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.
José Gaspar Rodríguez Francia is considered the founding father of Paraguay. During his childhood in the late colonial period, Paraguay was a backwater nation dependent upon Buenos Aires for its outlet to the sea. Because higher education did not exist, Francia attended the College of Córdoba in what …
The Franco-Prussian War lasted from 1870 until 1871 and started after the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck created the North German Federation and its became increasingly anti-French. When the Prussians tried to put a Hohenzollern on the throne of Spain, Napoleon III, worried about having to fight Germany …
Benjamin Franklin was the ultimate American figure of the Enlightenment. Renowned on both sides of the Atlantic, he used his enormous energy and talents for philosophy, politics, and diplomacy in service to the new United States and was involved in every aspect of its successful separation from the …
The emperor of Austria, the apostolic king of Hungary, and the king of Bohemia from 1848 until 1916, Franz Josef I presided over the long decline of the AustroHungarian Empire, leading his nation into World War I. His reign of 68 years was only surpassed in Europe by …
Born on January 24, 1712, Frederick II the Great of Prussia became king in 1740 on the death of his father, Frederick William I. Frederick William I had firmly established Prussia as a garrison state, which led some historians to say that Prussia was an army with a …
The specific origins of Freemasonry cannot be determined with clarity. Freemasonry is a fraternal organization, and, because of the secrecy of its rituals and the influence of its members, is thought by some to be either subversive or bent on world domination. There do not appear to have …
French Equatorial Africa was formed as an administrative unit of the French empire in Africa in 1910. Of its three regions, Chad was the most important. Currently, Chad is not only confronted by a civil war but also by the fighting in Sudan to the east. The French …
The French had interests in what was to become Indochina as far back as 1787 when the Treaty of Versailles was signed between Nguyen Anh, the pretender to the Vietnamese throne, and France. It allowed for Pigneau de Behaine, the French bishop of Adran, to support Nguyen Anh, …
The American Revolution inspired many people around the world in the ideas of democracy and this was certainly true of France, which had sent over many soldiers to fight in the Americas and had helped subsidize the war. In fact, it was the crisis in the royal finances, …
As an author and educator, Fukuzawa Yukichi was probably one of the most important nongovernment Japanese figures from the Meiji Restoration, which followed the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1868. Fukuzawa wanted Japan to embrace many Western ideas in order to make the country stronger and wrote …
Giuseppi Garibaldi, known as the Liberator in Italy, was born in Nice, the port of Piedmont-Sardinia. By 1824 he was a sailor and was committed to the unification of Italy. In 1834, after acquiring a license as a merchant captain, he took part in an abortive republican rising …
This was the name given to the horsemen who worked on the Argentine and Uruguayan pampas from the middle of the 18th century until the late 19th century, having a similar image in Latin America as the cowboys have in North America. The term is sometimes also applied …
The period between 1864 and 1871 saw three wars that resulted in the unification of Germany. In essence, this period saw the formation of a German state under the influence of Prussia, guided by its chief minister, Otto von Bismarck. Prussia had put itself in a good position …
The establishment of the Deutscher Zollverein (German Customs Union) was an important step toward the goals of industrializing and unifying Germany. The German states, numbering more than 300 principalities, were bound together in the loosely federated Holy Roman Empire. After the 1815 Congress of Vienna, the Federated League …
Named after an 1873 novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, this era of growth and excess following the American Civil War would more than live up to the authors’ sarcasm. As American industry and agriculture began to outpace European competition, some entrepreneurs and corporate leaders became …
William Ewart Gladstone, one of the dominant prime ministers in British history, was born in Liverpool, England, on December 29, 1809. Although his legacy is as a great Liberal reformer, he began his career as a Tory member of Parliament for Newark in December 1832. The year 1832 …
Gopal Krishna Gokhale, the founder of the Servants of India Society, was one of the outstanding leaders of the Indian freedom movement in its earlier phase. He was born in Kotluk in the Ratnagiri district of the Bombay Presidency on May 9, 1866, to Chitpavan Brahmin, Krishnarao and …
Prince Gong was the title given to Ixin (I-hsin), sixth son of Emperor Daoguang (Tao-kuang) of the Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty and half-brother of his successor,Emperor Xianfeng (Hsien-feng), a depraved and inept ruler. In 1853 Prince Gong was appointed Grand Councilor and took responsibility for the defense of the …
Charles George Gordon was a British army officer. His famous early exploits in China between 1862 and 1864 earned him the name “Chinese Gordon,” while his later actions and death in Khartoum, the Sudan, gained him the epithet “Gordon of Khartoum.” Gordon was trained as an army engineer …
The Government of India Act of 1858 was an act of the British parliament that ended the existence and long tenure of the British East India Company in India and transferred its power and assets directly to the British Crown. Thus ended the role that the remaining 1,700 …
