History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categorize history as a social science, while others see it as part of the humanities or consider it a hybrid discipline. Similar debates surround the purpose of history—for example, whether its main aim is theoretical, to uncover the truth, or practical, to learn lessons from the past. In a more general sense, the term history refers not to an academic field but to the past itself, times in the past, or to individual texts about the past.
Historical research relies on primary and secondary sources to reconstruct past events and validate interpretations. Sourc...
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Adolph Menzel - Eisenwalzwerk - Google Art Project.jpg
Auguste Comte.jpg
Half-length portrait of Auguste Comte, seated, known as the "Dutch portrait" (Portrait hollandais),...
Carstian Luyckx - Still life with a globe, books, shells and corals resting on a stone ledge.jpg
Collections Archive, St. Petersburg Museum of History, St. Petersburg, FL.jpg
Collections Archive
St. Petersburg Museum of History
335 2nd Ave NE
St. Petersburg, Florida, United...
Girls at Albany Senior School in Enfield during a lesson on American History, 1943. D13781.jpg
Girls at Albany Senior School in Enfield during a lesson on American History, 1943.
Girls at Albany ...
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Classical Greece Map
Jebens, Adolf - Leopold von Ranke (detail) - 1875.jpg
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Lucy Mexico.jpg
Map of the World (1820).jpg
This map of the world is taken from School Atlas to Cummings' Ancient & Modern Geography
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Fragment from Herodotus' Histories, Book VIII on Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 2099, dated to early 2nd centur...
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Pyramids of the Giza Necropolis.jpg
Pyramids of the Giza Necropolis.
Tokyo National Museum Toyokan P1145505.jpg
Chinese arts in the Toyokan (Asian Gallery) of the Tokyo National Museum.
Trébuchet Castelnaud.jpg
A reconstructed trebuchet, Château de Castelnaud, Dordogne, France.
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The last section of the "Book of Rivers and Canals" from an annotated Tang copy of The Records of th...
Bust of Ibn Khaldun (Casbah of Bejaia, Algeria).jpg
Bust of Ibn Khaldoun in the entrance of the Kasbah of Bejaia, Algeria.
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