History Atlas
Claims this atlas currently marks as unsettled or as tested and found false. A debated fact is one scholars hold competing positions on; a debunked one has been checked against the record and found not to hold. Both are kept in view rather than quietly smoothed over, with the reasoning that put each one where it stands.
168 statements marked Debated.
Opium Wars, DescriptionTwo wars fought by Britain against Qing China, 1839 to 1842 and 1856 to 1860, growing out of the Canton System that confined Western trade to Guangzhou. Qing commissioner Lin Zexu's 1839 destruction of British opium stocks triggered the first war; the 1856 Arrow Incident, a Qing boarding of a Hong Kong-registered ship, triggered the second, joined by France. Both ended in Qing defeat: the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing ceded Hong Kong and opened treaty ports under extraterritorial privileges, and the 1860 Convention of Peking, following the Anglo-French sack of the Yuanmingyuan summer palace, ceded Kowloon and ratified further concessions. The wars are remembered in China as the opening of a Century of Humiliation, a framing that remains politically and historiographically contested (see dissent).
Opium Wars, Events
Standing
Concerns Description
Currently States Two wars fought by Britain against Qing China, 1839 to 1842 and 1856 to 1860, growing out of the Canton System that confined Western trade to Guangzhou. Qing commissioner Lin Zexu's 1839 destruction of British opium stocks triggered the first war; the 1856 Arrow Incident, a Qing boarding of a Hong Kong-registered ship, triggered the second, joined by France. Both ended in Qing defeat: the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing ceded Hong Kong and opened treaty ports under extraterritorial privileges, and the 1860 Convention of Peking, following the Anglo-French sack of the Yuanmingyuan summer palace, ceded Kowloon and ratified further concessions. The wars are remembered in China as the opening of a Century of Humiliation, a framing that remains politically and historiographically contested (see dissent).
Source Hong Kong and the Opium Wars (The National Archives, UK)
Pachacuti, RoleSapa Inca of the Inca Empire; the traditional reign span cited most often is 1438 to 1471 (following the historian John Howland Rowe), though other reconstructions of Inca chronology place it as early as 1400-1448 or as late as 1420-1477.
Pachacuti, Historical Figures
Standing
Concerns Role
Currently States Sapa Inca of the Inca Empire; the traditional reign span cited most often is 1438 to 1471 (following the historian John Howland Rowe), though other reconstructions of Inca chronology place it as early as 1400-1448 or as late as 1420-1477.
Sources give at least five competing reign chronologies for Pachacuti; Rowe's 1438-1471 is the one most commonly cited in general references.
Source Wikipedia: Pachacuti
Pachacuti, Birth Year1403
Pachacuti, Death Year1471
Pachacuti, Historical Figures
Standing
Concerns Death Year
Currently States 1471
Rowe chronology, used for the reign span already on this entity, dates his death to 1471; Means places it as early as 1448.
Source Wikipedia: Pachacuti
Portugal, Start Year1179
Portugal, Polities
Standing
Concerns Start Year
Currently States 1179
The lead names three real, distinct dates for Portuguese statehood: county status under the Kingdom of Leon in 868, formal kingdom status in 1179, and the country becoming a republic in 1910 (with democracy restored in 1976 after the 1926 dictatorship). Recorded here as 1179, the date the source gives for Portugal formally becoming a kingdom, with 868 and 1910 named as the earlier and later alternates rather than silently dropped.
Source Wikipedia: Portugal
Prehistory, Start Year-3300000
Prehistory, Eras
Standing
Concerns Start Year
Currently States -3300000
Conventionally dated to the earliest known stone tools, the Lomekwian industry at Lomekwi, Kenya. Some historians instead begin prehistory with the appearance of the genus Homo around 2.5 million years ago, or with anatomically modern humans around 300,000 years ago. There is no single agreed starting point, only a shared sense that prehistory has no fixed beginning.
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Prehistory, End Year-3200
Prehistory, Eras
Standing
Concerns End Year
Currently States -3200
Conventionally marked by the earliest Sumerian cuneiform writing in Mesopotamia, around 3200 BCE. Because writing was invented independently at different times in different regions, in Egypt around 3100 BCE, in China around 1200 BCE, and in Mesoamerica later still, prehistory does not end everywhere at once. The boundary is regional, not global.
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Ramesses II, Birth Year-1303
Ramesses II, Historical Figures
Standing
Concerns Birth Year
Currently States -1303
Egyptian New Kingdom chronology is reconstructed from king lists and astronomical references rather than a continuous calendar; regnal dates are conventionally cited to within a decade.
