Stories of History — explore world history through connected narratives

Stories of History

Learn world history through connected stories.

61 history stories from Ancient Egypt to the Cold War — free stories and premium deep-dives, all connected.

★ 14 free stories·🔒 47 premium stories·9,000+ years of history

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Stories of History brings the ancient, medieval and modern worlds into one connected library. Each story is written to be clear on its own, but stronger in sequence, so readers can see how people, empires, revolutions, wars and ideas shaped one another over time.

Start with Ancient Egypt, the Roman Republic, the Viking Age, the Cold War or the modern world, then follow the links outward. The collection is built for curiosity: read a single chapter, trace a wider journey, or move between eras when one story opens the door to another.

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61 results

Start reading

Strong first stories

Accessible entry points that give you a foundation for the wider library.

The Nile flowing past temples, pyramids, and royal cities of ancient Egypt.

Story · Prehistoric

3100 BCE → 30 BCE

Ancient Egypt

Pharaohs, pyramids and Nile power across three millennia.

Sunlit temples above a bustling Greek polis, hoplites assembling below as philosophers debate in a colonnaded square

Story · Classical

800 BCE → 146 BCE

Ancient Greece

City-states, philosophy and wars that shaped the West.

The Roman Empire at its height, with imperial architecture, roads, soldiers and Mediterranean trade.

Story · Classical

27 BCE → 476 CE

The Roman Empire

Augustus, empire and the long fall of the West.

Viking longships crossing rough northern seas toward coastal settlements and trade routes.

Story · Middle Ages

793 CE → 1066 CE

The Viking Age

Raids, settlements and far-reaching voyages.

Featured

Core stories to continue with

Big turning points, broad arcs and free reads that connect naturally to the rest of the collection.

Second World War battlefield at dusk with soldiers, aircraft, smoke and ruined cities.

Story · Modern

1939 CE → 1945 CE

The Second World War

Dictatorship, genocide and global war.

A brooding, minimalist Cold War skyline under a heavy grey sky, suggesting division, surveillance, and nuclear tension

Story · Modern

1945 CE → 1991 CE

The Cold War

Superpower rivalry, proxy wars and nuclear fear.

Factories, steam engines and railways of the Industrial Revolution.

Story · Early Modern

1700 CE → 1870 CE

The Industrial Revolution

Steam, factories and the birth of modern industry.

Recently added

New stories to explore

Lower Manhattan in smoke, the Pentagon under guard, and American soldiers framed against the long post-9/11 wars.

Added 14 May 2026

Story · Modern

2001 CE → 2021 CE

The United States After 9/11

Shock, war, surveillance and the remaking of American power.

Skylines, cranes, container ports, and party symbolism representing China's rise from post-Mao recovery to global power.

Added 14 May 2026

Story · Modern

1976 CE → 2020 CE

The Rise of China

Reform, factories, party control, and China's path from recovery to rivalry.

Mao Zedong addressing crowds in revolutionary China beneath red banners and state slogans.

Added 14 May 2026

Story · Modern

1949 CE → 1976 CE

Mao's China

Revolution, mass campaigns, famine, and the legacy of Maoist rule.

Full collection

Browse every story

61 stories in chronological order

The planned cities and river plains of the ancient Indus Valley civilisation.

StoryPrehistoric

The Indus Valley

7000 BCE → 1900 BCE

Planned cities, trade and an undeciphered script.

Bronze ritual vessels, oracle bones, and royal temples from the Yellow River civilisations of ancient China.

StoryPrehistoric

5000 BCE → 771 BCE

Bronze, oracle bones and the making of Chinese civilisation.

The ancient cities of Mesopotamia rising from the floodplains of the Tigris and Euphrates.

StoryPrehistoric

6500 BCE → 539 BCE

The first cities, writing, law and empire.

Sunlit temples above a bustling Greek polis, hoplites assembling below as philosophers debate in a colonnaded square

800 BCE → 146 BCE

City-states, philosophy and wars that shaped the West.

Alexander the Great on horseback leading his cavalry charge at Gaugamela, the Persian army breaking before him across a vast open plain

Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic World

359 BCE → 30 BCE

Alexander conquers Persia and remakes the ancient world.

The Nile flowing past temples, pyramids, and royal cities of ancient Egypt.

StoryPrehistoric

3100 BCE → 30 BCE

Pharaohs, pyramids and Nile power across three millennia.

The Roman Republic with senators, citizens, soldiers and the growing city of Rome.

The Roman Republic

509 BCE → 27 BCE

Republic, conquest and the road to empire.

Celtic leaders and warriors look over a hillfort settlement before Roman conquest.

The Celtic World Before Rome

800 BCE → 400 CE

Tribes, Druids and art before Roman conquest.

The Roman Empire at its height, with imperial architecture, roads, soldiers and Mediterranean trade.

The Roman Empire

27 BCE → 476 CE

Augustus, empire and the long fall of the West.

A Roman city falling into ruin as Germanic warriors cross the frontier

The Fall of Rome to Early Medieval Europe

376 CE → 800 CE

From imperial collapse to Europe’s medieval order.

Timber halls, misty fields, shield walls and monastery towers in Anglo-Saxon England.

