Ancient World
Yoshinogari: Japan's Great Moated Village of the Yayoi Period
The largest known Yayoi moated settlement, it reshaped understanding of early Japanese society and is now a national Special Historic Site and park.
All Articles
Every Chronicle article on world history, newest first: battles, empires, disasters, discoveries and revolutions.
Ancient World
Ramayana: Valmiki's Ancient Epic and Its History Across Asia
The Ramayana became one of the two great Sanskrit epics and a shared cultural story from India to Indonesia.
Ancient World
Hannibal Crossing the Alps (218 BC): Elephants Into Italy
Hannibal reached northern Italy with about 26,000 men and a few dozen elephants, opening the Italian campaign of the Second Punic War.
Ancient World
Sappho of Lesbos (c. 630 BC): The Lyric Poet and Her Fragments
Sappho's lyric poetry, admired throughout antiquity, survives mainly in fragments, with new pieces still being recovered from ancient papyri.
Ancient World
Senusret III: Warrior Pharaoh of Egypt's Middle Kingdom
Egypt's southern frontier was fixed at Semna, guarded by a chain of fortresses, and royal power over the provinces was strengthened.
Ancient World
Code of Hammurabi: Babylon's Famous Law Code of 1754 BC
The best-preserved law collection of the ancient Near East, copied for over a thousand years and now in the Louvre.
Prehistory
Chengtoushan: The Oldest Known Walled Settlement in China
A round, moated Neolithic settlement in the middle Yangtze valley, generally regarded as the oldest known walled town in China.
Prehistory
Eridu: Mesopotamia's Earliest Settlement and Temple Sequence
One of the oldest settlements of southern Mesopotamia, whose superimposed temples document the origins of Mesopotamian temple architecture.
Prehistory
Apollo 11 Cave Stones: Africa's Oldest Figurative Art
The painted slabs became the oldest securely dated figurative art in Africa and showed that rock painting there began in the Stone Age tens of thousands of years ago.
Prehistory
Kabwe Skull: The Broken Hill Fossil from Zambia's Lead Mine
The skull was named Homo rhodesiensis in 1921; its 2020 dating to about 299,000 years showed it lived alongside early Homo sapiens and Homo naledi.
Prehistory
Hadrosaurus foulkii (1858): America's First Dinosaur Skeleton
Hadrosaurus became the first substantial dinosaur skeleton found in North America, the first evidence that some dinosaurs walked on two legs and, in 1868, the first dinosaur skeleton mounted for public display.
Prehistory
Sudbury Basin: Ancient Impact Crater and Nickel Mining Region
A giant impact created one of Earth's largest known impact structures and, indirectly, one of the world's richest nickel and copper ore districts.