Phoebe

=__** India **__=

**__Geography__**
==== Earliest people in India first settled in to Indus where they could sow crops in the valley's rich soil. The Indus River, nearby provided water and a way of transportation. On the west coast of India the Western Ghats blocks the monsoon, a heavy downpour of rain- so that the land on the east is fairly dry.India's northern border are the Himalayan Mountains. The Thar Desert lies in the northwest of India around where the mountains are. The Ganges River runs across the Indo-Gangetic Plain. ====

__ **History** __
The city Harappa was located in the Indus Valley. It was a highly advanced city for that time in Ancient India. Harappans had trading systems and sewage systems. The also recorded what was traded, and even made sailing ships to trade with places far away or overseas. Harappans took advantage of the resources found in the Himalayas and Thar Desert. They traded precious stones from the desert and made tools from the flint, tin, and copper in the Himalayas. The Harappans started a measuring system, too. They created special measuring tools. They learned many things from the people they traded items with. The people of Harappa learned how to grow rice, build plows. and practice new religions. Aryans Indo-Europeans, who lived in the same area as the Harappans lived in (the Indus Valley) ganas which were a group of several families. The ganas were led by a raja. The Vedas, were the Aryan holy books that told about chariot battles. The Aryans lived in castes. Brahmans (priests) were of the highest social level. Then were kshatriyas (warriors and rulers), vaisyas (farmers) and sudras (servants). Dasas, or untouchables were of the lowest social caste. Dasas usually were made to work the worst jobs and were treated with disrespect. Caste members could not move to a higher or lower caste. They all worked specific-to-caste jobs and had to marry withing the caste. They even had to only eat food prepared by the people in their own caste. Before 500 B.C., Aryan women could become warriors and own land. But, over time, brahmans began to believe that women should be more controlled. With their ideas honored, these rights were taken away. A husband would be chosen for each woman by her parents, and she could not own land. At one point in India's history, India was divided into sixteen major kingdoms. However, a war leader called Chandragupta Maurya conquered and united the kingdoms creating the Mauryan Empire. Aryans (Indo-Europeans) invaded India and 1500BC. Many of them settled in the next thousand years all over the land. Aryans brought Sanskrit, a written language made up of symbols to India, along with their belief in gods. They also brought domesticated horses to India.

__** Taj Mahal **__
The Taj Mahal is one of the s even wonders of the world, located in Agra. It is a beautiful tomb holding the remains of Mughal Emperor Shajahan and his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. It was built in her memory. The tomb is covered in white marble. It is highly decorated with carving, calligraphy, precious gemstones, and statues. In Shahjahan's later life he was imprisoned by his own son, Aurangazeb for his extravagance concerning Mumtaz Mahal's tomb. He died in Agra in 1666.

__ ** Beliefs ** __ Doctors in northern India wrote the Artharva veda in 1000BC. The book told of treatments for sicknesses and wounds. The people believed that illness were caused by evil spirits and that some diseases and wounds could be healed by chanting special words. Hinduism is a very popular religion in India. It's also the oldest religion in the whole world. Hinduism approves of the idea of reincarnation and reaching true, exquisite happiness, or nirvana.

Saraswati (or Sarasvati) is the Hindu goddess of music, art, and knowledge. Saraswati has been depicted riding a goose or a swan and holding a musical instrument. She is said to be the granddaughter of the god Brahma, one of the three major deities of Hinduism. Brahma is the god believed to have created the universe. Vishnu is know as the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer.

__ **Fun Facts** __

The national animal of India is the tiger. The tiger is well known for its, grace, strength, majesty, and agility and power.Tiger hunting is not allowed in India. India is home to more than half of the population of tigers in the whole world! Most wild tigers can live up to twenty years!

A shehnai is a North Indian instrument like an oboe. The shehnai is made of wood- save a small metal bell on the instrument's end. It has a two octave range.

Snake charming in India used to be very common and very popular. Now snake charming is a rare sight there because of laws banning the practice. It was a practice handed down from a father to son. The shows used to be so loved that the charmers would earn a lot of money, and the snake charmers would usually bring home the only money in a family. People were fascinate with the shows. But, as people started watching nature films featuring snakes, they began to be less afraid of them.

The lotus flower is the national flower of India. It's a water plant that is sacred to Indians. It **symbolizes** triumph, wealth, good fortune, long life, divinity, fertility, honor, and knowledge. Some lotus flowers have lived for thousands and thousands of years! Their seeds and leaves can be eaten.

