Labs / History
History
Empires, trade, and ideas unfolding across animated maps and timelines.
Out of Africa
Watch early humans spread across the world map
Open →The First Farmers
Model farming radiating out from the Fertile Crescent
Open →Cradles of Civilization
Discover why first cities clung to flooding rivers
Open →Tamed or Wild
Test which species and continents favor domestication
Open →From Picture to Sign
Morph pictographs into abstract cuneiform over time
Open →Rosetta Decoder
Crack an ancient script by matching parallel texts
Open →Empire in Motion
Scrub an empire's borders as they swell and shatter
Open →The Dynastic Cycle
Run the feedback loop of prosperity and collapse
Open →All Roads Lead to Rome
Build roads and race messengers along shortest paths
Open →Silk Road Relay
Pass goods hand to hand and watch prices climb
Open →Gold for Salt
Cross the Sahara trading salt slabs for gold
Open →The Columbian Exchange
Drag crops, animals, and diseases between two worlds
Open →Spread of a Faith
Diffuse a religion along roads and trade routes
Open →The Printing Press
Race a print shop against monastery scribes
Open →Calendar Gears
Mesh lunar and solar cycles into one calendar
Open →The Black Death
Spread plague along medieval ports and trade routes
Open →World Population Clock
Grow humanity's headcount across ten thousand years
Open →Demographic Transition
Reshape a population pyramid through modernization
Open →Push and Pull
Simulate people flowing between city and countryside
Open →Innovation Tree
Unlock inventions along branching prerequisite chains
Open →The Steam Engine
Drive a piston and power the industrial revolution
Open →Canals and Rails
Build transport links that collapse travel time
Open →