World History (Ancient up to the 8th Century C.E) Companion

September 24, 2024

World History (Ancient up to the 8th Century C.E) Companion

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

Abstract

This study attempts to explain world history into the simplest way of revisiting the past story of human

experience on their adaptation of the surrounding environment. The student may be able to directly

understand their own level of thinking as account retriever and participant by corroborating the places,

events, location, space and glocal issues.

Like talking the “cradle civilization of Mesopotamia,” the “fertile crescent” of the Indus valley leading

to the direction towards the Nile as the “gift” of their civilization. Cooperation and conflict; revolution

and reaction; changes; diversity and uniformity; regionalism and nationalism; innovation; cultural

diffusion; movement and its relation to the environment.

Thus, the history of mankind proves that advances of culture depend upon the opportunities presented

to a social group to learn from the experience of their neighbors. The discoveries of the group spread

to others, and the more varies the contacts, greater the opportunities to learn. The tribes of simplest

culture are on the whole those that have been isolated for very long periods and hence could not profit

from the cultural achievements of their neighbors. Civilization proves to be spreading, flourishing and

influencing one culture to another culture. It can be accommodation, acculturation, assimilation,

amalgamation, diffusion, integration etc.

So, to make history, herstory, our story “empirical” let us help reinventing and reengineering the past

as blue print of the present to the future. It is in our hand that the next pages or chapter of the story to

be done. So, let us walkway the right direction of our journey to live life to the fullest. May our action

be the blueprint of the roadmap we travel.

Short title: World Story

Introduction

World history 1 provides the basic concepts, theories and historical developments like

emergence of societies and civilizations, rise of kingdom – empire states, formation of states, age

of exploration, expedition and colonization, and age of commercialization from pre-history up to

century C.E. It is hope that with this contract we may be able to revisit and reshape the historical

blueprints of the past. Let it be our guiding path to our decision-making for the policy construction

and foreign diplomacy among nation. Below are the tidbits of the broad topic in world history but

it was narrow down to the most salient point to remember.

“Construct” From pre-history up to

century C.E.

The student may be to revisit and

understand about the basic concepts;

theories; historical developments;

emergence of societies; civilizations; rise of

kingdom; rise of empire states; formation of

states; age of exploration; expedition;

colonization and age of commercialization.

Thus, because history is the story of human

experience it shows us how the world works

and how human behave. It helps us make

judgments about current and future events.

It also affects our lives every day and it is

fascinating story of human treachery and

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

achievement.

However, we cannot separate our study in world history without the companion of

geography because is the study of interaction between humans and the environment. With that

concept the unwritten and written accounts of incidences happened due to the interaction of man

in his environment. Thus, writing descriptive accounts of the geographer are important record by

the historian to deeply understand the interaction of man towards the given environment.

It is hope that the major factors affecting human development through the geographic

factors and human accounts affecting their day to day interaction with peoples and environment.

As this study further attempts to better understand the peoples, places, space, location, regional

and the world interaction for their historical development like the emergence of socio-politically,

socio-economically and socio-culturally constructed diverse society in convergence.

PANORAMIC VIEW

Backgrounder

The challenge of studying world history need to remember the places, space, location,

geographic regions, name of person and events. In order to draw lesson learned. It’s not an

easy “mantra.” Expert from the field are suggesting the most convenient way of the learner to

learn and remember the vignette of the story is familiarization. World history is the story of

human experience. It is the direct and indirect participation or observation. It is the story of

how people, ideas, goods and events spread across the earth creating our past and our present.

To help us better understand this experience, we will divide history into four main eras

(period):

prehistory

ancient times

middle ages

, and

modern times

. Our story begins

during prehistory in east Africa where human life began. From Africa humans spread to

Eurasia (Europe and Asia), to Australia, and finally to the Americas. Human migration was

one of the great waves of history. And these can be explained during the Pangea period. The

continental drifting shows that both edge of the continents islands and islets can be seen the

same anthropological fossils and geologic evidence.

RRLS (Review of the Related Literature and Studies) in historical accounts revealed

that humans made their living by hunting and gathering. The nomadic way. This era was

recorded during the Pleistocene period. The melting of the Ice made the nomads explore and

discover landscape of places conducive for their “temporary settlement.” Enough food to

provide their subsistence made the nomads settle down then about 12,000 years ago, people

in the Middle East learned to cultivate a wild wheat plant, and agriculture was born -- another

great wave of history under the agricultural system of community. No longer were humans

constantly on the move searching for food. Historical RRLS revealed that the “bread winner”

gathered foods and the women takes care the households. Later, women discovered the

proactive use of “seeds.” Pure agriculture was practiced. People could settle in one place,

build cities, and make inventions like the plow, wheel, and writing. The complex societies

that resulted civilization, another wave of history and the start of ancient times. In terms of a

human lifetime, waves of change moved slowly, and much stayed the same and little by little

people, space, places, location, regions, changes the landscape of mankind.

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

Waves of history were channeled over the earth by geography. The first civilizations

arose in river valleys where “rivers” provided “fresh water” for raising crops and

transportation for moving crops to market. Beginning in

Mesopotamia

, to form a cradle of

civilization and spread

India

to form the fertile crescent valley of Indus and spreading to the

fertile valley and plain of

Nile in Egypt.

These three civilizations formed an early

international trading network that eventually extended across the connected lands of Eurasia

(Europe and Asia) and North Africa, a vast region that lies in a temperate climate zone where

most of the world’s people have lived since prehistoric times. More people meant more ideas,

more inventions, and more diseases than in other parts of the world. Waves of change took

longer to reach sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas because they were separated from

Eurasia by physical barriers of desert and ocean.

As agriculture replaced hunting and gathering, human population increased. People in

civilized societies divided themselves into unequal social classes with priests and kings at the

top. Wealthy landowners collected rent payments from poor farmers, men came to dominate

women, and slavery became common. In the grasslands of central Eurasia, nomadic people

chose not to settle down and raise crops. They lived by herding animals from pasture to pasture

with the seasons. They learned to ride horses, developed cavalry skills, and attacked settled

communities. Sometimes these nomadic raiders conquered great civilizations.

During ancient times people in Eurasia invented many things that still define

civilization today such as money, armies, iron, math, literature, democracy, and major world

religions -- to name a few. Ancient times lasted for roughly 4,000 years, ending about 500

AD after nomadic raiders brought down great classical civilizations in India, China, and the

Mediterranean. The middle ages followed and lasted a thousand years. Change spread to new

places mostly through trading contacts. Some people welcomed change, while others avoided

change and tried to maintain traditional ways. In the late middle ages, China was a superpower

with the greatest navy in the world until China's rulers chose to reduce contact with the outside

world and dismantled the fleet. This choice opened the door for Europeans to make the great

voyages of discovery that connected the world and began the modern era around the year

1500. Change was moving faster now.

Three centuries later, Europeans learned how to power machines by burning fuels,

unleashing the Industrial Revolution -- another great wave of history. Change moved even

faster. At first, Europeans used their machines to dominate other peoples of the world who

lacked advanced technology. Then Europeans turned their machines on each other, launching

two suicidal world wars that ended European world dominance. As humans face challenges

for survival modern technology consume the world’s resources, threatening the earth’s

environment, and produced weapons of mass destruction that could end all human life. The

world is tied together through communications and trade, but the world remains divided

between the “haves” and the “have nots.”

History created our past and our present, but the future is up to us. There is no

instructional manual for the future, but we do have a guide that shows how the world works

and how humans think, feel, act and behave. That guide is history. Let us always remember that

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

the past is the key to the present and the present is the key to the future. So, let us take the

lesson learn from the present if we want to build a better place to live.

SOME BASIC CONCEPTS OF HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY

Primary and secondary sources

We learn about the past from historians. But, where do historians get their information?

Usually, they study primary sources, which are sources created at about the same time as the

event being studied, often by people involved in the event. Examples of primary sources

include artifacts uncovered by archeologists, art works, government records, diaries, letters,

speeches, newspaper articles and other personal accounts. Let it be written or unwritten as

long as it is the “first hand” information.

Historians also study secondary sources. These are sources created after the event by

people not involved in the event. Examples of secondary sources include history books,

textbooks, and encyclopedias. After historians examine their sources, they write histories

based on their understanding of the truth. But what they write may be influenced by their own

opinions or by lack of information. It is not possible for historians to know everything about

a past event, so they must rely on the evidence left behind in the form of primary and

secondary sources. If new evidence is found, interpretations of history can be change. A

history without anthropological and archaeological value are considered as oral “folklore.”

Before Christ (BC) and After the Death (Ano Domini) - AD

Places, Space, Location, Regions, Peoples and events are having different geographic

factors which contribute in the formation of culture. Around the world the adaptation marks

the passage of time made the landscape in the changing world. The Chinese calendar counts

years from the reign of the mythical Yellow Emperor in 2698 BC. The Islamic calendar

numbers years from 622 AD when Muhammad fled from Mecca. Both calendars are based on

lunar cycles. The year 2000 in our calendar is 4697 in the Chinese calendar and 1421 in the

Islamic calendar. Our solar calendar comes from ancient Egypt. It was modified during the

middle ages in Europe, and it has been adopted by most of the world for official purposes.

Years are numbered from the birth of Christ: years before year 1 are designated BC for

“Before Christ;” years after year 1 are designated AD, an abbreviation for the Latin term Anno

Domini, which means “in the year of the lord.” AD years are counted forward from year 1;

BC years are counted backward from year 1. Thus, 500 BC was earlier than 200 BC.

Years come, people wish to avoid the reference to Christ have begun using the term

BCE

(Before the Common Era) to replace BC and

(Common Era) to replace AD. The terms

BCE and CE are found in some history books. Many RRLS uses the traditional terms BC and

AD because they are more widely known in our culture, because there was no Common Era

in history, and because non-Christians may object to the suggestion that the Christian era is

the “common era” of humankind. This happens that the scholastic community must come-up

how the “term” or “word” being used in the accounts to avoid “discrimination.” But the truth

of the matter “people” is now learning the past. So, our task to the present is fortifying the

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

desired “future” we want to be. The culture of “humanity.”

