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| Founded | August 2009; 16 years ago (2009-08) (as Ancient History Encyclopedia) |
|---|---|
| Founder | Jan van der Crabben |
| Type | Nonprofit organization |
| Location | |
| Services | E-learning,education |
Official languages | English |
Key people |
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| Affiliations | UNESCO,University of Buenos Aires,OER Commons |
| Employees | 4 (2018) |
| Website | www |
World History Encyclopedia (formerlyAncient History Encyclopedia) is a nonprofit educational company created in 2009 by Jan van der Crabben.[1] The organization publishes and maintainsarticles,images,videos,podcasts, andinteractiveeducational tools related tohistory. Allusers may contribute content to the site, although submissions are reviewed by aneditorial team before publication. In 2021, the organization was renamed from the Ancient History Encyclopedia to World History Encyclopedia to reflect its broadened scope, coveringworld history from alltime periods, as opposed to just ancient history. Original articles are written inEnglish and later translated into other languages, mainlyFrench andSpanish.
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.[1] The nonprofit organization is based inGodalming,United Kingdom andMontreal,Canada, although it has no office and its team is globally distributed.[2][3]
The site had an emphasis onancient history 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.[4] In November 2024, World History Encyclopedia became a publishing partner of theartificial intelligence search companyPerplexity.ai, providing information to Perplexity while partaking their revenue sharing program.[5][6]
The website has received praise by educational organizations and has been recommended by theSchool Library Journal,[7] the Internet Scout Research Group at theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison,[8]MERLOT,[9] and theEuropean Commission's Open Education Europa initiative.[10] In 2016, it won the.eu Web Award for education from the organizationEURid.[11]