Learn history in a visual, interactive way.
Gurwi is an app of history classes where you see what you read: who it was, where it happened and what was going on around it, with portraits, maps and quizzes.
- 4.7 Average rating, 1,700+ reviews
- 40,000+ downloads
- Build in Public award, Shipaton 2025
History is hard to follow when you can't see it.
You read that something happened on the banks of the Danube. Where is that? Who was that emperor? What else was going on? Without seeing it, you lose the thread.
Here you see it right when you need it.
The images, the maps and the context come with the story. Understanding the world gets a lot easier.
Photo: Rudolfo KitheraAn emperor facing his own death on the Danube
Imagine a man in his fifties in a military camp on the banks of the . … At night, that man writes brief notes to himself in Greek. He is , emperor of , and what he writes today is sold in airports under the title Meditations.
You know who it was.
Names stop being just names. They have a face, a trade and a life to tell.
You see where it happened.
On the night of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere left Boston and reached Lexington. He never made it to Concord.
You understand what was going on around it.
Uruk was no village. It had tens of thousands of people, gigantic temples, armies and, above all, bureaucracy. That is where mathematics was born.
And if you're out walking, it tells you the story.
In the app, classes can also be heard.
And it changes what you thought you knew.
Jefferson Davis took his oath as Confederate president on the Alabama Capitol portico in 1861, the same building where the Selma marchers rallied in 1965.
He was sworn in on that portico on February 18, 1861. In 1965 the Selma-to-Montgomery march ended in front of the same building, though marchers were kept off the steps and spoke from a flatbed truck.
Where will you start?
- 3100 BCUruk
- AD 170Rome and the Danube
- 1775Boston
- 1819Gran Colombia
- 1925Long Island
- 1965Montgomery
- TodayUnrecognized countries
Five to start with
- 3100 BC
Counting Sheep: how bureaucracy and trade invented mathematicsThe origin of numbers has everything to do with beer, bread and making sure no one escaped paying taxes. - 1819
The uniqueness of ColombiaThe events that shaped a country and still set its direction. - 1925
The Great Gatsby and the dream it exposesIts author died thinking it had flopped. Today it's the novel that takes the American dream apart. - 1965
How Montgomery remade American civil rightsOn the same streets: slave auctions, the first Confederate capital and a 381-day bus boycott. - Today
Unrecognized states: living in a country that officially does not existThey have a government, an army and a currency. All they lack is permission to exist.
What people usually ask
- How do you learn history as an adult?
- Start with a story you're curious about, not a list of dates. Place it on a map and a timeline, put faces to the people, and test yourself at the end. That way every fact has somewhere to live and the next class connects to the last.
- What's in a Gurwi history class?
- A story of 6 to 14 minutes with portraits, maps, images and quizzes. Tap a name or a place and you see it right there, without leaving the story. In the app you can also listen to it.
- What eras can I learn?
- From Mesopotamia to today: the origin of numbers, Rome, the American Revolution, South American independence, the Roaring Twenties, civil rights and the countries the world doesn't recognize.
- Can I learn American history with it?
- Yes. Follow the start of the Revolution in Boston on a map, walk through the Confederacy and civil rights in Alabama, and see what the American dream meant in the 1920s.
- Where can I use it?
- In your browser, with nothing to install, and in the app for iPhone and Android.
Start with a story.
In your browser, or in the app for iPhone and Android.