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70000 BCE
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127 Chains
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Follow one episode step by step
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Conquest and war
22
Empires of the Steppe
Horse archers, and the largest land empire in history
3500 BCE–1991 · 31 steps →
Persia and Iran
Five centuries of a country other people kept deciding about
1000 BCE–2025 · 21 steps →
Sea Power
Who controlled the water, and what it bought them
814 BCE–1942 · 11 steps →
The Ottoman Centuries
From a field in Kosovo to the abolition of the Caliphate
330–1974 · 29 steps →
Treaties That Redrew the Map
Lines agreed in rooms, by people who had not been there
628–2020 · 21 steps →
Japan and Korea
Two neighbours, four centuries, and the wars between them
645–2011 · 25 steps →
Korea
An alphabet, two invasions and a line drawn in a night
676–2006 · 12 steps →
The Balkans
Six centuries between empires
681–1995 · 9 steps →
Scandinavia and the North
A union of three crowns, an age of Swedish power, and the pole
793–1943 · 9 steps →
England and Scotland
Eight centuries from Runnymede to a single parliament
878–1707 · 14 steps →
Start Here
Ten moments, eight centuries, one time around the world
1206–1994 · 10 steps →
The Mongol Conquests
A steppe confederation that reached from Korea to Hungary
1206–1402 · 11 steps →
China: Empire to Republic
From the last Song emperor to Tiananmen
1271–1989 · 21 steps →
The Gunpowder Empires
How cannon rewrote the map of Eurasia
1299–1571 · 9 steps →
The Hundred Years' War
116 years, three English victories, and a French peasant girl
1337–1429 · 5 steps →
Japan Transformed
Civil war, closure, and the fastest modernisation in history
1467–2011 · 15 steps →
The Mughal Empire
From a battlefield at Panipat to the ruin of Delhi
1500–1857 · 16 steps →
The Russian Century
From a bread queue in Petrograd to a border crossing in 2022
1853–2022 · 24 steps →
The First World War
From a wrong turn in Sarajevo to a railway carriage in a forest
1914–1920 · 28 steps →
The Second World War
From a chancellery in Berlin to a battleship in Tokyo Bay
1931–1945 · 41 steps →
Divided Berlin
One city, four sectors, forty-four years
1945–1989 · 4 steps →
The Middle East Since 1948
Wars, oil, revolution and an unfinished peace
1948–2025 · 28 steps →
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Empires and colonies
17
The Pacific World
The greatest feat of navigation in human history, and what came after
50000 BCE–2008 · 31 steps →
Cities Founded on Purpose
Places that exist because somebody decided they should
3500 BCE–1866 · 21 steps →
Africa and Europe
Conquest, partition, and the long work of getting free
3100 BCE–2020 · 55 steps →
Britain and Its Empire
A trading company to a quarter of the world, and back
2500 BCE–1992 · 40 steps →
Africa's Great Empires
Gold, salt, stone and scholarship, from Lalibela to Sokoto
814 BCE–1897 · 30 steps →
The Making of Russia
From tribute-paying princes to an empire on the Baltic
541–1989 · 23 steps →
China and the West
From 'we have no need of your manufactures' to the handover
618–2019 · 17 steps →
Southeast Asia
Empires of the archipelago, and the wars of the twentieth century
671–2002 · 46 steps →
Southeast Asia and the Powers
Four centuries between empires
671–1998 · 25 steps →
Spain and Its Empire
The first global power, and four centuries of losing it
929–1975 · 16 steps →
The Sultanates of India
Three centuries between the Mongols and the Mughals
1026–1801 · 13 steps →
North America Before the Republic
Colonies, wars and the peoples already there
1050–1867 · 11 steps →
The Conquest of the Americas
Two worlds joined, and one of them destroyed
1300–1780 · 18 steps →
Borders Drawn by Strangers
Lines on maps, made by people who did not live there
1494–2014 · 15 steps →
The Price of Empire
What conquest cost the conquered
1757–1999 · 28 steps →
The Napoleonic Wars
A general who became an emperor, and the Europe he left behind
1799–1815 · 9 steps →
Manifest Destiny
How the United States became continental
1803–1898 · 11 steps →
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Revolution and rights
25
Crowns That Fell
Nine monarchs, and the arguments that ended them
509 BCE–2024 · 22 steps →
