the open ledger

Data API

The archive is readable by machines as well as people. The API is free, read only, and needs no key. Limits: 60 requests per minute per address. Please attribute quoted text to Humans of History and portrait images per their individual credits.

GET /api/v1/people

List or search published records. Query parameters:

q: search by name or description (typo tolerant)
era: one of ancient, medieval, early-modern, modern, contemporary
occupation: e.g. philosopher, physicist, monarch
category: a category slug from /categories
page and limit (max 100) for pagination

Example:

curl "https://humansofhistory.com/api/v1/people?era=ancient&occupation=philosopher&limit=5"

GET /api/v1/person/{slug}

The full record: biographical facts, the complete article (summary, sections as Markdown, questions and answers, infobox), and the numbered source list that the inline citation markers refer to. Records archived on the blockchain also return arweaveTxId and permanentCopy, a gateway URL for the immutable copy on Arweave (see permanence).

Example:

curl "https://humansofhistory.com/api/v1/person/aristotle"

Also machine-readable: every person page carries schema.org Person, ProfilePage, and FAQPage JSON-LD; new records are announced in the RSS feed; and llms.txt orients AI crawlers. Questions or higher-volume needs: contact the Keeper.