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History for ages 10 to 18

Follow the trace of history.

Not loose dates, but traces you can follow: from a source to an event, to its time, to the world around it.

Start with the timelineRead a moment

No ads, no tracking, no account needed. The timeline, the eras and the first moments are free.

Three new exercises every day, the same for everyone. Do today's starter

Why Spoor

History is more than memorising dates.

At school you learn one battle, one revolt, one revolution, each in its own box. What happened elsewhere at the same time, why it happened and how we actually know often stays out of sight. Spoor puts the pieces back together.

  • Three tracks side by side

    Every event sits on the timeline in its track: here in the Low Countries, in Europe or elsewhere in the world. So you see what happened at the same time.

  • Three layers, always apart

    What happened, the background and the historians' reading are kept separate. You always see what kind of statement you are reading.

  • Sources and doubt

    Every moment shows what it rests on. Where numbers are uncertain or historians disagree, we say so, briefly and honestly.

Try it now

What happened at the same time?

Slide through time. For every year you see what happened nearby, in each of the three tracks.

1302Era: Middeleeuwen

Before Christ: a minus sign, like -57.
Try
Here: the Low Countries
  1. at the same time11 July 1302De Guldensporenslag
  2. 36 years laterJanuary 1338Jacob van Artevelde in Gent
Europe
  1. 87 years earlier1215De Magna Carta
  2. 45 years later1347 – 1351De Zwarte Dood
The rest of the world
  1. 96 years earlier1206Dzjengis Khan
  2. 22 years later1324Mansa Musa naar Mekka

A moment in three layers

How a moment reads

11 July 1302 · Groeningekouter, Kortrijk (West-Vlaanderen)

De Guldensporenslag

Draft

  1. What happened

    What historians broadly agree on.

    In de zomer van 1302 trok een Frans leger onder Robert II van Artois naar Kortrijk om de opstand in Vlaanderen neer te slaan. Op de Groeningekouter, een veld buiten de stad tussen beken en grachten, stond een Vlaams leger klaar dat vooral uit stedelijke milities bestond, aangevoerd door edelen als Gwijde van Namen en Willem van Gulik.

  2. Background

    Causes, circumstances and how people lived.

    Vlaanderen was rond 1300 een van de rijkste en dichtstbevolkte streken van Europa. De steden leefden van laken, geweven van Engelse wol. De graaf, Gwijde van Dampierre, was leenman van de Franse koning Filips IV de Schone, maar had belang bij goede banden met Engeland. Filips wilde het rijke graafschap strakker onder zijn gezag.

  3. Interpretation

    How historians read it. This is interpretation, not fact.

    Historici zien 1302 vandaag vooral als een conflict tussen een vorst en zijn machtige leenman, en als een sociale strijd binnen de steden. Er stonden Vlamingen aan beide kanten, en de taal speelde geen hoofdrol.

Read the whole moment

Dig deeper

Six eras, layer upon layer

Like an archaeologist digging through the layers, you go back from our time to the first humans. Every layer has a gate that explains how people lived then and how we know.

  1. Eigen tijd1945 – until todayVan de Koude Oorlog en Europa tot de wereld van vandaag.5 moments
  2. Nieuwste tijd1789 – 1945Revoluties, fabrieken, natiestaten en twee wereldoorlogen.6 moments
  3. Nieuwe tijd1492 – 1789Ontdekkingsreizen, Reformatie, godsdienstoorlogen en Verlichting.6 moments
  4. Middeleeuwen476 – 1492Duizend jaar van kloosters, burchten, steden en kathedralen.6 moments
  5. Oudheidc. 3000 BC – 476Van het eerste schrift tot het einde van het West-Romeinse Rijk.3 moments
  6. Prehistorieabout 1,000,000 years ago – c. 3000 BCDe lange tijd zonder schrift: jagers, verzamelaars en de eerste boeren.2 moments

For schools

For schools and teachers.

Spoor works in class without fuss: nothing to install, no pupil accounts, and a worksheet is ready in a minute. Historical thinking is at the centre: reading sources, ordering time, cause and effect, several perspectives.

Make a worksheetPractise now

  • Eleven practice sets, three levels

    From the timeline and counting centuries to reading sources and cause and effect. Every exercise is new and checked straight away.

  • Worksheets with solutions

    Choose a set, a level and the number of exercises. Print, the solutions are on a separate sheet.

  • No pupil accounts

    Pupils practise without logging in. What they can do stays on their own device.

  • Timeline and maps for the board

    Every era has its own schematic map with layers to switch on and off, big enough to look at together.

Spoor and Kaft

A fair price, and a family of apps.

Spoor belongs to Kaft, the book cover with an app for every subject. No ads and no tracking, so you pay with money, not with your data.

Start for free: the timeline, the eras, the first three moments and practice for the first three skills. All of Spoor costs 4 euros a month or 36 euros a year, or take the Kaft package with every app. You sign in and pay on Kaft. Then one click opens every moment and exercise here.

Prices at Kaft

Who makes Spoor

Made by nealvdv, Draad's sister.

Spoor comes from nealvdv, a small Belgian web studio. It is the sister of Draad, the app for reading the Bible in context: the same care, the same three layers, now for history. Everything is a draft until a historian or teacher has reviewed it.

About Spoor and how we workDraadnealvdv.be

Where will you start?

With a year you know, an era you need to know, or a moment you have always wanted to understand.

Start with the timelinePick an era

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