allhistories.comA history of education, schools & universities

Every generation has to learn everything again.

From a handaxe lesson 1.7 million years ago to AI tutors: the story of how humans pass on what they know, the schools, monasteries and universities that kept knowledge alive, and the fight over who was allowed to learn.

Start the story Watch learning spread

The relay: eight tools that carried learning from one generation to the next. Each handed the baton to the one after it.

Nine chapters

From the first lesson to the last exam

Each chapter asks one question. Scroll sideways to see the whole arc, or open a chapter to read it.

Literacy, 1820 → 2024

How the world learned to read

Two hundred years ago about one adult in eight could read. Today it is nearly nine in ten. Pick a year to fill the hundred.

Of every 100 adults, this many could read
88/100

in 2024

Centers of learning, 2000 BCE → today

Watch the schools appear

Temple schools, academies, monasteries, madrasas, then universities: 114 centers of learning, each placed on the map in the year it was founded.

Open the full map with lineage arcs

The 21st-century problem

Being in school is not the same as learning

The 20th century got most children into a classroom. The 21st has to make sure they learn there. In low- and middle-income countries, an estimated 70 of every 100 ten-year-olds cannot read and understand a simple text.

Source: The State of Global Learning Poverty, 2022 update (World Bank, UNESCO, UNICEF and partners). Simulated estimate.

See today's report card

100 ten-year-olds · grey = cannot read a simple text
True stories & speculation

Smuggled, burned, banned and rebuilt

All 32 storiesTry the what-ifs

Explore the microsite

Pick a way in

Chapters

Nine chapters of learning

Scroll through 2.6 million years. The panel shows the tool that defined each age; the text tells you what changed and why it mattered.

Timeline

Every lesson, in order

More than 300 events from the first stone tools to AI tutors, each linked to its source. Filter by chapter, theme or keyword.

Map

The spread of learning

Press play to watch 114 centers of learning appear in their founding years. Arcs show where scholars walked out to start new universities, or where one school copied another.

Most recently founded
    How to read the map

    Filled dots are still teaching today; hollow dots have closed. Solid arcs mark scholars who left to found a new school; dashed arcs mark a model that was copied.

    Universities

    Which is the oldest university?

    It depends on what you count. Choose a definition and watch the winner change.

    Family tree

    Universities were born from quarrels and copies

    When scholars fell out with a town, they walked out and started again. Others copied a successful model.

    Scholars left to found itCopied its modelJesuit colleges
    Student life, c. 1300

    A medieval student's day

    Up before dawn, lectures in Latin, arguments all afternoon, and a curfew bell at night. Choose a part of the day.

      An illustrative day pieced together from medieval university statutes. Hours varied by town, season and faculty.

      Town versus gown

      When students fought the town

      Teachers

      The people who taught the world

      Teachers, founders, inventors and rebels, from Confucius to Malala, one index card each.

      Stories

      True stories from the classroom of history

      Each story carries a reliability note, because some of the best-known ones are part legend.

      What if?

      Thirteen turning points that could have gone the other way

      Every card is speculation, grounded in what really happened. Turn a card over to see the history and the alternative.

      Today & Future

      The world's report card

      Huge progress on getting children into school. Much less on making sure they learn there. And a new question: what is a university for once AI can tutor anyone?

      Out of school, 2023

      272 million children and young people

      Most are teenagers of upper-secondary age. Since 2015 the total has barely moved.

      Higher education, gross enrolment ratio

      Who gets to university?

      Source: UNESCO. Gross ratios compare all enrolled students with the age group.

      Four learning revolutions

      Each new tool changed how we learn, not whether

      The AI-era question

      Will we still need to go to university?

      Weigh the evidence yourself. Untick anything you find unconvincing and watch the scale.

      Data

      The datasets behind the story

      Eight JSON files power every page of this microsite. Each record links to its source. Copy a file to use it in your own build.

      Menu structure

      allhistories.com/education

      Hero message options

      Lines for the homepage