Hourly History

The Great Famine which afflicted Ireland from 1845 to 1849 was one of the most catastrophic events in Europe during the 19th century. More than one-quarter of the population of Ireland died of starvation or associated disease, or were forced to emigrate....

Explore the triumph and terror that existed in France during the French Revolution. Review the causes and the lasting effects brought about during this tumultuous time period when the common people of France struggled to remake their world upon the cornerstone of liberty....

In the nineteenth century, historians began to classify the periods of human prehistory into three ages: Stone, Bronze, and Iron.

He was known as the "Desert Fox", and outfox his enemies he often did, leaving whole armies confounded and demoralized in his wake, and yet, the one adversary that Erwin Rommel could not outfox was his own government....

Discover the remarkable history of the Falklands War...The Falklands War, which erupted in 1982, was a conflict between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Argentina over sovereignty of the Falklands, a group of largely uninhabited islands in the South Atlantic....

David Bowie is known all over the world for a string of hit songs and a reputation for extravagance on stage. He was the one, after all, who helped launch glam rock in the 1970s....

A little over 2000 years ago a man named Julius Caesar changed the world. Even if you have never heard of him, his lasting legacy has no doubt had an impact on your life....

They say that laughter is the best medicine, and no one could quite make us laugh like Robin Williams. His meteoric rise to fame was fueled by an irrepressible sense of humor and dazzling improvisational skills.

The Crusades are the prototype and epitome of the Holy War. The fight to take control of Jerusalem, believed to be the Holy City to two distinct religions of Christianity and Islam, has lasted far longer than the two centuries of the Crusades....

One of the most famous women of the 20th century, Marie Curie was a trailblazer in the truest sense. Known for her discovery of two radioactive elements, radium and polonium, Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize....

As an early crisis of the Cold War, the Korean War set important precedents for how conflicts would be handled during this era. It has also shaped Korea’s history for more than half a century....

The Industrial Revolution, which took place in Great Britain between the middle of the 18th century and the middle of the 19th, transformed British industry and society and made Great Britain the most powerful nation in the world....

Robert Oppenheimer had a lot resting on his shoulders. During the Second World War, he was tasked with directing the development of the world’s first nuclear arsenal....

The Sumerians settled in the area known as Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, around 5,000 years ago. They produced many fundamental changes to the way in which human societies developed - these were the first city-builders and the first people to use wheeled vehicles....

In 1642, King Charles I and the elected Parliament of England went to war over the future of the Stuart kingdom. Over the next nine years, three civil wars would be fought, devastating the populations of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

Kofi Annan stands out as one of the most pivotal figures of the early twenty-first century. As the secretary-general of the United Nations, he became an enduring icon and a voice for peace and freedom all over the world.

Imagine a society with no unemployment, zero inflation, free healthcare and education, free childcare, virtually no serious crime, and where women and men are treated with absolute equality. Such a society has existed: in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), popularly known as East Germany....

As the tee-shirt slogans say, “If you can read this, thank the Phoenicians". The Phoenician achievements include creating the world’s first alphabet, which consisted of 22 consonant letters. If you’re sipping wine as you read, that’s another reason to thank the Phoenicians....

George Washington, the first president of the United States, is much more than a monument on Mount Rushmore. Who was Washington, the general, president, and husband? Find out....

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a figure that is cemented in the annals of history as one of the greatest composers of all time....