Friday, 19 August 2011

History: Timelines, Ages, Reigns, Invaders

I am using a history book called LETTS World of History Revision.

Today's chapter was about Timelines, Ages, Reigns, Invaders etc.

Here is my summary based on the text in the book:

Historians divide history into timelines to make it easier to study.  Timelines show things like ages, periods and reigns according to countries/continents.

European History
1AD - 600AD  Classical Period (600 years)
600AD - 1000AD  Dark Ages (400 years)
1000 - 1450  Middle/Medieval Ages (450 years)
1450-1789  Early Modern Period  (339 years)
1790- 2011 Modern Period (221 years)

Invaders
Throughout time countries/lands have been invaded by leaders of other countries for different reasons.

Some of the reasons were:  Money, power, raw materials.

In the past invaders were also looking for slaves.

Invaders of Britain

Romans - AD 43 - Emperor Clauius
Saxons - from 5th century - King Alfred (AD 849) - North Germany
Vikings - AD835 Scandinavia (Nordic)
Normans - AD1066 - William the Conqueror - France

Some wanted land for farming, some wanted to raid and steal but like the country so they stayed.  Others just wanted a bigger empire to rule.

At the time of William the Conqueror 1066, Britain was different from what it is today.  There were dangerous animals like bears, lynx, wolves and boars.  Most people lived in the countryside.  Each village produced what it need and most people didn't go anywhere.  Two main roads in England were Offas Dyke (Wales) and The Ridgeway.

A century is 100 years!

Less than 100 AD = 1st century.
153AD = 2nd century
349 AD = 4th century
566 AD= 6th century
853AD = 9th century

English Reigns (Royal Families) - we worked out this from the first letter of each reign:

NAP LYTS GVE

This stands for Normans, Angevins, Plantagenets, Lancaster, York, Tudors, Stuarts, Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian

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I did notice there were a few errors in the book and this came out in the text provided vs. the "Test Your  Knowledge" at the end of the chapter the answers were slightly different from the text in the chapter.

This is quite frustrating but I will be doing a presentation on this and will be researching the topics from different sources and compiling info so I will be able to get alternative info.

Examples of this are:

In the text it has a diagram showing European History and it clearly states that the middle Ages were from 1000 to 1450.

In the Test your knowledge, they ask - The ....................... in British history were from 1066 to 1485.

I re-read all the info and these dates dont tie up with anything in the text or diagrams specifically.  We then checked the answers section and the answer they give is ............MIDDLE AGES..........  So either their text or their answer is incorrect.  But if you spend time summarising your notes and learning them and they ask questions based on the text and their answer is different then thats really bad of them.

Another example is they say in the text that the Saxons began to arrive in England from the 5th Century.    In the Test your Knowledge section  They ask this question and the answer in the answers section is the 7th century.  Again that's just not consistent with the text.

That is not TESTING your KNOWLEDGE!  That's either incorrect information provided or incorrect answers provided!
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I will publish my presentation when I have finished it.

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