Category: History Essay Examples
See our collection of history essay examples. These example essays are to help you understanding how to write a history essay. History is a fascinating puzzle with both personal and cultural significance. The past informs our lives, ideas, and expectations. Historians study the past to figure out what happened and how specific events and cultural developments affected individuals and societies. Also, see our list of history essay topics to find the one that interests you.
Latin America’s nationalism emerged as a reaction to the injuries inflicted during the colonial period and later with the wars of independence, revolution, and expansionism that—not surprisingly—generated a defensive stance toward the outside world. After independence, nationalism embraced modernity as a major state-related historical movement toward economic progress, …
Populist movements flourished in many Latin American nations from roughly 1920 until the mid-1960s. Populist regimes took a variety of forms in diverse national contexts, even within Latin America. Variations within populism were particularly pronounced because populist movements were based on ad hoc responses to circumstances rather than …
On September 20, 2006, the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, addressed the United Nations General Assembly and spoke of the “hegemonic pretensions of the American empire.” In a speech that also referred to the president of the United States as a devil, Chavez gave voice to what many …
Wilfrid Laurier, a political child of the 19th century, led his Liberal Party into the 20th century as Canada’s first French-Canadian prime minister. Equally adept both in his native French and in English, Laurier promoted growth in prairie provinces and predicted a golden century for Canada. But his …
Thomas Edward Lawrence, the second of five sons of his unmarried parents, was born on August 16, 1888, in Tremadoc, Wales, and died on May 19, 1935, in Dorset, England. From 1896 to 1907 he attended the Oxford High School for Boys, where he made rapid academic progress. …
Founded on idealism and championed by U.S. president Woodrow Wilson as part of his Fourteen Points plan for international peace, the League of Nations foundered on the geopolitical realities of the interwar period. Designed to prevent war as a means of resolving disputes between countries, the league proved …
The Lebanese Confessional System refers to the political and legal structuring of the Republic of Lebanon according to religious affiliations. The Lebanese government acknowledges over 17 different religious sects, but the main divide is between Christians and Muslims. The Confessional System was introduced prior to Lebanon’s independence during …
Among the savviest and most single-minded politicians of the 20th century, Vladimir Lenin capitalized on the chaos in Russia caused by World War I and the resentments spawned by the advent of industrial capitalism. By imposing discipline and a radical agenda on his Bolshevik Party and by providing …
John L. Lewis, longtime president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and cofounder of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), was the United States’ most powerful labor leader during the Great Depression. In 1933 he played a central role in the development of New Deal legislation …
The best-known pilot in the world both in his lifetime and in the annals of history, Charles Lindbergh started out as a barnstormer in a World War I surplus biplane he bought while working as an airline mechanic in Montana. The postwar years saw a great deal of …
The 19th century saw the birth of science fiction and the detective novel, the heavy use of American dialects and the vernacular by such authors as Mark Twain and George Washington Cable, and the psychologically complex novels of writers like Henry James. The 20th century continued these trends. …
David Lloyd George was the most dominant figure in British politics in the first quarter of the 20th century. Although Welsh on both sides of his family, he was actually born in Manchester, England, in 1863. His father, William George, then a headmaster of an elementary school in …
The Pact of Locarno, negotiated on October 16, 1925, symbolized the atmosphere of goodwill between erstwhile enemies who had fought a global war 11 years before. The delegates from Germany, France, Great Britain, Belgium, Italy, Poland, and Czechoslovakia met in the city of Locarno, Switzerland. The preceding months …
Both populist and demagogue, Huey Long, nicknamed “Kingfish,” controlled his state of Louisiana as governor and U.S. senator and founded a political dynasty. During the Great Depression Long’s popular “Share Our Wealth” scheme made him a credible challenger to President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR). That possibility abruptly ended …
By late summer of 1934, the fifth encirclement campaign, led by Chiang Kai-shek, had convincingly defeated the Chinese Communist Soviet and reduced it to a six-county area in Jiangxi (Kiangsi) Province. On October 15 the Communist government abandoned its capital, Ruijin (Juichin), with 85,000 soldiers, 15,000 party and …
Baron Lugard directed the conquest and administration of Nigeria as well as serving as a soldier elsewhere in British West Africa and as a governor in Hong Kong. His military career indicates the opportunities available to aspiring young officers who served the British Empire at its height. As …
A zoologist and scientist, Bertha (or “Berta,” as her name is sometimes recorded) Maria Júlia Lutz was a prominent Brazilian feminist and campaigner for women’s rights in Brazil, as well as an important naturalist. Born on August 2, 1894, in São Paulo, her father was Adolfo Lutz (1855–1940), …
Rosa Luxemburg, the Marxist revolutionary, activist, and author, was born to Jewish parents, Eduard and Line Luxemburg, in the Polish Russian town of Zamosac on March 5, 1871. Politics was her main interest from her early days at school. She arrived in Zurich in 1889 to study law …
Louis-Hubert Gonzalve Lyautey was born in Nancy, France, on November 17, 1854. He was brought up in the aristocratic and intellectual society of Nancy as well as in the simplicity of country life. When Lyautey was only 18 months old he fell from a balcony of the family …
On the night of September 18, 1931, the Japanese Kwantung Army stationed in Manchuria, China’s northeastern provinces, staged a minor bomb explosion on the tracks of the South Manchurian Railway outside Mukden, the administrative capital of Manchuria. Claiming that it was Chinese sabotage, the Japanese military swung into …
