 The story of the past. HISTORY…His Story › History is often told by different people or spin their own interpretations into the story they are telling.

 A person who studies the past. › Historians use:  Documents  Books  Writings  Verbal Communication  And other items to study the past › They retell stories with their own biases and views

Primary SourcesSecondary Sources Original Records of an eventWritings and interpretations of historians and other writers Documents left by eyewitnessesTextbooks Records written at the time of the event Biographies Texts of speeches and reportsArticles and essays Letters, paintings, photographs, and artifacts

Historical PeriodDates The Dawn of Civilization3500 BC to 500 BC The Classical Civilization500 BC to 500 AD New Centers of Culture in an Age of Turmoil 500 to 1200 Warriors on Horseback and the Revival of Europe 1200 to 1500 The Birth of the Modern World1500 to 1700 Revolution, Nationalism, Imperialism 1700 to 1900 The World at War1900 to 1945 From Cold War to Global Interdependence 1945 to Present

 Decade- a ten year period  Century- a hundred year period  Millennium- a thousand year period  19 th Century- the years 1800 to 1899  20 th Century- the years 1900 to 1999  21 st Century- the years 2000 to 2099

 The earliest events start to the left and the latest events to the right. › Time is divided into periods. BC refers to time before the birth of Christ and AD refers to the time after Christ. › To measure the years between a BC event and an AD event you add the numbers together. › To measure the years between an AD event and an AD event subtract the earlier date from the later date.

Document #1: History is objective. The historian’s task is to give readers the facts… to tell “how it actually happened”… Everything has a history… Traditional historians think of history as essentially a narrative of events. (Peter Burke- National Perspectives on Historical Writings pg. 3) According to Document #1: What is the task of the Historian?

Document #2: History is the story of humanity’s past. History systematically records and explains what people have thought, said, and done. History deals with political, economic, and social matters… History describes humanity’s efforts to improve the world. It recounts the achievements and setbacks in the long upward climb toward a high level of civilization. (World History: Amsco pg. 1) According to Document #2: What does History deal with?

Document #3: Knowledge of the past comes from many sources- from written records and from knowledge revealed by science developed in the last century or so. New sciences of some importance to the historian are Anthropology which is the study of man’s physical and cultural development; Archaeology which is the discovery and study of material remains; Geology which is the study of rock and earthly formation; Philology which is the study of language and written records; Sociology which is the study of conditions and change in groups; and Psychology which is the study of human behavior. According to Document #3: Where does knowledge of the past come from?