WHAT IS HISTORY?

History is the study of events that happened in the past and the building of a narrative, or story, about those events.

•Historians look for documents or artifacts that tell them what happened a long time ago.

• Then, they try to piece together a story, using the documents and artifacts they find.

For example: Science has been developing and changing for many centuries and as a result science has a rich and exciting history.

Otzi's entire genome sequenced for the first time. Researchers find Iceman had brown eyes, blood type O and was lactose intolerant

• With all of these types of information, historians try to determine what happened and how the things we know today came about.

•Historians do more than just look at the events of the past. •They try to understand what they mean.•That is they try to interpret the past to better understand how the past affects the present and how it might impact the future.•It is very important to have a solid understanding of how our history was shaped.

Many times people forget history and when they run into the same problems earlier people encountered they often make the same mistakes. If we don’t remember our history, we can repeat the same mistakes without ever learning from our past.

Never!!!…Really!!!... Never try to invade Russia in Winter!!!

Sometimes historians disagree about how to interpret the past. Just like scientists disagree about how to interpret data, historians disagree about how to interpret events.

Activity

1. Every person has a history. Write a short time line of your “history” starting with when you were born to today.

2. Place at least four our five events on your time line. For example, “my first birthday”, “my aunt’s wedding when I was two” etc.

• Born Today2. Think of some resources that you might use

to reconstruct your history and list them below (i.e. birth certificate, photos, etc.)