The other day walking through the center of Madrid I was surprised by the number of old buildings that display a plaque indicating that a certain writer or artist lived there. And he made me wonder how many of these posters there were in the whole city, which in turn seemed to me something very difficult to find, given the large amount of information collected in all these centuries. However, and to my surprise, the Royal Academy of History has done something similar: gather on an interactive map all the geographical references of historical figures and events from every part of the world.
In other words, a map that includes the births, deaths, and relevant events of each of the characters in Hispanic history.
The map stands out for its global scale, which allows you to move around it and discover the historical characters and facts from city to city and people to people in each of the five continents. It could be said that it has the most information on Hispanic history gathered to date, being the first time that a virtual map of these characteristics has been developed.
Specifically, the Royal Academy of History shows the geographical position of the events and characters in Hispanic history with nearly 150,000 references. These geolocations, which extend throughout the planet Earth, indicate the places of activity of more than 50,000 characters and the location of more than 20,000 events in our history from the year 1,350,000 BC to the present.
Map of Hispanic History.
How does it work?
Next we will explain how to use the map efficiently and what we can find on it. As soon as you access the website, which you can find at this link, you will see a map full of thumbtacks. These geographic markers can be isolated or grouped based on the greater or lesser density of historical data for each area.
The user can get closer to the place he wants by making zoom and by clicking on each geographic marker, a window will show you the quantified lists of characters born or dead in that place (ordered alphabetically) and the historical events that happened there (ordered chronologically), being able to access the specific content of each one of those records.
Geographical references in the town of Cuéllar (Segovia).
In other words, clicking on each of these points will open a window with the different births, deaths and relevant events such as wars and events. And if you click on the name of each of the entries, the web redirects you to another page that contains his biography or a historical and contextual summary of the historical fact.
A very dynamic feature is the lower skirt that includes the portal, where there are four areas for specific searches on characters (Who), times (When), places (Where) and themes (What). In the “epochs” section, for example, there is a timeline that allows you to select a specific date. And the characters and events of Hispanic History active in that selected year will be shown on the map.
But you can also do specific searches in the search engine that it includes. Just write a keyword of a character or a historical fact and all the events that are related to it will be loaded on the map, as well as the birth and death of the most important characters.
In these cases, the information from the biographies is presented with the following structure: the character’s works (if any), the sources (if any), the author’s bibliography and signature, the three types of relationship with other characters , a section of “facts and places”, which links each character with the historical events that they starred in and the geographical points of their biography, from the places of birth and death, to their places of vital itinerary.
Example of biography of Gabriel de Cárdenas Maldonado, born in Cuéllar (Segovia).
It should also be mentioned that, according to the website, all the biographies are signed by specialists. “Its contents have the criterion of authority and the guarantee of scientific quality provided by more than 500 scientific institutions national and international who have collaborated in the development and implementation of this database and the nearly 5,000 historians and researchers who have contributed to preparing the contents”, says the Royal Academy of History.
This is undoubtedly an incredible opportunity to consult and study History for free, without limits and interactively. And above all, with the help of a map so as not to get lost. After all, our country has been the first to create a “Google Maps” of its history.
Search for Miguel de Unamuno and timeline of relevant events in his life.
Map: Royal Academy of History
