How this works
Only documented history is shown. Every event links to its source. Nothing is invented to fill gaps; when a stretch of time has no records near this spot, the slider says so.
Where it comes from. Events come from Wikidata (places with map coordinates and dates, people born or who died here, battles, treaties and disasters nearby, and changes of country or government) and are cross-checked with Wikipedia. For the Centerville and Kettering, Ohio area, a hand-checked set of local events (from the local historical society, National Register records and Wikipedia) is added.
Checks before an event is shown. An item needs a Wikipedia article in at least one language. Dates marked wrong (deprecated) on Wikidata are ignored. Future dates are dropped. People are only listed if three or more Wikipedia language editions cover them. When sources give different dates, the event says ādates disagreeā and shows each date. Where possible the year is also looked for in the Wikipedia articleās summary, and the event says whether it matched.
The dashed circle is the search radius (5 km to start). Faded glows mark events outside the circle that probably shaped the area, such as a nearby battle or treaty. How far that influence reached is our rough estimate, not a sourced figure, which is why the edge fades out instead of stopping at a line.
People are pinned at the town or place on record (for example āborn in Yorkā), not at an exact house.
Images are public domain or Creative Commons files from Wikimedia Commons, shown with the author and license. Tap a pin on the map to see them.
The time scale stretches recent centuries so they arenāt squeezed by thousands of quiet years. Use + and ā (or scroll on the slider) to zoom.
About and privacy
Part of Discover Your World. No account, no ads, no tracking cookies. Your location is used only if you tap ā, and it stays in your browser; only the map center (rounded to about 100 m) is sent to look up history. Lookups are cached for a few days to go easy on the free Wikimedia services.
Map imagery Ā© Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics; labels Ā© Esri. Place search Ā© OpenStreetMap contributors (Nominatim). Data from Wikidata (CC0) and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Images from Wikimedia Commons under the license shown with each one.