__**TAKE HOME QUIZ**__

**The Fertile Crescent**

Mesopotamia was one of the earliest civilizations. (Today, Iraq is where Mesopotamia is would have been.) Mesopotamia influenced many later civilizations. Over time, people learned how to tame and hunt animals, build homes, and farm. After a while, people began to invent life-changing things like wheels, weapons, writing and time-keeping systems, and laws that helped people live together in a town or city. Mesopotamia is also known as the Fertile Crescent. This is because to rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers run through Mesopotamia. The land between the land is fertile, and the rivers provided water for sources of food. Sumer, an area inside Mesopotamia was based mainly on farming. The Sumerians made the first civilization in Mesopotamia thousands of years ago. The writing system they invented was called cuneiform. They used it to record trades and write lists. A writing system is very important to a civilization because it's a way of communication, expressing feelings, writing stories, and recording important trades, traditions and history. The Babylonians started traveling to Mesopotamia about 2000 years after the sumerians settled in the Fertile Crescent. There were many of the Babylonians, and they were powerful and strong. King Hammurabi led the Babylonians to defeat the Sumerians and rule Mesopotamia. He created laws to for his people by choosing laws he approved of from all over the Fertile Crescent. He believed that people should not hurt or scorn those weaker than themselves. The people of Mesopotamia were polytheistic. They thought the world was controlled by gods, goddesses, demons, and monsters. The people believed that each city was protected by a certain deity, and greatly respected them. They made offerings to the gods and goddesses in temples that would have been built throughout the area. Priests held rituals for them, too.

**Ancient Africa**

Many think that life began in Africa. Africa is famous for its history. The Sahara desert in northern Africa is extremely dry and arid. However, the area south of the huge deser- also called Sub-Saharan Africa is different. Here, some parts are flat grasslands and some are rainforests. The Sahara desert used to be rainy and full of plant and animal life. Even people lived in the Sahara. Evidence of this is paintings on caves in the desert. Africa had great resources such as gold. Salt was also a wanted resource Africa had. The people of Ghana (they didn't have salt) would trade their gold for salt. Salt was essential to life then. Salt preserved food and kept it from becoming moldy and inedible. Warriors from Mali conquered Ghana, and under the leadership of Mansa Musa, Mali became a place that greatly valued education. Mansa Musa travelled ot Egypt in a caravan with large loads of gold carried by camels. People in Timbuktu learned about the law and history. The first African houses were made out of mud and sticks, but by around 3000BC, African buildings were being made out of stone. The earlier stone structures were fairly small, but soon enough, they were building pyramids. (These pyramids were smaller than Egyptians' pyramids, though.)

** Ancient Egypt ** The Nile river was a huge part of Ancient Egyptian life. People settled in the Nile River Valley ten-thousand years ago. The Nile River, the longest river in the world at about four-thousand miles long provided drinking and bathing water, transportation, and water for irrigation. The land by the Nile was fertile and rich. The Nile was essential to the Egyptians because of the lack of rain in Egypt. When farmers learned to collect water from the nile's annual flood people began helping one another to do so. This was when the ancient Egyptians started living together in towns. Pharaohs were Egyptian kings who made laws for all of the people in Egypt. The first pharaoh, Menes made a new capital city called Memphis. Egyptians had their own calendar with months, days, and years. They also invented a writing system called hieroglyphics. The hieroglyphics were pictures. They wrote on papyrus, a form of paper made out of plants found by the Nile river. Most people lived near the Nile river. They lived in houses made out of mud and reeds. They lived their to be able to take advantage of the benefits of having the fertile land and river there.

= **Oceania** =

Oceania is the island nation in the southern part of the Pacific Ocean. Most of the islands were formed by volcanoes many thousands of years ago. The islands are split into three groups: Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. One of the island nations that created Oceania is New Zealand. New Zealand's made up of made of two larger main islands and several small islands. The capital of New Zealand is Wellington. The first people to live there were the Maori. They sailed in canoes and hunted, fished, and planted (and of course harvested) crops. They also built houses out of reeds and formed villages. Fishing and farming are still important in New Zealand, though dairy products are New Zealand's highest earning exports. In the 1700s, Europeans went to New Zealand to trade with the Maori to hunt whales and seals. (In the 1700s, whale and seal products were used by the Europeans a great deal. They refined whale blubber into oil for oil lamps and heating, for example.) They started settling there, and in 1840, the Maori signed a treaty that gave Great Britain complete control over the land. Five years later, the Maori started fighting the British to gain their land back, but in 1872, they surrendered. In 1907, New Zealand became its own nation. It had its own elected government, free of Great Britain's supervision. In 1893, New Zealand became the first country in the whole world to give women the right to vote. This is important because it shows how New Zealand was capable of making its own rules, making decisions and taking control without the overseeing of the British.

