Hourly History

In just 20 years, from 1840 to 1860, an astounding 400,000 people faced the danger and uncertainty of an epic migration on the Oregon Trail. They did this to follow a dream of forging a new life in the West, facing hardship and risk at every mile. This is their amazing story.

The Haitian Revolution began in 1791 in the French colony of Saint Domingue, when a group of slaves rebelled in order to secure their freedom and the end of slavery....

Much of the history of Ireland is defined by the basic facts of its location as an island perched on the very western edge of Europe.

Isaac Newton seemed to be a most unwanted child of the world. Ignored by his mother, scorned by contemporaries, seemingly at war with the world in which he lived, Newton turned his energies to things unseen. His laws of motion and law of universal gravitation would set the stage for a most extraordinary life....

The American Revolution not only changed the continent of North America, but the ideas it represented would go on to change the world.

As the sole legitimate child of Lord Byron, Ada Lovelace was the progeny of literary royalty. Many might have naturally expected her to go into the field of her father, but instead of delving into poetry, she delved into the hard sciences of mathematics and analytic thinking....

When the establishment of the State of Israel was announced on May 14, 1948, it seemed to many people that the new nation could not survive for long.

Explore the triumph and terror that existed in France during the French Revolution. Review the causes and the lasting effects brought about during this tumultuous time period when the common people of France struggled to remake their world upon the cornerstone of liberty....

They say that laughter is the best medicine, and no one could quite make us laugh like Robin Williams. His meteoric rise to fame was fueled by an irrepressible sense of humor and dazzling improvisational skills.

Oscar Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright in the late 19th century. His controversial plays were riddled with mockery of social status, cleverly covered by the use of comedy. Full of flash and flare, he wrote some of those colorful traits into his literature....

Peaky Blinders is a popular BBC television series about an organized crime family in post-World War I Birmingham, England, but does this series depict the factual history of Birmingham? As it turns out, there were Peaky Blinders in Birmingham....

In the 27 years that Kurt Cobain walked this earth, he crafted the songs and the narrative that would become the anthem of a generation. Yet, it was never anything that Cobain set to do deliberately; if anything, he could be called an accidental genius....

Discover the remarkable life of Virginia Woolf.... Virginia Woolf ranks among the most influential writers of the 20th century. Embracing the Post-Impressionist times in which she lived, her novels reflect the artistic shift from romanticism to abstract....

Discover the remarkable life of Brian Boru.... Ireland is a country steeped in history, myth, and legend. During ancient times a long line of kings reined over this fairytale land, and one of those kings was a man named Brian Boru....

In 1812, Americans held two distinctly different visions of their country. These incompatible visions of America were held by two opposing political parties. The two halves of America also had incompatible views on the necessity of war that year....

Nero. The very name seems to embody the character of a tyrant. The years of his reign come down to us with tales full of self-serving totalitarianism. Wasn’t he the one that fiddled while Rome burned after all? Listen to learn more about Nero....

In 1874, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer led a US Army expedition into the Black Hills of South Dakota, which was at that time under the control of the Lakota people. To the expedition members, this was unknown territory on the leading edge of the American frontier.

Ancient Egypt has mystified and entranced generation after generation. The Egyptians' mastery of architecture, their complex religious ideologies, and their peculiar views on death have given modern-day readers much to ponder....

Genghis Khan: a man who managed to unify the warring nomadic Mongol clans, who orchestrated military victories from China all the way to Russia, who founded an empire that continued to expand across Asia and into Europe....

Very few lives can be described as fit for a Hollywood film. Audrey Hepburn’s life, however, is undoubtedly one of those few....