timeastra
New ways into the past, newest first. Each comes with a link to try it.
Look up any town, village or street and see who held its ground through five thousand years, what happened nearby, old photographs of it and what travellers wrote about it. On the atlas, right-click a spot and pick This place's story.
Look up your townTravel stop by stop with Marco Polo across Asia, or with Alexandre de Rhodes from Hội An to Thăng Long. The map shows each stop in its own year, with the traveller's own words where they survive.
Choose a journeyThe rulers of 62 realms now have a family tree: who was whose son, daughter, brother or wife, and where a line of rule broke. Pick a ruler to light their parents and children.
See the Lý dynasty's treeA realm's card on the atlas names who ruled it in the map's year, and its page charts its area from its borders. A new diagram shows which realm followed which, from 3500 BCE to today.
Which realm followed whichThe search page lists every result, sorted by kind. When something is missing, Request it opens the feedback panel on its Request tab, filled in from where you were.
Search for Bạch ĐằngA short tour points at each of the atlas's controls in turn: the time bar, realms and their cards, the Deeds, the layers, compare years and more. Leave it at any step and the atlas is as you left it.
Take the tourShare on the atlas now gives the code for a small live atlas to put on your own site. On this day comes as an RSS feed and as a calendar to subscribe to.
Subscribe to On this dayOne page says what the atlas holds, region by region and age by age, where it comes from, and where it is still thin. Every number carries the day it was counted.
Read about the dataTours play in the atlas stop by stop: each stop sets the year, flies to the place and says what happened there. Start with Vietnam in 30 stops or The fall of Rome in 8 stops. Every war with battles plays too, battle by battle.
Start Vietnam in 30 stopsRight-click any spot on the atlas, or long-press it on a phone, and pick Who ruled here? to list every realm that held it, in time order. Cities and historic sites have pages of their own, such as Hanoi and Rome.
Who ruled Hanoi?Pin a year from the map's menu at the top left and drag the divider to see two years side by side. Then and today puts today's countries beside the past.
See 1500 beside todaySwitch on Great people in the key to see who was alive in the year, where they worked, ruled or lived. Click a portrait for their card and a bar of their life. Each person's page opens the atlas on their lifetime.
Who was alive in 1500The map draws where the Black Death, the printing press, gunpowder and the Columbian exchange had reached in the year, with arcs to their latest arrivals. Each has a page that plays its spread, with a source for every date.
The Black Death in 1348A lens in the filters shows one theme at a click: war, faith, trade, people, culture or disasters. The buttons beside play jump to the next year in which the borders in view change. Follow on a realm's card keeps its borders in view as the years pass.
Follow the Roman EmpireRight-click the map, or long-press it on a phone, for a menu: open what is there, Who ruled here?, events near here, then and today. In the search (⌘K or Ctrl+K), type an action such as show great people, globe or war tree, and it happens at once.
Open the atlasWhat happened on today's date in other years, from every age. Every day of the year has its own page, and the home page shows today's.
Every day of the yearEvery century has a page with its realms, its main events and a map of its world. So does each of the twelve regions of the world, with its realms on one timeline.
Browse the centuriesThe wars of history, each opening to its campaigns and fronts, down to its battles. Find one by name or year, and Play this war tours its battles on the atlas.
Open the war treeThe map shows the world's borders in a hidden year: guess it in five rounds, the same for everyone each day. Hints cost points, and your streak is kept in your browser.
Play today's bordersPages of events, realms and people can be read aloud by your browser's own voice, cited in APA, MLA, Chicago or BibTeX, and printed as black text on white. Save keeps a page in your browser; your saved pages are in the settings menu.
Try it on WaterlooThe whole site is in Vietnamese at /vi: the atlas, the pages and the curated texts. Events carry Vietnamese names as well.
Open the Vietnamese siteLeave your email on the home page or the newsletter page, then confirm with the link we send. Every issue has a link to unsubscribe.
SubscribeA game in the browser: live one day as a commoner in Rome in the summer of 80 CE. Since 15 November the atlas offers it too, on the Roman Empire's card while the year is between 60 and 100 CE.
Play A Day in Rome1,395 events of Vietnam's past were added, each written from its sources: Champa and the south as well as the north, from early times to today. Ninety-seven events already on the atlas were corrected.
The battle of the Như Nguyệt RiverThe great people of history stand in twelve halls, each a model of a real landmark, from the Pantheon to the Temple of Literature. Each person and each hall has a page, and a walk in 3D goes through the whole campus.
Meet the great peopleSeven battles play phase by phase on their own ground: Gaugamela, Cannae, Hastings, Agincourt, Sekigahara, Waterloo and Quảng Trị in 1972. About 620 more, from the CDB90 database of battles, play as plans.
Watch Quảng Trị 1972