Browse

Ancient (before 500 CE)

Drawing of two men working to create a large timeline
Source

Salisbury Crags

Before about 1800, most people in the Christian world assumed that the earth was just a few thousand years old. But growing interest in fossils and strange geological formations made some people think the earth must actually be much older.

Geologic clock with events and time periods noting the formation of earth and development of life.
Source

History of the Earth in a Cycle

Our sense of time has been extended into the deep past in the last two centuries or so, and particularly since the 1950s, when Willard Libby showed that you could use the breakdown of radioactive molecules such as Carbon-14 to date events thousands of years before there were any written documents

image of gender roles being portrayed
Methods

Primer: Gender in World History

Gender history developed in the 1980s out of women’s history, when historians familiar with studying women increasingly began to discuss the ways in which systems of sexual differentiation affected both women and men.

Source

Ashokan Pillar with a Single-Lion Capital at Vaishali, India

This is a photograph of one of the Ashokan pillars, topped with a single lion. (Other pillars are topped with three lions, an emblem that is now on the state seal of India and Indian coins,

Source

Selections from Ashoka, Rock and Pillar Edicts

The “rock and pillar edicts,” inscriptions that King Ashoka ordered carved in stone on large rocks in prominent places or on tall pillars that he had erected for this purpose, are the best record we have of Ashoka’s reign. The edicts are found in a number of different locations

Teaching

Short Teaching Module: Emperor Ashoka and Buddhism

Buddhism is based on the ideas of a north Indian prince, Siddhartha Gautama (fl. ca. 500 B.C.E.), called the Buddha (“enlightened one”), who through meditation gained insight into what he understood were cosmic truths.

Spread of humanity map thumbnail
Review

World History for Us All

Its units and lesson plans utilize a range of primary sources, which revolve around three themes are: Humans and the Environment, Humans and Other Humans, Humans and Ideas.
A pink triangle
Review

People with a History: An Online Guide to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans* History

In essence then this is an excellent site to find additional materials with some caveats: some links are now dead, in other ways this site is dated, and other parts – such as the section on images – are still empty. Still the materials that this site provides educators with great resources and
Sculpture of the head of Alexander the Great
Review

BBC Ancient Greece

Overall, the site functions well as a cursory introduction to Ancient Greece and will be of most use to casual visitors, or school-level educators seeking to provide students with additional information.
Detail from a tomb painting showing a woman in a white dress gathering the harvest
Review

BBC Ancient Egypt

Created with the help of academics, writers, and broadcasters, the BBC’s Egyptians webpage provides an excellent, easily digestible overview of Ancient Egypt through a series of essays and photo galleries.