History Atlas

How The Past Is Known

History Atlas

Disputed Statements

Claims this atlas currently marks as unsettled or as tested and found false. A debated fact is one scholars hold competing positions on; a debunked one has been checked against the record and found not to hold. Both are kept in view rather than quietly smoothed over, with the reasoning that put each one where it stands.

148 statements.

The Hellenistic Period, End Year-30

The Hellenistic Period, Eras

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States -30

Scholars are divided on which event should mark the Hellenistic period's end. The atlas follows the majority convention of 30 BCE (the Battle of Actium and the Roman annexation of Ptolemaic Egypt under Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony's defeat), but the literature proposes alternative endpoints ranging from 146 BCE (Rome's conquest of the Greek mainland) at the early end to 330 CE (Constantine's founding of Constantinople) at the late end, reflecting genuine disagreement about how long Hellenistic political, cultural and religious forms continued to shape the eastern Mediterranean after Rome's conquest of Egypt.

Source Wikipedia: Hellenistic Period

The Hundred Years' War, Death Toll, Low Estimate2300000.000000

The Hundred Years' War, Events

Standing

Concerns Death Toll, Low Estimate

Currently States 2300000.000000

Rough order-of-magnitude estimate for direct and indirect (famine, associated violence) deaths across the war's 116 years (1337-1453), per general military-historical demography; medieval record-keeping cannot isolate war deaths cleanly from the concurrent Black Death and recurring regional famine, so this range is treated as illustrative rather than precise.

Source Edward III (Britannica)

The Hundred Years' War, Death Toll, High Estimate3300000.000000

The Hundred Years' War, Events

Standing

Concerns Death Toll, High Estimate

Currently States 3300000.000000

Upper bound of the same rough estimate; see death-toll-min's StatusNote on why this range is not precise.

Source Edward III (Britannica)

The Industrial Revolution, Year1760

The Industrial Revolution, Events

Standing

Concerns Year

Currently States 1760

There is no single starting date. Historians commonly place the beginning of industrialization in Britain somewhere between 1760 and 1780, and its spread to other countries occurred at very different times across the following century.

Source The New Cambridge Modern History

The Invention of Writing, Year-3200

The Invention of Writing, Events

Standing

Concerns Year

Currently States -3200

Sumerian cuneiform, the earliest securely dated writing system, emerges around 3200 BCE, but writing was invented independently in Egypt around 3100 BCE, in China around 1200 BCE and in Mesoamerica later still, so no single year marks the invention of writing worldwide.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Iron Age, Start Year-1200

The Iron Age, Eras

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States -1200

The general date, c. 1200 BCE, describes the eastern Mediterranean and Near East; the transition to iron began earlier, around 1300 BCE, in Anatolia and the Caucasus, and far later, around 500 BCE, in Northern Europe.

Source Wikipedia

The Iron Age, End Year-550

The Iron Age, Eras

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States -550

The general date, c. 550 BCE, describes the eastern Mediterranean and Near East; the transition to iron happened at markedly different times elsewhere, from as early as 1300 BCE in Anatolia to as late as 500 BCE in Northern Europe.

Source Wikipedia

The Khmer Empire, End Year1431

The Khmer Empire, Polities

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States 1431

Historians differ on why the Khmer Empire declined: proposed causes include the ideological shift from the Hindu devaraja cult to Theravada Buddhism, repeated military pressure from the Ayutthaya Kingdom between 1352 and 1431, and environmental stress from a period of severe drought following intense monsoon rains that damaged the empire's canal and reservoir network. The atlas records 1431, the fall of Angkor to Ayutthaya, as the conventional end date.

Source Wikipedia: Khmer Empire

The Kingdom of England, Start Year927

The Kingdom of England, Polities

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 927

927 marks Aethelstan's submission of the northern rulers and his assumption of the title king of the English, the conventional date for a unified Kingdom of England. Some historians place genuine, lasting unification later, under Edgar (959 to 975) or at the Norman Conquest of 1066.

