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Story paths

Follow a bigger question through connected stories, places and evidence.

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10 paths · Showing 1–6

An illustrated procession follows a palanquin along a road, with mounted attendants and people gathered beside it.

STORY PATH

4 chapters

Japan’s Meiji Transformation

How did Meiji Japan change—and who carried the costs of that transformation?

A new state, a changing capital and an industrial economy—and the people whose work made transformation possible.

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  1. 1The Meiji Restoration of 1868: How Power Changed Hands
  2. 2From Edo to Tokyo: Making an Imperial Capital
  3. 3Japan’s First Railways: Technology, Time and State Power
  4. 4Women at Work in Meiji Japan’s Silk Mills
A modern aerial view shows the Citadelle Laferrière on its steep mountain site.

STORY PATH

8 chapters

Freedom and Revolution in Haiti

How did a slave colony become independent—and why did freedom remain contested afterwards?

From plantation slavery to independence—and the continuing struggle to make freedom secure.

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  1. 1Life and Forced Labour on Saint-Domingue’s Plantations
  2. 2Who Had Rights in Saint-Domingue?
  3. 3The Uprising of 1791: How the Haitian Revolution Began
  4. 4Toussaint Louverture: Leadership, Labour and Power
  5. 5Napoleon’s Expedition and the War for Haitian Independence
  6. 6What Did Freedom Mean in Independent Haiti?
  7. 7Haiti in 1825: Recognition Under Pressure
  8. 8The Haitian Revolution: Freedom and Its Unfinished Struggles
An open copy of Micrographia displays a large fold-out engraving of a flea in profile, with segmented armour, long legs and fine bristles.

STORY PATH

8 chapters

Seeing and Testing: Early Modern Science

How did observations become credible knowledge—and who received recognition?

A telescope, an anatomical image or an experiment did not make a claim persuasive by itself. Follow how early modern investigators made knowledge through instruments, skilled work, images, correspondence and colonial connections—and how access and recognition remained unequal.

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  1. 1Was There One Scientific Revolution?
  2. 2How the Telescope Changed What People Could See
  3. 3Vesalius’s Anatomy Book: Bodies, Images and Evidence
  4. 4Galileo’s Trial of 1633: What Was at Stake?
  5. 5The Royal Society: How Experiments Became Public
  6. 6Boyle’s Air Pump: How Do You Prove an Experiment?
  7. 7Maria Sibylla Merian: Insects, Art and Colonial Knowledge
  8. 8How Early Modern Science Made Knowledge Credible
Low ruined stone walls of Husuni Kubwa stand amid grass and coastal vegetation.

STORY PATH

8 chapters

Across the Indian Ocean

How did an ocean connect distant societies long before European predominance?

How an ocean linked distant societies through winds, ports, goods, institutions and unequal power.

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  1. 1Kilwa: A Swahili City Connected to the Indian Ocean
  2. 2How Monsoon Winds Shaped Indian Ocean Trade
  3. 3Kilwa and Calicut: Two Ports, Different Worlds
  4. 4Chinese Ceramics on the Swahili Coast
  5. 5Ibn Battuta: A Traveller and the Limits of His Account
  6. 6Living in a Swahili Trading Town
  7. 7Portuguese Power Meets an Ocean Already Connected
  8. 8What Connected the Medieval Indian Ocean?
Cropped view: Water in front of brick buildings at the Rozenhoedkaai, with the Bruges belfry beyond.

STORY PATH

8 chapters

A Medieval City at Work: Bruges

How did trade and work make Bruges wealthy, and who gained influence from that prosperity?

Follow medieval Bruges from its waterways and outports to the transactions, households, merchant communities and artistic work that sustained its prosperity.

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  1. 1Medieval Bruges: A Trading City Built Around Water
  2. 2How Trade Worked in Medieval Bruges
  3. 3Working in Medieval Bruges: Cloth, Markets and Households
  4. 4The Hanseatic Merchants of Bruges
  5. 5Jan van Eyck: An Artist Between Court and City
  6. 6Who Ruled Bruges? Guilds, Merchants and Burgundian Power
  7. 7Why Bruges Lost Its Lead in European Trade
  8. 8What Medieval Bruges Reveals About Wealth and Power
Marchers walk together carrying placards for integrated schools, an end to bias and decent housing.

STORY PATH

8 chapters

Civil Rights in Action

How did organised action turn demands for equality into change?

From Jim Crow and Rosa Parks to Montgomery, SNCC and Selma, follow how organised action won civil rights change—and why the work continued.

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  1. 1How Jim Crow Segregation Worked in Everyday Life
  2. 2Rosa Parks Before the Bus: A Life of Organising
  3. 3The Montgomery Bus Boycott: How a City Kept Going Without Buses
  4. 4SNCC: The Student Network That Built Local Power
  5. 5Nonviolent Resistance: Strategy, Discipline and Debate
  6. 6Bloody Sunday in Selma: What Happened on 7 March 1965?
  7. 7How the Civil Rights Movement Won Change—and Why the Work Continued
  8. 8After the Voting Rights Act: What Changed in 1965—and What Did Not?

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The ChronoAtlas

Put the stories on the map.

Every story happened somewhere. Explore the places and periods behind the people, objects and ideas.

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