Hemispheres

From the cosmic, big-bang, planetesimal and other theories on the creation of earth

materially it has a hemisphere. It is any half of earth’s surface; the term comes from the Greek

word for half as sphere. The

equator

(zero degrees latitude) divides the earth into the Northern

Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. The dividing line between the Eastern and

Western Hemispheres is not so well defined, but it is usually placed at the

Prime Meridian

(zero degrees longitude) or at 0

degrees west longitude. The opposite end of International

date line (180

longitude). North and South America and surrounding waters are considered

to be in the Western Hemisphere, while the continents of Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia

are considered to be in the Eastern Hemisphere.

Climate zones

The averaging atmospheric conditions over

longer periods of time in a certain place.

UNIT 1 - PREHISTORY: ORIGINS OF THE EARTH AND HUMANS

LOCATIONS: Europe, Asia, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, North America, South

America, Ural Mountains, Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Arctic Ocean,

Great Rift Valley, Bering Strait, the tropics, arctic and Antarctic regions, temperate

zones

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

Cosmic theory

This theory starts from where the

understanding of human to the surrounding

environment. In the beginning human are created

from nothing. This nothing became the turning

point of “doubting.” To “doubt,” “to question many

things in the surrounding environment created the

“mere” existence. So, it started from a “little thing

of everything.” And, because of its self-

construction it reaches to the height of “self-

destruction.” That is the turning point of gaseous

dust big or small “heavenly” bodies. Courses of

time it creates its own “biosphere.”

This age may represent

the age of the Earth's accretion, of core

formation, or of the material from which

the Earth formed. This dating is based on

evidence from radiometric age-dating of

meteorite material and is consistent with the

radiometric ages of the oldest-known terrestrial

and lunar samples. Thus, RRLS revealed that our mother earth has an estimated 4.54 billion years

old while our population is 7.7 billion as of October 2019 according to the most recent United

Nations estimates elaborated by Worldometers.

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

The customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of

a particular nation, people, or other social group are indicator of

a material and immaterial culture.

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

of human history and prehistory through the excavation of

sites and the analysis of artifacts and other physical

remains

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

UNIT 2 - ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA AND EGYPT: CIVILIZATION IS BORN

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

Middle East

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

Sahara Desert

The Sahara Desert is about the size of the United States, which makes it the largest dry

desert in the world. It extends from the Atlantic Ocean on the west to the Red Sea on the east,

and it is still expanding to the south. The Sahara separates

North Africa

from sub-Saharan

Africa. North Africa borders the Mediterranean Sea and includes the Sahara and lands lying

to the north of the desert including the Atlas Mountains and the modern countries of Morocco,

Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. This is known as the unhospitable place by topography

but not as bad as that because this is rich of fuel fossils and other mineral resources.

Sub-Saharan Africa

is the land that lies south of the desert. It has sometimes been called

“black Africa” because people living there have darker skins than North Africans. Dark skin

appears to be an adaptation to climate. People

living in the tropics need more skin pigment

to protect them from intense rays of the sun,

while people living closer to the earth’s poles

have paler skins to absorb more sunlight.

People with black skins also live near the

equator in India and Australia. It’s been

estimated that it took roughly 20,000 years for

skin color to change from black to white as

humans spread north out of Africa. Generally,

the greater area called as the continent of the

black.

UNIT 3 - ANCIENT INDIA AND CHINA:

CIVILIZATION SPREADS EAST

LOCATIONS: India, China, Japan, Asia Minor (Turkey), East Asia, Indus River,

Yellow River, the steppes, Silk Road,

Southern Ocean trade route, Himalayas.

Asia

Asia is the world’s largest continent,

sharing the landmass of Eurasia with Europe.

The

Ural Mountains

of Russia are considered

the dividing line between Asia and Europe.

Asia was the site of three of the world’s

earliest civilizations in Mesopotamia, India

and China. Today Asia has three-fifths of the

world’s population and the two most populous

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

countries in the world, China and India. Because

Asia is so huge, geographers have divided Asia

into several regions. On the western side of Asia

is the Middle East, which includes Asia Minor

(present day Turkey). Farther east is central Asia.

To the south lies the Indian subcontinent. On the

eastern side of Asia are East Asia (sometimes

called the Far East) and Southeast Asia.

India

Most of the country of India is a triangular-

shaped

peninsula

that juts into the Indian Ocean.

Due to its central location on the Indian Ocean

between China and the Middle East, India

became the ancient world’s largest trading

center. India also gave the world important new ideas including the numbering system we use

today and the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Today India is the second most populous

country in the world after China, and India is the world’s largest democracy. The capital of

India is New Delhi. India and nearby countries form a region known as the

Indian

subcontinent

Southern Asia

After civilization first emerged in Mesopotamia and Egypt, it spread east to India. The

earliest civilization in India grew along the Indus River valley of western India (now Pakistan)

around 2500 BC. The

Indus Valley Civilization

had a written language and large cities with

sophisticated plumbing systems.

These were the first people to grow cotton. Ships and overland trade

caravans

connected

India to Mesopotamia and Egypt in an early international trading network. The Indus Valley

Civilization lasted for about a thousand years; it was replaced by a new culture ruled by

nomadic raiders arriving from central Asia.

The Caste System

The chariot warriors from the north who took control of India are called

Aryans

. Because

India’s early cities collapsed, and the Aryans were illiterate (could not read and write),

civilization was lost in India for several centuries. Nonetheless, the light-skinned Aryan

invaders from the north made themselves the ruling class in the caste system, a social system

that still has influence in India today. Under India’s caste system, people were born into

permanent classes for life, and they could marry only within their own caste.

There are four main castes with complicated rules of behavior: 1) the priests, 2) the

warriors, 3) the merchants, and 4) the common people, mostly peasants and laborers. Most

people of ancient India were members of the commoner class, which had limited rights. A

fifth group, the Untouchables, was outside the caste system. Considered not human,

Untouchables performed the worst jobs such as cleaning toilets and burying the dead. While

the caste system may seem unfair to us today, it provided a means for different kinds of people

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

to live together peacefully while avoiding the slavery common to many ancient cultures.

Hinduism

Hinduism is the oldest major religion in the world today; it survived so long by changing

and adjusting to new circumstances. To Hindus all religions are acceptable, and the practices

of other religions may be included as part of Hindu worship. Hindus believe in an eternal and

infinite spiritual principle called Brahman that is the ultimate reality and foundation of all

existence. Brahman can take the form of many gods including Brahma the creator of the

universe, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer.

For Hindus, a proper life is unconcerned with worldly riches; the goal is to seek union

with Brahman, a quest that may take many lifetimes. Hindus believe in

reincarnation

meaning the soul never dies and may be reborn again in a different body.

Karma

, all of the

actions of a person’s life, will determine if a person returns in the next life at a higher level

on the ladder of incarnation and closer to union with Brahman.

Hinduism is the largest religion of India and a defining feature of Indian culture.

Hinduism and the caste system served to maintain order among India’s many ethnic groups

because each person knew his or her place in society, and people who followed the rules could

hope to move to a higher caste in the next life.

Buddhism

Not everyone in India was satisfied with Hinduism. In the 500s BC, a young Hindu prince

raised in luxury became troubled by the suffering he saw in the world. He left his wife and

infant son to become a wandering monk, seeking a way to end the suffering. After six years

of solitary searching, he found an answer and began to teach. His followers called him the

“Buddha” or “the enlightened one.”

Buddha taught that our life in the physical world is merely an illusion. When people let

go of their worldly pain and worries, they can unite with the universal soul and achieve a state

of complete peace called

Nirvana

. Like Hindus, Buddhists believe nothing is permanent, that

life constantly moves through cycles of birth, death, and rebirth like the turning of a wheel.

Although Buddha accepted the Hindu belief in reincarnation, he taught that people could

achieve nirvana from their actions in this life alone, and he rejected the caste system. For these

reasons, Buddhism became popular among the lower classes in India.

Today Buddhism is a major world religion. Although it began in India, Buddhism spread

to the east and declined in India as Buddhism was absorbed into Hinduism. Buddhists are now

found in the greatest numbers in East Asia and Southeast Asia.

Asoka

Centuries after the Indus Valley Civilization died, cities and civilization arose again

farther to the east in the fertile

Ganges

river valley. India was torn by warfare between

kingdoms until the first Indian empire was established in the Ganges valley by the

Mauryan

dynasty in 324 BC. Its greatest leader was Asoka, who extended his empire to the south in a

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

bloody invasion that conquered all but the southern tip of India.

Then Asoka had a sudden change of heart. He publicly announced his grief at the

suffering caused by his armies, and he rejected violence. He even gave up hunting and eating

meat. Asoka converted to Buddhism, and he spread Buddhist ideals throughout India and to

neighboring countries. Ruling India with Buddhist ideals, Asoka’s government promoted the

welfare of the people by kind acts such as digging new wells, building hospitals for people

and animals, allowing freedom of religion, and easing harsh laws.

Asoka also encouraged long-distance ocean trade. It was during his reign that India

became the center of a vast Southern Ocean-trading network that stretched from China to

Africa and the Middle East.

Gupta Empire

Historians consider the Mauryan Empire and the Gupta Empire that followed (in the 300s

and 400s AD) to be the greatest civilizations of India’s

classical period

, a period when India

underwent great cultural and political advancement. The reign of the Gupta Empire has been

called India’s “golden age,” a high point of Indian history when art, drama, literature, and

science flourished.

