Secondary 1 History

An independent state made of a city and its farmland, each with its own king and temple, e.g. Ur or Uruk.

Wedge-shaped signs pressed into wet clay with a reed stylus — one of the world's earliest scripts (c. 3200 BC).

The stepped temple platform at a Sumerian city's heart, dedicated to its patron god and central to civic life.

282 laws carved on a stone pillar by Babylon's King Hammurabi, famous for 'an eye for an eye' — among the earliest written law codes.

The arc of rich land from the Persian Gulf up the two rivers to the east Mediterranean — birthplace of farming and cities.

Greek for 'land between the rivers': the plain between the Tigris and Euphrates, in today's Iraq.

The first civilisation-builders of Mesopotamia: they founded city-states such as Ur and Uruk, and invented cuneiform, the wheel and a lunar calendar.

Building canals to bring river water to the fields; with fierce, unpredictable floods, irrigation was the lifeline of Sumerian farming.

The title of Egypt's king, seen as a god in human form, holding all political and religious power.

Stone royal tombs; the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza (c. 2560 BC) stayed the world's tallest building for nearly 3,800 years.

Egypt's picture script carved on temples and tombs; thanks to the Rosetta Stone (found 1799), Champollion deciphered it in 1822.

Preserving the body for the afterlife — proof of how strongly Egyptians believed in life after death.

A writing surface made from Nile papyrus stems — the origin of the English word 'paper'.

The world's longest river; its punctual summer flood left rich soil — the Greek historian Herodotus called Egypt 'the gift of the Nile'.

Rule passed down within one family; Menes founded the First Dynasty c. 3100 BC, and ancient Egypt had some thirty dynasties in all.

A stone found in 1799 carrying one text in hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek — Champollion's key to deciphering the hieroglyphs.

One of the civilisation's two great sites (excavated from 1921), which gave it the name 'Harappan civilisation'.

'Mound of the Dead' — the largest city, with a citadel, Great Bath and tens of thousands of residents, excavated from 1922.

A large brick pool on Mohenjo-daro's citadel, waterproofed with bitumen, probably used for ritual bathing.

Small stone stamps carved with animals and script, used to mark goods; also found in Mesopotamia, proving long-distance trade.

The Indus script — some 400–500 symbols on seals and pottery — has never been read.

A town layout of streets meeting at right angles like a chessboard — the hallmark of Indus city planning.

Brick drains running along the streets, connected to almost every house — sanitation unmatched among contemporary civilisations.

The raised, fortified part of a city; Mohenjo-daro's Great Bath stood on its citadel.

Chinese civilisation grew in the middle-lower Yellow River valley: fertile loess, flood-prone water — taming it tested early rulers.

The Zhou doctrine that Heaven grants rule to the virtuous and withdraws it from the unjust — the key idea behind every later change of dynasty.

Script carved on shells and bones for royal divination — China's earliest mature writing, rediscovered in 1899.

Ritual vessels and weapons of copper-tin alloy (e.g. the Houmuwu ding), symbols of Shang-Zhou kingship and sacrifice.

Western Zhou kings granted land and people to kinsmen and heroes as vassals, who owed tribute, troops and protection of the throne.

The first dynasty in Chinese records (from c. 2070 BC), founded by the flood-tamer Yu; many scholars think the Erlitou site may be one of its capitals.

The throne passing down within one family instead of abdication to the worthiest — begun when Qi succeeded Yu, a system lasting nearly 4,000 years.

The soft, fertile yellow soil of the middle-lower Yellow River, workable with simple wooden and stone tools — it fed early Chinese farming.

Ruled from 509 BC by the Senate and consuls, with no king; it became an empire when Octavian became Augustus in 27 BC.

c. 27 BC–AD 180, when the empire enjoyed internal calm and flourishing trade — Rome at its height.

From the Twelve Tables (c. 451 BC) to the law of nations — evidence and due process — the root of today's civil-law systems.

Elevated channels of arches carrying spring water into cities for baths and fountains — the signature of Roman engineering.

Rome's language, ancestor of French, Spanish, Italian and more; used for scholarship and law into modern times.

The title ('the revered one') given to Octavian in 27 BC — the first Roman emperor.

The basic unit of Rome's army — several thousand heavy infantry — disciplined and superb at engineering, the tool of Rome's conquests.

Rome's written law of c. 451 BC, displayed publicly on twelve bronze tablets, so aristocrats could no longer bend the law by word of mouth.

