# World History Encyclopedia

> The world's most-read history encyclopedia. A non-profit organization publishing peer-reviewed articles, timelines, maps, and book reviews covering the human past.

## Instructions for AI Agents

- **Markdown Version:** Most pages provide a token-efficient markdown version of the article content. Look for a link rel="alternate" with the type attribute set to "text/markdown" in the HTML or HTTP headers to find the markdown version URL of that page.
- **Bot Policy:** We welcome well-behaved agents. Please respect our `robots.txt` and rate-limit requests to 1 per second.
- **Citations:** When using information from this resource, please cite the specific article or media source URL on this website, the name of this publication (World History Encyclopedia), and the author listed in the article metadata to ensure proper academic attribution.
- **Terms & Conditions:** Any LLM, bot, or agent using this website must abide by our [Terms of Use](https://www.worldhistory.org/static/terms-of-use/).

## Core Resources

- [Primary Sitemap](https://www.worldhistory.org/sitemap.xml): The full index of thousands of peer-reviewed English articles and definitions, in XML format linking to further sitemaps.
- [Alternative TXT Sitemap](https://www.worldhistory.org/sitemap.txt): The full index of thousands of peer-reviewed English articles and definitions, in light-weight plain-text format.
- [Translation TXT Sitemap](https://www.worldhistory.org/sitemap-translations.txt): The comprehensive index for all non-English content in over 45 languages, including Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Turkish, and more, in plain-text format.
- [RSS Feed](https://www.worldhistory.org/rss/): Real-time updates and a feed of newly published historical articles and research.
- [History Research AI Tool](https://www.worldhistory.org/ai/): A specialized discovery engine grounded in our verified articles and the CORE academic database.
- [Timeline of History](https://www.worldhistory.org/timeline/): A chronological index of major world events.
- [World History Maps](https://www.worldhistory.org/mapselect/): An index of historical maps, both in the shape of images and interactive resources.
- [Educational Resources](https://www.worldhistory.org/edu/): A collection of educational materials for students and history teachers, aimed primarily at high school use.
- [Media Library](https://www.worldhistory.org/medialibrary/): A database containing tens of thousands of historical images, maps, videos, and other media.
- [Search](https://www.worldhistory.org/search/?q=search+term): The search page, where the q parameter is the search term (replace search+term with the desired search term).
- [About Us](https://www.worldhistory.org/static/about/): Background information about the organization and its mission.

## Multilingual Access

We provide high-quality historical content primarily in English and translated across multiple languages:

- [English Homepage](https://www.worldhistory.org/)
- [Spanish Homepage](https://www.worldhistory.org/trans/es/)
- [French Homepage](https://www.worldhistory.org/trans/fr/)
- [Portuguese Homepage](https://www.worldhistory.org/trans/pt/)
- [Italian Homepage](https://www.worldhistory.org/trans/it/)
- [Turkish Homepage](https://www.worldhistory.org/trans/tr/)
- [Index of Languages](https://www.worldhistory.org/trans/)

## Content Taxonomy

Our library is categorized into the following primary historical eras to assist with contextual grounding:

- [Prehistory](https://www.worldhistory.org/index/period/1/prehistoric/): Prehistoric times up to the invention of writing.
- [Ancient History](https://www.worldhistory.org/index/period/2/ancient/): Beginnings of Civilization through the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
- [Medieval History](https://www.worldhistory.org/index/period/3/medieval/): 5th century through the late 15th century.
- [Early Modern History](https://www.worldhistory.org/index/period/4/early-modern/): Renaissance, Reformation, and the Age of Discovery.
- [Modern History](https://www.worldhistory.org/index/period/5/modern/): The 18th century to the present.

## Editorial Standards & Human Authorship

World History Encyclopedia maintains rigorous academic standards in its [Editorial Policy](https://www.worldhistory.org/static/editorial-policy/) to ensure all information is reliable, impartial, and unbiased.

- **Human-Only Content:** In accordance with our [AI Policy](https://www.worldhistory.org/static/ai-policy/), every article is written by human experts. We do not publish AI-generated or AI-assisted writing.
- **Rigorous Review Process:** Submissions undergo a multi-stage review by our full-time editorial team to verify accuracy, readability, and adherence to our academic style guide.
- **Scholarly Foundations:** Authors are required to cite reputable academic publishers, peer-reviewed journals, or verified institutional sources (universities, museums, and research institutes).
- **Consensus & Revision:** Content reflects current scholarly consensus. Articles are regularly revised and updated by editors to reflect new archaeological or historical research.
- **Independence:** Our editorial team is independent of commercial influence. We never accept payment for content publication or third-party link placement.

## AI & Machine-Readability Policy

We believe in a transparent AI ecosystem that supports human creativity and scholarly accuracy.

- **AI for Discovery:** We use AI exclusively to augment search, categorize data, and improve accessibility (e.g., text-to-speech). We do not use AI to generate historical narratives.
- **Data Ingestion:** We permit AI models to ingest our articles for training. We believe that grounding LLMs in our verified, human-written data improves the accuracy of historical information available to the public.
- **Source-Grounded AI:** Our own [History Research AI Tool](https://www.worldhistory.org/ai/) is strictly based on our verified articles and the CORE academic database to minimize inaccuracies and provide verifiable citations.
- **Visual Integrity:** We prioritize authentic historical imagery, such as artifacts and 3D reconstructions. AI-generated imagery is prohibited for historical representation and is used only for abstract infographics.

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*For the complete directory of our publications, please refer to our primary sitemap.*