HISTORY OF THE WORLD

Everything was happening at the same time

In 221 BC the First Emperor unified China. Three years later, Hannibal was crossing the Alps. Eras puts events like these on one map and one timeline, and lets you read each one.

Free to start. No account needed.

TODAY IN HISTORY

The House of Wisdom as a great research university may be a nineteenth-century invention. Some historians argue that image was constructed by Orientalist scholars through translation errors and retrospective projection, then repeated until it hardened into fact.

House of Wisdom Established · 830 AD

01The Idea

Open any event. See what else
was happening in those years.

History is usually taught one civilisation at a time: Rome, then China, then the Americas. They ran in parallel. Eras puts more than 2,000 events on one world map and one timeline, so you can see what else was going on in the same years.

China Unified — First Emperor
221 BC · Chang'an

The king of Qin defeats the last of his rivals and proclaims himself Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor, standardising writing, weights and law.

Meanwhile, in the same years
Hannibal Crosses the Alps
The Alps— 3 yrs later
Battle of Raphia
Rafah— 4 yrs later
OPEN IT IN ERAS →Years and places as shown in Eras.
02How It Works

Pick a year. Open an event.
Follow it somewhere else.

01

Drag the timeline

Scrub from 3000 BC to today, or type a year to jump straight to it. Markers show the events in a window around that year, which you can widen or narrow.

02

Open a marker

Every event opens in a reader with an overview and a link to Wikipedia. The Chapter events read a page at a time, with the source credited.

03

See what else was happening

Each event lists other events from the same years and shows the gap, such as 3 yrs later. Open one to follow it.

04What Is In Eras

A map to explore,
a source to check

One map of the world

More than 2,000 events sit on one world map as markers coloured by category. Filter by category, or search by title or place.

A reader that credits its source

Chapter events are short pages you turn at your own pace, with Wikipedia credited as the source. Every other event gets an overview and a link to its article.

Places named for their time

A place carries the name it had in the year you are looking at. Constantinople until 1930, then Istanbul. Persia until 1935, then Iran.

Approximate borders

Dashed lines show the political map of the nearest snapshot we hold. They are approximate, and the map says which year the snapshot is for.

05Stay in the loop

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