HISTORICAL PERIODS: ORGANIZING

HISTORY THROUGH TIME

María Jesús Campos

learningfromhistory.wikispaces.com

HISTORY

History is a science that

investigates, analyses, organizes

and present information about

past events in the most

objective way.

Historians discover, collect and

investigate different versions of

the same event to understand

and objectively determine the

characteristics of an event and

the patterns of cause and effect

that determine them.

HISTORICAL PERIODS

Historians have divided

the past into different

periods or stages to help

people understand past

events:

Prehistory

Ancient Age

Middle Ages

Early Modern Age

Contemporary History

HISTORICAL PERIODS

Prehistory Ancient Age Middle Ages Modern AgeContemporary

History

Prehistory: is the

historical period that

goes from the

beginning of human

life on Earth, 2 million

years ago, to the

invention of writing

around the year 3500

B.C.

Ancient Age: is the

historical period that

goes from the invention

of writting, around the

year 3500 B.C. until the

fall of the Western

Roman Empire in the

year 476 A.D.

Middle Ages: is the

historical period that goes

from the fall of the

Western Roman Empire,

in the year 476 A.D., until

the discovery of America

by Christopher Columbus

in 1492 or the conquest of

Constantinople by the

Turks in the year 1453.

Early Modern Age: is the

historical period that goes

from the discovery of

America by Christopher

Columbus in 1492 A.D. to

the French Revolution in

1789 A.D.

Contemporary

History or Modern

Ages: is the historical

period that goes from

the French Revolution

in 1789 until nowadays.

Although there is an

agreement in the basic

characteristics, these periods

may vary from one

civilization to the other.

These historical blocks are

designed to help people

understand what happened

in the past allowing us to

locate past events, people

and facts and to compare

them with the ones that

happened in other periods.

Nevertheless, we may

understand that nothing

happens all at once. Life

does not stop on

December 31 of one year,

and begin all over in a

different manner on

January 1 of the next.

CHRONOLOGY

It is the order in shich a succession of events

happened.

The common reference point is the birth of Christ:

B.C. means “Before Christ”. It is used to date events before

the birth of Jesus.

A.D. stands for “Anno Domini” which means “in the year of

the Lord”. It is used to date events after Jesus’ birth.

However, currently as not everybody is Christian, some

historias have developed a new dating system by using:

B.C.E. which stands for “Before the Common Era” for the dates

before Jesus birth.

C.E. which stands for “Common Era” for the events after Jesus

birth.

Historical units of time:

Year

Decade = 10 years

Century = 100 years

Millennium = 1000 years

The Anglo-Saxon world

uses Arabic numbers to

represent time:

1st century; 15th century…

The Hispanic world uses

Roman numerals to

represent time:

I century; XV century…

An easy way to find out to

which century a year

corresponds to is to add “1”

to the first 2 figures of the

year:

476 year = 0476

04 + 1 = 5

So it’s the 5th century

1492 year = 1492

14 + 1 = 15

So it’s the 15th century

TIMELINES

Timelines are the best way to understand when events

happened and how much time occured between

different events.

It is a way to visually present events, discoveries or

facts during a particular period.

To create a timeline you need to:

Identify the events you are going to use and their

dates

Calculate the number of segments (parts) that your

timeline will have. If you are using years, calculate

how many years have passed from the earliest event

to the latest one and divide the line in that number of

equal segments.

Label the dates on the appropriate segments and

write the name of the event to which they

correspond.

Take into account if the events you are recording

happened B.C. or A.D. Locating the year 0 may help.

HOW TO RECORD HISTORY

Descriptive

Vocabulary:

Before

After

Ancient

Old

New

Decade

Century

Modern

From….to

Technical Vocabulary:

BC

AD

“the nineteenth century”

“the year….”

WHY STUDY HISTORY?

Developed by María Jesús CamposChusteacher

wikiteacher