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By: Tata

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Mesopotamia was filled with many city-states in the past. This region was located between the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf. With this said, Mesopotamia also had the Tigres and Euphrates running though it.

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There were mainly three problems that the people living in this region had. It was the scarce rain that lead to deserted areas, now walls to protect invaders and not enough materials that were essential for buildings.

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The Sumerians were great problem solvers though. They built irrigation systems to make sure that they had water during the drought season, they also used mud bricks to build walls around their cities and the Sumerians were able to exchange with clothes and tools they made for raw material (iron, metal and wood) to be able to build buildings.

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The priests were the first to be ruling city-states. This was because the farmers believed that the gods were the ones with the ability to give blessings to their crops and that priests were the people in between. However, after 3000 B.C. the military leaders became the rulers due to a lot of war between city-states. This was also the start of dynasties or family rulers.

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The Sumerians didn't believe in just one god. In fact, they were Polytheistic or believing in more than one god. However, for them, gods weren't special, they were just normal human beings that showed love, sorrow and hatred. Except the gods were the ones with unlimited power. By keeping them happy, the people built a Ziggurat to worship the gods. There were 3 main social classes in the Sumerian city-states, they were; kings + land holders + priests/ rich merchants/ slaves.

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Sumerians invented a lot of things. They made plows, sails and wheels which played a big role in farming and transportation. Sumerians also figured out that 60 seconds was equal to a minute, they designed columns and ramps for the Ziggurat and invented the writing system. Sumerians fought a lot though, they went to war from 3000 - 2000 B.C. and soon was conquered by the Amorites.

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Amorites took control at around 2000 B.C. There capital city was Babylon, located near the Euphrates. Not long after ruling, the world's first empire was formed. This was the Babylonian Empire which saw many cities become a strong empire. At its peak, the empire created Hammurabi's Code, this was a code with 282 laws engraved on stone placed around the empire. Although, different social classes had different punishments, the law was made for order and justice in the rising empire. However, 200 years after the code was made, the empire falls.

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By: Tata

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Ancient Egypt was located in North Africa. This was the area known for its numerous amounts of silt on the deltas that were extremely useful for irrigation ditches. With lots of river, both fresh and salt waster is located there. Higher Egypt was located south and lower Egypt was located north due to the differences in elevation. The Nile for the Egyptians were a great gift. For this reason, they worshiped the river for making it possible to have easy access to water.

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Although the Nile gave almost everything to the people in ancient Egypt, the river had its problems. With the high elevation of the river, it was regular that there were floods and this made it regular for farmers to not get as much crops needed. Sooner than later, it lead to starvation. Floods also destroyed crops and property owned by the Egyptians.

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Before King Narmer had made his dynasty, lower and upper Egypt were ruled separately. The crown of upper Egypt would be white and the lower Egypt's would be red. However, in the year 3000 BC King Narmer unified these two lands and made the crown red and white. He also selects Memphis as the capital of the kingdom, because it was located near the fertile lands of the Nile river. With this said, the first dynasty in ancient Egypt was created by King Narmer.

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The major difference between ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia is that the Egyptians considered the kings (Pharaohs) as gods. With his said, the gods controlled religion, government, army, the sun to rise and even the Nile to flow. It was the Pharaohs job to promote truth and justice for the people.

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The Egyptians believed that after death, the soul (Ka) of a person would go on an continue the person's life. This meant that good lives would continue and bad lives would also continue. For Pharaohs, pyramids were built for them to be lived in. For some, it was one whole pyramid, with the height of 480 feet built without proper material, just all for themselves. Before a Pharaoh was buried, he would be soaked in salt water, cleaned up, then wrapped around. Jewelries and gold would be placed next to him in the tomb.

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Ancient Egyptians were polytheistic, or people who believed in many gods. It was said, that they believed in as many as 2000 gods, Re (God of the sun), Osiris (God of death) and Isis (God of ideal mother and wife) were some of the important gods worshiped. The Egyptians were also believing in an afterlife. When a person dies, his/her life would continue and be judged based on the good and bad deeds. Anubis, or the god of underworld would be the one weighing a person's heart. The lighter ones would be good and the heavier ones would be evil. Many people also used mummification to prevent a king's body from decaying.

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There were mainly four social classes in ancient Egypt. On top was, of course, the Pharaohs and the kings and queens. Next were the rich landowners, priests and army commanders. Then there were the farmers and land labors and lastly, were the slaves. Women also gained a lot of rights during this time, plus they could earn a higher rank in the social class by marrying a rich husband.