Source The Cambridge Ancient History
Ramesses II, Death Year-1213
Samuel Bronfman, Birth Year1889
Samuel Bronfman, Historical Figures
Standing
Concerns Birth Year
Currently States 1889
Scholarly sources (biographer Michael Marrus, The Canadian Encyclopedia) give February 27, 1889, born near Soroki, Bessarabia, then in the Russian Empire, now Moldova. Bronfman himself publicly claimed to have been born in Brandon, Manitoba, in 1891; Marrus concluded this was likely a personal fiction and that he was probably born in Russia shortly before the family emigrated. The Russia and 1889 reading is used here as the better-supported one.
Source Wikipedia
Samuel Bronfman, BirthplaceSoroki or Otaci, Bessarabia, Russian Empire (now Moldova)
Samuel Bronfman, Historical Figures
Standing
Concerns Birthplace
Currently States Soroki or Otaci, Bessarabia, Russian Empire (now Moldova)
Sources split between the neighboring Bessarabian towns of Soroki and Otaci (Soroca uyezd, Russian Empire, both now in Moldova); family tradition holds he was born aboard the ship carrying the family to Canada. His own public claim of Brandon, Manitoba is judged a likely personal fiction by biographer Michael Marrus.
Source Wikipedia
Scipio Africanus, Birth Year-236
Sitting Bull, Birth Year1837
Sitting Bull, Historical Figures
Standing
Concerns Birth Year
Currently States 1837
Wikipedia's infobox gives his birth as circa 1831-37, no single year settled; this uses the latest year in that range, matching the atlas's convention for a stated range (Vlad the Impaler in wave 3).
Source Sitting Bull (Wikipedia)
Society of Jesus, Dissolved1773
Society of Jesus, Organizations
Standing
Concerns Dissolved
Currently States 1773
Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Society of Jesus in 1773 under sustained pressure from Bourbon monarchies; the order continued underground in Prussia and Russia, where Catherine the Great declined to promulgate the suppression brief, and the Church formally lifted the suppression and restored the order in full in 1814. The atlas records 1773 as the year of formal papal suppression while noting the order was never fully extinguished and has operated continuously since 1814.
Source Wikipedia
Spain, Start Year1479
Spain, Polities
Standing
Concerns Start Year
Currently States 1479
The source's own language hedges this date, calling 1479 the point 'often seen as' Spain's de facto unification rather than a formally declared founding; recorded as the lead's own best answer, not smoothed into an unqualified fact.
Source Wikipedia: Spain
Sumer, Start Year-4500
Sumer, Civilizations
Standing
Concerns Start Year
Currently States -4500
The date for Sumer's earliest urban settlements, particularly Uruk, is debated. Some scholars place the beginnings of Sumerian urban culture as early as 4500 BCE, others closer to 3800 BCE.
Source The Cambridge Ancient History
Sumer, End Year-1900
Sumer, Civilizations
Standing
Concerns End Year
Currently States -1900
Sumer as a distinct political culture ends with its absorption into Babylonia, roughly 1900 BCE, after the fall of the Third Dynasty of Ur around 2004 BCE. The precise point at which Sumerian ceased to be a spoken rather than only a literary and religious language is separately debated.
Source The Cambridge Ancient History
Sunni Ali, Death Date1492-11-06
Sunni Ali, Historical Figures
Standing
Concerns Death Date
Currently States 1492-11-06
The date and manner of his death, said to be by drowning while crossing the Niger River, are described in sources as a matter of conjecture.
Source Wikipedia: Sonni Ali
Sunni Ali, Death PlaceNiger River, Songhai Empire (traditional account)
Sunni Ali, Historical Figures
Standing
Concerns Death Place
Currently States Niger River, Songhai Empire (traditional account)
Traditional accounts hold that he drowned crossing the Niger River near the Songhai heartland; this is not certain.
Source Wikipedia: Sonni Ali
Taiping Rebellion, Death Toll, Low Estimate20000000.000000
Taiping Rebellion, Events
Standing
Concerns Death Toll, Low Estimate
Currently States 20000000.000000
The conservative demographic range most general histories use, drawn from population data recorded before and after the fourteen year war; historian Stephen Platt reports this range, 20 to 30 million dead, as the figure most consistently cited, attributing the bulk of the toll to famine, disease and displacement rather than to combat deaths alone. This entry records 20 million as its lower bound.
Source Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War, Stephen R. Platt