World History Encyclopedia was founded in 2009 by Jan van der Crabben. He realized that the internet was missing a reliable and comprehensive resource for ancient history, which is why the website was called Ancient History Encyclopedia until it changed its name to World History Encyclopedia in 2021. What was available online was either scattered across various websites, illegible due to poor presentations or tainted with a distinct nationalist agenda.

Jan also had the idea that history was not linear (as it is taught in most school coursebooks), but rather a very parallel type of story, where everything is interlinked. After much programming on a netbook during daily train rides from London to Horsham in the United Kingdom, the site was launched to the public in August 2009. Since then, it has grown from a small history website to the largest and most popular history encyclopedia on the internet.