History for Kids
History tells the story of people who lived before us: the pharaohs of Egypt, the knights of the Middle Ages, the inventors of the modern world and the leaders who fought for fairness. These lessons bring the past to life with clear explanations, fun facts and quizzes.
All 64 History topics
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egyptians built pyramids as tombs for their pharaohs.
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece gave us the first Olympic Games, democracy and great thinkers like Socrates and Aristotle.
The Romans
Rome built a huge empire with roads, aqueducts and the Colosseum.
Indus Valley Civilisation
Over 4,500 years ago, planned cities like Mohenjo-daro had drains, bricks and tidy streets in what is now Pakistan and India.
Medieval Knights
In the Middle Ages, knights in armour defended castles and served kings.
The Printing Press
In about 1440 Johannes Gutenberg invented a printing press with movable type.
Great Explorers
Explorers like Columbus, Zheng He and Magellan sailed across oceans.
Industrial Revolution
Around 1760 in Britain, machines and steam engines began to make goods in factories.
The Space Race
In 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first satellite.
The Stone Age
In the Stone Age people made tools from stone, hunted animals and gathered plants.
The Bronze Age
Bronze is a mix of copper and tin that is stronger than stone.
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, is called the cradle of civilisation.
Ancient China
Ancient China invented paper, silk, gunpowder, the compass and printing.
The Maya
The Maya lived in Central America and built stepped pyramids.
The Aztecs
The Aztec Empire in Mexico had a capital called Tenochtitlan, built on a lake with canals.
The Incas
The Inca Empire stretched along the Andes in South America.
The Vikings
Vikings were Norse sailors from Scandinavia who explored, traded and raided in longships.
Samurai of Japan
Samurai were skilled warriors in old Japan who followed a code of honour called bushido.
The Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire ruled much of India from 1526.
The Silk Road
The Silk Road was a network of trade routes linking China to Europe.
The Renaissance
The Renaissance was a time from about the 14th to 17th century when art, science and learning blossomed in Europe.
William Shakespeare
Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English playwright who wrote plays like Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet.
Pirates
Pirates were sea robbers who attacked ships, especially in the 1600s and 1700s in the Caribbean.
Mahatma Gandhi
Gandhi led India's non-violent movement for independence from Britain, which succeeded in 1947.
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison for fighting against apartheid in South Africa.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th US president.
Marie Curie
Marie Curie discovered the elements polonium and radium and studied radioactivity.
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton (1642–1727) explained gravity and the laws of motion.
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein developed the theory of relativity, including the famous equation E = mc².
The Wright Brothers
In 1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first powered, controlled airplane flight at Kitty Hawk.
Cleopatra
Cleopatra VII was the last active ruler of ancient Egypt.
Life in Medieval Times
In the Middle Ages most people were peasants who farmed land for lords.
The Great Wall of China
The Great Wall was built over many centuries to protect Chinese states from invaders from the north.
The Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire was a powerful state that lasted from about 1299 to 1922.
The Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the eastern part of the Roman Empire that survived for about a thousand years after the western half fell.
The Crusades
The Crusades were a series of military campaigns between the 11th and 13th centuries, when European Christians tried to take the Holy Land…
The Black Death
The Black Death was a deadly plague that swept through Europe, Asia and North Africa in the 1300s.
The French Revolution
The French Revolution began in 1789 when ordinary people rose up against unfair rule and privilege.
The American Revolution
The American Revolution was a war between Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in North America.
The Boston Tea Party
In 1773, American colonists dumped crates of British tea into Boston Harbor to protest against a tax.
Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I ruled England from 1558 to 1603.
Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc was a teenage French peasant who believed she was guided by visions.
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer who sailed across the Atlantic in 1492 while working for Spain.
Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan led a Spanish expedition that sailed around the world between 1519 and 1522.
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance artist, inventor and scientist.
Galileo Galilei
Galileo was an Italian scientist who used telescopes to study the sky.
Ada Lovelace
Ada Lovelace was an English mathematician who wrote notes about a machine that could follow instructions.
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman escaped slavery and then made many dangerous trips back to help others escape on the Underground Railroad.
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks was an American civil rights activist who refused to give up her bus seat in 1955.
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart was an American pilot who became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1932.
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale was a British nurse who improved hospital care during the Crimean War.
Hammurabi
Hammurabi was a king of Babylon who created one of the earliest known sets of written laws.
Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh who became king as a child.
The Pyramids of Giza
The Pyramids of Giza were built as tombs for Egyptian pharaohs about 4,500 years ago.
The Trojan War
In Greek legend, the Trojan War was a long conflict between the Greeks and the city of Troy.
Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great became king of Macedon at 20 and built a huge empire that stretched from Greece to parts of India.
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman who played a key role in the end of the Roman Republic.
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan united the nomadic tribes of Mongolia and founded the Mongol Empire in the early 1200s.
The Moon Landing
On 20 July 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to land on the Moon.
The Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 to divide East and West Berlin during the Cold War.
World War II
World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945 and involved many countries around the world.
The Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty ruled China from 1368 to 1644.
Ancient Persia
Ancient Persia was a vast empire that stretched from the Mediterranean to India.
Frequently asked questions about History
Why should children learn history?
History helps us understand why the world is the way it is today, and it teaches us about people, cultures and choices that shaped our lives.
How do historians know what happened in the past?
They study evidence such as objects, buildings, letters, photographs, coins and written records, and they compare different sources.
What is the difference between BC and AD?
BC means "before Christ" and counts years backwards before year 1. AD stands for "anno Domini" and counts years forward from year 1.