History, Told as Connected Stories

Free lessons from the Aurelius: Learn History app: Ancient Rome, Medieval Europe and the American Revolution, each told in the order it happened, with real paintings, a primary source and the causes and consequences of every event.

Ancient Rome

  1. 753 BCE (traditional date)How Was Rome Founded? Romulus, Remus and the EvidenceIn April 248 CE, Emperor Philip the Arab threw Rome a thousandth birthday party. Every Roman knew the date, the founder's name and the wolf that had nursed him. The…
  2. 509 BCE (traditional date)How Did the Roman Republic Begin?A woman sits with her father and her husband, a knife hidden in her clothes. She tells them what the king's son has done to her, makes them swear to avenge her, and…
  3. 264–146 BCEThe Punic Wars: Why Rome and Carthage Fought Three TimesOn 2 August 216 BCE, by the Roman calendar, a Carthaginian army closed around a larger Roman one at Cannae in southern Italy and destroyed it. When Hannibal sent an…
  4. 133–121 BCEWho Were the Gracchi Brothers?In 133 BCE, senators armed with clubs and broken benches beat a tribune of the people to death on the Capitol. His name was Tiberius Gracchus. Plutarch called it the…
  5. 107–78 BCEMarius and Sulla: How Rome's Army Turned on the RepublicIn 88 BCE, the consul Lucius Cornelius Sulla told his legions at Nola that politicians in Rome had taken their eastern command away. The soldiers urged him to march on…
  6. January 49 BCEWhy Did Caesar Cross the Rubicon?One night in January 49 BCE, Julius Caesar slipped away from a dinner party in Ravenna, borrowed mules from a nearby bakery and got lost in the dark. By morning he had…
  7. 15 March 44 BCEHow Did Julius Caesar Die? The Ides of March, 44 BCEOn the morning of 15 March 44 BCE, Julius Caesar passed the soothsayer Spurinna, who had warned him of danger lasting until the Ides of March. “The Ides of March have…
  8. 31 BCE–14 CEHow Did Augustus Become Rome's First Emperor?In January 27 BCE, the most powerful man in the Roman world told the Senate he was handing the Republic back. The senators begged him to stay in charge, gave him the…
  9. 376–476 CEWhy Did the Western Roman Empire Fall?In 476 CE a general named Odoacer deposed the boy emperor of the West, Romulus Augustulus, and pensioned him off to a villa near Naples. Instead of choosing a…

Medieval Europe

  1. 481–511 CEWho Was Clovis, King of the Franks?At a review of his troops around 487, a Frankish king stopped in front of one warrior, criticised his weapons and threw his axe to the ground. As the man bent to pick…
  2. 768–814 (crowned emperor 800)Why Was Charlemagne Crowned Emperor in 800?On Christmas Day 800, in St Peter's in Rome, the king of the Franks rose from prayer and Pope Leo III set a crown on his head while the crowd acclaimed him emperor.…
  3. 793–c. 1066Who Were the Vikings? Raiders, Traders and SettlersThe year began, says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, with flashes of lightning and fiery dragons in the skies over Northumbria. Then “the raiding of heathen men miserably…
  4. 1066–1086What Happened in 1066? The Norman Conquest of EnglandIn one scene of the Bayeux Tapestry, a group of men point up at a star with a fiery tail. The Latin caption says simply: “These men marvel at the star.” It was…
  5. January 1077What Happened at Canossa in 1077?In late January 1077, a king stood outside the gate of a castle in the Apennines, barefoot in the snow and dressed in a penitent's wool. Inside was the pope who had…
  6. 1095–1099The First Crusade: Why It Started and What HappenedOn 27 November 1095, in a field outside Clermont in central France, Pope Urban II urged the knights of the West to march east. No text of his speech survives. Every…
  7. June 1215What Is Magna Carta, and Why Does It Matter?In June 1215, in a meadow beside the Thames called Runnymede, King John agreed to a long list of promises to his rebellious barons. Within three months the pope had…
  8. 1347–1351What Was the Black Death?In the summer of 1348, a Sienese chronicler broke off his record of the city's affairs to write something personal: “And I, Agnolo di Tura, called the Fat, buried my…

American Revolution

  1. 1765–1774What Caused the American Revolution? From the Stamp Act to the Tea PartyOn a cold March night in 1770, a crowd on King Street in Boston pelted a British sentry with snowballs, ice and insults. Minutes later, five men lay dead or dying.…
  2. 19 April 1775Lexington and Concord: How the American Revolutionary War BeganAt first light on 19 April 1775, some seventy men stood in two thin lines on the village green at Lexington, Massachusetts, as hundreds of British soldiers came up the…
  3. July 1776Why Was the Declaration of Independence Written?In March 1776, Abigail Adams wrote from Massachusetts to her husband John in Congress: “I long to hear that you have declared an independancy.” Then she added a…
  4. 1777–1778Why Did the Battle of Saratoga Matter?Before sailing for America in 1777, General John Burgoyne wrote a bet into the book of a London club: he would be home, victorious, by Christmas. By October he was…
  5. December 1777–June 1778What Happened at Valley Forge?Two days before Christmas 1777, George Washington warned Congress that 2,898 of his men were unfit for duty “because they are bare foot and otherwise naked.” Unless…
  6. September–October 1781The Siege of Yorktown: How the Revolutionary War Was WonOn the morning of 17 October 1781, a British drummer climbed onto the earthworks at Yorktown, Virginia, and beat the call for a parley. An officer followed him,…
  7. 1783–1797How George Washington Shaped the American PresidencyIn December 1783, the most famous man in America stood before Congress in Annapolis and handed back his commission as commander-in-chief. In London, George III is said…