What Was...? Books in Order
What Was...? contains 65 books, published between 2013 and 2023. The first book is What Was the Hindenburg? (2013) and the newest is What Was the Children's Blizzard of 1888? (2023). Publication order is the reading order below.
- Books
- 65
- Published
- 2013–2023
- Confirmed
- 1 of 65 titles
- Pages on record
- 224 in 2 of 65 books
What Was...? is a children's nonfiction series, 65 titles catalogued between 2013 and 2023. Each book answers its own title question about one historical event or place. Eight volumes opened the line in 2013: the Hindenburg, the Battle of Gettysburg, the Gold Rush, the March on Washington, the Boston Tea Party, Pearl Harbor, the Alamo and the Underground Railroad. Pompeii and Ellis Island followed in 2014. The books run about 112 pages and address readers aged 8 to 12. What Was the Children's Blizzard of 1888? (2023) is the last entry.
How many What Was...? books are there?
What Was...? has 65 books, released between 2013 and 2023.
What Was...? Books in Publication Order
The table lists all 65 What Was...? books in the order they were published, with the release year, the page count where one is on record, and how many independent book listings confirm each title. Catalogue data as of September 2026.
- 1What Was the Hindenburg?2013 · confirmed 2/42013–2/4
- 2What Was the Battle of Gettysburg?2013 · confirmed 2/42013–2/4
- 3What Was the Gold Rush?2013 · confirmed 2/42013–2/4
- 4What Was the March on Washington?2013 · confirmed 2/42013–2/4
- 5What Was the Boston Tea Party?2013 · confirmed 2/42013–2/4
- 6What Was Pearl Harbor?2013 · confirmed 2/42013–2/4
- 7What Was the Alamo?2013 · confirmed 2/42013–2/4
- 8What Was the Underground Railroad?2013 · confirmed 2/42013–2/4
- 9What Was Pompeii?2014 · confirmed 2/42014–2/4
- 10What Was Ellis Island?2014 · confirmed 2/42014–2/4
- 11What Is the Statue of Liberty?2014 · confirmed 2/42014–2/4
- 12What Is the Panama Canal?2014 · confirmed 2/42014–2/4
- 13What Was the Lewis and Clark Expedition?2014 · confirmed 2/42014–2/4
- 14What Was D-Day?2015 · confirmed 2/42015–2/4
- 15What Is the World Series?2015 · confirmed 2/42015–2/4
- 16What Was Hurricane Katrina?2015 · confirmed 2/42015–2/4
- 17What Were the Salem Witch Trials?2015 · confirmed 2/42015–2/4
- 18What Is the Super Bowl?2015 · confirmed 2/42015–2/4
- 19What Was the Great Depression?2015 · confirmed 2/42015–2/4
- 20What Was Woodstock?2016 · confirmed 3/42016–3/4
- 21What Are the Summer Olympics?2016 · confirmed 2/42016–2/4
- 22What Is the Declaration of Independence?2016 · confirmed 2/42016–2/4
- 23What Were the Twin Towers?2016 · confirmed 2/42016–2/4
- 24What Was the Great Chicago Fire?2016 · confirmed 2/42016–2/4
- 25What Was the San Francisco Earthquake?2016 · confirmed 2/42016–2/4
- 26What Was the Age of the Dinosaurs?2017 · confirmed 2/42017–2/4
- 27What Was the Wild West?2017 · confirmed 2/42017–2/4
- 28What Is Rock and Roll?2017 · confirmed 2/42017–2/4
- 29What Was the Ice Age?2017 · confirmed 2/42017–2/4
- 30What Are the Ten Commandments?2017 · confirmed 2/42017–2/4
- 31What Is the World Cup?2018 · confirmed 2/42018–2/4
- 32What Was the Titanic?2018 · confirmed 2/42018–2/4
- 33What Was the Holocaust?2018 · confirmed 2/42018–2/4
- 34What Is Climate Change?2018 · confirmed 2/42018–2/4
- 35What Is the Constitution?2018 · confirmed 2/42018–2/4
- 36What Is the Women's Rights Movement?2018 · confirmed 2/42018–2/4
- 37What Were the Roaring Twenties?2018 · confirmed 2/42018–2/4
