What is History?

What is History?

History is the study of past events. Historians (people who study History) look at why and how things happened. Sometimes this is to explain why things are the way they are, sometimes it is to try and stop us making the same mistakes as have been made before.

You are surrounded by History every day.

You go to school, for free, because in 1942 the government agreed that educating all of a country’s young people was important. It had never been done before; usually the only people to get an education before 1942 were those who could afford it.

The streets that you walked and drove down to get to the school were set up hundreds of years ago. The shape of the centre of Haddington has not changed since the 1400s.

Older family and friends can tell you all about what it was like to be a child in the 1980s, perhaps older relatives or neighbours can tell you what it was like to live through the Second World War from 1939 to 1945, perhaps some of those older people could tell you what their parents told them about the First World War from 1914 to 1918.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

George Santayana, 1905

John Wood’s Plan of Haddington 1819

And everywhere you go there is evidence of the people who lived here before you – in the shape of the land, the design of the buildings, even in the names they left behind.

This is History.

ACTIVITY 1

An Acrostic Poem is one where you take a word and use each letter of the word as the first letter of the line of your poem. You are going to write an acrostic poem about HISTORY. There is an example of one below.

History

Is about

Stories and ideas

That can

Only be true if

Robust evidence and proof

Yells out, ‘It’s a fact!’

Once you have composed your poem, write it out as a poster. Illustrate your poem with pictures from the History topics that you have studied already.

Chronology

Chronology is time. Chronological order is putting events in time order. Of course to do that you need a starting point to count from. In Europe we use the birth of Christ as our starting point – that happened about 2000 years ago. When we say ‘this year is 2014’ we mean that it is two thousand and fourteen years since we started counting years with a calendar.

Look at the diagram below to see the ‘Bow-Tie of Time’.

Notice that the FURTHER BACK in time we go the BIGGER the B.C. number gets. A diagram like this is called a Time Line. We can use it to show when events happened which means we can show the cause and effect of events.

Another way of remembering how to count BC and AD dates is; we count DOWN to Year 0 for BC and count UP from Year 0 for AD.

ACTIVITY 2

1. Put the heading ‘Chronology of the World’2. Your teacher will give you a set of cards. Each card shows a date and an event or era

(an era is a number of years that represent a particular time, e.g. the Era of the Dinosaurs)

3. Put the cards in chronological order from the earliest date to the most recent.4. Get your order checked.5. Now copy your chronology of the world in to your jotter, adding cartoons/drawings

to each one to represent each date/event.

Year 0(birth of Christ)

65000000 BCDinosaurs

4000 BC Pyramids

100 BC Romans

400 AD Romans

1066 AD Normans

2014 AD Us

BC stands for ‘Before Christ’; these events happened before Christ was born.

AD stands for ‘Anno Dominie’ which means ‘In the year of Our Lord’; these events took place after Christ was born.

ACTIVITY 3

Below are sets of dates. Put them in to chronological order. Remember; only dates that are ‘BC’ are marked. If the date does not have BC after it then you can assume it is an AD date.

a) 1457 1296 1345 1127 1854

b) 101BC 736BC 42BC 101AD 203BC

c) 742AD 653BC 1176 79AD 1176BC

d) 56BC 1298BC 8650BC 32BC 10500BC

ACTIVITY 4

How long would you have lived if you were;

a) Born in 1921 and died in 1973?

b) Born in 2015BC and died in 1974BC?

c) Born in 55BC and died in 18AD?

d) Born in 3000BC and died in 2965BC?

e) Born in 17BC and died in 40AD?

ACTIVITY 5

1. How long ago from this year were the years below?

a) 1969 b) 1851

c) 1745 d) 612BC

e) 1347BC e) 2014BC

Evidence

Historians have one big problem when studying History – we cannot go back in time and see for ourselves. Instead we have to use whatever has been left behind by people who were alive at the time we are studying.

Sometimes what we find is spectacular.

For example in 79AD a mountain called Vesuvius erupted violently. The explosion destroyed part of the mountain top, ash covered the town of Pompeii and hundreds were killed at the town of Herculaneum on the coast.

How do we know this if it happened nearly two thousand years ago?

First of all we have a written account of the explosion; Pliny the Younger was 18 years old in 79AD. He was staying with his uncle who was in charge of the Naples fleet when Vesuvius erupted. Pliny the Younger wrote down that his uncle went off in a ship to see what all the strange clouds were that were coming from Pompeii. Pliny’s uncle rescued some of the people but he stayed too long in the disaster area and Pliny’s uncle himself became a victim when he died from suffocation.

Now this could be just a sad story made up by someone. However the account is not the only proof we have.

If you dig down far enough into the soil you will move through layers that were once topsoil. Just like core samples taken from the ice pack, soil can show what the conditions were like at a given point in time. If you went to the Bay of Naples and you dug down far enough you would find a layer of ash from about 2000 years ago. This proves that there was an eruption but it doesn’t prove that it was Vesuvius.

Still not convinced?

