History9 Start free
World history in five-minute stories

History, told by the people who lived it.

Meet the historians of the past and travel from Babylon to the Cold War. One story, one takeaway, five minutes a day. For curious minds, no exams attached.

Start free See the plans
Someone listening to a history story on their phone in a museum gallery
100
stories at launch
20
tracks
25
free stories
5
minutes each
The problem

History is the best story there is. It is rarely told like one.

Most of us met it as a list: dates to memorise, dynasties to keep straight, a test at the end. The stories underneath, the ambitious, frightened, brilliant people who made the past, got lost on the way to the exam.

  • Too long to start

    A six-hundred-page book on Rome is wonderful and stays on the shelf. There is never a whole evening free.

  • Too dry to remember

    A timeline is a spreadsheet. Nobody remembers a spreadsheet; everybody remembers a person in a tight spot.

  • Too scattered to add up

    A documentary here, a podcast there. Without a map, the pieces never join into a picture of how the world got this way.

How it works

One story, one takeaway, five minutes.

History9 turns world history into short narrated stories, each presented by a historian from the past, and arranges them so they add up.

  1. A historian tells it

    Herodotus, Sima Qian, Ban Zhao, Ibn Khaldun and Anna Komnene present the stories: knowledgeable, warm, occasionally wry, and honest about what the evidence does and does not say.

  2. A person, a moment, a date

    Every story opens on someone in a particular place on a particular day, with the sensory detail that makes it stick, and unfamiliar terms explained in one sentence.

  3. Why it mattered

    Each story lands one clear takeaway about why that moment still shapes the world, and ends with a few quick questions that make it yours.

The historians

Five voices from five worlds.

The presenters are fictional likenesses of real historians, chosen so that no single region or century does all the talking.

  • Herodotus

    The Greek traveller of the fifth century BC who collected stories from Egypt to Persia and weighed them against each other.

  • Sima Qian

    The Han court historian who chose to finish his record of China rather than die with his honour intact.

  • Ban Zhao

    The Han scholar who completed her family's history of the dynasty and taught at the imperial court.

  • Ibn Khaldun

    The fourteenth-century North African thinker who asked why dynasties rise and fall, and answered with a theory.

  • Anna Komnene

    The Byzantine princess who wrote the history of her father's reign from inside the palace.

What it covers

Ten areas, from the first cities to the Cold War.

The catalogue is arranged by area and track, so you can follow one thread, the Mongols say, or Rome, without sitting through everything in order.

  1. Ancient World

    3 tracks, 15 stories
    • Cradle of CitiesFree track
    • Life Along the Nile
    • From Republic to Empire

  2. Asian Empires

    2 tracks, 10 stories
    • The First Emperor and the Han
    • Genghis Khan and the Steppe

  3. The Americas

    2 tracks, 10 stories
    • The Maya and the AztecsFree track
    • Cortes, Pizarro and the Fall of Two Empires

  4. Africa and the Islamic World

    2 tracks, 10 stories
    • Baghdad's Golden Age
    • Mali and the Sahara Trade

  5. Medieval Europe

    2 tracks, 10 stories
    • Charlemagne, Vikings and 1066Free track
    • The Black Death

  6. Early Modern Europe

    1 track, 5 stories
    • Florence and the Medici

  7. Revolutions

    2 tracks, 10 stories
    • Copernicus to NewtonFree track
    • From the Bastille to Waterloo

  8. The Modern World

    2 tracks, 10 stories
    • Hitler to Hiroshima
    • The Cold War

  9. History of Ideas and Science

    2 tracks, 10 stories
    • The Axial AgeFree track
    • Life and the Body

  10. Everyday Life Through the Ages

    2 tracks, 10 stories
    • What People Ate
    • Coins, Banks and Bubbles

Five tracks are free. One opening track in each of five areas, twenty-five stories, the whole starting experience at no cost. New tracks are added as the catalogue grows.

Pricing

Start free. Pay for the rest by the month, the year or the seat.

The free tracks cost nothing. Past them there is one flat price for a person and one price per seat for a group, in US dollars.

See the plans
Free
Five opening tracks, twenty-five stories.
$29.99 a year
Every area and every track, for one person, billed once a year.
$24.00 per seat, a year
Per seat for a class, a club or a team, with an invite link and a web dashboard.
Questions

Before you ask

How long is a story?
About five minutes. A track is five stories on one thread, so you can finish a track in under half an hour, spread across as many days as you like.
Do I need any background in history?
No. Every story stands on its own, opens on a person and a moment, and explains any unfamiliar name or term in one sentence the first time it appears.
Are the historians real?
The names are real historians of the past, and the presenters are fictional likenesses of them, drawn and voiced for the app. What they say is written for a modern listener and checked against the evidence; where historians disagree, the story says so.
Is it for children?
It is written for adults, with the honesty that history needs: wars, plagues and cruelty appear where they happened, without gore for its own sake. Older teenagers get on with it well; younger children are not the audience.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. The stories are made for a phone first, with narration, so you can listen on a train or watch on a sofa. There is a web app too, and your progress follows your account.
What does it cost?
Five opening tracks are free: twenty-five stories. Past that there is a flat price for a person, by the month or the year, and a per-seat price for a group. Both are on the pricing page.
Get started

Your first story is waiting.

Open the app, pick an area, and let a historian take it from there. The free tracks need no card and no account to begin.

Start free

Web, iPhone and Android. Your progress follows you.