What is historical background knowledge?
While studying the past, you will encounter a wide range of words that you may never have heard of before. As a result, it is important to find out what they mean.
This is what we call 'background knowledge', which are the essential facts about a topic that allow you to understand what happened in the past.
It includes people, events, dates, places, and basic sequences of events. Without understanding this kind of new information, you will probably struggle to interpret sources, explain causes, or assess significance.
So, before you can develop these more complex historical skills, you should develop a better familiarity with any new information you are unfamiliar with so far.
The simplest way to do this is to focus on one individual and event, and answer questions that start with the following words:
| Enquiry word: | Explanation: |
| Who? | Helps you learn the individuals and groups involved, especially those who were most significant |
| What? | Helps you learn the key events, and can help you assess the causes and consequences or change and continuity |
| When? | Helps you learn the important dates, as well as help you form a useful chronology |
| Where? | Helps you learn the important locations, especially those that were most significant |
Only once you are comfortable with these details can you begin to answer the more difficult knowledge questions, which usually start with the following words:
| Enquiry word: | Explanation: |
| Why? | Helps you assess the causes and consequences or motives |
| How? | Helps you assess causes and consequences or change and continuity |
Useful websites for background knowledge
There are a wide range of websites that can help you develop your background knowledge. If you're unsure where to start look for answers to your questions, the following websites can be of use:
The free online encyclopaedia
Ancient History Encyclopedia is a non-profit educational website with a global vision: to provide the best ancient history information on the internet for free.
A website which aims to provide historical information that is easy for both children and adults to navigate, is written in accessible language, is illustrated wherever possible and makes learning fun.
Why background knowledge matters
Without good background knowledge, you can often misread or misunderstand what is said in historical sources, since you won't know important terms, or confuse the timeline of key events.
For example, if you know that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand took place in 1914, and that it involved Austria-Hungary and Serbia, you can much more easly underst and the important event known as the 'July Crisis'.
However, without this knowledge, it is almost impossible to keep a track the sequence of events.
Looking for a worksheet to record your background research?