Australia is another part of Oceania. Its capital is Canberra. Australia is a dry continent that is located entirely in the southern hemisphere. The dry plains of Australia are called the outback. The earliest people to live in Australia are called Aborigines. they hunted and gathered their food. They didn't build towns or grow crops like the Maori. The Aborigines are thought to have come to Australia 40,000 years ago. They were nomadic, and travelled in small groups of a few families. The Aborigines used stone axes, boomerangs, and spears to get food and survive the Australian deserts. Australia is full of resources and wildlife, including over seven-hundrd-fifty reptilian species- more than any other place on Earth. The koala, kangaroo, and kookaburra are also animals native to Australia. In 1642, a Dutch explorer by the name of Abel Tasman travelled to a place close to Australia. The island Tasmania and the Tasman Sea are named after him. He also went to New Zealand, but left shortly because he thought that the people there didn't have any things of value to trade. in 1769, Captain James Cook also travelled t New Zealand and found that the land would be great for farming. So, convicts were sent from Great Britain to settle in New Zealand. They were the first to settle here. In 1851, many came to New Zealand after gold was discovered. British colonies were formed on the east and the west coasts. Great Britain's reign over New Zealand lasted until 1901. Today, Australia is a very wealthy continent with plentiful resources.

**The Age of Exploration in Africa**

Explorers from Europe found good resources in Africa like copper, diamonds, cotton, and coal. Soon, many Europeans were traveling down to Africa to collect such resources and become wealthy. Europe thought Africa was only important for its resources at first, but then, the Europeans started coming to Africa to find slaves.Slave catchers were paid to capture Africans for the slave trade. Even some other Africans were slave catchers. They were crowded onto a ship where there was a lack of free space, and many died on the ships. The slave trade tore families and friends apart, many people died, African towns were ruined, the slaves in Europe were trapped there, and not many people were left in Africa to take care of the land and to begin their own families. By the late 1700s, around 70000 Africans were being taken from their homes every year. About 12 million slaves were sold before the end of the slave trade in 1870. Europeans thought they were of more importance and value than the Africans. The Industrial Revolution helped the population of Europe's many countries to increase. Many of these countries followed a policy called Imperialism. They ruled over colonies in Morocco, French West Africa, Algeria, Nigeria, Cameroon, Rio de Oro, Sudan, British Somaliland, Kenya, Uganda,Madagascar, Angola, Basutoland, Swaziland, North and South Rhodesia, French Somaliland, Tanganyika, and French Equatorial Africa in 1951. Africans didn't gain their independence until after World War II. The first nation to become independent which was Ghana was led by Kwame Nkrumah. He led boycotts against the European government. (They refused to buy things made by the government which hurt the economy.) Many won their Independence during the 1950s and 1960s. Maybe this was because once other countries saw Ghana fighting back, they were inspired to do the same and stand up for what they thought to be right. The Congo and Europe had a strong trading system together. They traded slaves, ivory, and spices and gold for European guns and other European luxuries that Africa didn't have. However, as the Europeans encouraged the Congo's economy to be built around slavery, the Congo became dependent on Europe. The Congo's culture was changed. People living there might have been looked down upon. The Congo became weak.

