Annals

Definition: The word annals comes from the same word as annual and millennium. An annal has to do with a year. Early writers of history were often annalists who wrote about the events of history in a chronological way. The term annals comes from the records of the pontifex maximus who, from 300-130 B.C., kept the annales maximi, which were records of each year's magistrates, wars and eclipses.