The Ancient WorldFirst civilizations, written law, and organized warfare

History

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The Shah handed a replica to the UN in 1971 and called it the first bill of rights. The cuneiform on it describes a conquest.

The Cyrus Cylinder

5
He freed the Babylonians, the Jews, and the Egyptians, and put it in writing. 2,500 years before human rights became a legal concept.
The world’s first human rights charter vs. the empires that rewrote its meaning
Thucydides watched Athens destroy itself, and wrote both sides

The Peloponnesian War

5
Athens told the island of Melos: submit or die. Melos chose neutrality. Athens killed every man and enslaved the women and children.
Thucydides put words in both mouths. Read what Athens said to Melos
He named 20 cities after himself and one after his horse

The Conquests of Alexander

4
He named 20 cities after himself and one after his horse.
Greek hero or Persian destroyer? The sources that survived vs. the ones he burned

Ashoka and the Maurya Empire

4
He carved the body count into rock for everyone to read: 100,000 killed, 150,000 deported. Then, on the same stone, he said he regretted it.
The conqueror’s own confession vs. the modern nation that put his symbol on its flag
The Senate voted him dictator for life. Forty days later, twenty-three senators voted with knives.

The Assassination of Julius Caesar

3
The Senate voted him dictator for life. Forty days later, twenty-three senators voted with knives.
Tyrannicide or murder? The debate that shaped 2,000 years of politics
A Roman woman wore Chinese silk without either empire knowing the other existed

The Silk Road

6
A Roman woman wore Chinese silk without either empire knowing the other existed.
Merchants, monks, and microbes: what traveled the road besides silk
The last emperor was a teenager. The man who deposed him sent the crown to Constantinople.

Fall of the Western Roman Empire

5
The last emperor was sixteen. The general who deposed him didn’t kill him. He gave him a pension and mailed the crown to Constantinople.
Did it fall or transform? The debate that shaped how the West thinks about collapse

The Rise of Islam

6
Within 100 years of the first revelation, Islam stretched from Spain to the borders of China. The Byzantine and Sassanid empires were gone.
Divine revelation or social revolution? Five traditions on the same century of expansion

The Crusades

10
The Fourth Crusade never reached Jerusalem. It sacked Constantinople, the largest Christian city on earth, instead.
Jerusalem 1099 vs. Jerusalem 1187: the massacre and the mercy, side by side
A laser pulse through the Cambodian canopy in 2012 found a city of a million people that the jungle had hidden for 600 years

The Khmer Empire

4
LIDAR revealed a city larger than modern Paris, buried under jungle since 1431. No one had noticed the canals.
What LIDAR found in the jungle vs. what colonial France chose to see
He couldn't read, but he wrote a legal code that governed more people than Rome ever did

The Mongol Empire

4
He couldn’t read, but he wrote a legal code that governed more people than Rome ever did.
Destroyer of civilizations or connector of continents? Read the conquered and the Khan
One man carried so much gold to Mecca that he crashed the Egyptian economy for twelve years

The Mali Empire and Mansa Musa's Pilgrimage

6
Mansa Musa carried 18 tons of gold to Mecca. His charity crashed Egypt’s gold market for twelve years.
European maps vs. oral tradition: two records of Africa’s wealthiest empire
The Tigris ran black with ink, and then it ran red

The Mongol Conquest of Baghdad

9
The Tigris ran black with ink from a million manuscripts. Then Hulagu built the world’s finest observatory with the looted books.
Destroyer or globalizer? Two accounts of what happened to the library
It killed one in three Europeans. The survivors demanded higher wages

The Black Death

7
It killed one in three Europeans, and the survivors demanded higher wages.
Divine punishment or labor revolution? Read 5 accounts of the same plague
A bankrupt goldsmith copied a Buddhist idea and accidentally ended the Catholic Church's monopoly on truth

The Gutenberg Revolution

3
A bankrupt goldsmith copied a Buddhist idea and accidentally ended the Catholic Church’s monopoly on truth.
Bi Sheng did it 400 years earlier. Read why Europe gets the credit
A 21-year-old sultan, a Hungarian cannon maker turned away by the emperor who couldn't pay him, and a gate someone forgot to lock