Gupta mathematicians invented the zero, an amazing number with no value that gives

value to the place of other numbers. The zero made it possible to calculate numbers faster and

more accurately, and it was adopted the world over. Doctors developed an inoculation against

smallpox. Farmers learned how to turn the juice from sugarcane into dried sugar crystals that

could be easily stored and traded over long distances. Cotton from India clothed people across

much of the ancient world. Gupta India was a land of wonders.

The Gupta Empire declined in the early 500s AD when tribes of nomadic horsemen called

Huns

invaded from grasslands to the north, but the cultural patterns that developed during

India’s classical period created a vital civilization in southern Asia that endures to this day.

Nomadic Raiders

People of ancient times developed four basic patterns for making a living. Some were still

hunters and gatherers stalking wild game herds, but most people lived in farming villages.

Another group lived in cities supported largely by wealth from agriculture. A fourth group

lived in

pastoral

societies; these were nomadic herders of the grasslands who did not settle

down in one place like farmers. They moved their domesticated (tame) animals -- sheep, goats,

cows, horses, and camels -- from pasture to pasture with the seasons.

Pastoral people were mobile, and they developed military tactics to protect their animals

from thieves. Pastoral nomads of the

steppes

(grasslands of central Eurasia) became skilled

at using horses in warfare, and they sometimes raided settled communities. These were the

nomadic raiders who attacked Jericho, Sumer, the Gupta Empire, and others. Many

governments of Eurasia began with nomads sweeping in from the steppes and taking control.

Centuries of warfare between nomadic raiders and civilized peoples in Eurasia led to

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

advancements in military organization

and technology unmatched elsewhere in

the world.

China

The world’s fourth great civilization

also got its start along a river valley, the

Yellow

river of northeastern China

where farmers grew millet and wheat.

Farming later moved south to the

Yangtze

(YONG-zuh) river, where rice

production led to an increase in China’s

population. The land between the rivers

became the center of Chinese

civilization, the so-called “Middle

Kingdom.” Early Chinese culture grew

in relative isolation due to physical

barriers and long distances that separated it from other major civilizations of Eurasia. The

world’s highest mountain range, the

Himalayas

, separate China from India.

The Chinese have long believed in a

philosophy

that recognizes a fundamental balance

in nature between opposite but complimentary principles called

yin and yang

. Examples

include day-night, hot-cold, wet-dry, and male-female. Central to Chinese philosophy and

religion is a belief that people should avoid extremes and seek harmony with the balance of

nature. (A philosophy is a system of basic beliefs about life.)

With nearly one-fourth of the world’s population, China today is the world’s most

populous country, and it has a fast-growing economy. China was a superpower in the past,

and it has become a superpower again in this century. China and its neighboring countries of

Mongolia, Korea, and Japan form a region bordering the Pacific Ocean known as

East Asia

or the Far East.

Mandate from heaven

The

Zhou

(JOH) dynasty took control of China in 1122 BC and ruled for nearly 900

years. To give their government legitimacy, Zhou and later Chinese rulers claimed to rule

with approval from the gods, a mandate from heaven. Although this claim was meant to

enhance the emperor’s authority, it also established the right to overthrow an ineffective

emperor. The emperor was expected to protect his people by ruling in a way that pleased the

gods. If trouble developed in the empire -- droughts or military defeats, for example -- people

might say the emperor had lost his mandate from heaven, and the emperor could be

overthrown.

Over many centuries, China’s history experienced a recurring pattern. A ruling dynasty

would start out strong and gradually weaken over time until it was replaced by a new dynasty.

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

Then the pattern would repeat. Zhou rulers controlled their kingdom through a

feudal system

meaning they divided the land into smaller territories and appointed officials to govern them.

When the Zhou dynasty eventually weakened, some of these territories developed into strong

states that opposed the emperor and began fighting among themselves. These bloody conflicts

lasted for over two centuries, a time called the “Warring States” period.

Confucius

Confucius was born in 551 BC when Zhou rulers were losing control of their empire. He

tried to return harmony to China with a philosophy based on devotion to the family, respect

between the classes, high moral ideals, and learning. He emphasized individual duty and

responsibility, what we might call a strong work ethic. The family was the center of Confucian

society with the father at the head. The mother and children owed total obedience to the father.

Family ancestors were honored and not forgotten.

Confucius promoted an orderly society in which people of higher rank were courteous to

those below, and those of lower rank were respectful to those above. Confucius said a ruler

should act like a good father and lead by example, not through power and harsh laws. “When

the ruler does right, all men will imitate his self-control.” While the teachings of Confucius

were not influential in his lifetime, they soon became a guiding philosophy of Chinese

civilization, and they still exert a strong influence on Chinese culture today.

First Emperor

One of China’s warring states, the

Qin

(CHIN) kingdom of western China, grew wealthy

from agriculture based on extensive irrigation. With this wealth, the Qin ruler raised a

powerful army and spent twenty years ruthlessly conquering China’s warring states. He

declared himself First Emperor in 221 BC. Thus, it was the First Emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi,

who created the country of China and gave China its name.

In order to unify China, the First Emperor stripped the regional warlords of their power,

and he forced them to move to the capital where he could control them. He also standardized

the Chinese language, money, roads, and weights and measures. The First Emperor ruled with

a philosophy that considered people selfish and evil by nature; he adopted strict laws and

harsh punishments to keep people in line. He also tried to control what people could think. It

is said he buried scholars alive, burned books including the teachings of Confucius, and he

brutally eliminated those who disagreed with him.

Great Wall of China

Natural barriers protected China on three sides: oceans to the east and south, mountains

and desert to the west. But China’s northern border lay open to attack from Huns. The First

Emperor ordered a number of individual walls joined together to form one great stone wall to

defend China’s northern border from attack. Hundreds of thousands of laborers worked on the

Great Wall for years, and many workers died under the harsh conditions. Gates in the wall

became centers of trade with the nomadic peoples who lived outside. The Great Wall was

repaired and rebuilt a number of times over the centuries, and parts of it still stand.

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

The First Emperor also built for himself a magnificent underground tomb, and nearby he

buried a

terra- cotta army

of life-size soldiers to protect him for eternity. (Terra cotta is the

brownish-orange pottery used today to make flowerpots.) One pit contained sculptures of

6,000

infantrymen

(foot soldiers), and a second pit held the

cavalry

(mounted soldiers)

complete with life-size horses, all arranged in battle formation. Each clay soldier was modeled

after an actual soldier of the emperor’s army. One of the great archeological finds of the

twentieth century, the terra-cotta army was uncovered accidentally in 1974 by a farmer

digging a well.

Hoping to find a way to avoid death, the First Emperor experimented with a number of

potions until he killed himself by accidental poisoning. The Qin Dynasty lasted for only fifteen

years, but it began a Chinese tradition of strong central governments controlled by powerful

rulers.

Han Dynasty

The harsh rule of the First Emperor was so unpopular that the Qin Dynasty was

overthrown shortly after the emperor’s death. Following a period of civil war, the Han

Dynasty took control of China in 206 BC. Han rulers adopted Confucian ideas about creating

a respectful and orderly society, and they set-up a

civil service system

to run the government

with well-educated officials chosen by written tests.

The Han Dynasty expanded China’s empire to the south and west, and it produced

marvels that would change the world including the ship’s rudder, the magnetic compass, and

paper. The four-hundred-year reign of the Han Empire was so successful that it is considered

the greatest of China’s classical dynasties. The Han Empire eventually weakened, fell apart,

and was replaced by three kingdoms in 220 AD. About a hundred years later, Hun invaders

took control of the Chinese heartland. The period of classical civilization in China was over,

but the Chinese were left with an enduring belief that China was the center of civilization.

Silk Road

During the Han Dynasty, regular trade began over the Silk Road, actually a network of

trails that stretched 4,000 miles from China to the Roman Empire. Only the Chinese knew

how to raise silkworms and weave silk; Chinese silk was worth its weight in gold in Rome.

Europeans also acquired a taste for other Asian luxury goods including spices, a taste that

would later send Columbus on his voyages of discovery.

The Silk Road was a two-way street. Asian goods were traded for Western goods, which

flowed back along the Silk Road to China. Imports from the west to China included gold,

silver, powerful horses, new foods, and Buddhism. This overland trade was made possible by

the camel, the “ship of the desert,” with its large padded feet for walking on shifting desert

sands and its ability go long distances without food or water.

Trade routes such as the Silk Road were pioneered by nomads. For a price, nomads

provided caravans with pack animals and protection. The Silk Road in the north joined with

the Southern Ocean shipping routes to form a trading web that spread goods, technologies,

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

and ideas between Asia, Europe, and North Africa

Iron Age

The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age. This is when people learned how to use

a draft of air from a furnace or bellows to produce the hot temperatures needed to melt iron

from iron ore and to shape it into tools and weapons. Iron was much stronger than bronze, and

it was less expensive because iron ore was easier to find than the tin needed to make bronze.

Iron working not only meant better tools and weapons, it meant lots more of them, a major

technological change.

Iron working probably began in the Middle East about 1200 BC and quickly spread. Iron

had a big impact on agriculture and warfare. Iron plow blades and hoes made it possible to

work heavier soils than before, extending agriculture into new lands and boosting human

populations. Armies grew bigger and deadlier due to more effective and less expensive iron

weapons and armor. The Iron Age continues to the present day, although some might say we

live in the “Industrial Age” or the “Digital Age.”

UNIT 4 - ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME: CIVILIZATION SPREADS WEST

LOCATIONS: Greece, Crete, Black Sea, Athens, Persian Empire (Iran), Alexandria,

Italy, Rome, Roman Empire, Carthage, Alps, Constantinople (Istanbul)

Greece

The first civilizations to develop in Europe were extensions of the early civilizations of

Mesopotamia and Egypt. Europe’s earliest major culture was the

Minoan

civilization of

Crete

, the largest of the Greek islands. Minoan culture was strongly influenced by Egypt.

