45 Years is Enough!
While the world watched the events in Berlin, another Soviet ally in East-Central Europe suddenly collapsed: On November 9-10, after three-and-a-half decades in power, Bulgarian communist leader Todor Zhivkov was unceremoniously dumped. This poster - a map of the Bulgarian gulag - was circulated by the opposition Union of Democratic Forces during the spring 1990 election campaign.
[... Read More »
Abstention Rate in Napoleonic Plebiscites
All regions of France did not support Napoleon equally. His rule aroused most enthusiasm in the east (a prerevolutionary border region crucial in the Napoleonic wars) and the center of the country, least in the west, which had long provided a home to royalist counterrevolution.
Abstension rate in Napoleonic plebiscites (shaded areas = those where the abstention rate exceeded 80 percent... Read More »
Al-Idrisi's World Map
Analyzing Maps
The modules in Methods present case studies that demonstrate how scholars interpret different kinds of historical evidence in world history. In the video historian Gerald Danzer analyzes maps of the world. In the primary sources menu below, you can examine two world maps two maps of the world. The first, a Mercator projection, probably seems familiar to you because Mercator maps are among the... Read More »
Childhood Obesity in the United States
The map, issued by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), shows the percentages of substantially overweight, or obese, low-income children by county and in territories and tribal organizations where Native Americans live. The problem extends to both urban and rural populations.
Overall, 1 in 7 low-income, preschool-aged children is obese. Experts have been alarmed by the rapid rise in... Read More »
Commonwealth of Independent States, Map 1994
This map outlines the political territories that took the place of the Soviet Union after 1991. The fifteen republics of the USSR became fifteen independent states: Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Ukraine, Moldavia, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The boundary lines etched onto the Soviet map remained intact, but now... Read More »
Departments of 1798
Eastern and Central Europe After 1989
The nations formed following the break up of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is no longer on this map. It has been replaced by several new independent states—Moldova and Ukraine among them. The former Yugoslavia has also fragmented into several states.
Eastern and Central Europe After 1989
The nations formed following the break up of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is no longer on this map. It has been replaced by several new independent states—Moldova and Ukraine among them. The former Yugoslavia has also fragmented into several states.
Ethnic Groups in Yugoslavia
In 1990, the Yugoslav Communist Party divided into several separate parties, one for each of the six Yugoslav Republics. Tensions among the ethnic groups of Yugoslavia, divided among the republics, led to an outbreak of a civil war by 1991. This map demonstrates the complexity of the Yugoslav situation, as few of the republics were populated by just one ethnic group. This is especially... Read More »