World History

Unit 1Thinking Like a Historian

Essential Questions• How do historians use chronological thinking to

interpret and create timelines? • How do historians understand history from maps,

graphs and primary sources?• How do historians compare and analyze historical

narratives to identify issues, causes and effects? • How do historians use research to interpret,

analyze and combine data into a cohesive narrative?

Concepts

• Historical Thinking• Perspective• Primary Source Analysis• Continuity and Change

Vocabulary

• Timelines• Primary source• Secondary

source• Bias• Historical Map• Reliability

• Chronology• Perspective

ChronologyApprox. Time Events & People

3500 BC The wheel is used in Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq.

3114 BC, August 13

Start of the Mayan calendar. The Mayans had 20 days in their month starting with day 0 and ending with day 19. They understood zero not only as a place holder, but as a true counting number.

3100 BC

Work begins on Stonehenge in England. Some of the stones came from 240 miles away, the Preseli Mountains in southwestern Wales. What possessed the Neolithic people to build such a monument is still unknown.

2900 BC First Egyptian hieroglyphs

2750 BCEgyptians build first known dam called the Sadd el-Kafara 37 ft tall, 348 ft wide of rubble masonry filled with 100,000 tons of gravel and stone.

2700 BC Egyptians create 365 day calendar with new year starting in June.

Historical Passage

• We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Historical Interpretation• The current Constitution of the United States was

designed to replace America’s first written instrument of government, The Articles of Confederation. The Articles were proposed by Congress in 1777, were finally ratified in 1781 and they were an abject failure. Realizing that the Articles could not rightly be salvaged through mere modification, a group of delegates met in the summer of 1787 to fashion a completely new Constitution and therefore, a completely new government.

Historical Map

Historical Visual

Historical Bias

Do all sides express their point of view? Or is only one viewpoint given?Are people shown in traditional and contemporary settings? Rural & urban?

Or are cultural groups shown only in one setting, or only in the past?

Is the complexity of the lives of women, African-Americans and other ethnic and racial minorities shown?

Or are their lives portrayed as one-dimensional, or as centered around stereotypical activities?

Are photographs accompanied by captions that name the person or group, indicating where they are from?

Or does the photograph not name certain persons or groups and give locations?

Perspective

Historical Analysis

• Consider the slant or biases of the information you are working with and the ones possessed by the historians themselves.

• There are many factors that can contribute to “historical episodes”.

• Evidence should not be examined from a singular point of view.