Minoan civilization is the source of the Greek myth about the hero Theseus who entered the

labyrinth (a maze) and slayed the Minotaur.

Greece is a mountainous and rocky peninsula with little good farmland, but its long

irregular coastline and numerous islands provided fine harbors. Many Greeks turned to the

sea to make a living by fishing and trading. Greeks established colonies and dominated trade

in the eastern Mediterranean and Black Seas.

Greek communities isolated by mountains developed into independent self-governing

city-

states

that often fought one another. The leading city-states were

Sparta

with its strong

military government and

Athens

, the present-day capital of Greece. The Greeks had a

polytheistic religion; their gods lived on Mount Olympus.

Greece is known for its classical civilization of 500 to 300 BC. Classical Greek culture,

particularly that of Athens, is famed for its beautiful arts, architecture, philosophy, theater,

Olympic games, and for creating the first democracy. Classical Greece is usually considered

the principal source of Western Civilization.

Iliad and the Odyssey

Modern people still read literature from ancient Greece including the Iliad and the

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

Odyssey, two epic (meaning long and heroic)

poems by

Homer

. The Iliad takes place during the

Trojan War

when the Greeks used a large wooden

horse with soldiers hidden inside to defeat the

defenders of Troy in Asia Minor. The Odyssey

recounts the adventures of the hero Odysseus who

had to overcome many obstacles during his 10-

year voyage home from the war in Troy. These

poems are the first literary works of Western

Civilization.

The heroes of Greek myths such as the Iliad

and the Odyssey served as models of excellence for

the ancient Greeks. In both poems, reason and wisdom are more powerful than physical

strength. Homer’s Bronze Age poems later inspired a great outpouring of literature during the

classical Greek age.

Persian Wars

Centered in present day Iran, the

Persian Empire

stretched from the Middle East to India;

it was the largest empire the world had yet seen. The

Persians tried to add Greece to their empire in the

400s BC, but the Greeks united long enough to

defeat them. At the Battle of Marathon, Greeks

repelled a larger invading force of Persians, and

legend says a Greek soldier ran nearly 26 miles

from the battlefield to Athens where he died after

delivering news of the victory. This legend is the

basis for the modern marathon foot race.

In fighting ten years later (480 BC), the people

of Athens fled to the nearby island of Salamis after

the Persians conquered and burned Athens. The

Persian king Xerxes had his throne placed on a hill

where he could watch his fleet of 700 warships

destroy the Greek navy of about 300 ships. Instead,

Xerxes watched in horror as the Greeks lured his navy into a narrow strait that prevented many

of the Persian ships from joining the battle. The Greeks won the battle, and the Persian Wars

soon ended. Because the victory at Salamis preserved Greek culture, some historians have

called this “the battle that saved Western Civilization.”

Parthenon

A statesman named

Pericles

became the political leader of Athens following the Persian

Wars. Although the wars had ended, Persia remained a military threat, and other Greek city-

states paid money to Athens for protection. Pericles used this income to rebuild his burned-

out city and to finance the construction of magnificent new buildings including the Parthenon.

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

The Parthenon is a temple built to honor Athena, goddess of wisdom and war and the patron

goddess of Athens. The Parthenon is the main building on the

Acropolis

, a high point in

Athens that was the center of Athenian life and a fortress against attack.

Although the Parthenon is now in ruins, it is famed for its beauty and proportion. It is

probably the most influential building in the history of Western architecture. The Parthenon

has served as a model for important buildings in much of the world including the Lincoln

Memorial in the United States. Like all classical Greek temples, the Parthenon was built with

closely spaced columns that left little interior space.

Democracy

The Greeks established a new kind of society by inventing the

polis

. The polis was an

association of free male citizens who served as the soldiers who defended their city-state from

attack, and they managed the government. The polis chose leaders to govern the city-state for

a limited period of time, often a year. This approach

was quite different from other ancient societies in

which government was headed by a king, and the

people were separated by class into a small group of

the rich and a large group of the poor.

The democratic principal developed in the polis

reached their greatest extent during the rule of Pericles

in Athens where every citizen was expected to

participate in government. Democracy is a form of

government in which power lies with the people who

may exercise that power directly as they did in ancient

Athens where all citizens could vote on new laws. Or,

power may be exercised indirectly through elected representatives as we do in the United

States. (“Democracy” comes from the Greek word for “the people.”)

Most of the Greek city-states did not have democratic governments, and even in Athens,

citizens were a minority of the population because women, slaves, and foreign-born persons

did not qualify as citizens.

Humanism

The ancient Greeks considered human beings to

be the center of existence. Unlike other ancient

cultures that were deeply concerned with religion,

gods, and the afterlife, the philosophy and arts of

classical Greece were more concerned with the value

of human beings on earth. This emphasis on humans

can be seen in Greek art that portrayed the human

body realistically. Art of the classical Greek period was much more realistic than the stiff,

formal art of earlier eras such as the art of ancient Egypt and early Greece.

Greeks strived for excellence in the way they conducted their daily lives. They believed

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

that reason was the true source of knowledge and that a wise person was the best person;

reason, not emotion, should rule our lives. This concern with human life, and the effort to

improve humanity through reason, is called humanism. Greek humanism emphasized order

in daily life, nothing in excess, a balance between extremes known as “

The Golden Mean

.”

In school, for example, both the body and the mind were trained. Over two thousand years

later, Greek humanism would help shape the Renaissance and the Enlightenment in Europe.

Socrates

(SOCK-ruh-tees)

Talented artists and thinkers were drawn to Athens during the Age of Pericles. One of the

best known was the philosopher Socrates. He was famed for saying, “The unexamined life is

not worth living.” Socrates encouraged his students to question accepted wisdom including

government policies.

But, the golden age of Athens was about to end as Athens went to war with Sparta. Early

in the fighting, a plague of typhoid fever killed a third of the residents of Athens including

Pericles. After 27 years of warfare, Athens was defeated and went into decline. Socrates was

condemned to death by the citizens of Athens for neglecting the gods and corrupting the

morals of the young. Many historians believe, however, that Socrates was made a scapegoat

for the decline of Athens after it was defeated by Sparta.

Socrates did not leave behind written works; his philosophy was carried forward by his

student,

Plato

. Plato was deeply troubled by the death of his friend Socrates. It caused him to

question democracy; Plato warned that clever leaders could easily manipulate citizens who

knew little about the important issues of the day. Plato established a school called The

Academy, the first real university. His most famous student was the philosopher

Aristotle

whose ideas would dominate Western scientific thought for centuries to come.

Hellenistic Civilization

Despite of the decline of Athens, Greece would again take the center stage of history with

the conquests of

Alexander the Great

, a young man from the mountainous northern region

of Greece called

Macedonia

. Alexander’s tutor was the philosopher Aristotle, and his father

was Philip of Macedon, who succeeded in conquering all of Greece in 338 BC, ending the

independence of the Greek city-states. After his father died, Alexander took control of Greece

at the age of 20, but Alexander wanted more.

Alexander succeeded in conquering Egypt and much of the ancient world, extending his

empire all the way to India. In the process, he defeated Greece’s old enemy, the Persian

Empire. Alexander never lost a battle, but he became sick with fever and died at the age of

32. His empire fell apart and was divided among his top generals. After his death, a new

culture emerged known as Hellenistic civilization, a blend of Greek, Persian, Egyptian and

Indian influences that would flourish for centuries. One of the cities founded by Alexander,

Alexandria, Egypt

, had a great library that was the center of learning of the Hellenistic world.

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

Roman Empire

Rome, the capital of present-day Italy, was also the capital of the ancient Roman Empire.

The Romans were a practical and hard-working people, and Rome’s sturdy farmers made

good soldiers. Rome was only a small town on the Tiber River when Athens was at the height

of its glory, but Rome grew to become a strong city-state at about the time of Alexander the

Great. The Romans adopted Hellenistic culture; their gods, arts, and architecture resembled

those of the Greeks. At first, kings ruled Rome, and then about 500 BC, the

Roman Republic

was established with a law-making body called the

Senate

. Every year the Senate chose two

of its members to serve as co-rulers, or consuls. For a time Rome had a form of democracy,

although wealthy upper-class families held most of the political power. Later, during a time

of trouble in the republic, Julius Caesar seized control of the government. His successors took

the title of emperor.

At its height, the Roman Empire completely encircled the Mediterranean Sea, extending

from the Middle East to the British Isles. Rome’s central location in the Mediterranean made

it an ideal location for building a large

Mediterranean empire and international trading

network. It was said, “All roads lead to Rome.”

The empire had a strong central government that

produced massive public works including paved

roads, government buildings, baths, sports arenas,

and aqueducts (water transport structures). As the

years passed, the Roman Empire weakened, was

divided into two parts, and eventually fell to

nomadic invaders.

Carthage

Carthage was an ancient city on the coast of

North Africa, and it was a powerful rival of Rome. From 264-146 BC, Carthage and the

Roman Republic fought three

Punic Wars

. During the second war, a general from Carthage

named

Hannibal

led a huge army supported by war elephants from Spain through the

Alps

into Italy, a troop movement considered one of the greatest in history. Hannibal could not be

stopped, and he was threatening Rome when Roman armies attacked Carthage, forcing

Hannibal to return to protect his homeland.

Hannibal later poisoned himself rather than

become a prisoner of the Romans.

In the third and final Punic War, Roman

armies burned Carthage to the ground, and the

people of Carthage became Roman slaves. As in

ancient Greece, much of Rome’s work was done

by slave labor. With Carthage defeated, Rome was

free to expand into new territories including Spain,

Greece, and Egypt.

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

Julius Caesar

Turmoil came to the Roman Republic following the Punic Wars. Small farmers could not

compete with cheaper agricultural products and slave labor imported from the conquered

territories. Farmers lost their land to rich landowners and drifted to the cities. Mobs of poor

people rioted in the streets of Rome demanding more power. Civil war broke out when a

successful general, Julius Caesar, moved his army out of Gaul (present day France) and

marched toward Rome. Caesar won the civil war, and he had the Senate declare him dictator

for life in 48 BC, ending the Roman Republic that had existed for over 400 years.

Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March (March 15th) in 44 BC by his friend

Brutus

and other senators opposed to Caesar’s dictatorship. Brutus and his fellow assassins wanted

Rome to continue as a republic. It didn’t. While some people believed Caesar was an arrogant

tyrant, others gave him credit for restoring order at a time when Rome’s republican

government was no longer functioning effectively.

Pax Romana

During a trip to Egypt, Caesar fell in love with

Cleopatra

, the young queen of Egypt, and

he brought her with him to Rome. After Caesar’s death, Cleopatra returned to Egypt, and civil

war broke out again in Rome between Caesar’s supporters and his killers. Caesar’s friends

won the struggle, and two of them took control of the empire,

Octavian

in the west and

Antony

in the east. When Antony traveled to Egypt, he too fell in love with Cleopatra

although he was married to Octavian’s sister. In Rome, Octavian declared war on Antony and

Cleopatra, and he eventually defeated their combined military forces. To avoid being

captured, Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide. While alive, Cleopatra tried to keep Egypt

great. After her death, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, ending the 3,000-year

reign of the pharaohs.

Octavian became sole ruler of Rome and took the name

Augustus

. Considered a political

genius by many historians, Augustus proclaimed himself Rome’s first emperor, and he was

worshipped as a god. He quietly stripped the Senate of its power, turning Rome into an empire

disguised as a republic. Nonetheless, the reign of Augustus ended nearly a century of political

strife in the Roman world, and it was the beginning of a 200-year-long period of peace and

prosperity called Pax Romana, Latin for the “Roman Peace.” On the Roman law.

Rome’s empire grew to its largest size during the Pax Romana. One-way Roman

emperors controlled their vast empire was through a uniform system of laws that was enforced

from one end of the Roman world to the other. Judges were required to weigh evidence fairly,

and accused persons were considered innocent until proven guilty. The courts enforced legal

contracts. These principles were later adopted in legal systems of other nations including the

United States. Roman law is one of the greatest legacies of the empire.

The empire was also held together by a well-trained army, by communications over an

extensive road system, and by the

Latin

language. The Latin alphabet was derived from an

earlier writing system created by sea traders from Phoenicia on the eastern end of the

Mediterranean Sea. From their travels, Phoenicians learned about Sumerian cuneiform and

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

Egyptian hieroglyphics, writing systems that used hundreds of symbols to represent words or

syllables. The Phoenicians had a better idea; they created just 22 symbols to represent spoken

sounds. We call these symbols letters. Because the

Phoenician Alphabet

was simpler and

more precise than picture writing, it spread to other cultures. It was adopted by the Greeks

who added vowels and by the Romans who modified the letters to become the alphabet we

use today.

Arch

An arch is a curved opening that spans a doorway, window, or other space. The arch could

span much greater distances than the column-and-beam architecture of the Egyptians and

Greeks. Arches built side-by- side created aqueducts; arches placed in front of one another

formed large “vaulted” ceilings, and arches arranged in a circular pattern created domes. The

arch was adopted on a large scale by the Romans who also developed the use of concrete as a

construction material. The arch and concrete made it possible to construct public buildings

with large interior spaces that could be used for practical purposes, not just as temples.

One of the most impressive of these buildings is the

Colosseum

, a great arena of ancient

Rome that seated 50,000 spectators. Bloody and deadly contests were staged in the Colosseum

for the entertainment of Roman citizens. Although the Colosseum is now in ruins, it remains

a monument to Roman engineering, and it is the symbol of the present-day city of Rome. The

Colosseum also stands as a monument to human cruelty that symbolizes the decadence, or

moral decay, of the later years of the Roman Empire.

Constantine the Great

By the fourth century AD, the Roman Empire was in confusion; it was running short of

money and facing increasing pressure from raiders pushing in from the borders. In one 50-

year period, 26 emperors reigned, and only one of them died of natural causes. At about this

time a strong general named Constantine took control of the empire and tried to stop its

decline. He is remembered as Constantine the Great.

Although Christianity had long been outlawed in the empire, Constantine legalized

Christianity, and he ended the blood sports in the Colosseum. He also established

Constantinople

as the capital of the stronger eastern part of the Roman Empire, while Rome

remained capital of the weakened western part of the empire. Constantine ruled over both parts

of the empire from Constantinople located on the

Bosporus Strait

that connects the Black

Sea to the Mediterranean. Constantinople was a prosperous crossroads of trade routes where

Europe meets Asia. Today, Constantinople is called

Istanbul,

and it is Turkey’s largest city.

Fall of Rome

The fall of Rome was a slow-motion process that took centuries to unfold. Despite the

best efforts of Constantine, the Roman Empire continued to decline after his death as nomadic

warriors stepped-up their attacks. These nomads included

Huns

who swept down from the

Eurasian steppes pushing other nomadic tribes like

Goths

and

Vandals

ahead of them. Many

nomads were simply seeking a better life inside the empire. The Romans considered these

nomadic peoples to be culturally inferior and called them

barbarians

. Near the end, the

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

Roman Empire was in chaos, hiring barbarians to fight other barbarians.

The last emperor in the west was defeated in 476 AD, the date usually given as the Fall

of Rome. It should be remembered, however, that the eastern portion of the Roman Empire

lived on for another thousand years as the Byzantine Empire. Historians have long debated

the causes of the Fall of Rome. Factors included a terrible plague, the decline of agriculture,

heavy taxes, and a decadent upper class devoted to luxury and greed. Perhaps the more

important question is not why Rome fell, but why it lasted so long.

UNIT 5 - THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES, 500 AD TO 1000 AD

LOCATIONS: Byzantine Empire, Scandinavia, Russia, Southeast Asia, Korea, Maya,

Arabia, Mecca

Classical period

The classical period came at the end of ancient times. Ancient times began with the early

river valley civilizations starting about 3500 BC and ended with the fall of classical

civilizations around 500 AD. When people in the West speak of the classical period, they

usually mean ancient Greece and Rome. But in a larger sense, a classical period is when any

civilization undergoes advancement in several fields such as religion, government, or the arts.

It a time when a culture develops features that help to define it far into the future.

The three great classical civilizations of India, China, and the Mediterranean created

larger empires than had existed before. They all suffered from internal weaknesses before

falling to Hun invasions by about 500 AD, marking the end of ancient times. Still, each

civilization had its own distinctive character. The Mauryan and Gupta dynasties gave India

religious philosophies that focused on union with a universal spiritual force and de-

emphasized the concerns of this life. The Qin and Han dynasties left China with a tradition of

strong central governments headed by powerful rulers and a Confucian philosophy that

promoted order, respect, and learning. Greece and Rome gave Western Civilization a

humanistic philosophy concerned with improving life through reason, along with traditions

of citizen involvement in government and rule by law.

Middle ages

Historians disagree about the best way to classify eras of history, but many people use the

term “middle ages” to identify the period between ancient times and modern times, a thousand

years from approximately 500 AD to 1500 AD. Although civilization was in decline at the

beginning of this period, a powerful new Islamic civilization was about to arise in the Middle

East, and older civilizations would eventually revive.

During the middle ages, international trade would grow, helping to spread civilization and

major religions from core civilizations to outlying regions including sub-Saharan Africa,

Japan, and Russia.

The first few centuries of the middle ages in Europe are often called the

Dark Ages

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

because civilization had collapsed after the Fall of Rome, and Europe was torn by widespread

fighting among barbarian tribes.

We shall begin our journey through the middle ages in Europe where civilization had fallen

the farthest.

Germanic tribes

Although the Romans called them barbarians, German-speaking nomads defeated the

Romans because the empire had grown weak, and it could no longer defend its vast borders.

But the Germanic tribes were illiterate (could not read and write), and warriors were loyal

only to their local chiefs, which made the development of nations or empires impossible. This

was a time of much warfare between competing tribes and bands; the populations of cities

declined as people fled to the countryside to escape the fighting.

The loss of writing, cities, and government organization meant that civilization had largely

ended in Western Europe. As time went on, barbarian chiefs would become nobles and kings,

and these German- speaking tribes would evolve into the powerful kingdoms that ruled Europe

later during the middle ages.

Christianity

Christianity took hold in the Roman Empire as the empire was falling apart. It is based

on the Old Testament of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus, a Jewish holy man born in the

Middle East during the reign of Augustus Caesar. Jesus encouraged his followers to be kind

to others and to reject violence. Jewish leaders disagreed with some of Jesus’s teachings and

had him placed on trial. He was executed by Roman officials. Later, the Roman Empire

adopted Christianity as its official religion, which spread Christianity over a large area and

made Christianity a major world religion. Today it is the world’s largest religion.

The

Roman Catholic Church

was one institution from Roman times that did not break

down. During the Dark Ages, Latin-educated Catholics kept the flame of learning alive in

Western Europe. Even the Germanic tribes converted to Christianity by about 600 AD. Over

time, the bishop of Rome came to be accepted as the leader of the Catholic Church, the

pope

Christianity, like other major religions of the time, came to dominate art, architecture, and

thinking in the lands where it was adopted. Christianity was so central to life during the middle

ages in Europe that Western Europe was called

Christendom

Charlemagne

We begin to see civilization returning to Europe with the reign of Charlemagne, the

Christian king of a Germanic people called the

Franks

. The Franks gave France its name.

Charlemagne established a large empire in western and central Europe. After his armies

defended the pope, the pope crowned Charlemagne as the new Roman emperor on Christmas

day in the year 800. This attempt to revive the western Roman Empire didn’t last long. When

Charlemagne died, his empire was divided among his three sons. Two of these kingdoms

formed the general outlines of today’s Germany and France.

