History

History is the study of past events. People know what happened in the past by looking at things from the past including sources (like books, newspapers, scripts and letters), buildings and artifacts (like pottery, tools, coins and human or animal remains.) Libraries, archives, and museums collect and keep these things for people to study history. A person who studies history is called a historian. A person who studies pre-history and history through things left behind by ancient cultures is called an archaeologist. A person who studies mankind and society is called an anthropologist. The study of the sources and methods used to study and write history is called historiography.

People can learn about the past by talking to people who remember things that happened at some point in the past. This is called oral history. For example, when people who had been slaves and American Civil War survivors got old, some historians recorded them talking about their lives, so that history would not be lost. 

In old times people in different parts of the world kept separate histories because they did not meet each other very often. Some groups of people never met each other. The rulers of Medieval Europe, Ancient Rome and Ancient China each thought that they ruled the only important parts of the world and that other parts were "barbarian". But they were still connected, even if they didn't realize it.

The term "historically" is used to say that something has been a certain way during most of its history. For example, a historically female university is a university which has had a student body that was mostly or entirely female for most of its history.  The term is often used for historically female and historically black (African American) schools.

Timeline of history 

Pre-history
 Ancient history
 Sumer
 Ancient Egypt
 Babylonia
Ancient Armenia
 Ancient Greece
 Ancient India
 Ancient China and Japan, Korea, Mongolia
 Ancient Southeast Asia - Cambodia - Thailand - Indonesia
 Ancient North America - Iroquois, Mohawk, Huron, Haida, Lenape, Mohican, Cree, Sioux, Inuit, Dene
 Ancient Central America - Aztecs, Maya, Olmecs, Toltecs, Teotihuacan, Mixtecs
 Ancient South America - Inca, Chimu, Tihuanacu, Huari
 Ancient Africa
 Ancient Australia
 Roman Empire
 Christian Rome - Justinian to the rise of Byzantium
 Chinese Dynasties
 Byzantine Empire
 Early Islamic Caliphate - Muhammad to The Crusades
 Early Middle Ages - end of European Dark Ages to rise of Roman Catholic Church
 High Middle Ages and the Crusades - conflict with Islam, Cathars, pagan tribes in Lithuania, etc.
 Late Middle Ages - 13th century to 15th century
 Late Islamic Caliphate - to fall of Muslim Spain
 Mongol Empire
 Renaissance - 15th century renewal of science etc., based on texts from Ancient Greece and Roman Empire that were preserved by Muslims and captured by Christians
 European colonization of the Americas - 15th century impact on America
Spanish Empire
British Empire
 Baroque era - mid 16th century to mid-late 18th century
 Conflict of Ottoman Empire with Austria-Hungary
 Rise of the Qing Dynasty in China
 Enlightenment - mid 17th century to late 18th century
 19th century
British Empire
 20th century
History of Australia since colonizing Australia
History of the United States 
 Modern History and origins of modern world power structure
World War I
 World War II
 United Nations ascendance - how it became so central.
 Chinese Revolution, Partition of India, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)
 US-Soviet Cold War including Korean War, Vietnam War, Soviet-Afghan War
 Recent conflicts in the Muslim World - Arab-Israeli Wars, US invasion of Afghanistan, US invasion of Iraq
 Recent conflicts in West Africa - Uganda, Chad, Rwanda, Congo, Liberia, Ivory Coast, and so on

Current events, modern economic history, modern social history and modern intellectual history take very different views of the way history has affected the way that we think today.

Related pages 

 List of historians
 World History
 Political economy
 Historical novel
Basic English 850 words

References