historical study - events

450 BC–445 BC	Babylon, Egypt	According to his own accounts, the Greek historian Herodotus visits Babylon and Egypt in order to collect stories for his Histories.
411 BC	Greece	Athenian historian Thucydides finishes writing his History. The Greek historian Xenophon continues the work in 383 BC.
c. 300 BC	Egypt, Ptolemaic Kingdom	The Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy I writes a history of the wars of Alexander the Great. Though the work does not survive to modern times, it is used by the later Greek historian Arrian in his account of the period.
c. 150 BC	Greece, Rome	The Greek historian Polybius publishes the first part of his History. Written to explain the rise of Rome, in its final form it covers the period 264 BC–146 BC.
29 BC	Rome, Roman Empire	The Roman historian Livy begins his huge history of Rome Abe urbe condita/From the Founding of the City. He continues to work on this throughout the reign of the emperor Augustus. Of an original 142 books only 35 survive to modern times.
75	Roman Empire, Palestine	The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (Joseph ben Matthias) publishes his Bello Judaico/History of the Jewish War, in Rome. Originally written in Aramaic for a Jewish readership, it gives vivid accounts of the sieges of Jotopata (where he was captured), Jerusalem, and the Masada. Spared by the Roman commander Vespasian, he settles in Rome, where he is given a house and a pension.
98	Roman Empire, Germany	The Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus publishes two of his finest works. Germania describes the Germanic tribes on the Roman frontier on the River Rhine, and records that the social customs revere women and encourage them to participate in politics and warfare. De vita et moribus Julii Agricolae/The Life and Death of Agricola (usually known simply as Agricola) is a biography of the statesman Julius Agricola, his father-in-law.
c. 731	England	The English Benedictine scholar Bede completes his greatest surviving work, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum/Ecclesiastical History of the English People.
c. 1010	Persia	Persian poet Firdausi completes his Persian national epic, Shah-nama/The Book of Kings. Its 50 chapters relate the history of the Persian kings up to the fall of the Sassanian dynasty.
c. 1137	Wales	Geoffrey of Monmouth completes his Historia Regum Britanniae/History of the Kings of Britain, a largely apocryphal British history containing the stories of King Arthur, King Lear, and other mythic figures.
1154	England	The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles are completed. They have been written since 880 and record events in England from AD 449–1154.
1259	England	Matthew Paris completes his Chronica majora/Greater Chronicle, a chronicle of the world from the creation, but more particularly of England in the author's lifetime.
c. 1265	Genoa	Jacobus de Voragine, archbishop of Genoa, compiles his Legenda aurea/Golden Legend, a collection of the lives and legends of the saints, which becomes an important source book for pre-Reformation artists.
1314	Persia	Persian scholar Rashid al-Din completes his Jami altawarikh/Histories, a universal history based on Arabic, Persian, Mongol, and Chinese sources. This is one of the first of the great Persian illustrated books.
c. 1374	Japan	The Japanese novel Taiheiki, possibly by the priest Kojima, is completed. It describes the civil wars of the period from 1318 to 1367.
c. 1400	France	French historian Jean Froissart completes his Chronicles, a history of Europe from 1307 to 1400, the later years of which often include his own eyewitness accounts. It is the most important account of the Hundred Years' War. From 1400 the work was continued by others, ending in 1467. It is translated into English by John Bourchier, Lord Berners in 1523–25.
1543	England	The History of Richard the Third by the English statesman and scholar Thomas More is published posthumously. A landmark in the development of English historical writing, it was written between 1513 and 1518. It is the source for the Shakespeare play Richard III.
1559	Germany	German theologian Flacius (Matthias Vlacich) publishes the first volume of his Ecclesiastica historia/Ecclesiastical History, a history of the church often known as the Magdaburg Centuries. The last volume appears in 1574.
1563	England	The English religious writer John Foxe publishes Acts and Monuments, a history of the persecution of reformers. It is soon known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs.
1590	Spain	Spanish missionary José de Acosta publishes Historia natural y moral de las Indias/A Natural and Moral History of the Indies. Rich in details of the flora and fauna of the New World as well as accounts of Pre-Columbian civilization, it is read throughout Europe. An English translation appears in 1604.
