How is History Written?

1. How is History Written?

2. Historyis about • Time • More than just the hands on a clock • Evidence • Is it for real? Prove it.

3. How Do We Measure History? Time in History

4. The Concept of Time What is time? How do we measure time? Why is time important in History? Why is the calendar useful? Why was it invented?

5. Chronology When we study History, we measure time not distance We get the sequence of events in the correct order If events are in the wrong order, their meaning can change enormously

6. What do you think happened?

7. What do you think the story would be if the order of events was changed?

8. Re-arrange this comic strip

9. History and Prehistory Oldest part of history and does not have any written record is ‘prehistory’ We use artefactsto study prehistoric periods It is divided into ‘ages’ named after what the people at that time made their tools from.

10. History and Prehistory • Stone Age – when man created tools from stone • Bronze Age – when humans began with the first widespread use of copper and bronze tools • Iron Age – Iron was used extensively and there was some evidence of written records

12. Periods in History Historians also break up time into other ages like Golden Age, Elizabethan Age etc. History is split into dynasties e.g Shang Dynasty. Gupta Dynasty etc. Dynasty – period of rule by people from the same family group

13. Shang dynasty 1523-1027 BC Zhou dynasty 1027-221 BC Qin dynasty 221- 206 BC Han dynasty 202 BC- AD 220 Periods in History Periods - Dynasties

14. Counting the years • How do Historians decide where to start counting from? • AD – Anno Domini (In the year of our Lord) • Indicate anything that happened after Christ was born • Counted forward beginning with 1 • Written AD1945 – but we don’t normally write like this • This year was One thousand nine hundred and forty-five years after the birth of Christ

15. Origins of A.D and B.C About 1,500 years ago, there was a dispute within the Christian Church over how to date important events in church history. The Pope asked a monk to develop a standard method. The monk decided to start with what he believed was the year Jesus Christ’s birth. This became year 1. The years before Christ’s birth later became known as Before Christ, abbreviated B.C. The monk called the years after Christ’s birth anno Domini. These Latin words mean ‘in the year of the Lord’ and are abbreviated A.D.

16. Time Specific points BC - before Christ AD - Anno Domini Century - a period of 100 years The 2nd century AD lasted from AD 101 to AD 200

17. Counting the years • BC – Before Christ • We write the letter BC after the number e.g. 242 BC • Counted back from the birth of Christ e.g. Shang ruled China from 1500 BC to 1027 BC • Higher the date; earlier it had happened

18. There is no Year 0

19. Counting the years • Han ruled China from 206 BC to AD 220 • How long did they rule China? • 206 years before Christ was born • 220 years after • 426 years altogether

20. Counting the years • AD and BC are divided into smaller units • Biggest 1000 years – Millennium • So AD 1000 is 1000 years after Christ was born • Each millennium is divided into centuries • 100 years – century • Each century is divided into decades • 10 years – 1 decade • 1945 is year 5 of the 4th decade of the 9th century of the 2nd millennium

21. A jagged line means an interval is not represented BC 1600 1000 800 600 400 200 AD 1 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 AD Dates before AD 1 refer to the years before the birth of Jesus Christ Dates after AD 1 refer to the years after the birth of Jesus Christ AD 1 The year Jesus Christ was born The notation c, is short for circa which means ‘around’. We don’t know the exact year the event happened but we think it was probably around that time Timeline Gupta Dynasty (c. AD320 – 540)

22. CE & BCE Some countries have changed AD and BC to CE – Common Era and BCE – Before Common Era To avoid the linkage to Christ but keeping the same dates Assuming that our starting point is the YEAR ONE (there is no YEAR ZERO), then BCE, meaning "before common era" is the abbreviation used for years that occurred before the YEAR ONE. CE means "common era" and is used on all dates starting with YEAR ONE.

23. Writing Sometimes, we omit the abbreviation CE if we are only talking about modern history--no one would say that Barack Obama was elected in the year 2008 CE, although they could if they wanted to

24. Muslim System Muslim year has 12 months – all of 28 days Significant event was when Prophet Mohammed was driven out of Mecca to Medina This move was called hijrah and happened in the year AD 622

25. Muslim System AD 622 is 1 AH (After Hijrah) Dates before Ad 622 is labelled BH (Before Hijrah)

26. Other dating systems Other calendars are of the Chinese, Jewish and Indian origins Some are used for religious purposes – not for historical recordings

27. Other dating systems Imagine the confusion if everyone worked in a different system of time dating How would this affect: business arrangements, school holidays, writing history textbooks etc.

28. Activity Time Century Years 5th century BC 500 - 401 BC 2nd century BC 200 - 101 BC 11th century AD AD 1001 - 1100 15th century AD AD 1401 - 1500 21st century AD AD 2001 - 2100

29. Chronology Arrange these events in chronological order