The Story of HistoryMaps

nce upon a time, I loved reading picture books at the local library. Today, I'm still fascinated about stories that happened "a long, long time ago" from "lands far, far away". When I decided to study History again, I wanted to create something to help me. This was how HistoryMaps started.

History is Fun
Learning History involves remembering dates, places, people, and events (who, what, where and when). Remembering things for the sake of remembering is boring! I thought that there must be a better way to learn, remember what I've learned...and make it fun!

History is a Story
Most history websites prioritize SEO over providing meaningful educational content; they are just awful! Wikipedia is the only relevant online History resource out there, but its thematic organization can make it challenging to follow a narrative sequentially. To understand the full context, you must navigate across various pages. I craft each story by curating events in a chronological timeline so it has a clear beginning, middle and an end.

Learn History Visually
When you show a map or a timeline, you know where things fit, both in time and place. Adding images and videos brings these stories to life; Visual Learning is intuitive, retentive and engaging!

Comparative History
History is frequently taught as separate modules, like the history of Europe or the history of Asia, making it difficult to see how these different histories intersect and influence each other. With features like World History Timeline, you see events on a global timeline map. What events were unfolding in Japan when the Ottoman tribes were conquering Anatolia? Did you know that when the Romans invaded Britain in 43 CE, the Trung Sisters were establishing independence for Northern Vietnam from the Han Dynasty of China? Some of these events have no causal links, but some do.

Connect the Dots
Exploring history is like being a detective where you connect the dots between events, trace their causes and effects, and find patterns to uncover a story larger than the sum of its parts. Histograph is an AI-powered tool that helps you understand how historical events are interconnected, revealing how they can be both causes and effects of each other. For example, did the Battle of Varna have anything to do with the Partition of Poland? Or is the Haitian Revolution connected to the Louisiana Purchase?

History for All
The site is available for free in 57 languages to make it accessible to as many people as possible. It's satisfying to see the content read in languages such as Uzbek, Vietnamese, and even Amharic (Ethiopia). Additionally, the site accommodates for the blind and visually-impaired users.

Support the Project
Just recently, I started the Shop, where Users can purchase history-themed products to support the project. Hopefully, this will keep the project sustainable enabling me to create/refine content, create long-form video content and add new 'fun' features to the site.

More to Come
Lastly, the site is in a constant state of flux. New features are tested, new forms of content are tried, content is added, revised and improved. Stay updated with the Blog. I have a lot more plans, ideas, and experiments in store. Oh yeah, because I love puzzles and secret things, I hid a lot of the features on the site! Can you find some of them? 😉

Nono Umasy
Founder of HistoryMaps