The Fall of Constantinople

7
A 21-year-old sultan hired a cannon maker the emperor couldn’t pay. Then someone left a gate unlocked.
The last emperor died with his soldiers. Read five versions of the empire’s final night
A nomadic chieftain's border principality outlasted the Romanovs, the Habsburgs, and the Qing. Then a general from Thessaloniki abolished it

The Ottoman Empire

7
The empire lasted 623 years. The men who carved it up needed six.
The empire that governed three continents, told by Turks, Arabs, Balkan Christians, and the people Sykes and Picot replaced it with

The Kingdom of Kongo

5
Afonso I wrote to Portugal in 1526: ‘Your people are taking our people.’ He was writing to the man selling them.
A king’s letters vs. the ledgers of the men who ignored them
Columbus carried 17 ships on his second voyage. On them were horses, cattle, pigs, and smallpox. Within 50 years, 90% of the people he'd found were dead.

Columbus and the Columbian Exchange

4
Columbus carried 17 ships on his second voyage. On them were horses, cattle, pigs, and smallpox. Within 50 years, 90% of the people he’d found were dead.
The discovery vs. the destruction: Columbus’s diary vs. Las Casas’s testimony vs. the biology that decided it all
12.5 million people crossed the Atlantic in chains. Lloyd's of London insured the ships. Barclays Bank financed the voyages.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade

17
12.5 million embarked. 10.7 million survived the crossing. The database lists 36,000 individual voyages.
Ledger entries vs. survivor testimony: two records of the same voyage
A monk nailed 95 complaints to a door, and a machine turned them into a schism no army could recall

The Protestant Reformation

4
On October 31, 1517, an Augustinian friar and professor named Martin Luther sent 95 theses against the sale of indulgences to the Archbishop of Mainz, and, by tradition, posted them on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. The door was the university's notice board.
Explore 5 accounts of The Protestant Reformation
Cortés had 500 soldiers. Tenochtitlan had 300,000 people. Smallpox decided the math.

The Fall of Tenochtitlan

5
Cortés had 500 soldiers. Tenochtitlan had 300,000 people. Smallpox decided the math.
Cortés’s letters vs. the Broken Spears: the conquest told by both sides
168 men. 80,000 troops. Pizarro took their emperor hostage, accepted a room full of gold, then executed him anyway.

The Inca Empire and the Spanish Conquest

4
168 soldiers captured the emperor of 12 million people. The ransom room filled with gold. Then they killed him anyway.
Atahualpa’s ransom vs. Pizarro’s letters: two accounts of the same plaza at Cajamarca
Twenty followers joined Akbar's new religion; his empire held a quarter of world GDP

The Mughal Empire

5
Twenty followers joined Akbar’s new religion. His empire held 25% of world GDP.
Din-i-Ilahi to Babri Masjid: 500 years of one civilization, four contested narratives
A Bengali weaver earned more than his English counterpart in 1750. By 1830, the looms of Dacca were silent.

The Industrial Revolution

7
In 1750, a Bengali weaver earned more than his English counterpart. By 1830, the looms of Dacca were silent. Britain had made sure of it.
The progress narrative vs. the workers it crushed vs. the colonies it deindustrialized: five accounts of the same engine
They beheaded the king in January 1793. By July 1794 they were beheading the men who had beheaded the king.