In 1748 a group of archaeologists (people who find physical proof of the past) discovered the ancient town of Pompeii. When Vesuvius erupted Pompeii was not destroyed by rivers of molten lava it was suffocated by the ash. These archaeologists dug down and started to excavate (uncover) the town. They found that the buildings were still there; shops, houses, an amphitheatre, streets. They even found cook ware and paintings and mosaics still on the walls.

The main street of Pompeii Pompeii’s amphitheatre

Mosaic on the wall of a Pompeii house Pompeii today with Vesuvius looming behind

But more than that they found the victims. Many of the citizens of Pompeii died in the town and lay where they fell. The ash came down on top of them and over time it cooled and compacted around the bodies. Over the years the bodies decomposed, even the bones, but it left behind a mould of where the victim had lain and how they had died. Today you can see the statues that were made by filling in the moulds.

Anything that is left behind by the people themselves is called PRIMARY EVIDENCE. It is the first evidence we look for to start rebuilding our story of the past. Of course the further back in time you go the harder it is to find that evidence – nothing lasts forever, not even stone.

ACTIVITY 6

Below are three pictures. Make a list of as many examples of primary evidence that you can see in the picture.

Picture 1 – Haddington High Street

Picture 2 – The Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx

Picture 3 – Mary Stewart’s rooms at Holyrood Palace

Primary Evidence is what is left behind, but historians also use – and create – a different type of evidence. This is called SECONDARY EVIDENCE. This is anything that is made or written long after the people involved are gone. For example the film ‘War Horse’ is set during the First World War but it was made in 2012, ninety four years after the end of the war. No one involved in the film was alive at the time of the war but they read books and soldiers’ diaries, they looked at photographs and films that were taken at the time and they recreated the look of the First World War to show us what it was like.

Secondary evidence is anything that is made by people who did not live through the events they are describing. There are all sorts of uses and limitations to Primary and Secondary Evidence but just remember one thing;

EVERY PIECE OF EVIDENCE HAS SOME USEFOR HISTORIANS

Have a look at the table below to see the uses and limitations of primary and secondary evidence.

Use LimitationPrimary Evidence Made at the time.

Made by the people themselves for their own use.

Gives insight into thoughts and feelings.

Eye witness account.

Only one person’s experience or opinion.

Individuals can be biased.

Secondary Evidence Expert opinion Knows the whole

story so can see cause and effect and the results.

Can be biased. Only gives part of the

story.

Still from’ War Horse’, 2012 Photograph from First World War, 1917

ACTIVITY 7

Copy the table of uses and limitations of primary and secondary evidence. Include a definition for primary and secondary evidence. Highlight the table and LEARN the definitions – you will be asked about evidence throughout your study of History.

ACTIVITY 8

You will be split into groups. Each group will be given a piece of evidence. For each piece of evidence you need to write down;

Whether the evidence is primary or secondary. Give a reason for identifying the evidence as primary or secondary. Draw or describe the evidence with as much detail as possible. Identify/try to identify what the evidence is (some are more obvious than others!). Try to date the evidence (again some are more obvious than others!).

ACTVITY 9

Draw out two circles with a small overlap. Label one ‘Primary Evidence’ and the other ‘Secondary Evidence’:

Below is a list of pieces of evidence. Decide whether it is primary or secondary evidence and write it in the circle for that kind of evidence. One piece of evidence starts out as primary evidence but becomes secondary evidence – put this piece of evidence in the overlap between your circles.

PrimaryEvidence

SecondaryEvidence

EVIDENCE

ROMAN COIN WWI RIFLE BOOK ABOUT THE ANCIENT GREEKS PUBLISHED 1879

STORY FROM WWII PASSED DOWN FROM GRANDMOTHER TO DAUGHTER TO GRAND DAUGHTER

TV PROGRAM ON THE ANCIENT INCAS WEBSITE ON THE GEORGIANS HAIRCOMB

Anachronism

Sometimes Historians make mistakes with time. One kind of mistake is called an anachronism. This is when an object or person is identified in a time period that they could not have existed in. Film and television shows are often guilty of this, sometimes because they can’t get the genuine props or language, but sometimes because they have not done their research well enough!

Watch these clips from ‘Downtown Abbey’ that use anachronisms in their language.

www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/downtown-abbey-tracking-the-anachronisms/

ACTIVITY 10

Create a poster with your own anachronism. You could have something from the past showing up (unexpectedly!) in the present, such as a dinosaur wandering down Haddington High Street. Or you could go for a time in the past with something from the present that should not be there, such as Queen Victoria talking on a mobile phone.

Composers in the 1700s did not have Electric Guitars – they did not have electricity!

WHAT IS HISTORY? ASSESSMENT TASK

Design and create an A5 ‘Booklet’ that explains how we study History.

Success Criteria

Include ‘chapters’ on:

Chronology: How to draw a timeline. Give instructions. Give your own example of a timeline that includes BCE and AD dates.

Evidence: Give definitions of Primary and Secondary Evidence. Give examples of Primary and Secondary evidence.

My Favourite Historical person For each of these;

Explain where/when you first heard of this person/event

Explain where/how you found out information about it

Give FIVE facts that you have found out about each.

My Favourite Historical Event

Quiz or Game: All the answers should be in your booklet.

Also needed for success:

Front Cover Contents Page Glossary (10 Historical words) List of resources used