Open History Book

Step-through maps of how places and people changed over time. A free educational project. Pick a story.

• 1881 – 1939

  Atatürk and the Turkish Republic

  From a childhood in Thessaloniki through Gallipoli and the War of Independence to the founding of the Republic in 1923.
• 1763 – 1794

  The American Revolution

  From the Proclamation Line of 1763 through Lexington, the Declaration and Yorktown to the Constitution and the thirteen ratifications.
• 264 – 146 BC

  The Punic Wars

  Three wars between Rome and Carthage, from the crossing to Messana in 264 BC through Hannibal’s invasion of Italy to the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC.
• 1792 – 1815

  The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

  The wars of the French Republic and of Napoleon against the coalitions of Europe, from Valmy in 1792 through Austerlitz, Spain and Russia to Waterloo in 1815.
• c. 1000 BC – AD 1697

  The Maya

  The Maya of southern Mexico and Central America, from the first cities of the Preclassic through the Classic kingdoms and their wars to the Spanish conquest, which ended at Nojpetén in 1697.
• 793 – 1066

  The Viking Age

  The raiders, traders and settlers of Scandinavia, from the raid on Lindisfarne in 793 through the Danelaw, Normandy, the Rus' and the North Atlantic to the battles of 1066.
• c. 1360 – 1437

  Jan Žižka and the Hussite Wars

  The Hussite revolution in Bohemia and its general Jan Žižka, from the burning of Jan Hus in 1415 through five crusades beaten by the wagon fort to Lipany in 1434 and the Compacts of 1436.
• c. 1280 – 1389

  Osman, Orhan and Murad I: From Bithynia to Kosovo

  The first three Ottoman rulers, from Osman's raids on Byzantine Bithynia around 1300 through Orhan's Bursa, Nicaea and Gallipoli to Murad I's conquests in Thrace and the Balkans and his death at Kosovo in 1389.
• 1389 – 1421

  Bayezid I and Mehmed I: Nicopolis, Ankara and the Civil War

  Bayezid I's conquests from the Danube to the Euphrates, the crusade he beat at Nicopolis in 1396 and his defeat by Timur at Ankara in 1402, the civil war of his sons, and Mehmed I's reunion of the Ottoman lands until his death in 1421.
• 1421 – 1451

  Murad II and the Crusade of Varna

  Murad II's thirty years on the Ottoman throne: the pretenders of 1421 and 1422, the conquest of Thessalonica and Serbia, the wars with John Hunyadi and Skanderbeg, the Crusade of Varna in 1444 and the second battle of Kosovo in 1448.
• 1451 – 1481

  Mehmed II and the Fall of Constantinople

  Mehmed II's thirty years on the Ottoman throne: the siege and fall of Constantinople in 1453, the conquest of Serbia, the Morea, Trebizond and Bosnia, the wars with Hunyadi, Skanderbeg, Vlad III, Venice, Uzun Hasan and Stephen the Great, and the landing at Otranto in 1480.
• 1338 – 1353

  The Black Death

  The plague of 1346 to 1353, from the Tian Shan and the siege of Caffa across the Mediterranean, Europe and the Middle East, the dead it left, and how towns, rulers and doctors answered it.