Source England (Britannica)

The Kingdom of France, Start Year987

The Kingdom of France, Polities

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 987

Marks Hugh Capet's election as king of the Franks. Some historians read this as dynastic continuity from the Robertian family's existing power rather than a sharp break with Carolingian rule; 987 is nonetheless the conventional founding date for the Capetian kingdom.

Source France: History (Britannica)

The Kingdom of France, End Year1789

The Kingdom of France, Polities

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States 1789

Marks the Revolution's outbreak as the effective end of the ancien regime kingdom. The absolute monarchy was not formally abolished until 21 September 1792, when the National Convention proclaimed the First Republic; this entity uses 1789 to mark the polity's defining end point, with the intervening constitutional monarchy (1789 to 1792) as the transition. See the edge to The French Revolution.

Source France: History (Britannica)

The Late Modern Period, End Year1945

The Late Modern Period, Eras

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States 1945

1945, the end of the Second World War, is the most common boundary, though some historians prefer 1914, the outbreak of the First World War, as the true close of the long nineteenth century, treating 1914 to 1945 as a distinct era of crisis in its own right.

Source The Oxford History of the Twentieth Century

The Maya Civilization, Start Year-2000

The Maya Civilization, Civilizations

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States -2000

The Preclassic period, when settled village life and the earliest monumental construction begin, is conventionally dated from around 2000 BCE, though the date rests on scattered archaeological evidence that is revised as excavation continues.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Mongol Conquests, Death Toll, Low Estimate30000000.000000

The Mongol Conquests, Events

Standing

Concerns Death Toll, Low Estimate

Currently States 30000000.000000

Estimates for the Mongol conquests' total death toll range roughly 30 to 60 million (perhaps 10 percent of the era's world population), and the uncertainty is very high: medieval sources are sparse, often hostile court chronicles, and modern figures are extrapolated from regional population data before and after conquest. Some regions (Khwarezmia, Persia, northern China) are estimated to have lost 50 to 75 percent of their population; China's population fell from roughly 120 million around 1200 to about half that by the late 1300s.

Source The Cambridge Medieval History

The Mongol Conquests, Death Toll, High Estimate60000000.000000

The Mongol Conquests, Events

Standing

Concerns Death Toll, High Estimate

Currently States 60000000.000000

Upper bound of the same estimate; see death-toll-min's StatusNote.

Source The Cambridge Medieval History

The Mongol Empire, End Year1260

The Mongol Empire, Polities

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States 1260

The unified empire's end is dated variously to 1259, the death of Great Khan Mongke, after which effective unified rule ceased, to 1260, the succession war between Kublai and Ariq Boke that followed, or to 1368, the fall of the Yuan dynasty in China, the last of the successor khanates to hold the imperial title. This entry uses 1260 as the conventional close of genuinely unified rule, before the khanates hardened into separate states.

Source The Cambridge Medieval History

The Neolithic Period, Start Year-10000

The Neolithic Period, Eras

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States -10000

Conventionally opened around 10,000 BCE with the beginnings of farming in the Fertile Crescent; the transition happened at very different calendar dates in different regions.

Source Wikipedia

The Neolithic Period, End Year-2000

The Neolithic Period, Eras

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States -2000

Conventionally closed around 2,000 BCE; regions reached the Bronze Age, and so left the Neolithic, at very different times.

Source Wikipedia

The Neolithic Revolution, Year-10000

The Neolithic Revolution, Events

Standing

Concerns Year

Currently States -10000

The date is an approximation drawn from the earliest well dated farming sites in the Fertile Crescent. The transition unfolded gradually over centuries rather than at a single moment, and began thousands of years later in other regions of the world.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Old Babylonian Empire, Start Year-1894

The Old Babylonian Empire, Polities

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States -1894

The First Dynasty of Babylon is conventionally founded in 1894 BCE by Sumu-abum, though the city's political importance genuinely begins with Hammurabi's unification campaigns roughly a century and a half later. Chronologies of this period, the high, middle and low Mesopotamian chronologies, can differ by more than a century, unresolved because no fixed astronomical anchor exists for dates this early.

Source The Cambridge Ancient History