About Annals Fold

What an entry contains

Every entry is built the same way, so that two entries from different centuries and different continents can be read against each other. The left rail holds the chain of events in order. The body holds the conditions, the sequence and the consequence. Two cards at the end separate the short-run result from the long-run one, because they are frequently not the same thing.

Each entry also carries a note on the most common misconception about it, and a short list of sources. Where an entry is marked as a fold, it covers two regions in the same window of time and gives each its own chain.

Why the region and the century both matter

Filing by region alone makes every history a national history. Filing by century alone makes every history a European one. This site files by both at once: the timeline on the front page draws four regional lanes across the same axis, so that a reader can see that the fall of Constantinople and the first voyage of Columbus were forty years apart, and that the Berlin Conference and the Sino-French War were the same year.

How publication works

The archive is published on a schedule rather than all at once. Entries carry a publication date and only those whose date has arrived are generated: they appear in the timeline, the archive, the region pages, the sitemap and the search index on the same build. The count in the masthead and the footer states how many of the total are live at any time.

This is a reading schedule and not a paywall. Nothing is behind a login, nothing is charged for, and no entry is ever removed once it is published.

Sources and corrections

Entries cite two to four sources each, chosen to represent the state of the argument rather than to decorate it, and the source notes say what each one is being used for. Where historians disagree, the entry says so.

Corrections are welcome and are made in the open. Write to the address on the contact page with the entry title and the specific claim you think is wrong.