Disputed Statements

Hanseatic League, Organizations

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Founded

Currently States 1356

The first formal Hanseatic Diet met at Lubeck on 2 February 1356, but merchant associations already calling themselves a hansa were active from the mid twelfth century, and Lubeck and Hamburg had formed an official trading partnership by 1241.

Source Hanseatic League (World History Encyclopedia)

Hanseatic League, Organizations

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Dissolved

Currently States 1862

The last Hanseatic Diet met at Lubeck in 1669 with fewer than ten cities represented, after which the League functioned only as a residual legal association among Lubeck, Hamburg and Bremen; that association was not formally dissolved until 1862.

Source Hanseatic League (World History Encyclopedia)

Harold Godwinson, Historical Figures

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Birth Year

Currently States 1022

The infobox gives Harold's birth as circa 1022 or 1023; the earlier of the two candidate years is recorded here.

Source Wikipedia: Harold Godwinson tier 2

Harun al-Rashid, Historical Figures

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Birth Year

Currently States 763

Sources give two candidate birth years, 17 March 763 or February 766; the exact year is unresolved.

Source Wikipedia: Harun al-Rashid tier 2

India, Polities

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 1947

The lead names two real, distinct founding dates: independence and partition in 1947, and the start of the federal republic in 1950, since when India has been a federal republic. Recorded here as 1947, the independence date, with 1950 named as the alternate rather than silently dropped.

Source Wikipedia: India tier 2

John of England, Historical Figures

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Birth Year

Currently States 1167

The infobox gives John's birth as Christmastide 1166/7, ambiguous between the two years; 1167 is recorded here as the commonly cited year.

Source Wikipedia: John, King of England tier 2

King John of England, Historical Figures

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Description

Currently States The youngest son of Henry II, John inherited the Angevin realm, England joined by fiefs across western France, on his brother Richard I's death in 1199, and spent his reign fighting to hold it together. He lost Normandy and most of the Angevin lands in France to Philip II by 1204, a defeat that starved his treasury and drove the harsh taxation and arbitrary justice that turned his barons against him. A long dispute with Pope Innocent III over the archbishopric of Canterbury brought England under interdict from 1208 and John himself under excommunication from 1209, a rupture he resolved in 1213 only by submitting England as a papal fief. Baronial rebellion followed anyway, and John sealed Magna Carta at Runnymede in June 1215 to buy peace, then had Pope Innocent III annul it within weeks, an act that triggered the First Barons' War and left him fighting rebel barons and their French allies until his death in October 1216. Medieval chroniclers, writing largely from monastic houses he had taxed and antagonized, handed down a reputation as one of England's worst kings, cruel, faithless and incompetent; that verdict has been the atlas's traditional reading, though it is a genuinely disputed one (see the recorded dissent).

Source John, King of England (Britannica)

Krupp, Organizations

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Dissolved

Currently States 1999

Krupp did not close; in 1999 Fried. Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp merged with Thyssen AG to form ThyssenKrupp AG, ending Krupp's existence as an independent company while its operations continue within the merged firm.

Source Krupp Family and Firm (Encyclopaedia Britannica), Encyclopaedia Britannica Editors tier 1

Late Antiquity, Eras

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 200

Conventionally placed in the third century CE; the exact starting point is disputed and depends on which region and which historian's framework is used.

Source Wikipedia tier 2

Late Antiquity, Eras

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns End Year

Currently States 700

Conventionally closed in the seventh century CE; the exact geographical and chronological scope remains a live scholarly debate.

Source Wikipedia tier 2

Louis V of France, Historical Figures

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Birth Year

Currently States 966

The Wikipedia infobox gives the birth year as either 966 or 967; 966 is recorded here as the earlier of the two candidate years.

Source Wikipedia: Louis V of France tier 2

Mali Empire, Civilizations

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns End Year

Currently States 1670

Mali's central authority had effectively collapsed well before this date; smaller successor polities using the Mali name persisted into the later seventeenth century, so historians differ on when to date its true end.

Source The Cambridge Medieval History

Mansa Musa, Historical Figures

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Birth Year

Currently States 1280

No contemporary record gives a birth date; circa 1280 is the range commonly cited by modern historians from his approximate age during the 1324 pilgrimage.

Source The Cambridge Medieval History

Mansa Musa, Historical Figures

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Death Year

Currently States 1337

Arabic sources disagree on the exact year of his death, with proposals ranging from 1332 to 1337.

Source The Cambridge Medieval History

Mexico, Polities

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 1821

The lead names several real, distinct constitutional milestones: independence in 1821, the first constitution in 1824, and the current 1917 constitution adopted after the Mexican Revolution. Recorded here as 1821, the independence date, with 1824 and 1917 named as the later alternates rather than silently dropped.

Source Wikipedia: Mexico tier 2

Moctezuma II, Historical Figures

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Birth Year

Currently States 1466

The lead section gives circa 1466 while the infobox gives circa 1471; the lead's year is recorded here as the more specific of the two.

Source Wikipedia: Moctezuma II tier 2

Morocco, Polities

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 1956

The lead names two real candidate founding points: the Idrisid dynasty's establishment by Idris I in 788, which the source itself uses to call Morocco one of the world's oldest continuously existing states, and the 1956 restoration of independence from French and Spanish protectorate rule under Sultan Mohammed V. Recorded here as 1956, the modern state's own independence date, with 788 named as the source's own much older alternate rather than silently dropped.

Source Wikipedia: Morocco tier 2

Muhammad, Historical Figures

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Birth Year

Currently States 570

Islamic tradition places his birth in the Year of the Elephant, conventionally correlated to 570 CE, but the precise year is not fixed by a contemporary record and historians' estimates range across a few years either side.

Source The Cambridge Medieval History

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Historical Figures

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Birth Year

Currently States 1881

Wikipedia gives the birth year as c. 1881; no birth record survives and the exact date is conventionally celebrated as 19 May.

Source Wikipedia: Mustafa Kemal Ataturk tier 2

Napoleon Bonaparte, Historical Figures

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Description

Currently States Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader who rose from relatively minor Corsican gentry through the officer corps of the revolutionary army to rule France as First Consul and then Emperor, and whose wars reshaped the map and legal order of Europe. He built his early reputation on victories in the French Revolutionary Wars in Italy and Egypt, seized power in the 1799 coup of 18 Brumaire that replaced the Revolutionary government with the Consulate, and crowned himself Emperor of the French in 1804. Over the following decade he defeated a succession of European coalitions and dominated most of the continent either directly or through allied and client states, while exporting the Napoleonic Code, a codification of civil law drawing on Revolutionary principles, to much of the territory he controlled, where in several countries it remains a foundation of civil law to this day. His invasion of Russia in 1812 ended in catastrophic retreat, and a renewed coalition forced his abdication in 1814; he returned from exile on Elba for the Hundred Days in 1815, only to be finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo, after which he was exiled to the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821. Historians remain sharply divided over his legacy, between an assessment of him as a moderniser who consolidated and exported the legal and administrative gains of the French Revolution, and one that emphasizes the immense casualties of his wars and his re-establishment of authoritarian, hereditary rule.

Source The New Cambridge Modern History