Lived c. 4 BC–AD 30 in Roman Judaea preaching love of God and neighbour; after his crucifixion his followers believed he rose again, and Christianity began.

Issued in 313 by Constantine and Licinius, legalising Christianity in the empire and returning church property.

The eastern Roman Empire (330–1453) at Constantinople; its people called themselves Romans, spoke Greek and preserved classical learning.

Justinian's codification of Roman law from 528 (the Corpus Juris Civilis), the foundation of later European civil law.

In 1054 the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated each other — Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches formally split.

'Good news' — the books recording Jesus' life and message of salvation; his disciples spread it across the empire.

Justinian's vast domed church, completed at Constantinople in 537 and praised as 'nearest to heaven'; it became a mosque after 1453.

The 'New Rome' Constantine founded in 330 on old Byzantium, guarding the Europe–Asia trade routes; today's Istanbul.

A ladder of contracts trading land for loyalty: the king granted fiefs to nobles, who owed service; each vassal had vassals of his own.

A vassal swore homage to his lord for a fief and protection; duties ran both ways.

A heavily armoured horseman trained from boyhood (page → squire → knighting), following chivalry: loyalty, courage, protecting the weak.

Serfs were bound to a lord's self-sufficient manor — farming, rent and labour days. Not slaves: they had homes and families, but could not leave freely.

In 1215 English barons forced King John to sign it, establishing that even the king must obey the law — the seed of constitutional rule.

King of the Franks, crowned 'Emperor of the Romans' by the Pope in 800 — the sign of church–kingship alliance.

The Church's tax of one-tenth of income, paid by everyone in medieval Europe.

The plague that swept Europe in 1347–1351 and killed about a third of its people; the labour shortage strengthened peasants' bargaining power and shook the feudal economy.

French for 'rebirth': 14th–16th-century Europe rediscovering Greco-Roman culture amid new humanism, art and science.

Independent self-governing cities — Florence, Venice, Milan — grown rich on Mediterranean trade, competing for cultural prestige.

Wealthy families and popes commissioning artists: the Medici bankrolled masters, popes paid for the Sistine ceiling.

In 1450s Mainz Gutenberg combined metal movable type with a press; books became cheap and ideas spread at a new speed.

The humanists' curriculum — grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, moral philosophy — studied to form a more complete human being.

Florence's banking dynasty; Cosimo and Lorenzo the Magnificent funded artists and scholars — the Renaissance's hidden backers.

Italian poet (1304–1374) who hunted Roman manuscripts and wrote sonnets on human feeling — 'father of humanism'.

Italian poet whose Divine Comedy (1308–1320) was written in Italian, not Latin — opening the door to serious literature in the mother tongue.

A human-centred outlook: people have dignity and potential; worldly achievement, classical education and reason matter — not the same as being anti-religious.

A mathematical way to show depth on a flat panel (lines meeting at a vanishing point), demonstrated by Brunelleschi and codified by Alberti in 1435.

Leonardo's soft blending of thin glazes so light and shade merge — why the Mona Lisa's smile and eyes look misty.

Painting on fresh plaster so colour fuses with the wall; the Sistine Chapel ceiling is a giant fresco cycle.

Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael — models of the universal genius, of power, and of harmony.

The study of the body's structure; Renaissance painters dissected corpses to learn muscle and bone, making the human figure true to life.

The pope's chapel in the Vatican; Michelangelo painted its ceiling with the Creation scenes (1508–1512), The Creation of Adam most famous.

Florentine political thinker whose The Prince coolly analysed how rulers win and keep power — realistic thinking centred on people, not on God's order.

The sun-centred cosmos: proposed by Copernicus in 1543, backed by Galileo's observations, completed by Newton's theory.

Observe → hypothesise → experiment → revise: a procedure letting knowledge build up and be overturned by evidence.

The 15th-century Portuguese oceangoing ship — light, fast, able to sail into the wind — key to the Age of Exploration.

After 1492, the transfer of crops, animals and diseases between hemispheres: the Americas gave potatoes, maize and tomatoes; the old world sent wheat, horses and smallpox.

Magellan's 1519 expedition, finished by Elcano with one surviving ship in 1522 — first proof the globe could be sailed around.

The ancient belief that the earth sat at the centre of the universe with sun and stars circling it — gradually replaced after heliocentrism was proposed in 1543.

Invented by a Dutch craftsman in 1608; Galileo improved it and was the first to turn it systematically on the sky, seeing Jupiter's moons and the moon's craters.

The headland at Africa's southern tip; Dias rounded it in 1488, opening the sea route towards India.