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Herodotus (c. 484-425 B.C.), as the first historian proper, is called the father of history. He was born in the essentially Dorian (Greek) colony of Halicarnassus on the southwest coast of Asia Minor (then a part of the Persian Empire), during the Persian Wars, shortly before the expedition against Greece led by the Persian King Xerxes.
Historians use a wide variety of sources to answer questions about the past. In their research, history scholars use both primary sources and secondary sources. Primary sources are actual records that have survived from the past, such as letters, photographs, articles of clothing. Secondary sources are accounts of the past created by people writing about events sometime after they happened.