What the site covers
Five skills guides, on primary sources, dates and periods, historiography, essay writing and exam skills, plus five era guides with timelines running from the ancient world to the end of the twentieth century. The guides aim to give you a frame for further reading. They work best alongside a textbook, a course or a good survey history.
Who the guides are for
High school students taking AP United States, World or European History; first-year college students meeting history as a discipline for the first time; and adults who read history for pleasure and want to understand how historians work. The guides assume no special background.
How facts and dates are chosen
- We include only events and dates that standard reference works and textbooks broadly agree on.
- Approximate dates carry "c." for circa. Dates for early periods can differ between books by years or decades, so follow your course textbook if it differs.
- Where historians disagree about meaning or causes, we set out the main positions and leave the judgment to you.
- We don't quote historical figures or historians unless we can trace the words to a reliable edition. Most guides use no quotations at all.
- The era guides stop at 2000 and avoid contested current politics.
About exam information
Exam formats and rubrics change. The exam skills guide describes the general structure used in recent years and tells you to check the College Board's current course description. We are not affiliated with the College Board or any exam board, and AP is the College Board's trademark.
What we are not
We are not a school, tutoring company or publisher. We don't sell courses, accept payment for coverage, or use partner links. The site has no accounts, comments or tracking, as the privacy policy explains.
Spotted a mistake?
If a date looks wrong or a summary seems unfair to the evidence, write to contact@advancedhistory.com with the page and the problem. A reference to a published source helps us check it quickly.
About Advanced History: FAQ
Can I use these guides in class?
You are welcome to link to any page for students. The text is not licensed for copying into other materials; see the terms.
Will you add more eras or regions?
The current guides cover broad world history. More focused guides may be added later, written to the same standards.
Why are there no author biographies?
The guides are written and edited as a set, and each one rests on widely shared textbook knowledge. We would rather you judge a page by whether its dates and explanations check out against your own reading. If one doesn't, tell us.
How often are the guides updated?
We review the exam skills guide when the College Board publishes changes to course descriptions, and correct any page as soon as an error is confirmed.