The French Revolution

16
A Parisian laborer spent 88% of his wages on bread. On July 14, the crowd took 30,000 muskets. The Bastille fell by dinner.
Read the revolution from Paris, Versailles, and Haiti
Dessalines tore the white from the French tricolor. The remaining blue and red became the flag of the world's first Black republic

The Haitian Revolution

7
Dessalines tore the white from the French tricolor. The flag that remained was the first made by formerly enslaved people who’d defeated a European army.
The enslaved who defeated Napoleon, told by 4 sides
Bolivar went to Haiti after his defeat, got ships and soldiers from a Black republic in exchange for a promise to free the enslaved. Then he broke the promise

The Bolivarian Revolutions

5
Bolívar sailed to Haiti after his defeat. Pétion gave him ships and soldiers in exchange for one promise: free the enslaved. Bolívar partially broke it.
The liberator’s promise to Haiti vs. what he actually delivered
A republic that declared all men equal marched 60,000 people off their land at gunpoint

The Trail of Tears

7
The Supreme Court ruled in their favor. The president ignored the ruling. 60,000 walked. 4,000 never arrived.
The court said no. The president said yes. Read both arguments
Britain went to war twice to force a sovereign nation to buy drugs

The Opium Wars

11
Britain went to war because China burned 20,000 chests of opium. The peace treaty ceded Hong Kong for 156 years.
Compare the British free-trade argument with the Qing court’s response
Two texts, two languages, two meanings; the treaty said 'sovereignty' in English and 'governance' in Maori

The Treaty of Waitangi and the New Zealand Wars

3
The English text said ‘sovereignty.’ The Maori text said ‘governance.’ Hone Heke cut down the British flagpole four times to make the point.
Two texts, two languages, two meanings. Read both treaties
A man failed the civil service exam four times. He declared himself the Son of God. 30 million people died.

The Taiping Rebellion

5
A failed exam candidate claimed to be Jesus’s brother. His kingdom grew to 30 million people and cost more lives than the First World War.
Mao’s hero vs. the dynasty that burned his kingdom: 30 million dead, two explanations
In 1853, four American warships forced open a country that had been closed for 220 years. By 1889 it had a constitution, a conscript army, and a rail network

The Meiji Restoration

4
Japan watched China lose two wars to Britain. In 30 years, a feudal archipelago built railways, a constitution, and a navy that sank the Russian fleet.
How Japan avoided China’s fate: reformers vs. the last samurai
Fourteen nations carved a continent in a Berlin conference room, without inviting a single African

The Scramble for Africa

19
Fourteen nations met in a Berlin conference room in 1884. Not one African was invited. By 1914, Europeans controlled 90% of the continent.
See what the colonizers wrote vs. what the kingdoms remember
Leopold II never set foot in the Congo, but his rubber quotas cost 10 million hands, lives, and futures

The Congo Free State

5
Leopold II never visited the Congo. His agents collected severed hands as proof of productivity. The population fell by 10 million.
Leopold’s civilizing mission vs. the photographs of severed hands
A teenager shot an archduke in June. By August the trains of five empires were carrying millions to a war the generals swore would end by Christmas.

World War I

7
Gavrilo Princip was nineteen and had already missed his chance. The motorcade carrying Archduke Franz Ferdinand had sped past after another conspirator's bomb bounced off the car and wounded bystanders.
Explore 5 accounts of World War I
A Polish lawyer invented a word in 1944 to describe what happened in 1915. The word was genocide.

The Armenian Genocide

10
The American ambassador cabled Washington: ‘Race extermination.’ Raphael Lemkin later coined a word for it: ‘genocide.’
The ambassador’s cables vs. the government’s denials
Two diplomats drew a line through a desert neither had walked, and a century of borders followed

The Sykes-Picot Agreement

6
In December 1915, Sir Mark Sykes stood before the British War Committee, put his finger on a map, and said he wanted to draw a line "from the 'e' in Acre to the last 'k' in Kirkuk." He was thirty-six. He had traveled the region as a tourist and an amateur, and he was about to help decide the fate of provinces holding several million people.
Explore 5 accounts of The Sykes-Picot Agreement
The Tsar abdicated on a Thursday. By Friday, two governments claimed to rule Russia. By October, neither did.

The Russian Revolution

12
The Tsar abdicated on a Wednesday. By Friday, two governments claimed to rule Russia. By October, neither did.
Workers’ liberation or state hijacking? Five versions of October 1917
It killed more people than the war it traveled on, and it was never Spanish

The 1918 Influenza Pandemic

4
In the first week of March 1918, a mess cook reported to the camp infirmary at Camp Funston, Kansas, with a fever. By noon the surgeon had more than a hundred men on cots.
Explore 5 accounts of The 1918 Influenza Pandemic
New Zealand gave women the vote in 1893. Switzerland waited until 1971. One canton held out until 1990. A federal court forced it.

