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History and Geography


Historians are people who study events in the past
A) Using a Timeline
 Historians use a timeline or a line marked off with a
series of events and dates.
 Timelines are used to put events in a chronology or a
list of events in the order in which they occurred.
 Timelines cover a day, a year, a decade (ten years), a
century (one hundred years), a millennium (one
thousand years), or any other period in history.
 A period is a length of time singled out because of a
specific event or development that happened during
that time.
 It is also known as an era or epoch
 Historians use periods and eras to organize and
describe human activities
 The
past is often split into two parts,
prehistory and history.
 Prehistory is the time before humans
invented writing.
 History refers to written history, which began
about 5,200 years ago.
 History can also be organized by beginning
with a key event from the past.

One event many people use is the birthdate of
Jesus.
Years before this were labeled B.C for before Christ
or B.C.E. for before common era.
 Years after Jesus’ birthdate are labeled A.D. meaning
anno Domini or in the year of our Lord.
 Also used is C.E. for common era

The Jewish calendar counts the years since the
creation of the world, according to Jewish
tradition.
 The Islamic calendar is dated from the year that
the prophet Muhammad moved to the city of
Medina.

Jewish Calendar
Islamic Calendar
 Mayan
and Aztec had calendars for farming
and religious purposes
 Today we mostly use the Gregorian calendar
with 365 or 366 days a year.

It is based on the movement of Earth around the
sun.
 The
Jewish calendar is based on the sun and
moon and has 353 to 385 days.
 The Islamic calendar is based on the cycles
of the moon and has about 354 days.
 THE END


To understand past events, historians study historical
sources
A) Primary and Secondary Sources
 A primary source is information that comes
directly from a person who experienced an event.
 It can be what they write, say or create about
the event
 They include letters, diaries, speeches,
photography and artifacts
 An artifact is an object made by a human
being, such as a tool or weapon.
 Primary sources are used to understand events from
the point of view of the people who lived through
it.
Primary Source
A
secondary source is information about an
event that does not come from a person who
experienced that event.

This includes books, articles, movies, or other
sources that describe or make sense of the past.
 Historical
sources do not always give a true
account of events
 Even a primary source can be wrong or
misleading, as personal opinions may have
influenced what they wrote about the event
 A historians job is to decide what is correct
 Secondary sources can also be misleading, as
they may not all be reliable

For example the internet has many good
secondary sources, but there are also some bad
ones, such as Wikipedia.

When researching primary and secondary sources, ask
yourself questions such as:
 Who created the source material?
 They must be reliable, such as a person present at
the event or a professor
 Is the information fact or opinion?
 A fact is something that can be proved true or false
 Opinions are personal beliefs.
 This gives you the persons judgments or feelings
 Does the material seem to have a bias?
 A bias is an unfair preference for or dislike of
something.
 It often leaves out facts that do not support the
author’s point of view.
THE END
 Over
time, much of the ancient world has
disappeared.
 Large cities have become ruins
 Buildings have been covered by layers or soil
and sand
 Artifacts are also buried with these cities
 The science of archaeology aims to uncover
hidden history
 Archaeology is the study of ancient
cultures through the examination of
artifacts and other evidence
 Archaeologists
are part treasure hunters and
part detective
 They search for artifacts such as tools,
weapons and pottery


They study these artifacts to learn from the past
This helps us learn about the people, their lives
and resources
 Anthropology
is the study of humankind in
all aspects, especially development and
culture.


This also helps historians
Anthropologist seek to understand the origins of
humans and the what they developed physically


They study fossils – such as bones and other remains
They also try to determine how human cultures
formed and grew

Clues can come from oral traditions or a community’s
cultural and historical background, passed down in
spoken stories and songs.
 The
study of the human and nonhuman
features of Earth is called geography.
 Six themes are used to study geography
 The world in spatial terms
 Places and regions
 Human systems
 Physical systems
 Environment
 The uses of geography
 Geographers
begin to study a place by its
location
 There are two locations

Absolute location, which describes a place’s
exact position on Earth in terms of longitude and
latitude



Lines of latitude are east-west (right-left)
Lines of longitude are north-south (up-down)
Relative location, or the location of a place
relative to another place, is another way to
describe location.
 Geographers
also study place, which refers
to the mix of human and nonhuman features
at a given location

You can say a place is hilly, hot or cold, it’s a
major city, etc.
 Geographers
use the theme of region to
group places that have something in
common.
 A region is an area with at least one unifying
physical or human feature such as climate,
landforms, population or history.


Washington, D.C. for example is part of a region
called the Washington Metropolitan Area.
This region shares a job market and a road and
rail network.
 The
theme of interaction between human
systems and physical systems considers how
people affect their physical environment, or
their natural surroundings, and how their
physical environment affects them, also
called an ecosystem.

For example the movement of water from the
Potomac River into Washington’s water system is
an interaction between a human system and a
physical system.
 Geographers
use these 6 themes to study the
human world and the physical world.
 Geography helps us understand why the
world looks the way it does, how humans
interact with the world and change it and
how it will change in the future.
 In
your book pp. 12 – 13, you have two types
of maps – a physical map and road map.
 They both have the same basic
information, but the road map has more
details.
 Parts of a map include:
 A key or a place on the map that explains
the symbols and shadings on the map.
 In this case the key is for elevations
A locator map shows a larger area than the
main map, it shows where the area on the
map is located within this larger area.
 In this case it points out where Colorado is
within the US map.
 A scale bar shows how much space on the
map represents a given distance on the land.
 A compass rose is a diagram of a compass
showing directions.
 North, South, East and West
 Maps may also show lines if latitude and
longitude that can help you locate a location
you are searching for.

 The
physical map (p.12) of Colorado is also
an example of a choropleth map, which is a
map that shows a change in information
across the area of the map.

In this case the change is that of elevations
 The
road map, is the same as the physical
map, it just shows more details, such as
national park names.
 You can use all the tools or parts of the map
(key, locator map, scale bar, compass rose)
to read a map.
 When
learning about historical events, such
as a battle, it is good to use a historical map
to get a better idea about the landscape
(rivers, mountains, etc.) to better
understand the results of the event.
 A historical map is a special-purpose map
that provides information about a place at a
certain time in history.



They can show migration, trade patterns or
other facts.
Your book gives examples of The Roman Empire
area, North America in 1783 and West African
trade routes from the years 1000-1500.
Most historical maps have key features such as:
 A title
 A key
 Colors
 Symbols to show resources, movement,
location of people, or other features.
 To
become familiar with historical maps you
should use four steps:




Read the title, note the date, time span or other
subject information
Study the map to get a general ideal of what it
shows, including landforms
Examine the map’s key. Look at the symbols and
locate them on the map.
Study the make more thoroughly, make sure you
understand what you are reading.