History & Society

Person paying with a credit card using a credit card terminal. Cashless payment, credit card reader
What Is a Cashless Society and How Does It Work?

Many economists believe that consumer preferences, competitive pressures on businesses, profit seeking by banks, and government policies designed to facilitate cashless transactions will soon lead to at least a few cashless societies.

© Saravutvanset—RooM/Getty Images
Artist interpretation of a Space meteoroid impact. Meteor impact. Asteroid, End of the world, danger, destruction, dinosaur extinct, Judgement Day, Planet Earth, Doomsday Predictions, comet
© Hemera/Thinkstock
10 Failed Doomsday Predictions

Religious leaders, scientists, and even a hen (or so it seemed) have been making predictions for the end of the world almost as long as the world has been around.

© Hemera/Thinkstock

Editor's Picks

Indian hijras participate in a religious procession in Gandhinagar, India, some 30 kilometers from Ahmedabad, on March 22, 2017. Hijra is a term used in South Asia which refers to transgender individuals who are born male. (gender identity, gender expression)
6 Cultures That Recognize More than Two Genders
Curious about genders that defy the binary? Explore cultures around the world that recognize nonbinary identities.
Ancient Olympic games. infographic, equestrian events, pentathlon, running events, boxing, wrestling, pankration, sports. SPOTLIGHT VERSION
Events of the Ancient Olympic Games
The Olympic Games began in Olympia, Greece, in 776 BCE and took place every four years until 393 CE. They were held in honor of Zeus. At the first Games, athletes competed in only one running event held on a single day. However, over the years other events were added, and the Games eventually were expanded to five days.
Battle of Bosworth Field
Wars of the Roses
Wars of the Roses, (1455–85), in English history, the series of dynastic civil wars whose violence and civil strife preceded the strong government of the Tudors. Fought between the houses of Lancaster and York for the English throne, the wars were named many years afterward from the supposed badges
The Castillo, a Toltec-style pyramid, rises 79 feet (24 meters) above the plaza at Chichen Itza in Yucatan state, Mexico. The pyramid was built after invaders conquered the ancient Maya city in the tenth century.
What’s Inside the Pyramid at Chichén Itzá?
It turns out that there’s more than just rubble inside the pyramid at Chichén Itzá: sculptures, human remains, and possibly an entrance to hell!
Undated photograph of American temperance reformer Carry Nation.
5 Famous Battle-Axes
The weaker sex? Not these women.
Chapman, John: Hannibal
Hannibal
Hannibal was a Carthaginian general, one of the great military leaders of antiquity, who commanded the Carthaginian forces against Rome in the Second Punic War (218–201 bce) and who continued to oppose Rome and its satellites until his death. Hannibal was the son of the great Carthaginian general
Frances Perkins.
7 Female Firsts in U.S. Politics
A woman’s place is in the House…and the Senate.
Mesopotamian Religion. Cuneiform tablet in the British Museum, London, England, 7th Century BC, describing the Flood Epic, a deluge story in the Epic of Gilgamesh added as Tablet XI to the ten original tablets of the Gilgamesh Epic by an editor who copied or altered parts of the flood story from the Epic of Atrahasis. (flood tablet, Neo Assyrian, clay tablet)
What Was the First Book Ever Written?
Learn about the earliest surviving literature.

Spotlight: World War I

The international conflict was virtually unprecedented in the slaughter, carnage, and destruction it caused, embroiling most of Europe along with Russia, the U.S., the Middle East, and other regions. WWI led to the fall of four great imperial dynasties, resulted in the Bolshevik Revolution, and, by destabilizing Europe, laid the groundwork for WWII.

Quizzes

closeup of ten dollar bill. Alexander Hamilton, money, currency
What’s On Your Money Quiz
Do you have the skills to know your bills?
Flag of France
France: A History Quiz
What French woman was arrested for wearing men’s clothing? What French landmark was supposed to last only 20 years?
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II smiles to the crowd from Buckingham Palace (London, England) balcony at the end of the Platinum Pageant in London on June 5, 2022 as part of Queen Elizabeth II's platinum jubilee celebrations. The curtain comes down on four days of momentous nationwide celebrations to honor Queen Elizabeth II's historic Platinum Jubilee with a day-long pageant lauding the 96 year old monarch's record seven decades on the throne. (British royalty)
Fit for a King (or Queen): the British Royalty Quiz
Acing this quiz would be a crowning achievement.
Civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers a speech to a crowd of approximately 7,000 people on May 17, 1967 at UC Berkeley's Sproul Plaza in Berkeley, California.
Who Said It? Famous Quotes Quiz
Can you name the people associated with these famous quotations?

Videos

Holi: Explaining the Festival of Colors
Holi: Explaining the Festival of Colors
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

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