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Three ways in

Play it. Map it. Scroll it.

The journeysPick a topic. Get lost.Five-minute curated explorations of one person or one subject, picture by picture.

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The mapWhere it all happened.Watch the world fill up year by year, and follow a life across the map.

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The timelineEvery life on one line.Scroll through thousands of years, see who was alive together and open anyone to read their story.

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Pick a world

8 worlds. Thousands of lives. Pick a door.

Rulers

1,542people5,000years5journeys

Scientists

1,374people2,500years4journeys

Musicians

771people1,000years4journeys

Artists

723people900years4journeys

Balkan FunkBetaWritersBetaBattlesBetaBuildersBeta

Did you know

Changed his artist name more than 30 times in his life.Katsushika HokusaiAt nine she gave a speech defending the education of women.Maria Gaetana AgnesiShe left Hungary with cash hidden in her child's teddy bear.Katalin KarikóAdmirers said he left Samos to escape the tyrant Polycrates.PythagorasRumor said a swallowed tapeworm caused her 80-lb loss.Maria CallasLegend says he summed 1 to 100 in moments as a schoolboy.Carl Friedrich GaussShot two days before a gig, he played to 80,000 anyway.Bob MarleyHe chaired the council on orthodoxy while unbaptised.Constantine the GreatA painter and spy, knighted by two rival kings at once.Peter Paul RubensWrote much of his greatest music while going deaf.Ludwig van BeethovenThe last Byzantine claimant sold him the imperial title.Ferdinand II of AragonStateless for seven years, naturalised in time to run.Adolf HitlerAt two he asked for the beads of his predecessor.Dalai LamaTwo of his lovers shot themselves over his affairs.Claude DebussyTaught Copland, Piazzolla, Glass and Quincy Jones.Nadia BoulangerToured Europe under a false name, at six foot eight.Peter the GreatChanged his artist name more than 30 times in his life.Katsushika HokusaiAt nine she gave a speech defending the education of women.Maria Gaetana AgnesiShe left Hungary with cash hidden in her child's teddy bear.Katalin KarikóAdmirers said he left Samos to escape the tyrant Polycrates.PythagorasRumor said a swallowed tapeworm caused her 80-lb loss.Maria CallasLegend says he summed 1 to 100 in moments as a schoolboy.Carl Friedrich GaussShot two days before a gig, he played to 80,000 anyway.Bob MarleyHe chaired the council on orthodoxy while unbaptised.Constantine the GreatA painter and spy, knighted by two rival kings at once.Peter Paul RubensWrote much of his greatest music while going deaf.Ludwig van BeethovenThe last Byzantine claimant sold him the imperial title.Ferdinand II of AragonStateless for seven years, naturalised in time to run.Adolf HitlerAt two he asked for the beads of his predecessor.Dalai LamaTwo of his lovers shot themselves over his affairs.Claude DebussyTaught Copland, Piazzolla, Glass and Quincy Jones.Nadia BoulangerToured Europe under a false name, at six foot eight.Peter the Great

His bronze David: Europe's first nude since antiquity.DonatelloFilled his notebooks with backwards, mirror-image writing.Leonardo da VinciThieves grabbed The Scream and left a cheeky thank-you note.Edvard MunchBabur reckoned him the most powerful ruler in India.KrishnadevarayaDied of cholera nine days after conducting his Sixth.Pyotr Ilyich TchaikovskyHe asked Rome for a hundred scholars. Two friars set out.Kublai KhanHe skipped his own march, then posed for photos of it.Benito MussoliniAt fourteen he cycled sixty miles to school in a strike.Alan TuringAt nine, his clan rode off and left the family to starve.Genghis KhanTook 21 years to finish his First Symphony, spooked by Beethoven.Johannes BrahmsBefore art, he guarded Edo Castle as a hired fire warden.Utagawa HiroshigeSpent seven months building a road out to an island.Alexander the Great'Bosch' was not his name but his hometown, Den Bosch.Hieronymus BoschAs a girl she devoured her grandfather's huge library.Wang ZhenyiAt nine he swore at an altar to be Rome's enemy for life.HannibalAt twenty-two he led the skirmish that started a world war.George WashingtonHis bronze David: Europe's first nude since antiquity.DonatelloFilled his notebooks with backwards, mirror-image writing.Leonardo da VinciThieves grabbed The Scream and left a cheeky thank-you note.Edvard MunchBabur reckoned him the most powerful ruler in India.KrishnadevarayaDied of cholera nine days after conducting his Sixth.Pyotr Ilyich TchaikovskyHe asked Rome for a hundred scholars. Two friars set out.Kublai KhanHe skipped his own march, then posed for photos of it.Benito MussoliniAt fourteen he cycled sixty miles to school in a strike.Alan TuringAt nine, his clan rode off and left the family to starve.Genghis KhanTook 21 years to finish his First Symphony, spooked by Beethoven.Johannes BrahmsBefore art, he guarded Edo Castle as a hired fire warden.Utagawa HiroshigeSpent seven months building a road out to an island.Alexander the Great'Bosch' was not his name but his hometown, Den Bosch.Hieronymus BoschAs a girl she devoured her grandfather's huge library.Wang ZhenyiAt nine he swore at an altar to be Rome's enemy for life.HannibalAt twenty-two he led the skirmish that started a world war.George Washington

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