what is being asked, and what came back
344 battles · 1505 sources · 59 city profiles · 26 contested fields · 8 ideas discarded · generated 2026-09-19
Most of what is written about the past is an account written by somebody with a reason. The work here starts from that rather than around it. Every battle, every office, every city profile records not only what is claimed but who is claiming it and what would have to be true for the claim to fail.
The register below is not a collection of facts. It is a collection of claims with their evidence attached, and — the part that took longest to build — a standing list of the ones that did not hold up.
10 of 18
stories tested against the record, and refuted
Every account written by a winner needs its subject to have been a certain way. Each of these was checked against evidence outside that account. 10 refuted, 6 still unknown, 2 contested — and none upheld.
3 of 6
Angkor's collapse rests on the weakest tier of evidence
Six factors are on record. Only one is documented directly; three sit at the most interpretive tier there is. Any account that gives Angkor a single cause is stating the weakest kind of claim in the strongest kind of sentence.
9
absences recorded with the search that failed
A thing that is not in the record is only a finding if you can say where you looked. Each of these names the scope searched.
127
instruments built and deliberately left empty
A table with no rows is a question nobody has answered yet. They are counted rather than hidden, because an instrument that was never fed and an instrument with nothing to find look identical from outside.
8 ideas that felt universal and failed against the material. They are kept, dated, with the reason — because an idea that is quietly dropped gets rediscovered by the same person eighteen months later.
“The Russian winter defeats invaders.”
Fails against #9. Supplied troops survived the same temperatures. The winter finishes what logistics started.
“Technology determines outcomes.”
Fails against #16. Korea had metal movable type before Gutenberg and got no printing revolution.
“Terrain always favours the defender.”
Too coarse. Terrain favours whichever side its specific properties suit — open steppe favoured the attacker at Uranus, and the same rubble that protected Chuikov's men also fragmented German command.
“The dynastic cycle.”
A framework imposed by later historians, self-fulfilling in application, and unfalsifiable as usually stated. It is in the imperial government sheet flagged as tier 3 for exactly this reason.
“Propaganda works.”
Almost never measured. Campaigns are assessed by their budgets and their volume, and hardly ever by whether anyone changed their mind. The honest position is that effect is unknown in most cases.
“Money is a neutral measure across time.”
Fails against #14 and the entire money protocol. Three dollars circulated in 1863 at floating rates, and three deflators give answers an order of magnitude apart.
“Great men decide history.”
The material cuts both ways too hard. Chuikov's presence mattered at Stalingrad and the Romanian frontage on the Don mattered more. The register handles this by giving every commander a `characteristic_weakness` and a `remembrance` mechanism rather than a rank.
“Civilisations rise and fall in phases.”
The Targowski layer is a framework to test, not a finding to assume, and your own atlas cannot currently test it — which is the correct answer for now.
Every city profile answers one question, and grouping by the answer produces comparisons that a map arranged by region destroys.
harbour7 countries · 9 cities
Basra · Busan · Dubai · Guangzhou · Ho Chi Minh City · Hong Kong · Manila · Shanghai · Yangon
confluence7 countries · 8 cities
Ayutthaya · Baghdad · Bangkok · Dhaka · Hanoi · Osaka · Patna (Pataliputra) · Phnom Penh
river crossing6 countries · 8 cities
Agra · Bagan · Delhi · Kaesong · Lahore · Mosul · Nanjing · Pyongyang
oasis5 countries · 9 cities
Aleppo · Bukhara · Damascus · Isfahan · Palmyra · Petra · Riyadh · Samarkand · Tehran
The War Atlas
What can actually be said about a battle, and by whose account?
344battles
The Instrument Atlas
Presidents, religions and institutions are all parties. What binds them?
40instruments
Asia — thraldom, office and the city
Five different institutions are called slavery. What actually separates them?
59city profiles
Religions and their divergences
A schism is not a label. Can it be derived from what two parties stopped sharing?
30traditions
Several of the tables behind this page hold no rows at all. They are built, they are counted, and they are empty on purpose — an instrument that has never been fed and an instrument with nothing to find look identical from the outside, and only one of those is worth saying.
