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.
Gender construction in Latin America has often been cited as being significantly influenced by Spanish colonization. Dominant conceptions of masculinity and femininity, referred to as machismo and marianismo respectively, are rooted in the Spanish conquest and influence the sociocultural conditions of Latin America. There is debate as to …
Based on the writings of French philosopher and social reformer Auguste Comte, positivist doctrine swept large parts of urban Latin America in the late 19th century, from Mexico City to Buenos Aires, profoundly influencing intellectual currents, economic and political trends, state ideologies, forms of state organization, urban planning, …
At independence in the 1820s, the vast majority of the inhabitants of Latin America and the Caribbean, probably more than 95 percent, lived in rural areas. From the early colonial period, cities, clustered mainly along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, had been considered by Spanish and Portuguese colonizers …
After the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck united Germany in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, he desired peace in which the new unified Germany could mature and prosper. With France effectively neutralized by the war and the Paris Commune uprising in 1871 that followed, Bismarck …
Pope Leo XIII was born Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi on March 2, 1810, in Carpineto and died on July 20, 1903, in Rome. Young Raffaele was sent at age eight to study at the Jesuit school at Viterbo, where he attained a doctorate of theology in 1832 and …
Upon his accession in 1865, Leopold decided Belgium should be beautiful, rich, secure, and more powerful. Accordingly, he transformed Brussels and Ostend, built monuments and public works, backed Belgian enterprises abroad, gained fortifications, and, on his deathbed, signed an army reform. Additionally, since the idea of European expansion …
When Thomas Jefferson became president of the United States, he was determined to fulfill one of his most cherished dreams: obtaining accurate knowledge of the Far West. In his message to Congress of January 18, 1803, nine months before the United States acquired the Louisiana Purchase from France, …
After the American Revolution, many Americans, black and white, anguished over the continuing existence of slavery in the new republic of liberty. One proposed solution—colonization—attracted supporters at the highest levels. The American Colonization Society (ACS) played a key role in slavery politics before, during, and even after the …
Li Hongzhang came from Anhui Province, received the highest academic degree in 1847, and joined the government. When the army of the Taiping rebels reached Anhui in 1853, Li and his father returned home and organized a militia, serving well under various local officials. In 1858 he joined …
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in a log cabin on Nolin Creek in Hardin (now Larue) County, Kentucky. His father was a carpenter and farmer who owned three farms in Kentucky. His family moved to Indiana in December 1816, in part because his parents did …
Lin Zexu, the son of a teacher from Fujian (Fukien) Province, received the jinshi (chin-shih) degree, the highest in the Chinese educational system, in 1811 and entered government service. He served with distinction and gained the popular accolade “Lin, Clear as the Heavens” for being just and incorruptible. …
During the period 1750–1900, a large increase in literacy and reduced costs in printing and publishing led to large numbers of books being published. This in turn resulted in the establishment of public and private libraries around the world, which led to even more people having access to …
The Lobanov-Yamagata Agreement was a pact between Russia and Japan concerning their respective interests in Korea, signed in 1896. During the early 1890s, Russian and Japanese involvement in Northeast Asia in general and in Korea in particular intensified. In 1891 Russia announced the laying of the Trans-Siberian Railway …
Born in August 1754, the ill-fated Louis XVI became king of France in 1774, on the death of his father, Louis XV. In 1770 he had married Marie Antoinette of Austria, the daughter of Francis I and Maria Theresa. It was a dynastic marriage, intended to cement the …
Napoleon I’s decision to cede the Louisiana territory to the United States in 1803 was a boon for the fledging American republic. The purchase of approximately 830,000 square miles of the trans-Mississippi west doubled the size of the United States and facilitated its expansion westward. France had been …
China’s foreign relations with other peoples and states was shaped by centuries of tradition. Called the tribute system, the tributary or vassal state sent tribute to the Chinese court, and its representative performed the kowtow, or prostration before the emperor, according to Chinese ritual, which assumed cultural and …
John A. Macdonald, the Scots-born Ontario lawyer who became the Canadian Confederation’s first (and third) prime minister, was in many ways modern Canada’s founding father. He helped draft the British North America Act that established the Confederation in 1867 (for which he was knighted by Queen Victoria) and …
James Madison was born in Port Conway, Virginia, to James Madison, Sr., and Eleanor Rose Conway. They owned a prosperous tobacco plantation, run by slaves, at the Montpelier estates in Orange County. The eldest of 12 siblings, Madison was sickly as a child, but excelled in school and …
The first British base in Southeast Asia was Bencoolen (now Bengkulu) in Sumatra in 1685, and this was followed by Penang Island, off the west coast of the Malay Peninsula in 1786 (this grew to include part of the nearby coastline in 1800). Both were established by the …
Manifest Destiny was a popular slogan in the United States in the 1840s. It was designed to signify that the fledging American republic was fated to become a nation of continental magnitude. It was heavily influenced by the exuberant nationalism and the religious fervor of the decade and …
