World History Encyclopedia

World History Encyclopedia (formerly Ancient History Encyclopedia) is a non-profit encyclopedia created in 2009 by Jan van der Crabben.^[1]

World History Encyclopedia

Founded	August 2009; 16 years ago (2009-08)
Founder	Jan van der Crabben
Type	Nonprofit organization
Location	Horsham, United Kingdom
Services	E-learning, Education
Official languages	English
Key people	Jan van der Crabben (Founder and CEO), James Blake Wiener (Co-Founder), Joshua J. Mark (Co-Founder), Mark Cartwright Publishing Director
Affiliations	UNESCO, University of Buenos Aires, OER Commons
Employees	4 (2018)
Website	www.worldhistory.org
Formerly called	Ancient History Encyclopedia

Organization history

Van der Crabben founded Ancient History Encyclopedia in 2009 with the stated goal of improving history education worldwide by creating a freely accessible and reliable history source.^[1] The non-profit organization is based in Godalming, United Kingdom and Montreal, Canada, although it has no office and its team is globally distributed.^[2][3]

The site had an emphasis on ancient history when it was founded, but it later shifted to cover the Medieval and early Modern periods as well. In 2021, the organization renamed itself World History Encyclopedia to reflect this change.^[4]

Reception

The website has received praise by educational organizations and has been recommended by the School Library Journal,^[5] the Internet Scout Research Group at the University of Wisconsin–Madison,^[6] MERLOT^[7] and the European Commission's Open Education Europa initiative.^[8] In 2016, it won the .eu Web Award for education from the organization EURid.^[9]