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.
A monk, teacher, historian, and biblical interpreter usually called “the Venerable,” Saint Bede was the most influential scholar from Anglo-Saxon England. At the age of seven, Bede was given as an oblate (child dedicated to religious life) to the monastery of Wearmouth, newly founded by Benedict Biscop. When …
Extending at its peak from the Niger River in the east to the port of Lagos on the western coast, Benin was a dynastic kingdom in what is now southern Nigeria, in the West African forested region. Present-day Benin City (called Ibinu; it was founded in 1180) was …
The Berbers are the earliest known inhabitants of northwestern Africa’s Mediterranean coast, plains, and mountain ranges. Living as nomadic herders or farmers in Morocco’s Atlas and Rif mountain ranges, Algeria, the Sahara Desert, east into Libya and Egypt, the exact ethnic and cultural origins of the Berbers is …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was born in 1090 in Fontaine (now a suburb of Dijon in Burgundy, France) of noble parents: Tescelin, a relative of the lord of Châtillon, and Aleth, daughter of the lord of Montbard. His five brothers trained for military careers, but Bernard had fragile …
The word bhakti is derived from a Sanskrit word for “sharing.” It was used to describe a new type of path to moksha (“liberation from the cycle of reincarnations”). Bhakti devotees (bhaktas) usually committed themselves to one of the Trimurti of Brahman (“the supreme spirit reality”). The three …
The Black Death (Black Plague, The Plague, Bubonic Plague) was so named because the skin on many of its victims turned black, a result of massive blood clots. Although there have been many plagues throughout history, the three most associated with the term Black Plague are pandemics (epidemics …
Blanche was born in Palencia, present-day Spain, the third daughter of Alfonso VIII, the king of Castile, and Eleanor, daughter of English king Henry II and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. She married Louis VIII (1187–1226) of France, the son of Philip II (1165–1223) of France, on May 23, …
Boccaccio is the most recent of the three “great minds” of 14th-century Italian humanism, after Dante Alighieri and Petrarch. He was a poet, a scientist, and, most important, a creator of the early modern short story genre. Boccaccio’s ancestors were peasants, but his father became a wealthy merchant …
Bohemia was a kingdom in central Europe, a vassal from the 10th century and later an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire. The earliest known historical inhabitants of the country were the Boii, a Celtic tribe, from whom Bohemia derives its name. By the first century Slavic tribes, …
Known as the Apostle of the Germans, Saint Boniface was educated in England under the influence of Benedictine monasteries in the late seventh century. He could have followed in the steps of the Venerable Bede, so polished was his Latin, but the monks instilled in him a zeal …
Borobudur, the largest Buddhist monument in the world, is located in central Java. Surrounded by fertile rice fields and coconut plantations, the Buddhist stupa is located on a small hill above Kedu Plain. It was built in 760 to resemble a mountain and was completed in 830. Borobudur …
Brahma is one of the three major gods of the Hindu religion, together with Shiva and Vishnu. Worship of Brahma began in the Vedic Age of Indian history and its importance was gradually outweighed by the worship of Shiva and Vishnu over time. Brahma the god should be …
Born the son of a lawyer in Florence in 1377, Filippo Brunelleschi rejected his father’s choice of a law career and trained as a goldsmith and sculptor. After six years of his apprenticeship he passed the exam and officially became a master in the goldsmith’s guild. During his …
Leonardo Bruni was one of the foremost humanists of the early 15th century in Italy. He dedicated himself to a career of studying and writing about classical Greek and Roman culture and drawing lessons from the era of the Roman republic that he felt could be applied to …
The origins of the Bulgarian Empire are usually traced to the Bulgaro-Slavic state established by an alliance between the Bulgar Khan Asparuh and the league of the seven Slavic tribes around 679. Although this state had been founded within the bounds of the Byzantine Empire, Emperor Constantine IV …
The earliest records of Bulgar invasions in Europe come from the fifth century. In 481 Emperor Zeno employed Bulgar mercenaries against the Ostrogoths who had invaded the Danubian provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire. During the reign of Emperor Anastasius (491–518), the Bulgars made several incursions into Thrace …
The classical civilization of Burma (Myanmar) is centered at Pagan. After the collapse of the Pyu state, the Mrammas (Sanskritized Brahma), or Burmans, founded their chief city, Pagan (Arimarddanapura or “City Where Enemies Were Exterminated”) around 849 c.e. The ethnic Chinese had pushed them back around the second …
Byzantine history spans the period from the late Roman Empire to the beginning of the modern age. Constantine the Great, first Christian ruler of the Roman Empire, moved his capital to Byzantion in 330, renaming the city Constantinople. The state he ruled was Byzant, but the citizens called …
The city of Constantinople, or Byzantium, was founded, according to legend, in 667 b.c.e., by Greeks from Megara and gradually rose in importance during the Roman Empire. Its initial importance was its position on the trade routes in the eastern Mediterranean, especially its close access to the land …
Caesaropapism is the idea that the emperor had complete control over the Orthodox Greek Church in the Roman/Byzantine Empire, relegating the church to something like a department of state, subordinate to, rather than independent from, imperial power. This is a western perspective never found in Byzantine sources. In …