1607	Italy	The Italian churchman and historian Cesare Baronius publishes the last volume of his Annales ecclesiastici a Christo nato ad annum 1198/The History of the Church from the Birth of Christ to 1198. The first critical church history, it has been written to refute the 1559 Magdeburg Centuries of the Protestants. The first volume appeared in 1588.
1776	UK	The English historian Edward Gibbon publishes the first volume of his major work The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the most important historical work of the period. It is soon popular and controversial, with its criticisms of early Christians seen as scandalous. The eight-volume work is completed in 1788.
1824	Germany	The German historian Leopold von Ranke publishes Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Völker, 1494–1535/History of the Roman and Teutonic People, 1494–1535.
1833	France	The French historian Jules Michelet publishes the first volume of his 24-volume Histoire de France/History of France. The last volume appears in 1867.
1837	Scotland	The Scottish essayist and social historian Thomas Carlyle publishes French Revolution, a colourful history that establishes his reputation.
1843	Scotland, England	The Scottish essayist and social historian Thomas Carlyle publishes Past and Present, in which he compares life in the Middle Ages to life in Victorian England.
1854	Germany	The German historian Theodor Mommsen publishes the first volume of his Römische Geschichte/History of Rome. The last volume appears in 1856.
1856	USA	The US historian John Lothrop Motley publishes Rise of the Dutch Republic.
1857	England	The English historian Henry Thomas Buckle publishes the first part of his History of Civilization. The second part appears in 1861.
1863	France	The French historian (Joseph-) Ernest Renan publishes his Vie de Jésus/Life of Jesus. The book is controversial because it treats Jesus as a purely historical figure and denies any supernatural aspects to his life. He also publishes the first volume of his Histoire des origines du christianisme/History of the Origins of Christianity. The final volume appears in 1904.
1869	England	The English writer Matthew Arnold publishes Culture and Anarchy. His major work, it is a study of the moral, intellectual, and religious perplexities of Victorian society.
1918		German historian Oswald Spengler publishes the first volume of his Der Untergang des Abendlandes/The Decline of the West. The second volume appears in 1922.
1931		English historian Herbert Butterfield publishes The Whig Interpretation of History, a widely influential attack on the belief in inevitable progress in the course of history.
1932		Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky publishes his three-volume History of the Russian Revolution.
1934		English historian Arnold Toynbee publishes the first volume of his monumental 12-volume A Study of History. The last volume will appear in 1961.
1946	USA, Japan	The US writer John Hersey publishes Hiroshima, a classic account of the atomic bomb explosion over the Japanese city, filling an entire issue of New Yorker magazine.
1947	England, Germany	The English historian Hugh Trevor-Roper publishes The Last Days of Hitler.
1950	England, USSR	The English historian E H Carr publishes the first volume of his 14-volume History of Soviet Russia. The last volume will be published in 1978.
1950	Mexico	The Mexican writer Octavio Paz publishes El laberinto de la soledad/The Labyrinth of Solitude, an influential study of Mexican history and culture.
1954	England	English historian of science Joseph Needham publishes the first volume of his 12-volume Science and Civilization in China. The final part appears in 1984.
1960	USA	The US journalist William L Shirer publishes The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
1965	England	The English historian Christopher Hill publishes Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution.
1968	USA	The US writer Norman Mailer publishes The Armies of the Night, an account of the peace demonstrations in Washington, DC, in October 1967.
11 October 1982	UK	The Mary Rose, King Henry VIII's flagship which was sunk by the French on 19 July 1545, is raised from the bottom of Portsmouth harbour. It is found to contain Tudor artefacts such as board games, table settings, and musical instruments.
1997	England, Russia	The English historian Orlando Figes publishes A People's Tragedy, a history of the Russian Revolution.
April 1998	UK	HarperCollins publishers break a contract to publish the memoirs of Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, due to News Corp Ltd Chairman Rupert Murdoch's criticism of Patten's condemnation of Chinese government human-rights abuses.