CuriosityMonster

Three ways in

Scroll it. Map it. Play it.

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

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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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What they have in common

Pick a world

8 worlds. Thousands of lives. Pick a door.

RulersNames carved into monuments

1,542people5,000years4journeys

ScientistsThree millennia of discovery

1,374people2,500years3journeys

MusiciansThe lives behind the melodies

771people1,000years2journeys

ArtistsSix centuries of paintings

724people900years3journeys

Balkan FunkBetaThree thousand years at the crossroads

1,549people2,500years

WritersBetaHow Stories Were Told

1,321people4,500years

BattlesBetaCareers measured in campaigns

1,104people2,500years

BuildersBeta

791people4,500years