In 1824 Leopold von Ranke published a history of the Romance and Germanic peoples from 1494 to 1514. In the preface he wrote that history had been given the office of judging the past and teaching the present. His book did not claim such high offices. “[E]r will blos zeigen, wie es eigentlich gewesen.” It only wants to show how it actually was. He also named his material: memoirs, diaries, letters, the reports of ambassadors and the original accounts of eyewitnesses.