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.
Among the many rebellions that enveloped China in the mid-19th century, the Taiping Rebellion (1850 – 64) caused most devastation and posed the greatest danger to the Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty. The rebellions had many causes, the most serious being the population explosion, the result of prolonged peace and …
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord was one of the best-known diplomats in European history, having served the throne of France from the time of Louis XVI (the nation’s last absolute monarch) to LouisPhilippe (the last king), a time that encompassed the French Revolution and Napoleon. An aristocrat denied his inheritance …
The Tanzimat, meaning “reorganization,” was a series of reforms within the Ottoman Empire during the 19th century. Sultan Mahmud II initiated a number of sweeping reforms in order to strengthen the empire by centralizing administrative control and breaking the power of local provincial governors and the janissaries. He …
Texans have long taken pride in their state’s unique history as the only state in the Union to have fought for and achieved independence as a republic. For nearly 10 years, from April 1836 to December 1845, the Republic of Texas (or Lone Star Republic) existed as a …
Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak was a prominent militant nationalist leader of the Indian freedom movement against British rule. He was born in Ratnagiri to a family of Brahmans in 1856. His father was an officer in the educational department. Tilak passed the bachelor of arts examination from Deccan …
Youngest son of an aristocratic Norman family, Alexis de Tocqueville became famous on two continents as an important supporter, interpreter, and critic of democracy. His books on the United States remain enduring analyses of the young republic. Born at the dawn of the Napoleonic era, Tocqueville would serve …
The late Tokugawa Shogunate (1853–67) witnessed the end of the Edo period in Japan, when the country emerged from a period of self-imposed isolation and modernized from a feudal military society as a result of the Meiji Restoration. The expedition of Commodore Matthew Perry and other dealings with …
The Treaty of Beijing (Peking; see Aigun) of 1860 that ended the Second Anglo-Chinese Opium War and the suppression of the Taiping and other rebellions in the 1860s gave the Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty a reprieve. The adjustments and reforms in the post1860 decades would give the dynasty a …
Symbol of slaves’ struggles for freedom and dignity in the age of revolution, the onetime house slave Toussaint Louverture assumed leadership of the Haitian Revolution soon after its outbreak in August 1791. For more than a decade Toussaint led the island’s exslave insurgent forces—first as an independent rebel …
In its 1836–46 heyday, the New England–based religious, intellectual, and social movement known as transcendentalism fostered a truly American literature and inspired important social reforms, including abolition of slavery and new roles for women. Although it was never a mass movement, its adherents’ attempts to harmonize human freedom …
Between 1882 and 1914 western Europe divided between the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance. The division allowed the preservation of an uneasy peace despite periodic disruptions, particularly in the Balkans. The map of Europe experienced major alterations in 1871 with the creation of the German Empire and …
In 1881 a French expeditionary force attacked Tunisia from Algeria and along the coast. The French forced the local ruling bey, Muhammad al-Sadiq, to sign the Treaty of Bardo that agreed to a French occupation of Tunisia. France was interested in controlling Tunisia in order to guard the …
Ultramontanism literally means “over the mountains,” and it implies that there are two views of how the Catholic Church should be governed. One view sees leadership as a centralized and unified papacy (in Rome, over the Alps from the rest of Europe) and the other looks for local …
The Urabi revolt was a nationalist-led movement that led to the British occupation of Egypt in 1882. When Ismail was forced to step down as khedive, Tewfik, a weak pro-British ruler, replaced him in 1879. Under the Caisse de la Dette, government revenues went to repay the enormous …
Uruguay is a buffer state sandwiched between the two giants of South America—Argentina and Brazil. During the colonial period, Spain and Portugal fought over control of the area, and their former respective colonies, Argentina and Brazil, later took over the quarrel. The first Spaniard in what is now …
Usman Dan Fodio, also known by the Hausa honorific shehu (sheikh), was a West African scholar and religious reformer of the Fulani ethnic group who led a successful early 19th-century Islamic jihad in Hausaland, modern-day northern Nigeria. The jihad led to the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate, the …
Pope Pius IX began laying the groundwork for the first Vatican Council in late 1864. He intended to consult various bishops throughout the world concerning whether the church should convene an ecumenical council and what its agenda should be. The responses were favorable enough that Pius IX announced …
Victor Emmanuel II was born on March 14, 1830, in Turin, the eldest son of Charles Albert, king of Piedmont-Sardinia, and Maria Theresa of HabsburgLorraine. During the first Italian War of Independence (1848–49), Victor Emmanuel fought alongside his father, seeing action at Pastrengo, Santa Lucia, Goto, and Custoza …
Queen Victoria was born May 24, 1819, acceded to the throne on June 20, 1837 (succeeding William IV), and died January 22, 1901 (succeeded by Edward VII). The woman who wore the crown of the United Kingdom through six decades of great political, economic, and social change in …
The Congress of Vienna was held in the Austrian capital, where ambassadors from the major powers in Europe discussed what should happen to the continent at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The conference was chaired by the Austrian statesman Prince Clemens von Metternich and took place from …
