History101

Citations & sources

Small superscript numbers in the story lead here. Each one names a museum, archive, or research project where you can check the claim yourself — start with these, then follow their bibliographies further.

Prologue: before people

  1. 1NASA Science: how the Moon formed

    Supports the Mars-sized impact that threw the Moon into orbit. Start with NASA's Moon research, then follow its references.

    science.nasa.gov

  2. 2Natural History Museum, London: the origin of life

    Supports the first self-copying molecules, the oxygenation of the atmosphere, and the landward migration of life.

    nhm.ac.uk

Chapter one: beginnings

  1. 3Smithsonian Human Origins Program

    Supports the African origin of Homo sapiens and the timed migrations into Australia and the Americas.

    humanorigins.si.edu

  2. 4Çatalhöyük Research Project

    Supports the roof-entered mud-brick town that ran for a thousand years with no evidence of kings — the excavation archive itself.

    catalhoyuk.com

Chapter two: first cities

  1. 5British Museum Collection: early cuneiform

    Supports writing-as-bookkeeping: search the collection for Uruk-period tablets and ration lists like the ones described.

    britishmuseum.org/collection

  2. 6UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Memphis and its Necropolis

    Supports the Giza pyramids and the rotating-labour crews that raised them — the official listing for the pyramid fields.

    whc.unesco.org

Chapter three: iron-age empires

  1. 7Musée du Louvre: the Code of Hammurabi

    Supports the black-diorite stele and its 282 judgments — the stele itself stands in the Louvre's Near Eastern department.

    louvre.fr

  2. 8Livius.org: the Achaemenid Empire

    Supports Cyrus's revolt, the satrapies, and the Royal Road — a scholars' encyclopedia of the ancient world.

    livius.org

Chapter four: classical worlds

  1. 9Metropolitan Museum Heilbrunn Timeline: Ashoka and the Mauryas

    Supports the rock edicts and the remorse of Kalinga — thematic essays with collection objects.

    metmuseum.org/toah

  2. 10Project Gutenberg: Thucydides in full text

    Supports the funeral-oration passage: read the whole History of the Peloponnesian War free, and judge Thucydides' warning about speeches for yourself.

    gutenberg.org

Chapter five: faiths & trade roads

  1. 11UNESCO Silk Roads Online Platform

    Supports the braided caravan-and-sea system that carried paper, faiths, and plague between Chang'an and the Mediterranean.

    en.unesco.org/silkroad

  2. 12Fordham Internet History Sourcebooks Project

    Supports the House of Wisdom and Abbasid translation movement — a free, classroom-safe library of translated primary sources.

    sourcebooks.fordham.edu

Chapter six: Mongols & plague

  1. 13World History Encyclopedia: the Mongol Empire

    Supports the Pax Mongolica, the relay stations, and the scale of the largest contiguous land empire.

    worldhistory.org

  2. 14British Library: the Black Death

    Supports the plague's road west and its aftermath — articles built on the Library's medieval manuscript holdings.

    bl.uk

  3. 19Library of Congress: the Gutenberg Bible

    Supports the press that outran the fire — the Library holds exemplary Gutenberg Bibles with curator notes on how they were made.

    loc.gov

Chapter seven: the ocean age

  1. 15Digital Public Library of America: the Middle Passage

    Supports the twelve million crossings and the two million dead — primary-source sets from American libraries and archives.

    dp.la

  2. 16U.S. National Archives: the Declaration of Independence

    Supports the 1776 quotation in context — the engrossed original with transcription and provenance.

    archives.gov/founding-docs

Chapter eight: the modern world

  1. 17Science Museum Group: the Industrial Revolution

    Supports the coal-and-capital takeoff — working engines and mill models from the cities where it happened.

    sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk

  2. 18The National Archives (UK): the Second World War

    Supports the wartime narrative — Cabinet papers, speeches, and unit records from the British official archive.

    nationalarchives.gov.uk

For the classroom shelf

  1. 20Khan Academy: free companion courses

    Pairs with every chapter on this site — free world-history courses teachers can assign alongside the narrative.

    khanacademy.org