Labour and the Vote
Who was allowed to be counted, and how they made it happen
509 BCE–2017 · 28 steps →
Revolutions
When people decided their rulers were not permanent
509 BCE–2024 · 27 steps →
Bengal
A delta, and everyone who has governed it
450 BCE–2024 · 73 steps →
Revolts from Below
Eight risings by people with nothing, and what happened to them
73 BCE–2024 · 42 steps →
From Ruins to Union
Europe after 1945
529–2022 · 16 steps →
Women in Power
Eight who held it, and what it cost them to keep
595–1988 · 14 steps →
The Decolonisation of Asia
Empires leaving, and the borders they left behind
938–2008 · 13 steps →
Southern Africa
Stone walls, ox wagons, gold and a vote
1250–1994 · 12 steps →
Central America and the Caribbean
The narrow land between two oceans
1441–2024 · 17 steps →
Resistance That Held
The ones who were not conquered
1553–2019 · 20 steps →
The American Story
A swamp in Virginia to a bank in Manhattan
1607–2025 · 42 steps →
Ireland and Britain
Rebellion, famine and the long argument
1688–1998 · 8 steps →
Latin America Breaks Free
From a slave revolt in Saint-Domingue to a coup in Santiago
1767–2000 · 22 steps →
The American Revolution
From a tea cargo in a harbour to a written constitution
1773–1787 · 7 steps →
The French Revolution
How a bankrupt monarchy became a republic, a terror, and an empire
1789–1799 · 23 steps →
Women's Rights
From a march on Versailles to the ballot box
1789–2017 · 19 steps →
The Road to Indian Independence
From the rebellion of 1857 to the birth of three nations
1829–1975 · 22 steps →
The Civil Rights Movement
Law, boycott, television and a bridge in Alabama
1896–2020 · 10 steps →
The Liberation War of 1971
From six demands to a surrender on the same field
1921–1972 · 21 steps →
Mao's China
The Long March to Tiananmen
1934–1989 · 9 steps →
Bangladesh After 1971
A constitution, two killings, a general, and the long way back
1951–2025 · 28 steps →
The Fall of Communism
Twenty-one years from Prague to the Kremlin
1956–1994 · 15 steps →
Bangladesh Since the Uprising
July 2024 and what has been done with it
2024–2025 · 5 steps →
The Last Two Years
2024 to now, while it is still being argued about
2024–2025 · 17 steps →
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Faith and ideas
35
The First Peoples of the Americas
Cities, confederacies and law, before and after 1492
70000 BCE–1890 · 18 steps →
Ideas That Moved the World
Sentences that outlived the people who wrote them
32000 BCE–2016 · 73 steps →
What People Made
Epics, paintings, films and one poem written in a night
32000 BCE–1977 · 27 steps →
How Religions Travelled
Conversion, reform and revival across four continents
9500 BCE–1893 · 78 steps →
The First Civilisations
Cities, writing, law and the first collapse
9500 BCE–1857 · 23 steps →
Ancient China
One script, one road, one sheet of paper
7000 BCE–1474 · 20 steps →
The Americas Before Columbus
Two continents with a history of their own
7000 BCE–1492 · 15 steps →
How Knowledge Travelled
Sanskrit to Arabic to Latin, and the places that carried it
3500 BCE–2001 · 40 steps →
Languages and Power
Who decides what a country speaks
3500 BCE–1966 · 16 steps →
The Making of the Middle East
Borders drawn in European capitals, argued over ever since
3500 BCE–2023 · 47 steps →
The Written Word
Alphabets, presses, wires and the web
3500 BCE–2001 · 47 steps →
The Prophets
One line of messengers, read three ways
2900 BCE–610 · 15 steps →
Ancient India
Cities without kings, a teacher, and an emperor who apologised
2600 BCE–1192 · 20 steps →
The Classical Mediterranean
Greece, Rome, and what they left behind
1600 BCE–476 · 24 steps →
The Hindu Tradition
Hymns, arguments, epics and reformers
1500 BCE–1992 · 12 steps →
The Jewish Story
Temple, exile, book, and the argument about a homeland
1000 BCE–1948 · 13 steps →
Faith and War in Europe
From a sacked Christian capital to the peace that ended holy war
814 BCE–1992 · 43 steps →
The Spread of Buddhism
One teaching, carried across Asia and changed by every place it reached
528 BCE–1642 · 14 steps →
Ancient and Medieval Bengal
প্রাচীনকাল হতে — from a trading town at 450 BCE to the Mughal conquest
450 BCE–1678 · 18 steps →
India: Sultanates to Independence
Seven centuries from Delhi's first sultan to Partition
250 BCE–2025 · 46 steps →
