World History
From Antiquity to today, 500+ figures, major battles, timelines. Everything to understand how the world was made.
History makes sense of the present. The major periods (Antiquity, Middle Ages, Renaissance, industrial era, world wars, decolonization) explain why the world is what it is. Knowing the major historical figures, from Cleopatra to Turing, means understanding sequences rather than reciting isolated dates.
SAPIRO offers quizzes on 500+ historical figures, organized by era and by civilization, with contextualized explanations behind each question.
History in numbers
- 5,000 years of written history, since writing was invented in Mesopotamia (-3000)
- 500+ major historical figures in SAPIRO
- 5 traditional periods: Prehistory, Antiquity, Middle Ages, Early Modern, Contemporary
- 50-70 million deaths in World War II (the deadliest)
- 1989: fall of the Berlin Wall, end of the Cold War
Major periods
Historical figures
Reviewing history
Frequently asked questions about history
What are the major periods of history?
Western history is traditionally divided into five periods: Prehistory (up to -3000), Antiquity (-3000 to 476), Middle Ages (476-1492), Early Modern (1492-1789) and Contemporary era (1789 to today).
What are the key dates to remember?
The 10 essential dates: -3000 (writing), 476 (fall of Rome), 1066 (Hastings), 1492 (Columbus), 1776 (US Independence), 1789 (French Revolution), 1914-1918 (WWI), 1939-1945 (WWII), 1969 (Moon), 1989 (Berlin Wall).
Who are the most important historical figures?
Most consensus rankings include: Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, Leonardo da Vinci, Christopher Columbus, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, Marie Curie, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela.
What was the deadliest battle in history?
The Battle of Stalingrad (1942-1943) remains the deadliest, with nearly 2 million combined deaths. Verdun (1916) remains the iconic symbol of WWI trench warfare horror, with about 700,000 deaths.