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.
The kingdom of Koryo (or Goryeo) in Korea was named after the dynasty that ruled from the fall of the Silla dynasty in 935 c.e. until the Yi dynasty overthrew it in 1392. The English name Korea is derived from the word Koryo. The kingdom of Koryo was …
The Battle of Kosovo was a turning point in Ottoman control over the Balkans and a major defeat for the Serbs. As the Muslim Ottoman army moved deep inside Balkan territory, The Serbian ruler Lazar I, with the solid backing of the Serbian Orthodox Christian Church, formed a …
Kubilai or Khubilai was born in 1215, the second son of Tului Khan (youngest son of Genghis Khan) and Sorghaghtani Beki, who was a Kerait (a tribe that Genghis had conquered) and a Nestorian Christian (his principal wife, Chabi, was also a Kerait and Nestorian Christian). His mother …
Ladislas was king of Hungary and the second ruler of the Árpád dynasty to achieve sainthood. At the end of the 10th century the Magyar leader Géza and his son Stephen began the conversion of the pagan Magyars to Christianity and the foundation of Hungary as an independent …
When the Axumite empire, believed to have been established by the son of King Solomon and the queen of Sheba, fell in the 11th century, the Zagwe dynasty took power. Of non-Solomonic origins, the Zagwe moved the Ethiopian capital from Axum to Roha (present-day Lalibela about 400 miles …
In the 12th, 13th, and 16th centuries in the Lateran Palace in Rome, the Roman Catholic Church held five councils. The first took place in 1123 to ratify the Concordat of Worms (1122), while the second took place in 1139 to reaffirm church unity after the schism of …
The history of the first crusading kingdom of Jerusalem commences with the conquest of Jerusalem by the Christian army, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Lower Lorraine, on July 15, 1099. The crusading host stormed the city and, having slaughtered the native population, captured the Church of …
Since at least the 19th century Serbs have memorialized the defeat and death of Lazar I at the Battle of Kosovo in (1389) as an event of central significance in the nation’s history. The defeat of Lazar’s forces by the army of Ottoman sultan Murad I is frequently …
At the same time that the Chinese Ming dynasty sent its vast fleets across the Indian Ocean to Africa, it also mounted an invasion of Annam, today part of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The sudden Ming incursion caused the native Vietnamese Ho dynasty to collapse. The Ming …
The Liao dynasty (916–1125) was founded and ruled by a people called Khitan (Ch’i-tan), originally hunter-gatherers living in southern Manchuria along the Liao River valley, who gradually learned farming and herding. The Khitan were vassals of the Chinese Tang (T’ang) dynasty (618–907) in an unstable relationship. Because of …
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the last pagan state in Europe. Landlocked and protected by dense forests and impassable wetlands, Lithuania was spared the fate of the other Baltic peoples, who were either converted or killed by German and Scandinavian colonizers between the late 12th and early …
Peter Lombard, best known for his Sententiae in quatuor libris distinctae (The Book of Sentences), was born in northern Italy between 1095 and 1110. Lombard began his formal education close to home at the Cathedral School of St. Mary’s in Novara and continued his studies in Lucca before …
Zealous and dashing, chauvinistic and impulsive are all terms that describe the reign of Louis IX, king of France. He showed heroic virtues of character, but he also seemed blind to the contributions of people who did not share his own values. He took action against corruption, but …
Rebellious barons required that King John of England approve the Magna Carta (Latin for “the Great Charter”) in 1215. Many consider the document to be the foundation of English constitutional government and individual liberties. By the end of the Middle Ages the charter had become binding legal precedent …
The Magyars, Hungarian ancestors, began raiding into western Europe in 862 against the outposts of the Frankish kingdom in the Danube Valley. Under pressure from the Pechenegs, they moved westward, eventually moving into the Carpathian Basin in 895. Over the next 10 years, they gained control of the …
Mahmud of Ghazni, founder of the Ghaznavid Empire, was the son of Sebuk-Tigin, a Turkic slave soldier who rose through military service to lead a small client state of the Abbasid dynasty in Afghanistan. Mahmud assumed control of this state in 997 after defeating a challenge from his …
Maimonides, or Moses ben Maimon, was born into a scholarly Jewish family in Córdoba, when southern Spain or Andalusia was ruled by Islamic dynasties. Along with Averroës he became the most well-known intellectual from Muslim Spain. His family fled Spain for Fez, Morocco, when a repressive Berber Muslim …
After the decline of the Srivijayas, who were based in Palembang, Sumatra, the Singahsari dynasty tried to assert their authority in the Malay Archipelago. Unfortunately for them the powerful Mongol warrior Kubilai Khan interfered with their efforts by trying to subjugate them. He initially sent peaceful missions to …
One of the most important intellectual developments in western Europe during the High Middle Ages was the growth of urban schools and universities in which fee-paying students were able to acquire a basic education in the liberal arts. The system of education known as Scholasticism resulted from the …
The Latin West in the early medieval period was too poor and rural to produce significant theoretical science and medicine. The near-total loss of the scientific language of antiquity, Greek, also hindered Western science. What remained were the Bible and the voluminous but unsystematic and uncreative Latin works …