The Global Struggle for Women's Suffrage

4
New Zealand gave women the vote in 1893. Switzerland waited until 1971. One canton held out until 1990; a federal court forced it.
New Zealand first. Switzerland last. Black women excluded in between. Read five versions of the same demand
In 1929 America had never been richer. By 1933 one in four workers had no job and nobody could agree why.

The Great Depression

5
On October 29, 1929, "Black Tuesday," 16.4 million shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange as prices collapsed. The Dow had lost about a quarter of its value in two days.
Explore 5 accounts of The Great Depression
A lawyer in a loincloth walked to the sea to pick up salt. He broke an empire's monopoly on everything

The Indian Independence Movement

8
A lawyer in a loincloth walked to the sea to pick up salt, and broke an empire’s monopoly on everything.
Gandhi’s salt vs. Bhagat Singh’s pistol: two paths to the same freedom

The Holodomor

6
Gareth Jones walked through Ukrainian villages counting bodies. Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer for saying there was no famine.
One journalist told the truth. Another won a Pulitzer for lying. Read both
A dress rehearsal for a world war, fought with borrowed planes and rewritten history

The Spanish Civil War

2
On July 17, 1936, the garrisons of Spanish Morocco rose against the Republic. General Francisco Franco flew from the Canary Islands to take command of the Army of Africa the next day.
Explore 5 accounts of The Spanish Civil War
Two officers raced to behead 100 men with swords. A newspaper ran the score like a baseball box.

The Nanjing Massacre

4
On December 13, 1937, the Japanese Central China Area Army entered Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China. The Nationalist government had already fled west to Chongqing.
Explore 5 accounts of The Nanjing Massacre
IBM sold the machines that sorted people by ancestry. The trains ran on time.

The Holocaust

9
IBM sold the machines that sorted people by ancestry. The trains ran on time.
Survivor testimony vs. bureaucratic records: two archives of the same crime
At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, a watch in Hiroshima stopped. It is still stopped.

The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

13
66,000 dead in 8.5 seconds. Seven of eight five-star American generals said it wasn’t necessary.
Compare what Washington said vs. what survivors remember
A subcontinent torn along lines drawn by a man who had never been there

The Partition of India

8
A lawyer who’d never been to India drew the border in five weeks. 15 million crossed it.
See how 4 nations remember August 15, 1947
They imprisoned him for 27 years. Then they asked him to run the country.

Apartheid and Its End

3
They imprisoned him for 27 years. Then they asked him to run the country.
Mandela’s cell vs. Verwoerd’s parliament: 46 years, two South Africas
Ben-Gurion read the declaration at 4 p.m. Eleven minutes later Washington recognised the state. By the end of the war, 700,000 Palestinians had left villages that no longer had names.

The Creation of Israel and the Nakba

16
On May 14, 1948, one people declared independence. On May 15, 750,000 of another people became refugees. Same land.
Same day, same land: read both declarations side by side
A peasant army walked out of the mountains and built the country now shaping the century

The Chinese Civil War and the Founding of the People's Republic

6
On April 12, 1927, in Shanghai, gunmen of the Green Gang and soldiers loyal to Chiang Kai-shek moved through the workers' districts before dawn. Union halls were surrounded.
Explore 5 accounts of The Chinese Civil War and the Founding of the People's Republic
A lawyer who had never visited Korea drew the border. By 1953, 3 million were dead. The war ended with an armistice. No peace treaty has followed.

The Korean War

6
The US dropped more bombs on Korea than it used in the entire Pacific war. The armistice was signed in 1953. No peace treaty has ever followed.
Four names for one war: ‘police action,’ ‘liberation war,’ ‘6.25,’ ‘resist aggression’; read all four
For 37 years France would not call it a war. It named it one in 1999.

