World History Encyclopedia

While most people today know about the influence of London, Paris, and New York on modern thought, Vienna makes few appearances in people’s discussions. However, Vienna, and such individuals as Sigmund Freud and Robert Musil, had a profound impact on modern thinking. The intellectual scene in Vienna, the capital of the Habsburg Empire in Central Europe, in the later part of the ...

History is filled with numbers: years of rule, distances travelled, armies mobilized, cities besieged, territories conquered, and generations transformed. History by the Numbers brings together a collection of visual infographics that use rankings, timelines, comparisons, and carefully selected examples to explore patterns across world history. From long-lived dynasties and impe...

Panic at Bull Run is an excerpt from a longer article, The Battle of Bull Run, by the famous English journalist William H. Russell (1827 to 1907, also known as Sir William Howard Russell), one of the most widely read writers of his day. Russell was an eyewitness to the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas) on 21 July 1861 during the American Civil War, but his article focuse...

In the ancient world, "religion" and society were not separate entities. Various gods dictated covenants, "law-codes," and social conventions. Such law-codes were most often the responsibility of the king, endowing him with authority to punish any violations. The rationalization for this concept was that the gods or God endowed the ruler with a share of "divinity," as a unified ...

The First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas) on 21 July 1861 was the first major battle of the American Civil War and a wake-up call for both sides which, until then, believed that the war would be over quickly, and they would come out the winner. Each side pointed to earlier, smaller, battles to support their claim.