The Anglo-Saxons

410 CE → 886 CE

Kingdoms, conversion and Viking pressure in England.

Viking longships crossing rough northern seas toward coastal settlements and trade routes.

StoryMiddle Ages

793 CE → 1066 CE

Raids, settlements and far-reaching voyages.

Armoured Norman horsemen during the Norman Conquest of England.

StoryMiddle Ages

The Norman Conquest of England

911 CE → 1154 CE

1066, castles and the remaking of England.

River traders, wooden strongholds and domed churches in the medieval world of Kievan Rus.

StoryMiddle Ages

862 CE → 1240 CE

River routes, golden domes and the making of Rus.

Crusader knights marching beneath a blazing sun toward the walled city of Jerusalem

StoryMiddle Ages

1095 CE → 1291 CE

Holy war, Jerusalem and the struggle for the Levant.

Mongol horsemen crossing the vast Eurasian steppe.

StoryMiddle Ages

The Mongol Empire

1162 CE → 1294 CE

Steppe conquest, terror, trade and empire.

A medieval castle overlooking farmland and a village of serfs

StoryMiddle Ages

Feudalism and Medieval Society

800 CE → 1300 CE

Land, loyalty and everyday power in medieval Europe.

Medieval monks illuminating manuscripts in a great stone abbey

The Rise of the Medieval Church

476 CE → 1309 CE

Monasteries, missions and the rise of papal power.

Tenochtitlan rising from Lake Texcoco with temples, causeways and Aztec warriors.

StoryMiddle Ages

The Aztec Empire

1200 CE → 1521 CE

Tenochtitlan, tribute and the fall of an empire.

Ocean-going caravels arriving on distant shores during the Age of Exploration

StoryMiddle Ages

The Age of Exploration

1415 CE → 1600 CE

Ocean routes, empires and the first global age.

Renaissance scholars and artists in an Italian city, surrounded by books, architecture, and scientific instruments.

StoryMiddle Ages

The Renaissance

1304 CE → 1600 CE

Classical revival, humanism, art, and science reshape Europe.

Queen Elizabeth I presiding over a flourishing Elizabethan court during England’s golden age

StoryEarly Modern

The Elizabethan Age

1558 CE → 1603 CE

Theatre, sea power and intrigue under Elizabeth I.

King Henry VIII presiding over a court during the English Reformation

StoryEarly Modern

The English Reformation

1527 CE → 1603 CE

A royal divorce becomes a religious revolution.

A Tudor royal court with Henry VIII and richly dressed nobles in a grand palace interior

StoryMiddle Ages

The Tudor Dynasty

1485 CE → 1603 CE

Reformation, rebellion and Tudor royal power.

Parliamentarian and Royalist forces preparing for battle during the English Civil War

StoryEarly Modern

The English Civil War

1642 CE → 1660 CE

Crown, Parliament and the battle for England.

Astronomers and natural philosophers observing the cosmos with early scientific instruments.

StoryEarly Modern

The Scientific Revolution

1500 CE → 1720 CE

Observation, experiment and the remaking of knowledge.

American revolutionaries and British troops facing each other during the struggle for independence.

The American Revolution and Early Republic

1763 CE → 1791 CE

Rebellion, independence and the birth of a republic.

Revolutionary Paris — crowds storming the Bastille, the tricolour rising over the old order.

The French Revolution

1787 CE → 1799 CE

Crisis, republic, terror and the birth of modern politics.

Napoleonic armies crossing Europe between revolution and empire.

Napoleon and the Napoleonic Wars

1789 CE → 1815 CE

Revolution, empire, total war, and the remaking of Europe.

Union and Confederate soldiers advance across a smoky battlefield as enslaved people move toward freedom in the distance.

The American Civil War and the Abolition of Slavery

1861 CE → 1865 CE

Slavery, secession, emancipation and Union victory.

Factories, steam engines and railways of the Industrial Revolution.

StoryEarly Modern

The Industrial Revolution

1700 CE → 1870 CE

Steam, factories and the birth of modern industry.

British imperial soldiers and Boer fighters on the South African veld during the Anglo-Boer War.

The Anglo Boer Conflict

1880 CE → 1902 CE

Empire, gold and guerrilla war in South Africa.

The Forbidden City in Beijing under the Qing dynasty, seat of imperial rule over the world's most populous empire.

StoryEarly Modern

The Qing Dynasty

1644 CE → 1912 CE

Conquest, prosperity, rebellion and the fall of imperial China.

First World War soldiers in muddy trenches at dawn beneath smoke and artillery fire.

The First World War

1914 CE → 1918 CE

Sarajevo, trenches and the shock of total war.

Crowds and armed workers in Petrograd during the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The Russian Revolution

1905 CE → 1922 CE

War, revolution, civil conflict, and the birth of Soviet power.

Ottoman banners over Istanbul, with soldiers, merchants, mosques, and imperial ships linking three continents.

