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 in the world when Jesus was alive? →
  While Jesus lived, Rome under Augustus and Tiberius bled on its German frontier and Wang Mang's usurpation tore Han China apart — on a map honest about its gaps.
• 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.
• Who lived at the same time as Genghis Khan? →
  Between Genghis Khan's birth in 1162 and his death in 1227, Saladin took Jerusalem, crusaders sacked Constantinople, and Japan's first shogunate was born.
• 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 did the map of Europe look like in 1815? →
  In 1815 the Congress of Vienna redrew Europe's borders even as Napoleon's Hundred Days ended at Waterloo — the densest era on the whole map.
• 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.