- 38What Is the Stanley Cup?2019 · confirmed 2/42019–2/4
- 39What Was Stonewall?2019 · confirmed 2/42019–2/4
- 40What Is NASA?2019 · confirmed 2/42019–2/4
- 41What Was the Vietnam War?2019 · confirmed 2/42019–2/4
- 42What Was the Berlin Wall?2019 · confirmed 2/42019–2/4
- 43What Were the Negro Leagues?2019 · confirmed 2/42019–2/4
- 44What Are the Paralympic Games?2020 · confirmed 2/42020–2/4
- 45What Was the Bombing of Hiroshima?2020 · confirmed 2/42020–2/4
- 46What Is LEGO?2020 · confirmed 2/42020–2/4
- 47What Is a Presidential Election?2020 · 112 pages · confirmed 2/420201122/4
- 48What Is the Civil Rights Movement?2020 · confirmed 2/42020–2/4
- 49What Is Nintendo?2021 · 112 pages · confirmed 2/420211122/4
- 50What Was the Age of Exploration?2021 · confirmed 2/42021–2/4
- 51What Is Congress?2021 · confirmed 2/42021–2/4
- 52What Is Black Lives Matter?2021 · confirmed 2/42021–2/4
- 53What Are the Winter Olympics?2021 · confirmed 2/42021–2/4
- 54What Was the Plague?2021 · confirmed 2/42021–2/4
- 55What Was the Harlem Renaissance?2021 · confirmed 2/42021–2/4
- 56What Are Castles and Knights?2022 · confirmed 2/42022–2/4
- 57What Is Juneteenth?2022 · confirmed 2/42022–2/4
- 58What Is the AIDS Crisis?2022 · confirmed 2/42022–2/4
- 59What Is the Supreme Court?2022 · confirmed 2/42022–2/4
- 60What Was Reconstruction?2022 · confirmed 2/42022–2/4
- 61What Is the Women's World Cup?2023 · confirmed 2/42023–2/4
- 62What Was the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921?2023 · confirmed 2/42023–2/4
- 63What Was World War I?2023 · confirmed 2/42023–2/4
- 64What Was the Donner Party?2023 · confirmed 2/42023–2/4
- 65What Was the Children's Blizzard of 1888?2023 · confirmed 2/42023–2/4
Where to start with What Was...?
Start with What Was the Hindenburg? (2013), the earliest published title.
What is the newest What Was...? book?
What Was the Children's Blizzard of 1888? (2023) is the newest What Was...? book released so far.
Is there a new What Was...? book coming?
No next What Was...? book is announced in the catalogue, which is a gap in the listings it merges rather than a sign that the run has ended.
What Was...? at a glance
- Paused
- No new What Was...? title has appeared for 3 years. The last was published in 2023.
- Release pace
- What Was...? books have appeared more than one a year on average.
- Length
- 224 pages across the 2 of 65 books with a recorded length, a median of 112 pages each.
- Busiest decade
- Most What Was...? books, 43 of 65, were published in the 2010s.
- Attribution
- Of the 65 titles, 7 are credited to Gail Herman, 6 to Jim O'Connor, 5 to David Groff and 5 to Janet B. Pascal. A further 47 writers are credited.
What the What Was...? books are about
3 of the 65 What Was...? books carry subject tags in Open Library's catalogue. The subjects below are the ones that recur across them, most frequent first: children's & teenage non-fiction is tagged on 2 of 3. The subjects are cataloguers’ headings, not a plot summary.
- Children's & Teenage Non-Fiction 2 of 3 books
- Children's Books / Nonfiction 2 of 3 books
- Children's Books/Ages 8-12 Nonfiction 2 of 3 books
- Series:What Is…? 2 of 3 books
- Children’s Middle Grade Books 1 of 3 books
- Children's non-fiction 1 of 3 books
- Juvenile literature 1 of 3 books
- New york (state), history 1 of 3 books
- New york (state), juvenile literature 1 of 3 books
- Nineteen sixties 1 of 3 books
- Nineteen sixty-nine, A.D 1 of 3 books
- Nintendo 1 of 3 books