Historidex / Learn history

Learn history with real photos and film

The easiest way to learn history is to look at it. Historidex shows you one real photo or film clip at a time from public archives, with a short caption that says what you are seeing and why it matters. Ten stories a day takes about ten minutes, and then the feed ends.

Open Historidex Free, no account.

Why pictures help when you learn history

Names and dates tend to stick when they are attached to a face, a street or an object you have actually seen. Every story pairs one image with two or three plain sentences, so you get the fact and the picture together.

How to learn history in ten minutes a day

Open the feed and read the caption.
When a story asks, guess the year before you see it. Guessing first makes the answer easier to remember.
Tap More for what happened next, or open the longer version of a story you want to know properly.
Save the stories you want to keep.

What you can learn here

There are 385 stories so far, from 51 ancient objects and sites to the Apollo missions, grouped into 11 collections:

Firsts: The first time anyone did it, or saw it.
Disasters: Floods, fires, quakes and storms, the day they happened.
Building the famous: Landmarks before they were finished.
In color: The past in real color: early color plates, hand-colored prints and the first Kodachromes.
Vanished worlds: Courts, cities and ways of life that are gone.
Faces: Ordinary and extraordinary people, looking back at you.
Forgotten jobs: Work that no longer exists, and daily life around it.
Strange inventions: Machines and ideas that almost caught on.
Famous, but not like this: Well-known people and places, from an angle few have seen.
Sky and space: Balloons, planes, rockets and the view from up there.
Leaders: What made them matter, and what you can learn from it.

Where the pictures come from

Every photo and film comes from a public collection such as the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the Met or NASA. Each story links to its source, and every story is checked three times before it is published.

Questions about learning history

What is the easiest way to learn history?

Start with things you can see. A real photo or film clip with a short caption is easier to remember than a list of dates, and ten minutes a day builds the habit.

How long should I spend learning history each day?

Ten minutes is enough to build a habit. Historidex gives you ten stories a day and then stops, so it never turns into an hour of scrolling.

Is Historidex free?

Ten stories a day are free, with no account and no ads. Historidex Pro removes the daily limit.

Where do the photos come from?

From public collections such as the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the Met and NASA. Every story links to its source.