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.
Václav Havel is a Czech dramatist, journalist, essayist, and former president of Czechoslovakia (1989–92) and of the Czech Republic (1993–2003). Havel was born in Prague in 1936 to a prosperous family. As a member of a former bourgeois family in a communist regime, Havel was denied privileges, including …
Hizbollah (Party of God) is a political, military, and social Islamic Shi’i organization established in Lebanon in 1982. After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon that year, Shi’i Muslims—with the assistance of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard—formed Hizbollah to combat the Israeli occupation. In the mid-1980s the Hizbollah guerrillas, known …
Ho Chi Minh’s original name was Nguyen Ai Quoc. He fought against French rule over his country and afterward struggled against the United States in the Vietnam War. Combining his ideology of communism with love of his country, Ho left an indelible mark in history. He was born …
The First Anglo-Chinese, or Opium, War ended in 1842 in total British victory and the cession by China of Hong Kong (several islands totaling 32 square miles on the tip of the Pearl River estuary) to Great Britain in the Treaty of Nanjing (Nanking). Hong Kong prospered and …
Because of its strategic location near the Red Sea and the Arabian Peninsula, the Horn of Africa—currently composed of Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, and Djibouti—witnessed some of the most intense and violent geopolitical maneuvering during the cold war. Both the United States and the Soviet Union poured vast sums …
Elected president of the People’s Republic of China on March 15, 2003, Hu Jintao was born in December 1942 in Shanghai. He is the first Chinese leader whose career began after the communist victory of 1949. Hu became active in the Communist Youth League while in high school …
Hu’s meteoric career rise continued with his appointment as governor of Guizhou (Kweichow) province in 1985. In 1988 he took over as party chief of the Tibet Autonomous Region at a time of great political turmoil. Hu ordered and led a political crackdown in Tibet in early 1989. …
The Huk Rebellion was a leftist, rurally based armed rebellion in the Philippines, first against Japan and later against the newly independent, U.S.-supported Filipino government. Its main objective was independence and a more equitable society. The movement blossomed during World War II, dissipated in the mid-1950s, then returned …
Between 1949, when it came to power, and 1957, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) completed land reform and eliminated domestic opposition. As a result of the First Five-Year Plan, it had collectivized agriculture and advanced industries. Chairman Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) believed that most intellectuals supported his goals, …
In 1956, Hungary was a nation of 9 million. Allied to Germany during World War II, it was occupied by Soviet troops in 1944–45. Hungarian Communists began the process that by the late 1940s would give them control over the government. By that time, Hungary’s government had undergone …
Saddam Hussein was born in Al Awja near Tikrit, Iraq, to a poor family. He was raised mostly by an uncle and attended school in Baghdad. As a young man he joined the Ba’ath Party. After Hussein was involved in an abortive attempted to assassinate Abdul Karim Qassem, …
India became an independent nation on August 15, 1947, with the end of British colonial rule. With a population of 1,095,351,995 (July 2006 estimate), India is the second most populous nation after China. It is the seventh-largest nation in land area in the world, covering 3,287,590 square kilometers. …
The French colonization of Indochina—consisting of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia—was completed when Laos became a French protectorate in 1893. World War II opened new avenues for anticolonial movements in Southeast Asia. In the wake of the Japanese occupation of Indochina, the Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) …
The left movement in Indonesia began within the Sarekat Islam (Islamic Association), established in 1911. Henk Sneevliet established the Indische Sociaal Democratische Vereenigin (ISDV, Indies Social Democratic Association) in 1914 and worked within the Sarekat Islam. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 the ISDV increased its membership, and …
After the departure of the British in August 1947, India and Pakistan became successor states. The partition of the British Indian Empire into India and Pakistan left a legacy of mutual discord that is felt to the present day. India’s foreign policy after independence was centered around world …
For more than seven decades (1929–2000) Mexico was governed by a single ruling party that dominated Mexican politics in a so-called one-party democracy. Dubbed the “perfect dictatorship” in 1990 by the conservative Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, the ruling party went through several name changes and transformed in …
Since its foundation at the end of World War II, the International Monetary Fund (IMF, or Fund) has been one of the world’s most powerful and controversial multilateral economic institutions. Debates on the role of the IMF in the global economy have intensified in recent decades, especially from …
In 1919 shortly after the conclusion of World War I, the United States Army organized a convoy that departed Washington, D.C., bound for San Francisco, California. The objectives of the cross-country trek were to test military vehicles and ascertain the feasibility of mass transport on a nationwide scale. …
The first intifada (the Intifada, from the Arabic for “shaking off ”) was a popular uprising among Palestinians against Israel’s military occupation, confiscation of their land, and suppression of their collective identity. The uprising started on December 8, 1987, in the Palestinian refugee camp Jabalya in the Gaza …
The al-Aqsa Intifada (uprising) of Palestinians broke out in September 2000 following a provocative visit by Ariel Sharon and 400 Israeli soldiers to the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem. The Haram al-Sharif complex includes the al-Aqsa Mosque, which is viewed by Muslims as the third-most-sacred site in Islam. Many …
