104 BCE
Sima Qian Writes Shiji
About this moment
Sima Qian (c. 145 BC – c. 86 BC) was a Chinese historian during the early Han dynasty. He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for the Shiji (sometimes translated into English as Records of the Grand Historian), a general history of China covering more than two thousand years from the rise of the legendary Yellow Emperor and formation of the first Chinese polity to the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, during which Sima wrote. As the first universal history of the world as it was known to the ancient Chinese, the Shiji served as a model for official histories for subsequent dynasties across the Sinosphere until the 20th century.
People
- Sima Qian · 145 BCE – 86 BCE