Historical Periods, Events, and Holidays: Capitalization
Historical periods, named events, and holidays share the same core decision: is the phrase functioning as an established proper name or merely a generic description? Reviewed government and university guidance supports capitals for specific names while allowing lowercase for generic periods, eras, battles, revolutions, or event descriptions.
Capitalize established names of specific historical periods, events, and holidays; lowercase generic descriptions and shortened common-noun references. Examples in reviewed guidance include “the Renaissance,” “the French Revolution” but later “the revolution,” and named holidays such as “Labor Day” or “Easter.”
Key details
Important caveats
Name Boundary
Do not capitalize every phrase that happens to describe history or an event. Proper-name status is the key distinction; house style may determine borderline period names.
Further guidance
Historical Events
Capitalize a specific event name such as “the French Revolution” or “the Battle of Long Tan.” A later generic shortened reference can be lowercase: “the revolution,” “the battle.”
Historical Periods
Capitalize established names such as “the Renaissance” and “the Bronze Age.” Broad descriptive periods can be lowercase, such as “the colonial era,” depending on the governing style and whether the phrase is treated as a formal name.
Holidays And Named Events
Capitalize institutional holidays, religious days, and named public events under the reviewed government style. Proprietary event names should follow their official capitalization.
Worked Examples
“The Renaissance influenced European art.” “The French Revolution began in 1789; the revolution transformed French politics.” “Easter falls on a different date each year.”
Sources and evidence
Sources are shown with the role they play in this guide. Historical or style-sensitive claims are kept within the evidence boundary described above.
- Dates and time — Australian Government Style Manual (opens in a new tab)Australian Government Style Manual · Australian Government guidance for day–month–year dates, ordinal dates, decades, centuries, time zones, and en-dash spacing in date/time spans