Ancient World
Abusir Pyramids and Sun Temples of Egypt's Fifth Dynasty
Abusir became the main royal burial ground of the Fifth Dynasty, with smaller pyramids, sun temples to Ra and the oldest surviving temple archives.
All Articles
Every Chronicle article on world history, newest first: battles, empires, disasters, discoveries and revolutions.
Ancient World
Sumerian King List: Myth and History of Mesopotamian Kings
A literary chronicle of kingship that mixes legend with genuine dynasties and remains a key, if unreliable, source for early Mesopotamian history.
Prehistory
Yangshao Culture: Painted Pottery of Neolithic China
The first Neolithic culture identified in China and the dominant farming tradition of the middle Yellow River for two thousand years.
Prehistory
Sesklo: One of Europe's Earliest Neolithic Settlements
Sesklo became one of the best-known early farming villages in Europe and the type site of the Middle Neolithic Sesklo culture of Thessaly.
Prehistory
Venus of Hohle Fels: The Oldest Known Human Figurine
The figurine pushed the earliest known depiction of the human body back by at least 5,000 years and linked the European Venus tradition to the first modern humans.
Prehistory
Homo antecessor: The Gran Dolina Fossils of Atapuerca, Spain
Fossils from level TD6 of Gran Dolina were named Homo antecessor in 1997, showing that humans lived in western Europe more than 780,000 years ago.
Prehistory
Quaternary Megafauna Extinction: Why the Ice Age Giants Vanished
Roughly two-thirds of the world's genera of large land mammals disappeared, transforming ecosystems on every inhabited continent.
Prehistory
Banded Iron Formations: Ancient Rocks That Record Rising Oxygen
Iron-rich sediments deposited in oxygen-poor oceans that now record the rise of oxygen and supply most of the world's iron ore.
Modern Era
Yellow River Flood (1887): One of History's Deadliest Floods
The river poured south into the Huai basin, killing an estimated 900,000 to 2 million people before the breach was closed in early 1889.
Modern Era
Katyn Massacre (1940): The Soviet Killing of Polish Officers
About 22,000 Polish officers, police and members of the elite were executed; the Soviet Union denied responsibility until 1990.
Modern Era
Battle of Loos (1915): Britain's First Use of Poison Gas
Limited British gains at very heavy cost; the failure contributed to Sir John French's replacement by Douglas Haig in December 1915.
Modern Era
Anglo-Sikh Wars (1845-1849): The British Conquest of the Punjab
British victory in both wars; the Sikh Empire was annexed by the East India Company in March 1849.