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 Islamic Republic of Iran was established in April 1979 after the revolution overthrew the monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Years of turbulence preceded the revolution, led by exiled Shi’i cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khomeini was an Islamic scholar from the conservative city of Qom; under the …
The Iran-contra affair involved an attempt by the National Security Council (NSC) of the Ronald Reagan administration to circumvent congressional limitations on aid to the contras (Nicaraguan guerrillas) and to secure the release of U.S. hostages held in the Middle East through the sale of arms to Iran. …
The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic conflict between the United States and Iran that formally began on November 4, 1979, when Islamic militants overran the U.S. embassy in Tehran and seized its staff as hostages. This situation lasted through the end of President Jimmy Carter’s term and …
The Iranian revolution of 1979 overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty and established an Islamic republic. In 1953 when it appeared that the monarchy was about to be overthrown, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) helped to orchestrate a countercoup that kept Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in power. Iran, under the …
The Algiers Treaty of March 6, 1975, signed by Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and then vice president of Iraq Saddam Hussein, was intended to solve longstanding border and waterway disputes between the two neighboring countries. However, with the overthrow of the shah in 1979, which put Iran …
The Hashemite dynasty in Iraq was overthrown in a bloody revolution in 1958. A group of disgruntled nationalistic army officers headed by General Abdul Karim Qassem and Colonel Abd al-Salam Arif copied the takeover of the Egyptian government by the Free Officers, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, in …
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a clandestine paramilitary organization that devoted itself to the removal of the British presence from Northern Ireland and the ending of the partition of the island. Though it was active since the Anglo-Irish War (1920–21), it gained international notoriety only in the …
Islamist movements were particularly attractive to the large population of young people in Muslim states who were disillusioned by the failures of their governments to provide jobs or to open up authoritarian regimes to meaningful political participation. During the cold war authoritarian regimes in predominantly Muslim countries systematically …
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), or Indian People’s Party, is a pro-Hindu Indian political party that formed the main opposition to the Congress Party in post-independence India. It defeated the Congress Party in the 1977 general election. The BJP asserts that the Indian government should follow Hindu principles …
Al Jazeera (meaning “Island” or “Peninsula”), the Arab satellite TV news station, was established in Qatar in 1996. Start-up investment was provided by the Qatari emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. In stark contrast to the government-controlled media throughout the Arab world, Al Jazeera quickly earned a reputation …
The Jesus movement flourished in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United States and Europe. Young people involved in the hippie, or counterculture, movement were targeted by unorthodox evangelists or found their own way to Christianity. Previous experimentation with drugs, Eastern religion, the occult, and communal …
Jiang Zemin was the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1989 until 2002, and the president of the People’s Republic of China from 1993 until 2003. Jiang was born in 1926, at Yangzhou, Jiangsu (Kiangsu) Province. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1946. In …
Karol Józef Wojtyła (Voy-TEE-wah) was born on May 18, 1920, to Emilia Kaczorowska and Karol Wojtyła, a lieutenant in the Polish army. The couple had two other children years earlier: a daughter, who died in infancy, and Edmund, who became a medical doctor. When Karol Józef was born, …
Lyndon Baines Johnson, nicknamed LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States. Prior to that, he had been vice president during the presidency of John F. Kennedy. He is best remembered for presiding over the United States during the Vietnam War, and also for his efforts in …
For most of Jordan’s modern history, Jordanians knew only one king as architect of the kingdom’s domestic development and of its foreign policy. King Hussein consolidated the Hashemite regime in Jordan and defended it against internal and external challenges, neither of which were in short supply. From the …
Babrak Karmal was an Afghan revolutionary figure, a politician, and an ambassador. He served as the third president of Afghanistan from 1980 to 1986 during the rule of the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. An effective orator and an educated politician, Karmal is best known as one of …
Hamid Karzai was the first elected president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. At the conclusion of the presidential election on October 9, 2004, Karzai was declared its winner, with 55.4 percent of the vote. On December 7, 2004, Karzai took the oath of office as the first …
Kenneth Kaunda, a Zambian nationalist, led the struggle for independence against the British and became the first president of independent Zambia in 1964. Kaunda was born in what was then Northern Rhodesia and, like many first-generation African nationalists, he was educated at Christian mission schools. He worked as …
John F. Kennedy was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. Prior to that he had a prominent military career, served in the House of Representatives and then in the Senate from 1947 to 1960, and was the youngest …
Present-day Kenya is a mix of colonial struggle and capitalist vigor. The road to Kenyan independence began in earnest in October 1952. Kenya, under a state of emergency that would last seven years, began its march toward decolonization. The Mau Mau rebellion against British colonial rule prompted the …