The Algerian War of Independence

5
At three in the morning on November 1, 1954, All Saints' Day, roughly 30 coordinated attacks struck police posts, barracks, and farms across Algeria. Seven people died.
Explore 5 accounts of The Algerian War of Independence

The Bandung Conference

6
Twenty-nine nations sent delegates to a city in Java. They represented 1.5 billion people, more than half the world, and not one of their countries had been independent 15 years earlier.
The birth of the Third World, told by the nations that built it, the superpowers that feared it, and the women it excluded
Four college students sat at a lunch counter in Greensboro. Within two months, sit-ins had spread to 54 cities.

The American Civil Rights Movement

8
Four college students sat at a lunch counter in Greensboro. Within two months, sit-ins had spread to 54 cities.
King’s dream vs. Malcolm’s warning: two visions of the same struggle
The week Britain and France discovered they were no longer empires

The Suez Crisis

6
On July 19, 1956, John Foster Dulles withdrew the American offer to finance Egypt's Aswan High Dam. Seven days later, in a two-hour speech to a crowd in Alexandria, Gamal Abdel Nasser said the name "de Lesseps." It was a signal.
Explore 5 accounts of The Suez Crisis
The state raised the grain figures on paper, then requisitioned the harvest that was never there

The Great Leap Forward and the Great Chinese Famine

4
In May 1958, Mao Zedong told the Communist Party that China would overtake Britain in steel output within fifteen years, then compressed the timeline to three. The 1957 steel target of 5.35 million tonnes was raised to 10.7 million.
Explore 5 accounts of The Great Leap Forward and the Great Chinese Famine
A failed barracks raid became the government that outlasted the Soviet Union that subsidised it

The Cuban Revolution

3
On July 26, 1953, about 135 young men attacked the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba, the second largest army garrison in the country. The plan was to seize the weapons and spark a national uprising against Fulgencio Batista, who had cancelled the 1952 elections in a bloodless coup rather than lose them.
Explore 5 accounts of The Cuban Revolution
For thirteen days, one Soviet submarine officer was the only thing between humanity and nuclear war

The Cuban Missile Crisis

10
For thirteen days, one Soviet submarine officer was the only thing between humanity and nuclear war.
Kennedy’s quarantine vs. Castro’s letter urging nuclear war
Students beat their teachers to death with the textbooks they'd been taught from

The Chinese Cultural Revolution

7
Students beat their teachers to death with the textbooks they’d been taught from.
The party’s 70/30 verdict vs. the testimonies it won’t publish
Israel struck first at 7:45 a.m. By noon most of Egypt's air force was burning on the runway.

The Six-Day War

6
At 7:45 a.m. on June 5, 1967, roughly 180 Israeli jets crossed the Mediterranean below Egyptian radar, banked south, and struck eleven airfields at once.
Explore 5 accounts of The Six-Day War

The Vietnam War

7
The Pentagon Papers showed the government knew by 1967 it couldn’t win. The war continued for eight more years. 2.1 million more people died.
The American War vs. the American War: five names for one conflict, four countries, three million dead
A nation that could not integrate its own schools put two men on the Moon in eight years

Apollo 11 and the Space Race

4
At 20:17:40 UTC on July 20, 1969, a spidery aluminum craft with legs settled onto a plain of basalt on the Moon. "Houston, Tranquility Base here.
Explore 5 accounts of Apollo 11 and the Space Race
A third-rate burglary and a leaked war history put the newspapers against a president. The president resigned.

The Pentagon Papers and Watergate

2
On June 13, 1971, The New York Times published the first installment of a 7,000-page classified Defense Department study of American decision-making in Vietnam. Robert McNamara had commissioned the study in 1967; it documented that four administrations had misled the public about the war.
Explore 5 accounts of The Pentagon Papers and Watergate
S-21 prison photographed every prisoner before execution. 14,000 faces, 7 survivors

The Cambodian Genocide

8
Tuol Sleng processed 17,000 prisoners. Seven survived. The guards photographed every face before killing them.
The regime’s ideology vs. the faces in the S-21 photographs
Women marched alongside mullahs to overthrow the Shah. Within a year, the mullahs made the veil mandatory.