**Early Modern Europe**

In the 1300s, Europe's trade was increasing and people were exchanging new ideas as well as trying to bring back some of the ways of the Greek and Roman people. This was after the Crusades when many people came together from the East. This period, known as the Renaissance, brought about change. (Renaissance means "rebirth" in French) Greek and Latin art was studied, and new ideas were developed. Many great works of art and inventions and scientific discoveries were made during the Renaissance. People realized that your role in society didn't really matter, but what you accomplished was important. A new religion was created in this time period in 1517 by a man called Martin Luther. He thought the Roman Catholic Church shouldn't forgive people for doing wrong things as long as they give the church money. After he nailed a list to a church door in Germany, his beliefs spread.The many people that soon followed him were called Protestants- they protested against the ways of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1545, the church revised and changed its rules. The feudal system became weak while towns grew. Kings became very powerful from collecting taxes taxes. They ruled over a lot of land and put together strong armies. In 1066, William, a French nobleman sailed to England and was crowned the King of England. Henry II, a king after King William created a set of laws that applied to everybody in England except himself. These laws were called the common law. England had a strong government. Kings had complete power over everybody else. In 1215, King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta, a paper that took away some of that power. Even the king had to live by the common law now. .England's major export, textiles were wanted by many, and many people worked in textile factories during the 1700s. Conditions in these factories were often very poor, and children were made to work too. Many went from living in the country to living in busy cities to work in these factories. Machines were made to speed up the production of the cloth.Coal mines were expanded to provide power for these machines such as the steam engine and the spinning jenny. This time period is know as the Industrial Revolution. England was one of the world's major trade nations. They traded with many different countries. Other places learned from the English. The industrial Revolution spread. France took on some of their manufacturing methods. France also came up with many artistic ideas, and the Eiffel Tower was built during the Industrial Revolution. So, the Industrial Revolution helped many places grow. However, some places were harmed by England's textile production that started the revolution. India spun cotton and made a fair amount of money from selling their cloth. When the English made their cloth, people didn't want the Indian cloth anymore. The Industrial Revolution helped many, but harmed some. It changed history starting in England.

**The Middle Ages**

The time between the fall of Rome and 1500 is known as The Middle Ages. Not much was being traded, and invaders from the north ravaged the land, destroying an signs that the Romans were once living there, great and strong. Finally, feudalism was developed. Feudalism organized Europe. More powerful people had to protect those who were less powerful. The king gave nobles under him land, and the nobles became a vassal of the king. They helped fight off his enemies. Nobles could give lower nobles their land; the lower nobles would become their vassals. Nobles protected serfs. Serfs were the the common people who farmed land, payed taxes and rent, and were not allowed to move and live elsewhere without permission. The people in the early Middle Ages lived on a manor with a church, the noble's house, and a small town. Animals were raised on manors too.The noble's knights lived with him and his family in his house. Serfs lived in the village in mud huts. Men grew crops and chopped wood. Women cooked and cleaned inside the noble's castle as a servant. Churches were very important part of the manor. By 1000,most people in Western Europe practiced Christianity, and they were members of the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church thought education was very important, and many people of that time did not have a good education. Priests learned how to write and read Latin which they taught to others. All books were handwritten. Monks and nuns copied Roman and Greek books. Nobles payed for serfs to build large, beautiful churches called cathedrals. During the Middle Ages, some Christians traveled to Jerusalem because they thought Jesus had lived there: therefore Jerusalem was a holy place. However in about 1000, Muslims who lived in Jerusalem no longer wanted them to come there. The pope ( the leader) of the Roman Catholic Church sent the Christians to Jerusalem to make sure the Muslims gave up control of Jerusalem. They went on several expeditions to capture Jerusalem. The journeys are known as the Crusades. They freed the holy city in 1099, but the Muslims won it back in 1199. The Crusaders found many new things on their trips to Jerusalem such as silk, rice, jewels, and oranges and lemons. Trade in Europe started to grow when more and more people heard of these wonderfully different and new things. The land was being restored, roads being recovered and rebuilt, and people joined together to form guilds to work certain jobs. They were now interested in what the civilizations of Greece and Rome had been. The Crusaders found out about the water wheel, chess, Arabic figures (numbers O-9), compasses, rugs, and mirrors and many other things that were new to them. Without some of these things, Europe would not have become as advanced as it became in later times.

**The Western Hemisphere and Canada**

North and South America are located in the Western Hemisphere. In 1507, America was first used on a map of South America- the name America chosen from Amerigo Vespucci's name. Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian explorer. In 1496, King Henry VII requested that Italian explorer John Cabot sail to America. John Cabot reached the shores of Canada. There, he found rivers teeming with fish, and large pine forests. Christopher Columbus reached South America six years after finding North America in 1492 (1498) on his third trip there.

Central America has a warm climate. Some of Central America is covered in thick, lush rain forest making farming hard. In Central America, The Panama Canal connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean. The Panama Canal is more than 50 miles long, and took ten years to complete. The canal is very important. Ships on one side of the Americas can go through the canal to get to the other side instead of going around. There are several locks in the canal. Locks are gated places where ships can be raised or lowered to the correct height in the water. Many workers died while building the canal. Mosquitoes carrying fatal illnesses killed many. It took a long time to dig the canal, and it also takes a long time to go through it (ships were towed by electric engines on tracks in the Panama Canal)):15-20 hours. The Panama Canal has helped increase trade and serves as a way of transportation. Population increased by 2.9 percent annually in 1950. This was most likely because people could use the canal. It was more convenient for everybody to be there. The could get to either side of the Americas while cutting the trip about 8000 miles shorter. Also, ideas from other places could travel quicker with more people coming across the canal.

