Name______Date______

Social StudiesTeacher______

Tools of the Historian: How to Use a Timeline

Textbook page: Tools 1

Overview: A historian is a person who studies and writes about the people and events of the past. Historians find out how people lived, what happened to them, and what happened around them. They look for reasons behind events and study the effects of events. Historians also rely on calendars and the dating of events to measure time.

Important facts:

  • Calendars are dating systems used to measure time
  • Different cultures use different calendars based on important events in their history
  • Western nations begin their calendar on the year in which Jesus was thought to have been born (A.D.1)
  • The Jewish calendar begins about 3, 760 B.C.
  • Muslims date their calendar in A.D. 622 (in the Christian calendar) when the prophet Muhammad left the city of Makkah for Madinah

Important vocabulary:

  • B.C. means “before Christ”
  • A.D. or anno domini comes from the Latin language and means “in the year of the Lord”
  • Circa or c. means around or about
  • A historian is a person who studies and writes about the people and events of the past
  • A calendar is a dating system

How to read a timeline

  • Time periods are broken into B.C. and A.D.
  • If a timeline has only one time period (same), you subtract the first date and the last date to calculate how many years the timeline covers
  • If a timeline has two different time periods (B.C. and A.D.), you add the first date and the last date to calculate how many years the timeline covers

Practice interpreting a timeline:

1. What time periods does this timeline cover?______

2. Are most of the listed events A.D. or B.C.? ______

3. What year did the people in Egypt make iron tools? ______

4. About how many years passed between the People in Peru weaving grass into nets and

baskets and the People in Norway making wooden skis for snow travel?______

______

5. Which came later, People make robots that make other machines or People in Japan

use clay to make pots?______

6. How many years does this timeline cover? ______

Homework: Use the timeline below and your notes to answer the following questions:

1. How many years does this timeline cover? ______

2. How many years elapsed between People in China growing rice and New Stone Age ends? ______

3. What event occurred first on the timeline?______

______

4. About how many years passed between People in Peru growing potatoes and China growing enough rice to fill a train that circles Earth two times?______

5. Which appeared earlier, People in Algeria raising cattle or Farming makes Catal Huyuk grow? ______