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.
Ulysses S. Grant commanded the Union armies during the American Civil War and was the 18th president of the United States. Hiram Ulysses Grant was born on April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio. When his paperwork for admission to the Military Academy at West Point was submitted, …
The First and Second Great Awakening are names given to two periods of religious revival that occurred over wide geographic areas in the 18th and 19th centuries. Revivals occur in many religions throughout the world, but they are often identified with American evangelicalism. The awakenings exerted immense influence …
The Great Plains of North America extend about 2,400 miles from parts of the Northwest Territories to Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. In the United States, they continue southward through sections of Montana, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas, into Mexico, …
The Ottoman Empire had ruled all of Greece, with the exception of the Ionian Islands, since its conquest of the Byzantine Empire over the course of the 14th and 15th centuries. But in the 18th and 19th centuries, as revolutionary nationalism grew across Europe (due, in part, to …
Guangxu’s personal name was Zaitian (Tsai-t’ien). He was born in 1871 and chosen emperor by the dowager empress Cixi (Tz’u-hsi) when her son and his cousin the emperor Tongzhi (T’ung-chih) died without heirs. His youth ensured another long regency by the ambitious and unscrupulous Cixi. Guangxu was bright …
The Haitian Revolution represents one of the signal events of the age of revolution, reverberating across the Atlantic world and profoundly shaping social and political relations across the Western Hemisphere in the decades after its eruption in 1791. The only successful large-scale slave revolt in the history of …
Abdul Hamid II, who reigned 1876–1909, became sultan after his brother, Sultan Murad V, was deposed because of mental illness. He came to power by promising reforms and support for a constitution, but he soon reasserted the sultan’s traditional authoritarian powers. At the time, the Ottoman Empire was …
Born in the British West Indies to parents who were not legally married, Alexander Hamilton surmounted his origins, becoming a wartime aide to General George Washington, a key theorist and promoter of the U.S. Constitution, and the creator of a bold financial system for the new republic. Prideful …
Townsend Harris was born in Sandy Hill, New York, in 1804. At 14, he went to New York City, where he worked his way up from shop clerk to partner in a large company. He took a special interest in cultural and educational opportunities. He became president of …
Sir Robert Hart was a remarkable Englishman who served both Great Britain and China. He began working in China in the British consulates at Ningbo (Ningpo) and Canton and rose to become the Inspector-General of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs between 1863 and 1906. As a result of …
The Hawaiian Archipelago consists of a group of 19 islands and atolls that extend across 1,500 miles of the Pacific Ocean, 2,300 miles from the United States mainland. Eight high islands, located at the southeastern end of the archipelago are considered to be the main islands. In order …
Lionized as the Father of Mexican Independence and champion of the downtrodden and oppressed, in 1810 the renegade parish priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla launched a failed rebellion against the Spanish authorities that ended in his capture and execution. Despite its failure, the rebellion inaugurated an 11-year-long struggle …
The Hohenzollern dynasty was the ruling house of Brandenburg-Prussia and of imperial Germany. The family took its name from the German word Zöller, meaning “watchtower” or “castle,” and in particular from the Castle of Hohenzollern, the ancestral seat, today in Baden-Württemberg. In 1415 Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund made …
Hong Xiuquan was the leader of the most devastating rebellion that swept southern China between 1850 and 1864. An estimated 20 million people died as a result. The Hong family lived 30 miles from Guangzhou (Canton), where Western influence on China was strongest. Ambitious to bring honor to …
His contemporaries once described Baron Alexander von Humboldt as the “last universal scholar in the field of the natural sciences.” Naturalist, botanist, zoologist, author, cartographer, artist, and sociologist are just a few of the titles that Humboldt earned. His influence resonates throughout the world, but, paradoxically, it is …
The inadequacies of the Self-Strengthening Movement adopted by the Qing (Ch’ing) government of China convinced many educated Chinese that only thorough institutional reforms could save the nation from the expansionist ambitions of the Western powers and Japan. In 1895 defeat by Japan and the humiliating Treaty of Shimonoseki …
North American immigration led to the gradual unfolding of settlements throughout the continent. Spain settled St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565 and New Mexico in 1598. France settled Acadia in 1604 and Québec in 1608. New Orleans dates from 1718. New Spain and New France grew slowly, if at …
The Indian Mutiny was the most traumatic single event to mark the British experience in India, from the first appearance of the British East India Company in the early 17th century to the end of Britain’s Indian empire in 1947. Most shocking of all, it took place among …
The term Industrial Revolution has been used to describe the most extensive change the world has ever experienced. It was coined by English philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806–73) but brought into popular use by English historian Arnold Toynbee (1889–1975). The most significant aspect of the Industrial Revolution was …
Mohammed Iqbal was born in Sialkot in the Punjab region of British India on November 9, 1877. His father, Shaikh Nur Muhammad, was a follower of the Islamic school of Sufi mysticism. Iqbal benefited from the British educational policy and attended the Scotch Mission College at Sialkot, followed …