Canada has a fairly cold climate. Some parts of Canada are snowy all year round. Canada's quite far north, and therefore has a cold climate. The west coast is the warmest part of part of Canada. Ocean currents affect climate there too. Warm or cold air above the currents affect this region. Most Canadians live in the southeast where there are cold winters and short summers. The Interior Plain are located west of the Hudson Bay. There are forests in the north and large farms in the south. The Rocky mountains lie to their west. The Canadian Shield, the largest part of Canada is a flat place that borders Hudson Bay. Resources like silver and gold are found here, but the land (and weather) is contrary to the Interior Plans by being not good for growing crops. The U.S. and Canada share the Rockies, and The United States' Great Plains are Canada's Interior Plains. However, the climate in the Interior Plains is a little colder than the climate of the Great Plains because the Great Plains are farther south and nearer to the Equator. Canada and the United States also have parts of the Appalachian Mountains in them. Thought The U.S. and Canada both have fjords and plains, the U.S. has deserts and tropical places whereas Canada does not.



In South America, a 4500 mile long mountain range passes through the western side. In North America, these mountains are the Rockies, but In South America, they are the Andes. The Amazon River runs through the Andes. The southern part of South America can be extremely cold in the wintertime, but places near to the equator are the exact opposite. Most of the flat land is place named the Amazon Basin because it's very big and bowl-like. The Amazon Basin is mostly taken up by rain forests.

**The Middle East**

The Middle East contains parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia. Saudi Arabia's the largest country in the Middle East. Ancient Arabs were nomads, and some of them still are. The religion most practiced in this region is one founded by a religious leader called Muhammad. Muhammad created Islam. Muslims (People who practice Islam) believe in one god. Islam means "Surrender to God" Muhammad lived in the 600s in a place called Mecca. Mecca is located in Saudi Arabia and close to the Red Sea. When Muhammad was praying in a cave, he heard a voice tell him Allah was the only true god. So, In 610, he began teaching the citizens of Mecca about Allah. Soon, he gained several followers. In the year 632, Muhammad died, but other Muslims continued spreading their religion throughout the Middle East forming armies and conquering people. This also allowed for the Muslim Empire to become enormous. Faith is very important to this religion. There are five Pillars of Islam that are recorded in the holy book of Islam, Koran. Muslims must state they believe only in one god- Allah, and that Muhammad is the one person who speaks for him. Muslims have to pray five times each day and be facing Mecca because that is where Muhammad first started teaching Islam. Muslims must give to the poor. Ramadan is the ninth month on the Muslims' calendar. During this month, people cannot eat during the day. This is fasting. The fifth (and last) Pillar of Islam is a pilgrimage, meaning that Muslims are required to a trip for religious reasons. Muslims usually go to Mecca at least once in their lives. In Islamic countries, most Muslims live together in an extended family. (Aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, as well as close family) Family duties are important to Muslims. The father is the head of an Islamic family and has to provide sufficient food and shelter for the family. The family has to respect him and do what he wishes of them. They think a woman should not be seen without a black chador (a robe) by men outside her family. Sometimes Muslim women women also wear a black veil covering her whole face excepting her eyes. The Koran doesn't approve of art portraying living things, mostly humans. There are many great poems from the Middle East, and many people from the Middle East have good architectural skills.

Oil is the main resource in the Middle East. It is also valuable and non-renewable. The people dwelling in the Middle East have known about petroleum oil for many centuries, but when it was first discovered, nobody had any use for the petroleum. But when the oil was starting to be used as an energy source, parts of the Middle East became very rich. The majority of the Earth's oil is in this region. In 1960, oil-producing nations grouped together and called themselves as a whole OPEC, and acronym for Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. OPEC controls a lot of the oil that is sold worldwide and how much is taken from the earth. In 1990, Iraq (which was under the leadership of Saddam Hussein) attacked the oil field in Kuwait. The U.S. helped protect the oil fields. If Iraq had won over the oil,they might have sold it only to certain parts of the world, and others that needed it could have become weak. Iraq could have even used the oil just for themselves. Islam had spread to Africa by the mid 700s. Some Africans built mosques- places Muslims could pray. However, some people were resistant to convert from their own religions to Islam. Eventually, these people developed a form of Islam (sometimes called African Islam) that was, though a little different in a few ways, based on the same ideas Islam is.