The Iranian Revolution

8
Women marched alongside mullahs to overthrow the Shah. Within a year, the mullahs made the veil mandatory.
Islamic awakening, hijacked revolution, Cold War blowback, or women betrayed: four readings of one February afternoon
A million dead in eight years, and the powers that mattered armed both sides

The Iran-Iraq War

3
On the morning of September 22, 1980, Iraqi jets crossed into Iranian airspace and struck ten airfields. Saddam Hussein had torn up the 1975 Algiers Agreement five days earlier on live television.
Explore 5 accounts of The Iran-Iraq War
A reactor exploded in Soviet Ukraine, and the world learned about it from a Swedish shoe scanner

The Chernobyl Disaster

3
At 1:23:40 a.m. on April 26, 1986, operators at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine pressed the AZ-5 emergency shutdown button on Reactor No.
Explore 5 accounts of The Chernobyl Disaster
A spokesman read from a note card he had not been briefed on. By midnight, the crowd at Bornholmer Strasse was walking through.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall

16
At 6:53 p.m. on November 9, 1989, a spokesman misread a memo on live television. The Wall fell by midnight.
Compare what East and West saw on the same night

Tiananmen Square, 1989

7
On June 5, 1989, a man with two shopping bags stopped a column of tanks. No one knows his name. China erased the photograph.
The party’s version vs. what the cameras recorded before the signal cut
A lawyer, a physicist, and a construction chief signed three pages at a hunting lodge. A country of 290 million stopped existing.

The Collapse of the Soviet Union

7
On the evening of December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev sat before a television camera in the Kremlin and read for twelve minutes. "Due to the situation which has evolved as a result of the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, I hereby discontinue my activities at the post of President of the U.S.S.R." He signed a decree transferring control of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, roughly 27,000 warheads, to Boris Yeltsin, the president of a country called Russia that had existed as an independent state for four months.
Explore 5 accounts of The Collapse of the Soviet Union
A Belgian census card from 1933 told the killers which neighbors to kill

The Rwandan Genocide

12
The UN had a fax warning them. They reduced their force from 2,500 to 270. 800,000 died in 100 days.
Read what the world chose not to see for 100 days
The United Nations called it a safe area. The buses still came for the men and boys.

The Srebrenica Genocide and the Bosnian War

5
On July 11, 1995, General Ratko Mladic walked into the town of Srebrenica, turned to a Serbian television camera, and said the time had come to take revenge on the Turks. Srebrenica was a United Nations safe area.
Explore 5 accounts of The Srebrenica Genocide and the Bosnian War
The deadliest conflict since 1945 killed 5.4 million people. Most of the world cannot name the country where it happened.

The Congo Wars

4
The deadliest war since 1945 killed 5.4 million people. Most people cannot name the country where it happened.
Rwanda’s security logic vs. Congo’s sovereignty vs. the coltan in your phone: 5.4 million dead, three explanations
Nineteen men with box cutters turned the world's most powerful military against two countries that didn't attack it

September 11 and the War on Terror

11
Nineteen men with box cutters turned the world’s most powerful military against two countries that didn’t attack it.
Ground Zero vs. Kabul: two countries’ view of the same war
A bank that survived the Civil War, two world wars, and the Great Depression died on a Monday, and the credit that runs the planet froze within the week

The 2008 Global Financial Crisis

3
The bankruptcy petition was filed in a Manhattan federal court at 1:45 on the morning of September 15, 2008. Lehman Brothers, founded in 1850, having survived the Civil War, two world wars, and the Great Depression, listed 639 billion dollars in assets and 619 billion dollars in debt.
Explore 5 accounts of The 2008 Global Financial Crisis
A fruit vendor set himself on fire in a town of 40,000. Three presidents fell in 281 days.

The Arab Spring

10
A fruit vendor set himself on fire in a town of 40,000. Within 60 days, three presidents had fallen.
Same spark, six outcomes: why Tunisia built a democracy and Syria became a graveyard