 – The Battle of Cer ended with the first Allied victory of World War I.
- 1954 – In the midst of a political crisis, Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas fatally shot himself in the Catete Palace in Rio de Janeiro.
- William Wilberforce (b. 1759)
- Antonio Stoppani (b. 1824)
- Odette Abadi (b. 1914)
- Cora Slocomb di Brazza (d. 1944)
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
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- ... that finds unearthed at the Israelite Tower in Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter attest to the Babylonian sack of the city in 586 BCE?
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