Guides
Short reads on what was happening across the world at the same moment — and on how Annalium is built. Each one opens into the live map and timeline.
What was happening when…
- What was happening around the world in 750 CE? →Around 750 CE the Abbasids toppled the Umayyads, the Tang faced rebellion, and post-Roman Europe redrew its map — all at once.
- What was happening while the Tang dynasty was at its height? →While Tang China stood among the world's great powers, war on its western frontier and a vast internal rebellion were already reshaping Asia.
- What was happening when Baghdad was founded? →Baghdad was founded in 762, but the map around it was full of revolt, frontier war, and a Byzantine debate over religious images.
- What was happening during the Mongol Empire? →While Genghis Khan's armies swept across Asia, crusaders, Baltic knights, and Japanese clans were fighting wars of their own — see them side by side.
- What was happening during the Black Death? →As plague killed much of Europe between 1346 and 1353, the Hundred Years' War raged on and Iberia fought its own battles — the map shows it all together.
- What was happening in 1492 outside Europe? →The year Columbus crossed the Atlantic, empires rose and fell in West Africa, Central Asia, the Caribbean, and Japan — the map shows the world he didn't know.
- What was happening in 1914 before World War I? →The decade before 1914 saw revolutions in China and Mexico, war in the Balkans, and colonial revolts across Africa and Asia — the world was already in upheaval.
How Annalium works
- How Wikipedia coverage shapes the history map →Annalium is built from Wikidata and Wikipedia, so its density mirrors theirs — denser in Europe and after 1500, thinner everywhere else.
- Why historical borders are hard →Past borders were fuzzy, overlapping, and contested, so Annalium redraws boundaries per era and starts with hand-curated polygons before OpenHistoricalMap.
- How multilingual Wikipedia viewpoints differ →The same event is written differently across Wikipedia languages, and Annalium ingests up to nine so a planned side-by-side compare can surface the gaps.