History Atlas

How The Past Is Known

History Atlas

Disputed Statements

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.

The Digital Revolution, Year1975

The Digital Revolution, Events

Standing

Concerns Year

Currently States 1975

The Digital Revolution has no single starting date. The choice of 1975 reflects the early spread of personal computing, but its roots extend back to mid twentieth century computing research, and its most transformative effects, including the internet and smartphones, arrived decades later.

Source The Oxford History of the Twentieth Century

The Digital Revolution, Common NameThird Industrial Revolution

The Digital Revolution, Events

Standing

Concerns Common Name

Currently States Third Industrial Revolution

Some historians and economists use Third Industrial Revolution as a synonym for the Digital Revolution; others reserve that term specifically for mid-twentieth-century automation and electronics (roughly 1950s-1970s) and treat the internet/personal-computing era as a later, distinct phase. Not a settled usage.

Source The Oxford History of the Twentieth Century

The Early Modern Period, Start Year1453

The Early Modern Period, Eras

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 1453

1453 is used here to align with the close of the medieval period, but many historians instead date the beginning of the early modern period to 1492, Columbus's first voyage, or to 1500 as a round marker.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Early Modern Period, End Year1789

The Early Modern Period, Eras

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States 1789

The French Revolution in 1789 is the most common marker for the end of the early modern period, though some historians prefer 1800 as a round number, or treat the transition to the following era as gradual rather than tied to any single event.

Source The New Cambridge Modern History

The Enlightenment, Start Year1715

The Enlightenment, Eras

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 1715

Traditionally dated from the death of Louis XIV in 1715, though the movement's intellectual roots reach back into the late seventeenth century and some historians extend the period into the early nineteenth century.

Source Wikipedia

The Enlightenment, End Year1789

The Enlightenment, Eras

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States 1789

Conventionally closed with the French Revolution in 1789, though this boundary is not universally accepted.

Source Wikipedia

The Fall of the Western Roman Empire, Year476

The Fall of the Western Roman Empire, Events

Standing

Concerns Year

Currently States 476

476 CE marks the deposition of the last Western emperor, but historians increasingly treat the fall of the west as a gradual process spanning the fifth century rather than a single event in a single year.

Source The Cambridge Ancient History

The Fugger Banking and Merchant House, Founded1487

The Fugger Banking and Merchant House, Organizations

Standing

Concerns Founded

Currently States 1487

Dated to Jakob Fugger's rise to control of the family business and its Tyrolean silver and Hungarian copper mining interests in the late 1480s; the family's mercantile activity in Augsburg predates this by a generation.

Source Wikipedia

The Gilded Age, Start Year1877

The Gilded Age, Eras

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 1877

Conventionally dated from the late 1870s, often anchored to the end of Reconstruction in 1877; historians vary on the exact starting point.

The Gilded Age, End Year1896

The Gilded Age, Eras

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States 1896

Conventionally closed in the late 1890s, sometimes extended to the 1900 election; historians vary on the exact end point.

The Great Zimbabwe Period, Start Year1220

The Great Zimbabwe Period, Eras

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 1220

Sources date the rise to capital status only to the century, the 13th; 1220 is used as a representative year within it.

Source Wikipedia: Great Zimbabwe

The Great Zimbabwe Period, End Year1450

The Great Zimbabwe Period, Eras

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States 1450

Major stone construction ran from the 11th to 15th centuries and the site was not fully abandoned until the 16th or 17th century; 1450 marks the end of the kingdom's major building and imperial power rather than final abandonment.

Source Wikipedia: Great Zimbabwe

The Gupta Empire, CapitalPataliputra (reputed; disputed among historians)

The Gupta Empire, Polities

Standing

Concerns Capital

Currently States Pataliputra (reputed; disputed among historians)

Sources call Pataliputra the dynasty's reputed capital, but historians dispute whether it was in fact the Gupta capital, and even the dynasty's own homeland region is uncertain.

Source Wikipedia: Gupta Empire

The Gupta Empire, Start Year250

The Gupta Empire, Polities

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 250

The empire's own lead dating is century level, mid third to mid sixth century CE; 250 and 550 are representative years within those centuries, not exact founding or end dates (matching the dating convention already used on the sibling Gupta Golden Age era entity, 270883).

Source Wikipedia: Gupta Empire

The Gupta Empire, End Year550

The Gupta Empire, Polities

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States 550

The empire's own lead dating is century level, mid third to mid sixth century CE; 250 and 550 are representative years within those centuries, not exact founding or end dates (matching the dating convention already used on the sibling Gupta Golden Age era entity, 270883).

Source Wikipedia: Gupta Empire

The Gupta Golden Age, Start Year250

The Gupta Golden Age, Eras

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 250

The empire's own lead dating is century level, mid third to mid sixth century CE; 250 and 550 are representative years within those centuries, not exact founding or end dates.

Source Wikipedia: Gupta Empire

The Gupta Golden Age, End Year550

The Gupta Golden Age, Eras

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States 550

The empire's own lead dating is century level, mid third to mid sixth century CE; 250 and 550 are representative years within those centuries, not exact founding or end dates.

Source Wikipedia: Gupta Empire

The Hellenistic Period, End Year-30

The Hellenistic Period, Eras

Standing

Concerns End Year

Currently States -30

Scholars are divided on which event should mark the Hellenistic period's end. The atlas follows the majority convention of 30 BCE (the Battle of Actium and the Roman annexation of Ptolemaic Egypt under Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony's defeat), but the literature proposes alternative endpoints ranging from 146 BCE (Rome's conquest of the Greek mainland) at the early end to 330 CE (Constantine's founding of Constantinople) at the late end, reflecting genuine disagreement about how long Hellenistic political, cultural and religious forms continued to shape the eastern Mediterranean after Rome's conquest of Egypt.

Source Wikipedia: Hellenistic Period

The Hundred Years' War, Death Toll, Low Estimate2300000.000000

The Hundred Years' War, Events

Standing

Concerns Death Toll, Low Estimate

Currently States 2300000.000000

Rough order-of-magnitude estimate for direct and indirect (famine, associated violence) deaths across the war's 116 years (1337-1453), per general military-historical demography; medieval record-keeping cannot isolate war deaths cleanly from the concurrent Black Death and recurring regional famine, so this range is treated as illustrative rather than precise.

Source Edward III (Britannica)

The Hundred Years' War, Death Toll, High Estimate3300000.000000

The Hundred Years' War, Events

Standing

Concerns Death Toll, High Estimate

Currently States 3300000.000000

Upper bound of the same rough estimate; see death-toll-min's StatusNote on why this range is not precise.

Source Edward III (Britannica)