A great many of the battle lines of the ideological struggles of the 20th century could be considered to have been first drawn by the Revolutions of 1848. The political strife and spread of radical new ideas that swept across Europe in the year 1848 would have profound significance for the theoretical development of modern ideas of democracy, liberalism, nationalism and socialism worldwide. But what exactly were the events that occurred in 1848, and how did they come to pass? The Revolutions of 1848 consisted of a large number of simultaneous, distinct yet significantly interconnected events that I thought would be an ideal subject to demonstrate the interactive virtual timeline creator TimelineJS. With a TimelineJS timeline, I’ve visualized some of the key events to create a clear and easy to understand picture of the sequence in which the Revolutions of 1848 unfolded, helping to illustrate how they impacted one another.
Developing the Timeline
Of all the events that I chose, the ones I found the most important were the ones to do with the growth of internal tensions among revolutionaries such as the June Days Uprising in France, the debates at the Frankfurt Parliament in Germany, and the Hungarian War of Independence. It’s these events- between the initial successes of revolutionary organizations and their abrupt downfall that I would argue most encapsulate the challenges of the Revolutions of 1848 and carried the most significant lessons for future political movements.
When filling out all twelve major events for the timeline, I wanted to add enough to give context to those primary pivotal events, and then wanted to ensure that I gave a fair amount of attention to all of the major theaters of the revolutions- France, Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. I wanted to distribute my events roughly evenly across time as well. There were a couple events that I wish I could have added more about but didn’t- the political turmoil in France following the June Days would also have profound impacts on the future of political thought, although it extended slightly longer than the scope that this timeline was intended for. If the timeline was longer, I think I would have given slightly more attention to Germany, and perhaps mentioned a few more specific people and groups that were involved in the events.
One persistent difficulty in developing the timeline was that there weren’t necessarily many images for many of my events, particularly ones with Creative Commons licenses. Overall, however, I think that I was more successful in finding images than I initially expected to be. The images that I found are a mixture of primary and secondary sources. In a timeline like this, the images add color, an eye-catching liveliness that keeps the viewer engaged in ways that text alone can’t. I’m broadly confident that my timeline is historically accurate, as most of the dates that I present are factual and easily cross-referenceable in multiple sources.
How Timelines Shape History
A timeline is one of the easiest and most straightforward ways to introduce an audience to a historical subject. It gives a list of the most key events to remember and places them in context relative to each other, building a clear narrative. Depending on how a timeline is presented, it may create an impression of the first and last events being the definitive beginning or end of an era, when in reality those choices may be more or less arbitrary. Additionally, while timelines are very helpful for introducing basic facts about a subject, they are often limited in their ability to critically analyze the reasons for which an event occurred by presenting history as simply a sequence of one event after another.
Final Thoughts
I’m very glad to have learned about TimelineJS and I hope that others will find it useful or interesting themselves. Taking on this project has improved my knowledge of the Revolutions of 1848, and I would definitely say that the timeline I made would be a helpful reference for understanding the sequence of events. If I were to create another timeline, I might sort the events more clearly by type or location, but as is, I thought that TimelineJS was very simple to use and aesthetically pleasing, and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone interested in making a presentation-style timeline.
History Against the Grain 
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