In addition to his success as a warrior, Charlemagne is remembered for his encouragement

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

of learning: he needed reading and writing to manage a large empire. Charlemagne established

schools and surrounded himself with scholars. He encouraged monks in

monasteries

to copy

literature from the ancient Greeks and Romans; without this work, much of what we know

about the classical world would have been lost forever.

Monasteries were Catholic religious communities where monks raised their own food,

operated schools and libraries, and copied books. Catholic nuns had similar institutions called

convents

, which were one place in Europe where women could receive an education and live

free of male control.

Vikings

Vikings were fierce warriors, traders and raiders from

Scandinavia

, present day Norway,

Sweden and Denmark. During the 800s and 900s, Vikings terrorized much of coastal Europe

and traveled far inland by river to loot, destroy, and slaughter. They fought the Franks among

others, and they conquered

Normandy

(land of the Northmen) in northern France where they

settled down and converted to Christianity. Vikings traveled the stormy North Atlantic in

excellent ships that could also navigate shallow rivers. The Vikings brought the adventurous

spirit of ocean exploration to Europe. A Viking named

Leif Erickson

was probably the first

European explorer to discover North America, but little resulted from his visit.

Feudalism

Farming villages in Europe needed defense against waves of nasty invaders like the

Vikings. The solution was mounted warriors called

knights

who could respond quickly to an

attack. The invention of the stirrup gave knights a steady platform from which to fight while

wearing heavy metal armor and using heavy weapons. Local lords (the nobility) hired knights

to protect villagers because the villagers’ farms provided the lord’s income. The farmers,

called

serfs

, were not slaves but were poor and had few rights.

The lord, in turn, owed military service to the king who gave the lord his land. In this

way, the king ruled through local lords who controlled smaller territories within the kingdom.

This kind of military and social system is called feudalism. Under feudalism, people owed

loyalty and service to those above, while those above owed protection to those below.

Feudalism was a middle stage in the development of government between rule by tribes and

rule by large nations with centralized governments that would come later.

Conditions in Western Europe had gradually improved since the Dark Ages. The feudal

system offered people some protection, and the church provided cultural unity and the hope

of a better life in heaven. But Christendom was divided among many competing kingdoms,

and commercial activity was weak. In the early middle ages, Europe was still a backward

society compared to the great civilizations of Eurasia.

Byzantine Empire

One of the world’s great civilizations was next door to Europe in the eastern part of the

Roman Empire, the part that did not fall to barbarians. The eastern Roman Empire survived

for another thousand years under a new name, the Byzantine Empire with its capital at

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

Constantinople. The size of the empire fluctuated over the centuries, but it generally included

Greece and Asia Minor. Byzantine culture extended into Russia.

Byzantine emperors served as head of both the Christian church and the state. Greek

replaced Latin as the official language. Eventually the Christian church split into eastern and

western branches, with Latin- speaking Roman Catholics in Western Europe and Greek-

speaking

Orthodox

Christians in the East.

Byzantine emperors promoted a style of art that featured beautiful

mosaics

. The best-

known example of Byzantine architecture is the church of Saint Sophia constructed by

emperor

Justinian

in Constantinople. Built as the largest Christian church in the world, it

became the model for later Eastern Orthodox churches.

Justinian also brought together all of the laws of the Roman Empire into a single legal

code that became the basis for modern legal systems in Europe. Rules and customs in the

Byzantine court became so complex that the term “byzantine” is now used to indicate any set

of complicated laws or procedures.

Russia

Viking traders moved into western Russia and developed river trade routes that reached

south to Constantinople. Furs from Scandinavia were traded for luxury products from the

Byzantine Empire. Many Russians visited Constantinople, and

missionaries

traveled to

Russia spreading the Eastern Orthodox religion. One of Russia’s early rulers, a Viking

descendent named Vladimir I, married the sister of a Byzantine emperor, and he accepted

Orthodox Christianity for his people. His choice of Christianity might have been influenced

by Islam’s ban on alcohol. He reportedly said, “Drinking is the joy of the Russes.”

Russia’s culture, including its art and architecture, began to resemble Byzantine culture.

The Russian alphabet is derived from the Greek alphabet, and Orthodox Christianity is the

main religion in Russia today.

Tang Dynasty

(TONG)

In China, nearly four centuries of disorder followed the fall of the Han Dynasty in 220

AD. During this long period of unrest, Buddhism gained strength in China. China finally

became united again under a new emperor in the early middle ages, and shortly thereafter the

Tang Dynasty took control of China and returned China to greatness. Under the Tang, the

ideals of Confucius were revived; art and music flourished, and gunpowder and printing were

invented. The Chinese first printed by carving words and pictures into blocks of wood, which

were pressed against paper. Later the Chinese invented

movable type

with each character

made from a single piece of hardened clay.

Tang emperors tried to improve agriculture by reducing large estates held by aristocrats

and giving land to the

peasants

(poor and uneducated farmers). During the Tang period,

China’s economy was enriched by the new

Grand Canal

dug between the Yellow and the

Yangtze Rivers. Canal boats now linked the political center of north China with the prosperous

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

rice-producing Yangtze River basin in the south. Safe and inexpensive canal transportation

brought more rice, precious goods, and taxes to northern China. The Tang dynasty lasted for

three hundred years, from 618 - 907 AD. It weakened and was replaced by the

Song

dynasty

that continued China’s economic and cultural development for another three hundred years.

Southeast Asia

One of the most important events of the middle ages was the spread of rice farming in

Asia. After a new and more productive variety of rice became available, large tracts of

swampland and forest were converted to rice paddies. In China, population doubled between

the 700s and 1100s. This new type of rice originated in Southeast Asia and reached China and

India over ocean trade routes. These same routes brought manufactured goods such as scissors

and cooking pots to Southeast Asia.

Southeast Asia is a region comprised of two parts: the southeast corner of the Asian

mainland and a large

archipelago

(chain of islands) between the Asian mainland and

Australia. It includes the modern mainland countries of Vietnam and Thailand, and the island

nations of Indonesia and the Philippines.

Sailors of Southeast Asia were among the world’s most daring. During ancient times,

they discovered how to ride the

monsoons

, seasonal winds that blow toward the continent of

Asia during the warm months and away from the mainland during the cold months. These

sailors opened the Southern Ocean trade routes that connected the Indian trading network with

the China trade network. By the early middle ages, they were sailing two-thirds of the way

around the earth from Africa to islands in the South Pacific.

Korea and Japan

As rice cultivation spread from the central civilizations of Asia, new societies began to

develop in outlying regions. Rice growing became important in Korea about 100 AD, and rice

took hold in Japan over a century later. Other imports from China and India soon followed.

Buddhist monks brought reading, writing, and their religion first to Korea and then to Japan.

Both countries adopted Chinese architectural styles.

Rulers in Korea and Japan tried to organize central governments based on the Chinese model.

Korea, a peninsula attached to the Chinese mainland, was strongly influenced by China.

Japan, an archipelago separated from China by 500 miles of ocean, was somewhat less

affected by Chinese culture. Both societies managed to retain distinct cultures by blending

Chinese influences with their own traditions.

As was generally true in civilized societies during the middle ages, women in Japan had

fewer rights than men. Nonetheless, upper class women studied art and music, and they

learned how to read and write. Japanese women produced some of finest literature of the age

including The Tale of Genji about life in the royal court. The Tale of Genji is believed to be

the first novel written in any language.

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

Maya

Humans came late to the Western Hemisphere, and civilization started later here too.

Native Americans were isolated from advancements in Eurasia, so they had to invent

agriculture and civilization on their own. Agriculture appeared in Mexico and South America

about 5,000 years after it began in the Middle East. The first civilization of the Americas was

probably the

Olmec

culture of southern Mexico (1200 BC to 400 BC). The Olmecs raised

corn, beans, and squash and are known for their sculptures of giant stone heads.

The Maya civilization arose centuries later just east of Olmec lands. Maya city-states

flourished between 300 and 900 A.D. in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico and northern

Central America. The Maya improved on the achievements of the Olmecs to create the most

advanced native civilization of the Americas. They used hieroglyphics to write on stone and

in books made of bark paper. They had a zero-based numbering system before the Europeans

did. They created fine arts, a calendar of 365-1/4 days, and impressive pyramid-shaped

temples in large cities. The Maya also practiced human sacrifice and apparently played a ball

game that ended in death. Perhaps the Maya were too successful; it appears they

overpopulated their land depleting it of natural resources, which contributed to their decline.

Muhammad

One of the biggest historical events of the middle ages came out of the harsh deserts of

the

Arabian Peninsula

: the birth of Muhammad and his religion of Islam. Arabia was a land

of camel caravans, a few trading cities, and fierce desert nomads called

Bedouins

. Bedouin

tribes worshiped local gods and fought one another. Muhammad was born in the city of

Mecca

where he became a successful caravan trader and merchant. From his travels, Muhammad

learned of Judaism and Christianity, religions with only one God.

Although Muhammad was prosperous and respected, he wanted more than a life devoted

to material wealth. He was troubled by inequality between rich merchants and poor nomads.

Muhammad would often go off by himself to think and meditate. One day he saw a vision of

the angel Gabriel who told him to “recite” messages from God. Muhammad began to teach

these messages, and eventually they were written in a holy book called the

Quran

Muhammad’s teachings led to conflicts with the rulers of Mecca who threatened his life. In

622 A.D. He fled to the nearby town of Medina where his religious teachings and wise advice

gained him many followers. Muhammad also proved to be an effective military leader when

his followers battled forces from Mecca. In 630 A.D. Muhammad with thousands of followers

returned to Mecca in victory. Muhammad died just two years later, but he is revered as the

chief prophet or messenger of Islam.

Islam

Worshipers of Islam are called

Muslims,

their houses of worship are

mosques

, and their

God is

Allah

. Today Islam is the world’s second largest religion. Most Muslims live in a

geographic band that stretches from Morocco in west Africa to the islands of Southeast Asia.

