The Théhisthum^TM project started with the somewhat crazy idea of displaying 15,000 significant historical figures and outstanding events of the last 5,000 years on one single surface ! Viewing the entire history of mankind from as far as the invention of writing has enabled historians, philosophers and travelers to recount the stories of great events or ruling dynasties at a single glance, without needing to turn a single page.
By gazing over Ramses II, Plato, Copernicus and Steve Jobs, Julius Caesar, Antonio Vivaldi, Richard the Lionheart, Jean Jaurès and Stanley Kubrick on a single synoptic table, the onlooker is being provided with a new synchronic vision of the broad theatre of History, and those who presided over the sometimes rough walk of civilizations.

HISTORICAL FIGURES ARE DISPLAYED CHRONOLOGICALLY ON A GIANT DIAGRAM SPANNING
from the first pharaohs and Chinese emperors to the present day. Dynasties and series of political figures are grouped together by country or empire, from north to south. Each figure appears as a coloured block (with a key code), which lenght is proportional to the person’s real – or estimated – lifetime, providing a perfectly consistent scale across fifty centuries.

The table includes almost each and every great historical figure in every field up until the sixteenth century. From that point, it focuses on major artists, authors, scientists and inventors.
This educational tool offers the chance to jog your memory, by playing with your knowledge and restoring names or events from your personal memento or years as a student.

By highlighting the temporal proximity of great historical figures, the Théhisthum^TM allows us to rebuild our mental map of history and provides a more accurate vision of civilizations, their origins and dates. We have all heard about Mozart and Tchaïkovski, Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt, Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo, Charlemagne and Tamerlane, Nefertiti and Cleopatra, Shakespeare and Goethe, in their own fields, but could we re-situate them where they belong on the scale of centuries ?
LET’S GIVE IT A TRY: would Bach have been able to read Rabelais ? (Yes !). Would the king François the 1st have been able to meet Galileo ? (No !). Could Roosevelt have listened to a Bob Marley song ? (No ! the former died in 1945, the latter was born in the very same year). Who was the king of France when the Inca empire came to an end ? Charles the 9th, 1572.

In Théhisthum^TM table, the political, military and intellectual environment of the time in which these historical figures lived, is enlightened by the dating of major events : conflicts, famous battles, natural disasters or deadly pandemics, but also geographical or scientific discoveries. The table also includes the birth of languages, alphabets, calendars, scientific and technological innovations and all the major steps that punctuated the rise of modern cultures and civilizations.

Thehistum™ visual “ who’s who ” does not claim to analyze, clarify, or illustrate history : it has no pretention of being anything but a chronological compilation of human History.
Historians’s works remain essential to get an in-depth understanding of this universal fresco.

Théhisthum^TM  is the most cross-cutting and all-inclusive synoptic table available today !