The Silk Roads
The world was connected long before Europe connected it
138 BCE–1622 · 24 steps →
The Medieval Church
From the height of papal power to the split it could not prevent
33–1545 · 23 steps →
The Rise of Islam
From one oasis town to three continents
541–1501 · 36 steps →
The Life of the Prophet
Mecca, Medina, and twenty-three years
570–632 · 15 steps →
The Companions
The people around the Prophet, and what each of them carried afterwards
595–678 · 12 steps →
The Caliphates
Succession, schism, and an empire from the Atlantic to the Indus
632–1924 · 30 steps →
Who May Rule
Caliphs, sultans and the scholars who judged them
632–1932 · 22 steps →
The Islamic Golden Age
Law, hadith, medicine, algebra and the argument about reason
651–1420 · 21 steps →
Karbala and the Shia
How a dispute over succession became two traditions
656–1979 · 12 steps →
Central Europe
The lands between, and the empires that wanted them
800–1989 · 21 steps →
The Reconquista
Seven centuries of Iberia, and what followed in 1492
929–1494 · 11 steps →
The Renaissance
Money, printing and the rediscovery of the world
1150–1633 · 13 steps →
Italy and the Renaissance
Bankers, domes and the trouble with telling the truth
1282–1870 · 12 steps →
The Fourteenth-Century Crisis
Plague, famine, schism and war across Eurasia
1309–1398 · 15 steps →
The Reformation
One monk, one press, and 130 years of war
1517–1648 · 10 steps →
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Science and invention
11
Before History
Sixty thousand years with almost nothing written down
70000 BCE–1600 BCE · 14 steps →
Exploring the Extremes
The furthest places people have deliberately gone
70000 BCE–2023 · 17 steps →
Science That Changed the World
From a canon who moved the Earth to a machine that read a genome
70000 BCE–2024 · 69 steps →
Plagues and Medicine
The diseases that shaped history, and the fight against them
431 BCE–2020 · 26 steps →
The Conquest of Disease
Why you can expect to live twice as long as your ancestors
165–2024 · 26 steps →
The Voyages
How the sea routes of the world were joined
1275–1770 · 11 steps →
The Machine Age
Land, steam, current and the assembly line
1760–2025 · 25 steps →
What We Did to the Planet
And the few times we stopped
1802–2025 · 19 steps →
The Nuclear Age
Three pages of arithmetic, and everything that followed
1905–2025 · 16 steps →
The Cold War
Forty-four years in which two powers could destroy the world and did not
1945–1997 · 41 steps →
The Space Race
From a beeping sphere to a photograph of home
1957–2023 · 9 steps →
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Money and trade
8
What the World Ate
Sugar, nutmeg, coffee, tea, potatoes — and who paid for them
9000 BCE–1966 · 18 steps →
How the World Got Connected
Caravans, sea routes, canals, cables and packets
3500 BCE–2025 · 46 steps →
Money and Crisis
Bubbles, banks and the invention of the modern economy
600 BCE–2025 · 36 steps →
The Industrial World
Coal, steam, wire and capital
960–2008 · 32 steps →
The International Organisations
Who joined what, and what each was built to do
1795–2025 · 41 steps →
Oil and Power
A century of foreign policy explained by one commodity
1859–2025 · 20 steps →
The Post-War Order
The institutions built between 1944 and 1949
1920–1992 · 10 steps →
The Great Depression
A crash, a chancellor, a new deal and a dust storm
1929–1935 · 4 steps →
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Catastrophe
9
When the Earth Moved
Disasters, and the politics that followed them
1600 BCE–2011 · 22 steps →
Slavery and Abolition
Twelve and a half million people, and the fight to end it
73 BCE–1963 · 30 steps →
The Century of the Refugee
When borders moved, and people had to move with them
70–2025 · 40 steps →
Hunger, Plague and Climate
Seven centuries of the weather and the microbe
165–2020 · 31 steps →
Genocides of the Modern Age
How the word came to exist, and what it was needed for
1096–2023 · 32 steps →
The Atlantic World
Three continents joined by ships
1492–1956 · 16 steps →
The American Civil War
The republic's reckoning with slavery
1820–1865 · 7 steps →
Africa Since Independence
Thirty-two flags, and what came after them
1847–2023 · 21 steps →
The World Since 1989
One order ends and nobody agrees what replaced it
1973–2025 · 95 steps →