World History Encyclopedia (formerly Ancient History Encyclopedia) is a nonprofit educational company created in 2009 by Jan van der Crabben. The organization publishes and maintains articles, images, videos, podcasts, and interactive educational tools related to history. All users may contribute content to the site, although submissions are reviewed by an editorial team before publication. In 2021, the organization was renamed from the Ancient History Encyclopedia to World History Encyclopedia to reflect its broadened scope, covering world history from all time periods, as opposed to just ancient history. Original articles are written in English and later translated into other languages, mainly French and Spanish.

Organization history

The Ancient History Encyclopedia was founded in 2009 by van der Crabben with the stated goal of improving history education worldwide by creating a freely accessible and reliable history source. The nonprofit organization is based in

Godalming Godalming ( ) is a market town and civil parish in southwest Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. It is in the Borough of Waverley, at the confluence of the Rivers Wey and Ock. The civil parish covers and includes the settl ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, although it has no office and its team is globally distributed. The site had an emphasis on

ancient history Ancient history is a time period from the History of writing, beginning of writing and recorded human history through late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the development of Sumerian language, ...

when it was founded, but it later shifted to cover the Medieval and Early Modern periods as well. In 2021, the organization renamed itself World History Encyclopedia to reflect this change. In November 2024, World History Encyclopedia became a publishing partner of the AI search company Perplexity.ai, providing information to Perplexity while partaking their revenue sharing program.

Reception

The website has received praise by educational organizations and has been recommended by the

School Library Journal ''School Library Journal'' (''SLJ'') is an American monthly magazine containing reviews and other articles for school librarians, media specialists, and public librarians who work with young people. Articles cover a wide variety of topics, wi ...

, the Internet Scout Research Group at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

MERLOT Merlot ( ) is a dark-blue-colored wine grape variety that is used as both a blending grape and for varietal wines. The name ''Merlot'' is thought to be a diminutive of , the French name for the blackbird, probably a reference to the color ...

, and the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

's Open Education Europa initiative. In 2016, it won the ''.eu Web Award'' for education from the organization EURid.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://www.worldhistory.org British online encyclopedias Education companies of the United Kingdom Educational technology non-profits History websites of the United Kingdom Horsham Internet properties established in 2009 Online encyclopedias Online nonprofit organizations Open educational resources Organizations established in 2009 Remote companies