Muslims believe Allah is the same God worshiped by Jews and Christians; Muhammad said

Islam is a refinement of these two earlier religions.

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

Muslims do not have priests; they have a direct relationship with God. Muslims are

required to help the poor and sick and are expected to be kind and generous to those of lower

rank. Muslims face Mecca five times a day to pray, and they are encouraged to go on a

pilgrimage (religious journey) to Mecca.

Muhammad taught that all men and women are equal before God; women in early Muslim

societies had more rights than women in many other cultures of the time. Muslim scholars

developed the

Shari’a

(Shuh- REE-uh), a legal and moral code based on Islamic teachings

that applied to government, business, and personal dealings. Under Shari’a law, there was no

separation between religion and government.

Arab conquests

Islam gave Arabia’s Bedouin tribes one God to worship, and it promoted equality among

believers. The tribes experienced a unity they had never known before. Rather than fighting

each other, they went on a spree of foreign conquest aided by fast Arabian horses and camels

well suited to desert warfare. These were wars of territorial conquest, not holy wars; Arabs

did not attempt to spread Islam to lands they conquered.

Arabs subdued Persia to their east, parts of the Byzantine Empire to the north, and Egypt

to the west. Then they took a breather to quarrel over who was the rightful heir to Muhammad.

After splitting into two sects, the

Sunni

and

Shi’a

, the Arabs resumed their conquests in

northern India, North Africa, and Spain. But, when they tried to expand farther into Christian

Europe, they were stopped by the Franks in the west and by the Byzantine Empire in the east.

In just a hundred years, Arabs created the largest empire since Rome.

UNIT 6 - THE LATE MIDDLE AGES, 1000 TO 1500 AD

LOCATIONS: Holy Land, Swahili Coast, Timbuktu, Beijing, Mongol Empire, Istanbul,

France, England, Andes Mountains, Aztec, Inca, Spain, Portugal

Abbasid Empire

(uh-BA-suhd)

The Arab empire came under control of the Abbasid Dynasty in 750 AD. The great wave

of Arabic conquest was over, and people of many lands were choosing to adopt Islam as their

religion. Muslim traders, sailors, and preachers carried Islam to new territories in Central Asia,

sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia. People converted to Islam because it promised a

close relationship with God and equality among believers, and Muslims enjoyed the benefits

of membership in a large and prosperous society.

Abbasid rulers were tolerant of different peoples and open to new ideas. Jews, Christians,

Hindus, and Buddhists enjoyed freedom of religion in Muslim lands. Muslims learned from

the cultures they encountered. They preserved the works of Aristotle and other classical Greek

writers. They adopted the zero-based numbering system of India. They acquired the compass

and papermaking from China. And they developed one of the most creative societies of all

time. Islamic literature, art, and architecture flowered.

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

Islamic civilization surpassed all others in science and technology and in size. But the

very size of the Abbasid Empire made it difficult to govern. At the same time the Islamic

world was reaching new heights of achievement, Abbasid rulers were losing control of their

empire to non-Arabs. As the empire weakened, it broke into competing Islamic kingdoms and

then fell to nomadic invaders.

Swahili Coast

It was during the Abbasid dynasty that Muslim traders brought sub-Saharan Africa into

closer contact with the rest of the world and spread the religion of Islam in the process. As

Muslim merchants developed trade links with cities in East and West Africa, African rulers in

these trade centers often converted to Islam.

One trade center was on the east coast of Africa where the Swahili language was spoken.

A string of prosperous Swahili Coast cities connected East Africa to the southern-ocean

trading network. These ports traded gold, ivory, and slaves from Africa for cotton from India,

silk from Persia, and porcelain from China.

Empire of Mali

Islam came to West Africa with camel caravans crossing the Sahara Desert from North

Africa. Camels could go no farther south than a band of savanna lying on the southern edge

of the desert because camels sickened in wetter climates to the south. Trading cities such as

Timbuktu

grew and prospered where caravans stopped and exchanged salt and other goods

from the north for gold from sub-Saharan Africa.

Several large states developed around these trading cities in the “hump” of West Africa.

One was the Empire of Mali that thrived during the 1200s and 1300s. A Mali ruler,

Mansa

Musa

, went on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 and distributed so much gold on his journey

that the value of gold dropped in Egypt.

Although Islam came to African trade centers, much of the interior of Africa was

untouched by Muslim culture. People there continued to follow traditional religions, and many

lived in

stateless societies

without formal rulers. In stateless societies, the community or a

council of families made decisions.

Crusades

While the Abbasid dynasty was struggling to maintain control over its weakening empire,

it faced a new threat from Europe. Roman Catholic popes encouraged Christian kings and

knights to undertake military expeditions, or Crusades, to capture the

Holy Land

from the

Muslims. The Holy Land is a region at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea where Jesus

lived; it is also holy to Jews and Muslims. Christian crusaders conquered much of the Holy

Land, taking Jerusalem in 1099, but they were unable to hold it and were driven out by 1291.

These Christian invasions are still recalled with bitterness by some Muslims.

Still, the Crusades probably had greater impact on Europe than on the Holy Land.

Europeans now had first-hand knowledge of just how backward Europe seemed in comparison

to the more advanced Islamic culture. This realization probably pushed Europeans to develop

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

more rapidly to catch up with the rival Muslims. Europeans acquired important technologies

from the Muslim world including the “Arabic” numbering system (from India), the compass

(from China), and the astrolabe, an Arabic instrument for measuring latitude. These inventions

would make it possible for European ships to sail far out to sea.

Mongols

The Abbasid Empire fell when Mongol invaders conquered the capital of

Baghdad

1258 and massacred some 800,000 Muslims including the caliph (emperor). The Mongols

were nomadic tribesmen and superb mounted warriors from central Asia who swept east

toward China and west toward Europe under the brilliant but ruthless leadership of

Genghis

Khan

and his successors. Mongols created the largest land empire in world history. Their

conquests stopped just short of Western Europe when a Mongol leader died, and generals

returned home to choose a new khan. Genghis Khan’s grandson,

Kublai Khan

, completed

the conquest of China. He made himself emperor of China and established the present-day

capital of

Beijing

The Mongols left their mark. It took time for many regions to recover from Mongol

destruction. The Mongol defeat of the Abbasid Dynasty left the Muslim world fragmented,

and Mongol control slowed the development of Russia. But Mongol law code established

order across the vast Mongol Empire ushering in a period of peace and increased trade

between East and West over the old Silk Roads. These trade routes also transported the fleas

that carried the

Black Death

(bubonic plague) from China to the Middle East and to Europe

where it killed half the people of some areas. The Mongols were warriors, not administrators,

and they did not develop the government institutions necessary to maintain an empire. Mongol

unity withered in the late 1300s, and eventually the Mongols were absorbed into the cultures

they had conquered.

Marco Polo

The Mongol invasions marked nearly the last time in history that nomadic raiders would

threaten civilization. Settled societies eventually gained the upper hand against nomads with

superior military organization and firearms. Because Western Europe was spared from

Mongol attacks, Europe benefited in several ways from the Mongol conquests. The Mongol

victories weakened Europe’s Muslim rivals, and when the Mongols reestablished dependable

trade along the Silk Road, Europeans acquired new knowledge and technology from the East

including gunpowder weapons.

In Europe, Venice, Italy grew wealthy as the main trading crossroads between East and

West. In 1271, a teenager from Venice named Marco Polo left on a trading trip to China with

his father and uncle. They visited the court of Kublai Khan, who gave bright young Marco a

job as ambassador to outlying regions of China. Marco returned to Italy 24 years later and

was serving as captain of a Venetian warship when he was captured and sent to prison in

Genoa, Italy. There he wrote what is probably the most influential travel book of all time, The

Travels of Marco Polo. The book gave Europeans their first real knowledge of China, and

about two centuries later it inspired another Italian, Christopher Columbus of Genoa, to set

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

sail for Asia.

Samurai

Although Kublai Khan ruled China, he failed to conquer Japan. In 1281, he sent a fleet of

over 4,000 ships and 150,000 warriors against Japan. Japan appeared to be doomed until two

days of typhoon winds destroyed much of the Chinese force. The Japanese called the storm

kamikaze, or “divine wind.” At this time, warlords ruled Japan, and Japan had a feudal system

very similar to the system in Europe. Poor farmers were bound to a land-owning lord, and the

lord protected his holdings with mounted professional warriors called samurai. Some

members of the samurai class became rulers in their own right.

Voyages of Zheng He

(JUNG HUH, sometimes spelled Cheng Ho)

The Chinese resented being ruled by Mongol outsiders. After the death of Kublai Khan,

a revolt drove the Mongols from China and established the

Ming Dynasty

that lasted nearly

300 years. The Ming are known for their fine blue and white porcelain (or china) that was

exported to much of the world. The Ming built the

Forbidden City

in Beijing as a new home

for the emperor with beautiful palaces and gardens.

In the early 1400s, Ming emperors sent Chinese admiral Zheng He -- a Muslim and a

eunuch -- on seven great overseas voyages to demonstrate Chinese power and to collect

treasure. On his first expedition, Zheng He commanded a fleet of 62 ships and 28,000 men.

Some of his treasure ships were over 400 feet long, many times the size of the ships later used

by Columbus. These expeditions traveled as far as Arabia and east Africa, extending Chinese

influence over much of the civilized world. But Ming court advisers began to argue that China

could learn nothing from foreign “barbarians,” and China’s money would be better spent

closer to home improving defenses against Mongols and other nomads. The ocean expeditions

stopped, and China’s fleet went into decline. China’s withdrawal from ocean exploration

opened the door for the less- advanced civilization in Western Europe to explore and

eventually dominate the world’s oceans.

