This last year was quite a ride for the team at Ancient History Encyclopedia. Like every company, we had highs and lows, but in the end everything worked out just fine and we’re in a much stronger position than when we started. Our biggest achievement is probably that this year, we became the world’s biggest ancient history website (more about that below). Even after five years, I’m still impressed by what we’ve achieved with almost no money! I personally want to thank our team of volunteer editors and authors, who made this all possible. Our core team has invested countless hours of their free time into making this project possible. Our many authors from across the globe (all volunteers) have provided us with excellent content, both writing and photography, to give to the world for free. Also, a big thanks to our partners and of course our audience, who have always supported us, given great feedback, and kept coming back. Thank you all!

We’ve set up an online shop! It’s that time of the year when greeting cards are in order. If you’re tired of sending reindeer or Santa cards, our shop on Etsy is just for you. We’ve selected four of our best photos on Ancient History Encyclopedia and turned them into postcards. They’re not only beautiful photos, but the cards are also of highest quality, with a satin finish. Go and have a look!

National Geographic maintains a list of what they consider to be the Top 10 Museums of the World. While that list is of course debatable, all of the museums on that list are very impressive heavyweights when it comes to museums. We wondered: How does Ancient History Encyclopedia compare to those museums when it comes to internet traffic to their websites? The surprising finding: We’re estimated to have more internet visitors than all but two of the world’s top ten museums! More than the British Museum in London or the Louvre in Paris, both of which have very prestigious and substantial websites. Only the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York get more traffic than us. WOW! This is mindblowing! Clearly, our readers (yes, that’s you) like what we’re doing, and support us by coming back and recommending us to their friends. We thank you very much for all your support… without it, our little group of less than 10 volunteers would never have achieved this in only five years.

This week, Ancient History Encyclopedia has for the first time in its history surpassed 50,000 visits in a single day. This is a huge milestone, of which we’re of course extremely proud. In the last two years, we went from around 150,000 visits a month to over 1,000,000 visits and 1.8 million pageviews per month. We strongly believe in creating unique and in-depth content and giving it to the world for free. Millions of students, teachers, and history enthusiasts have visited our site this year. It’s our mission to give the world what is otherwise only found in expensive textbooks, and it seems like it’s working. We thank you all for your continued support! If you want to help us with our mission, we’re always looking for more article submissions and donations (it costs us about $75 in books to create a definition). You can also simply subscribe to our newsletter, or share our page on social media.