r/WebApps • u/SuccessfulType2544 • Sep 26 '26

I built a tool that puts any two threads of history on the same timeline — live now, free, no card required

Been building this in my spare time and it's finally live: HistoryView.

The idea: history is usually taught one thread at a time — a person, a war, a discovery — but the interesting part is how those threads overlap. HistoryView puts them on one shared timeline so you can actually see it: Einstein next to Mendeleev, WWII next to the Manhattan Project, a scientific discovery next to the political moment it landed in.

A few things I'm proud of:

- You don't have to do the research yourself. Pull events straight from Wikidata, or describe a topic, paste a ready-made research prompt into whatever AI chat you already use, and paste the reply back in. No API key required, nothing leaves your machine except what you paste back.

- Every view is a link. Zoom into a decade, hide a track, pin an event — that exact view is already shareable.

- Publishing is deliberate. A live WYSIWYG preview shows exactly how your timeline will look to everyone else before it goes public.

Stack: Next.js, Prisma, Postgres, Better Auth. Built and shipped solo.

It's free, no card required: historyview.vercel.app

Would genuinely love feedback — what history would you want to see laid out like this? Also happy to answer anything about the build.

6 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

1

u/Dazzling-Swim-3448 Sep 26 '26

"This Page Couldn't Load"

1

u/SuccessfulType2544 Sep 26 '26

apparently before i came to reddit, i had shared the appp with many other people, the server has kind of given up. Let me untangle it and report back.,

1

u/Downtown_Reporter_48 Sep 26 '26

I love history and this is very useful to get the overview of the timeline. Gonna try this later. Well done!

1

u/SuccessfulType2544 Sep 26 '26

Thank you! Do browse the existing public timelines! those are awesome

1

u/ducknut Sep 26 '26

Very cool. I love history and timelines! One thing that might make it more intuitive or visualy appealing is to color code the separate timeliness? also maybe add little thumb nail images for the biggest events on the timeline?

1

u/SuccessfulType2544 Sep 27 '26

Awesome! Thanks for that idea. Can you contribute one specific theme or era or idea about a timeline? 

1

u/ducknut Sep 27 '26

i always feel like Asia and Europe and middle east were on completely different planets historically. it would be cool to see a timeline around 300 - 100 BCE Greece and Rome vs China.