Big History

By Eduardo Vega

Events that changed history and created todays world.

Catastrophe!Around 1500 years ago, the sun went dark, rain was red like blood, there was clouds of dust, and a cold weather ruled over the land for two years. This climate change affected the entire world and changed its people for ever. There could only be three things that could change the climate of the world over night like that; a volcano, a comet or an asteroid. There is no proof of a comet or asteroid impact that dates around that time so the only explanation was a volcano. Studies of the rings of trees and the ice in both the north and south poles shows proof that a large volcano did explode around the time of the catastrophe, so which one was the one that caused the big climate change? The culprit was a volcano called Krakatoa, it’s a very active and strong volcano that is believed exploded at the same time of the climate change.

As a result of the volcanic explosion many people were affected, and the world nations and religions changed. These are some examples of those changes:• The Avars were strong people whose economy

and power came from their many horses. Thanks to the volcanic winter, they lost many horses and were weaken enough for the Turks to defeat them. That pushed the Avars to move west towards Rome, who was already weaken by a plague. As the Avars attacked the weaken Rome, they weaken it even further.

• Rome was trading with Brittan and their plague was transfer to them via the trading ships. Brittan was separated into two at the moment, but thanks to Romes plague weaking the west side, the east side of Brittan was able to over come and unite Brittan.

• Over seas in Mexico, the city of Teotihuacan collapse after the volcanic winter took a toll in their crops and animals and the people turned against their leader.

• Even the religion of Islam is believed to be a result of the catastrophe, as Muhammad's words were stronger in this time of need and great lost to the people of his city.

Guns, Germs, and SteelIn todays world, there are nations with millions of people that can maintain good living conditions, and there are nations also with millions of people that could barely feed only hundred of thousands, which equals into poor living conditions. So why do some nations do so much better than others, and not just in the present time but through out history?This is due to the difference in resources I their area. The nations who were in areas full of animal they could put to use and plants they could eat, did much better than the nations that were sitting on deserts with few animals to domesticate.

Africa makes a good example of what a nation with little resources looks like. They didn’t have much water to grow crops, and thus couldn’t rely on crops for food. The animals there aren't animals that could be trained to help aid the people who live there either, and so their survival was harder. These harder to live conditions made it harder for the people of Africa to advance as fast as other parts of the world might have.

Other areas that have good resources, and many different kinds of them, did much better than those without them. A good example is areas around where there is a lot of water and different kinds of good resources can be found. These areas usually have animals that can be domesticated to work and harvest the crops. These things help made those areas create stronger nations.

The Journey of ManThere is people almost in every corner of the globe, we all have the same body structure and same genes and yet we don’t all look alike. Why are we all so alike and at the same time so different? The explanation the video “The Journey of Man” was a very simple but very accurate one: That we all came from the same place but thanks to the differences in the areas we live, we adapted to them so we could survive.

Its is believed that all life started somewhere in Africa, and that as people migrated and traveled to different areas, they formed small societies and got used to their environment. This cycle just kept happening until almost the entire globe had people in it, and they all adapted to their environment. But how did they get across the ocean between Europe and the Americas? The answer is a frozen path in the northern part of the ocean.

These differences in not just appearance, but in ways of living created even bigger differences in society and culture. Those differences are what created todays nations and religions around the world. But no matter what, our DNAs show that we might look different but that we are still the same thing.

• What the video is trying to say through out the whole thing is that the world exists only as we see it in present moment, if we change out point of view then the entire world can change for us.

• A way we can change the world is with out curiosity, since it makes us ask questions that can change our point of view thus changing the entire world.

• “We are what we know” is a phrase James Burke uses in the video. What he's trying to say is we act because of the facts we know.

• Thanks to people asking questions about the world, we have been able to try and find explanations and thus advance forward.

• Asking questions is what has made the northern hemisphere into what it is now.

The book “Peoples and Empires” is about the stories of the great empires of Europe. Those Empires are the Roman, the Spanish, the French, and the British and the influence they had through out the entire world. The time frame the book focuses on is from Greek time to the present day.Some of the main points in the book were:

• Their colonies• The back-and-forth between them all• Their culture and nature• Their beliefs • Civilization/Barbarism

Ways the world was changed by each:• The religion of Christianity

wouldn’t have spread as fast, or even have spread at all, if it wasn’t because of Rome taking it as its official religion around 230 A.D.

• The Spanish affected the early Americas a lot, them working with and against local forces changed the Americas and if It wasn’t because of them, the Americas would probably look completely different now.

• The British pushed religion upon its people and so people fled to the Americas and created colonies there that slowly became the United States.

• The French had a very large empire for a time, and so French is now widely used by not just by people who live in France but also by people outside of the country.