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.
In the spring of 1914 President Woodrow Wilson sent his chief adviser, Colonel E. M. House, on a fact-finding mission to Europe. Greatly disturbed by the obvious escalating tension generated by international rivalries House reported: “The situation is extraordinary. . . . It only needs a spark to …
The eventful years between September 1, 1939, and September 2, 1945, form a landmark in world history. From the march of the German war machine into Poland to the Japanese surrender, the world witnessed the most destructive war in human history, fought on land, in the air, and …
The Long March (1934–35) severely damaged the Chinese Communists, who continued to fight from their new base in northern Sha’anxi (Shensi) province in northwestern China. Pursuing his policy of “first domestic pacification, then resisting Japan,” Chiang Kaishek, leader of the Nationalist government, appointed Zhang Xueliang (Chang Hsueh-liang), the …
The Yalta Conference, also called the Crimea Conference or the Argonaut Conference, was a meeting of the leaders of the Grand Alliance in World War II. The meeting took place from February 4 until February 11, 1945, in Yalta in the Soviet Union. The Grand Alliance included the …
Yamagata Aritomo was a Japanese politician who was prime minister on two occasions (1889–91 and 1898– 1900) and an elder statesman during the first decades of the 20th century, when he played an important role as an adviser to other politicians. Born in Hagi in the town of …
Yan’an is a small town in northern Sha’anxi (Shensi) province that became the headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1936 after the Long March until 1949. The Yan’an period referred to the years between 1937 and 1945; it was crucial in preparing the CCP for power. …
Young Turks is the name given to Ottoman dissidents who from the end of the 19th century through World War I sought to reform the Ottoman Empire; the Young Turks were strongly influenced by the earlier Young Ottoman movement of the 1870s. Turkish exiles in Paris were first …
Yuan Shikai was a skilled general and unprincipled politician who rose to be president of China but failed to become emperor. He is remembered among Chinese as the triple traitor for his treachery toward the reforming emperor in 1898 and for betraying the Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty in the …
Sa’d Zaghlul was the founder and leader of the Wafd Party, the leading nationalist party in Egypt after World War i. Zaghlul was born in the Delta area and was a scholarship student at al-Azhar University. He was influenced by the reformers Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad Abdu, …
Ranking high in the pantheon of Latin American heroes, the Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata gained widespread popular acclaim for his uncompromising demand for “Land and Liberty” (Tierra y Libertad) and for his courageous, principled, and shrewd leadership of his Zapatista army during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920). During the …
The president of Nicaragua from 1893 to 1909, José Santos Zelaya was leader of the Liberal Party in Nicaragua for many years and a critic of U.S. foreign policy in the region. Zelaya was born on November 1, 1853, and on May 20, 1893, he became one of …
Zhu De was the founder of the Red Army (later, People’s Liberation Army) and its de facto leader in the resistance against Japan and in the Chinese civil war against the Nationalists during the 1930s and 1940s. He played an important role in the development of a theory …
From the beginning of the 20th century to the establishment of Israel in 1948, the World Zionist Organization (WZO) struggled to create a Jewish state in Palestine. After Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, died in 1904, Chaim Weizmann assumed leadership of the WZO for most of …
The history of chattel slavery in the Americas, from its beginnings in 1492 until its final demise in Brazil in 1888, has spawned a vast literature. So, too, has the process by which the institution of chattel slavery was formally and legally abolished. A highly contentious, nonlinear, and …
In 1755, during the early days of the Seven Years’ War/French and Indian War between France and Britain, thousands of French farming families living in Nova Scotia were forcibly deported by British troops. The dislocation of the Acadians, as these French colonists were called, became almost a mythical …
Descendants of Puritans who settled near Boston in 1638, members of the Adams family distinguished themselves over two centuries as political leaders and thinkers. Second cousins Samuel Adams and John Adams played crucial roles in the founding of the United States. John’s wife, Abigail Smith Adams, was an …
Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, often referred to as the founder of pan-Islam, was born in Iran. He attended madrasas (religious schools) in Iran and as a young man traveled to India, where he observed firsthand discrimination against Muslims by the ruling British government. After making the hajj (pilgrimage) to …
The two Afghan wars were caused by the growing rivalry for control of Central Asia between the Russian Empire and the British Empire. Because Afghanistan was the largest organized state in the Central Asian region, it became the main focus for both countries in what the British poet …
Systematic exploration of Africa by Europeans began with James Bruce, who was born at Kinnaird in Scotland in 1730. After a century of bloody internal war, Scottish energy turned to intellectual and scientific studies, including exploration. Bruce arrived in Algiers in 1762 as the British consul, and in …
Imperialism, or the extension of one nation-state’s domination or control over territory outside its own boundaries, peaked in the 19th century as European powers extended their holdings around the world. The huge African continent (three times the size of the continental United States) was particularly vulnerable to European …
