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.
Segregation is physical separation based on race, gender, class, or religion. It can occur by law (de jure) or by actual practice (de facto). It may be voluntary, involuntary, or somewhere between the two. In the U.S. context, segregation historically has meant the separation of blacks involuntarily from …
In 1898, the French decided to interpret the “friendship treaty” signed with the last Malagasy queen as an invitation to transform Madagascar into a protectorate. Not everyone on the island objected to the changes, especially if, as in the case of future nationalist and socialist Jean Ralaimongo, they …
On July 7, 1937, Japanese forces attacked a town called Wanping in northern China near Beijing (Peking) in what came to be called the Marco Polo Bridge incident. On August 13 they attacked Shanghai, China’s major port and financial center. This was the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War, …
Red Scare was a term applied during the 1920s to a period of extreme anticommunism in the United States from 1917 until 1920. It started with the Russian Revolution in October 1917 which saw the Bolshevik Party taking power in Russia. The result was that there was a …
Since Woodrow Wilson rejected indemnities, World War I’s victors required reparation for civilian damage done from the losers, ostensibly to ease reconstruction costs. All of the 1920 treaties written at Paris contained reparations clauses, although only Germany could pay appreciably. Article 231 of the Versailles Treaty with Germany, …
In 1911, Northern Rhodesia, a wealthy protectorate of the United Kingdom with borders that corresponded roughly to modern Zambia, was created from a combination of North West Rhodesia and North East Rhodesia. Both of these areas were under the control of the British South Africa Company, which had …
For centuries Spain controlled the mountainous areas from Ceuta to Melilla in northern Morocco. In March 1912 Sultan Mulai Hafid signed a treaty in which he recognized a French protectorate over Morocco. The French and Spanish then negotiated the Treaty of Fez; Spain would continue to control the …
Born into a middle-class family with no military background in 1891, Erwin Rommel went on to become one of the most decorated and senior generals in the German army during World War II. He is most famous for commanding the German Afrika Korps from 1941 to 1943. He …
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt and first lady of the United States from 1933 until 1945, becoming a United Nations diplomat and a major political figure in her own right. She was born on October 11, 1884, in New York, the daughter of …
Franklin Roosevelt, known as “FDR,” was the 32nd president of the United States (1933–45) and was the only president elected to that office four times. He led the United States through two major crises: the Great Depression of the 1930s and then World War II, which saw the …
The only 20th-century president carved into Mount Rushmore, Teddy Roosevelt turned the presidency into his “bully pulpit,” significantly expanding federal executive power. A progressive Republican, he used his popularity to launch the modern conservation movement, build the Panama Canal, and broker a treaty in the 1904–05 Russo-Japanese War, …
Under President James Monroe, the United States expressed its belief that the Western Hemisphere was, essentially, off limits to European powers, a policy expressed in the Monroe Doctrine. Under Theodore Roosevelt, the doctrine was expanded to state that the United States would act as a police power in …
The Round Table Conferences were a series of three conferences held in London from 1930 to 1932 between British and Indian leaders to form a new constitution for India, which was formalized in the 1935 Government of India Act. The Indian National Congress and Mohandas K. Gandhi wanted …
On January 9, 1905, a vast but orderly crowd of Russian workers approached the Winter Palace to present Czar Nicholas II with a list of both economic and political grievances. The petition included among its demands an eight-hour workday, increased wages, improved working conditions, and an immediate end …
Like most revolutions, the Russian Revolution of 1917 had a combination of political and social causes. At the beginning of the 20th century, Russia was the last of the great powers to retain an autocratic system of government. Educated Russians, many of them influenced by liberal ideas from …
Fernando (Nicola) Sacco (1891–1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (1888–1927) are best remembered as the victims of injustice following the wave of U.S. antiradical persecution in the years immediately following World War I. Both men were Italian immigrants with revolutionary anarchist political beliefs. It is in the context of this …
Prince Saionji Kimmochi (or Kinmochi) was born into the Takudaijii kuge (Japanese court nobility) and was later adopted by the Saionji kuge. He grew up near the Imperial Palace in Tokyo and was a childhood friend of the emperor Meiji. Saionji participated in politics from an early age, …
António de Oliveira Salazar was prime minister of Portugal from 1932 to 1968 and the creator of the New State (Estado Novo). Salazar was born on April 28, 1889, in Santa Comba Dao, near Viseu, in central Portugal, the son of an estate manager. He received his education …
The San Remo Treaty was signed at the San Remo Conference in April 1920 following World War I. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles ended World War I but did not resolve many complex issues surrounding the end of hostilities. The San Remo Conference, held in April 1920, was …
Augusto César Sandino was the supreme chief of the Defending Army of Nicaraguan National Sovereignty (Ejército Defensor de la Soberanía Nacional de Nicaragua), which waged a rebellion against U.S. military intervention in Nicaragua from May 1927 to January 1933. To his supporters, Sandino was a patriotic hero and …