Ottoman Empire

Following the Mongol disruptions, three new Islamic empires emerged to replace the

fallen Abbasid Dynasty. They were the Ottoman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean, the

Safavid

Empire in Persia, and the

Mughal

Empire of India. (A Mughal ruler built the famed

Taj Mahal.) Of these three empires, the Ottoman Empire was the largest, and it lasted longest.

The Ottomans were a branch of

Turkish

nomads from central Asia who fled west to escape

the Mongols. They settled in Asia Minor and eventually extended their rule to Christian lands

in southern Europe and to Muslim lands in the Middle East. The Ottoman Turks conquered

the last remaining piece of the old Byzantine Empire in 1453 when they used early canons to

destroy the walls of Constantinople. They made the city their capital and renamed it

Istanbul

The Ottoman Turks were Sunni Muslims. Their neighbors in the Safavid Empire were Shi’a

Muslims.

The two empires battled for dominance a struggle intensified by their religious

differences. Today Shi’a Muslims remain concentrated in the vicinity of Persia, now Iran and

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

Iraq, while Sunnis are a majority elsewhere. Distracted by conflicts with their rivals and by

internal problems, the three Islamic empires paid little attention to the growing commercial

and technological strength of the kingdoms in Europe.

Guilds

In Europe of the late middle ages, improvements in agricultural technology led to bigger

populations and the growth of cities. Townspeople gradually won the right from their local

lords to run their own city governments. Trade grew, and cities became important centers of

manufacturing and commerce.

Many of the goods traded in Europe were produced by self-employed craftspeople who

formed organizations called guilds to regulate the price and quality of their products such as

shoes or metalwork. Guilds were the forerunners of today’s labor unions. Guilds also served

as civic organizations that helped to run the towns. Some women began taking up trades like

hat making or weaving that gave them greater financial independence. Merchants and

craftspeople were becoming a new class in European society, a

middle class

between the

peasants and the nobility (lords and kings).

Hundred Years’ War

It might be said that two wars between France and England marked the beginning and the

end of the age of knights and castles in Europe. The first of these wars was the

Norman

Conquest

of England. In 1066, a duke from the Normandy region of northern France invaded

and conquered England becoming the new English king, William the Conqueror. William

used knights to help win his victory, and the Normans built castles in England for protection

from hostile locals. As a result, knights and castles became more popular.

Several centuries later, William’s descendants claimed the legal right to the French

throne. This and other causes led to the Hundred Years’ War fought on French soil from 1337

to 1453. In battle after battle, French knights were defeated by English forces that included

foot soldiers firing powerful longbows that filled the skies with deadly arrows. Most of France

had fallen under English control when an illiterate, teen- age peasant girl appeared at the

French court claiming that voices told her how to save France. That girl,

Joan of Arc

, led a

French army to victory over the English in a battle at Orleans, France in 1429. It was the

turning point of the war. The French continued winning and finally drove the English from

France in 1453. This is why Joan is loved by the French as their greatest patriot and why the

English burned her at the stake.

During the Hundred Years’ War, knights were made obsolete by English longbows and

guns. Kings replaced knights with paid armies. Castles became obsolete because cannons

could destroy stone walls. The entire feudal system was breaking down as people in England

and France developed loyalties to their countries rather than to local lords. In the process, the

modern nations of

France

and

England

were born.

Gothic Architecture

The Roman Catholic Church reached the height of its power and influence during the late

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

middle ages. The most visible symbol of the church’s power were magnificent Gothic

cathedrals built in the 1100s and 1200s including Notre Dame, Chartres, and Reims, all in

France. The most prominent feature of Gothic architecture is the pointed arch, but the Gothic

style is also known for soaring ceilings, walls filled with glass windows, and flying buttresses.

A flying buttress is an external, arched support for the wall of a building that allowed builders

to construct tall, thin, stone walls filled with colored-glass windows. Glass was extremely

important to Gothic cathedrals: it lighted the interior, its beauty seemed inspired by God, and

the Bible stories portrayed on the windows taught about religion at a time when most people

were illiterate.

Renaissance

Renaissance means reawakening or rebirth, and it refers to a rebirth of learning from

classical Greece and Rome. In the late middle ages, Italians became interested in learning

about the glories of their ancestors in the Roman Empire. They searched for classical literature

forgotten in monasteries, and they acquired classical works from Muslim and Byzantine

scholars. Archeologists uncovered classical art and architecture.

Italians became interested in humanism, the concern with human values in this life as

opposed to religious beliefs and the afterlife. Renaissance architecture abandoned the church’s

Gothic style and adopted the simplicity and balance of more classical forms. Artists including

Michelangelo

and

Da Vinci

shaped Western art,

Shakespeare

wrote plays that explored

human nature, and

Gutenberg’s

printing press spread Renaissance knowledge through

cheaper books that encouraged people to learn how to read and write. The Renaissance began

in Florence, Italy about 1350 and spread to Rome and finally to much of Europe before it

ended in the early 1600s. The Renaissance was a bridge between the middle ages and the

modern world.

Aztecs

During the late middle ages, people of the Western Hemisphere continued to develop in

isolation from the rest of the world. Agriculture had spread across much of the Americas, and

Native American societies ranged from small bands of hunter-gathers to empires with millions

of people. The two greatest empires of the time were the Aztec and the Inca. Both collected

heavy taxes from groups they conquered.

The Aztecs were a fierce and warlike people of central and southern Mexico who

controlled their subjects through fear and military force. Their polytheistic religion practiced

human sacrifice on a scale unknown elsewhere in history. The Aztec’s believed their sun god

required blood from beating human hearts each night in order to rise again in the morning.

Often the purpose of war was to obtain victims for sacrifice. The Aztecs built their capital on

swampy marshland in what is now Mexico City. Floating gardens provided the city’s food.

When Europeans first saw the capital, they were amazed to find an island city of 200,000

people -- as big as any city in Europe -- with tall temples, a huge marketplace, ball courts, and

even a zoo.

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

Incas

The Inca civilization was centered in present day Peru, but it grew to include most of the

Pacific coast of South America between the

Andes Mountains

and the ocean. It was a high-

altitude civilization; farmers developed irrigation systems and stepped terraces for growing

crops on steep hillsides. The 3,000-mile-long Inca Empire was linked by the most extensive

road system since the Roman Empire. Way stations built on main roads provided travelers

with places to stay at the end of each day’s journey. The Incas did not have writing as we

know it, but they kept accurate numerical records on knotted strings called quipu (KEE-pu).

People living in the Americas, including the Aztecs and Incas, had no way of knowing

their long separation from Eurasia was about to end with consequences they could hardly

imagine.

Great voyages of discovery

As the year 1500 approached, the world faced a turning point in history, but none were

yet aware of it. Sailing ships and navigation technology had improved to a point that ships

could sail anywhere in the world. The Eastern and Western Hemispheres still did not know

each other existed, but the time had come for them to meet. Who would make the

introduction? Three civilizations had the necessary wealth and knowledge. The Islamic world

was one of them, but it was weakened by the Mongol conquests, and it was preoccupied with

local and regional matters. The Chinese civilization was another, but it had withdrawn from

ocean exploration to deal with internal concerns. Only Christian Europe seemed eager to reach

outward. Europeans were hungry to explore. The Vikings had taught them how to sail the

stormy Atlantic.

The Crusades whetted their appetite for travel and adventure, and Marco Polo got them

thinking about Asia. Europe also had the means to explore. The Renaissance brought

European culture to a level of other advanced civilizations, and it gave Europeans a new sense

of confidence. The competing kings of Europe were busy adopting new technologies and trade

links to give them advantages over rival monarchs.

In August of 1492,

Spain

sent Christopher Columbus into the Atlantic Ocean with three

small ships to search for a western trade route to the spice islands of Asia, a voyage that finally

connected the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. Sailing for

Portugal

, Vasco de Gama

rounded Africa and connected Europe to the Indian Ocean and Asia in 1498. In 1522,

Magellan’s Spanish expedition circled the earth and connected the world. The world would

never be the same. The middle ages were over, and modern times had begun.

Conclusions

Studying world history is

no joke. Remembering places, space, location and interaction of man in

the given period need focus and serendipity. Since, present generation are not participants of the “story” they

don’t feel as part in the making of the present story and development. In order that everybody get involve in the

story teacher in the classroom must design a certain paradigm to involve the non-participant to be an active or

proactive observer.

Holding a non-competitive culture yesteryears it will easily accommodate and assimilate. Dominant

culture survive and the weak shall die. In the course of its development different people have different culture

SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

and individual differences matters. Dominant culture shall live, flourished and influenced. Which this present

generation must know their competitivenesss. Drawing the line of our great great grandparent experiences we

must learn the lesson that they shall live. Like the rise and fall on the first civilization and empire; the experiences

of the Western Asia and Egypt.

Likewise, the continuing preservation on the Indian and Chinese culture which was debunk by the glory

of Greece and their grandeur of Rome. The Asian world is trying to rise despite of meanstreaming in the midst

of globalization. The new pattern of civilization and the early civilization of Africas and Americas in rejoider to

the modern world and the age of exploration creating a much culture of internationalization. As country

competing to one another in terms of their cultural superiority others are blended for their safety and security.

The cold war is a typcial example that the competition is very high. Despite of its “negative” connotation

it brings the different culture to create another culture. Our generation making it sure that the amalgamation of

culture our humanity will continue to shine and live under the culture of love will be born.

REFERENCES

Adas, Michae I. (2018). Essays on Twentieth-Century History: historiographic essays on world history

conceptualizing the "long" 20th century, from the 1870s to the early 2000s. Belgorod: Belgorod state

University

Bauer, Susan Wise The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome.

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Bentley, Jerry H. (2017). The Oxford Handbook of World History. Oxford University Press.

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SSE 6 – World History (Ancient up to the 8

Century C.E.)

Dr Frederick W Gomez________________________________________________________________

72 illustrations, 17 maps.

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