StoryMiddle Ages

The Ottoman Empire

1299 CE → 1923 CE

Frontier rise, imperial power, reform, and the reshaping of the modern Middle Eas…

Delegates signing the Treaty of Versailles in the Hall of Mirrors in June 1919, watched by silent Allied officials as Germany's representatives took their seats

The Treaty of Versailles and Its Consequences

1918 CE → 1933 CE

Reparations, resentment and the road to war.

Berlin in the 1920s, with crowds, political tension and the Reichstag in the background

Weimar Republic

1919 CE → 1933 CE

Democracy, crisis and culture before dictatorship.

Adolf Hitler addressing vast crowds at a Nazi rally in Nuremberg, surrounded by swastika banners and ranks of uniformed supporters

The Rise of Adolf Hitler

1919 CE → 1934 CE

Crisis, propaganda and democracy’s destruction.

Europe in the 1930s: marching columns, mass rallies, and the shadow of another war gathering over the continent.

The Causes of the Second World War

1919 CE → 1939 CE

Versailles, fascism, appeasement and the road to total war.

RAF fighters and German bombers over southern England as searchlights and fires mark the opening of the Blitz in 1940.

The Battle of Britain

Air power, invasion threat and Britain’s stand in 1940.

German columns moving east in 1941 as Soviet cities burn and civilians flee the widening front.

Operation Barbarossa

1940 CE → 1942 CE

Ideology, invasion, annihilation, and the failure before Moscow.

Allied troops landing in Normandy as landing craft open under fire and smoke rises across the coast in June 1944.

D-Day and the Liberation of Europe

1943 CE → 1945 CE

Overlord, liberation, civilian cost, and the drive into Germany.

Berlin in the 1930s beneath Nazi banners and mass rallies

1933 CE → 1945 CE

Dictatorship, propaganda, war and catastrophe.

The gatehouse of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi killing centre, photographed after liberation in 1945

1933 CE → 1945 CE

Persecution, genocide, resistance and memory.

Carrier aircraft, burning ships, occupied cities, and island fighting across the vast Pacific war.

The Pacific War

1931 CE → 1945 CE

Empire, carriers, occupation and the road to surrender.

Second World War battlefield at dusk with soldiers, aircraft, smoke and ruined cities.

The Second World War

1939 CE → 1945 CE

Dictatorship, genocide and global war.

Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin seated together at Yalta in 1945 — the last photograph of the Grand Alliance before the Cold War began to divide the world they had won

Origins of the Cold War

1941 CE → 1947 CE

How allies became rivals and divided the world.

A sweeping view of ships, ports, colonies, and anti-colonial protests across centuries of British imperial history.

StoryEarly Modern

The British Empire

1588 CE → 1947 CE

Sea power, slavery, industry, conquest, resistance, and decolonisation.

Korean War battlefield with soldiers advancing through smoke across a divided peninsula.

1950 CE → 1953 CE

Invasion, intervention and Korea’s enduring divide.

US Navy ships encircling a Soviet cargo vessel in the Caribbean while reconnaissance photographs of missile sites are spread across a situation room table in Washington

The Cuban Missile Crisis

Thirteen days at the edge of nuclear war.

American soldiers arriving in Vietnam as helicopters and jungle warfare define the conflict.

The Vietnam War

1955 CE → 1975 CE

Decolonisation, escalation, protest and reunification.

Mao Zedong addressing crowds in revolutionary China beneath red banners and state slogans.

1949 CE → 1976 CE

Revolution, mass campaigns, famine, and the legacy of Maoist rule.

A brooding, minimalist Cold War skyline under a heavy grey sky, suggesting division, surveillance, and nuclear tension

1945 CE → 1991 CE

Superpower rivalry, proxy wars and nuclear fear.

Crowds celebrating atop the Berlin Wall as it falls, with the Soviet hammer and sickle flag being lowered for the last time over the Kremlin

The Collapse of the Soviet Union

1985 CE → 1991 CE

Reform, nationalism and the end of a superpower.

Soviet military parade in Moscow with red banners, soldiers and armoured vehicles.

1917 CE → 1991 CE

Revolution, Stalinism, superpower and collapse.

Civilians fleeing a war-torn Balkan city during the violent breakup of Yugoslavia.

The Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia

1945 CE → 1999 CE

Union, socialism, nationalism and collapse.

Skylines, cranes, container ports, and party symbolism representing China's rise from post-Mao recovery to global power.

The Rise of China

1976 CE → 2020 CE

Reform, factories, party control, and China's path from recovery to rivalry.

$A fractured world map lit by digital networks, military aircraft overhead and rising skylines in Asia$

The World After The Cold War

1991 CE → 2020 CE

Globalisation, terror and renewed great-power rivalry.

Lower Manhattan in smoke, the Pentagon under guard, and American soldiers framed against the long post-9/11 wars.

The United States After 9/11

2001 CE → 2021 CE

Shock, war, surveillance and the remaking of American power.

Mass gathering in Kim Il Sung Square beneath North Korean flags and state monuments.

The Kim Dynasty

1945 CE → 2026 CE

Dynastic rule, ideology and survival in North Korea.

61

Total stories

14

Free stories

47

Premium stories

9,000+

Years of history

Also explore

People →Rulers, leaders, and thinkers Lineages →Lines of succession Places →History by country Timelines →See events in order

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