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Although the Egyptians first used simple pictures to be a form of writing, they later used Hieroglyphics or a different system of writing. This new system was also known as the "sacred carving" and was extra useful to the historians because there were Greek writings next to it. With a new type of writing, a new surface for the writing or the Papyrus was created so that the writing would be on reeds and placed together like a piece of paper.

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Ancient Egyptians were also great inventors in terms of science and technology. Surprisingly, they managed to invent a calendar that was only 6 short without using any type of measuring device. They also developed geometry or adding and calculating for the use of collecting taxes. The Egyptians designed the columns of pyramids and palaces and they had great medical care.

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Ancient Egypt was mainly divided into three parts there was the old, middle and new. The old kingdom ended at around 2180 BC when the Pharaohs lost their power. However, at around 2040 BC they regained their power and this started the middle period. But in 1640 BC a group of people from Palestine or the Hyksos moved in and invaded the Egyptians. Although these people ruled for over 100 years, they didn't change much of what was ancient Egypt.

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By: Vivi

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The Indus civilization arose about 2500 B.C , in the present day Pakistan and part of India.

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2) Geographic of the Indian Subcontinent 

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2) Geographic of the Indian Subcontinent 

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Landmass that includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh are known as the Indian subcontinent. World's highest mountain ranges and the huge desert protected the Indus Valley from invaders. The Indus and the Ganges water a large area of land called the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Below the Indo-Gangetic Plain is a peninsula that is surrounded by the Indian Ocean in the southern part of the subcontinent. There is a high Plateau cut by twisting rivers framed by low ranges of mountains located in the middle of the peninsula that keeps moist air from reaching that area, making it a dry region called the Deccan Plateau and a rich, narrow stripe of tropical land lies along the coast of Southern India.

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Monsoon is the seasonal winds that dominate India's climate. Sometimes the powerful monsoons bring too much moist from the ocean that forms great rain clouds that floods often happens and sometimes the monsoons blow too much dry air that it caused crop disaster from the drought.

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- Unpredictable floods.

-The rivers sometimes change their routes.

-Unpredictable seasons brought by the monsoons

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No one knows how the settlement of human began in India subcontinent. Around 2500 B.C, people in the Indus Valley began building their first cities with bricks. The largest cities were Kalibangan, Mohenjo-Daro, and Harappa. The Indus Valley civilization is sometimes called Harappan civilization because a lot of archaeological discoveries were found at that site. One of the most remarkable achievements of the Indus Valley people was their city planning. The cities were dense with buildings. The buildings were made by standard sizes of bricks. Most of the houses or buildings were muti-stories, they were designed to catch the wind. Most homes were connected to a centralized drainage system underground that carry waste water out of the city and they also have the water plumbing systems. They have also developed a strong central government.

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The Harappan culture, like the other two valley civilizations was based on agricultural. They developed a written language but historians can not translate the language. The housing showed that there wasn't a great division of social classes and from artifacts, the animals were an important part of the culture. Archaeologists believed that the culture was theocracy because they found artifacts with pictures of god and goddess on them. Trading began as early as 2600 B.C and was continued until 1800 B.C. The Indus River provided links from to the sea, which allowed them to trade with distant civilizations and peoples.

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Around 1750 B.C., the great cities in the Indus Valley fell and was remained a mystery until 1970s, when satellites showed the evidence of shifts in tectonic plates around the area of the India Subcontinent. The shifts of the tectonic plates may caused several natural disasters such as tsunamis, floods or earthquakes, making cities along the rivers suffered. The shifts may have also changed the rivers routes, causing drought in some cities. With not enough food, people that remained in the Indus Valley had to migrate to somewhere else to survive.

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Indus Valley Civilization: Crash Course World History #2

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By: Nicole

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Natural barriers such as the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the Pacific Ocean, mountain ranges, and deserts that dominate about two-thirds of China's landmass isolated ancient China from other civilizations.

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There are tow major river systems which are the Huang He, also known as the Yellow River, in the north, and the Chang Jiang, or the Yangtze, in the south. The Huang He leaves huge amounts of fertile silt, or loess, when it floods.

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- Huang He's floods can devour whole villages, which the people nicknamed this river as "China's Sorrow"

- There was lack of tradings due to geographic isolation which meant that they had to be self-sufficient

-Invasions from the west and north occurred countless of times since China's natural boundaries did not completely protect them from intruders.

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The North China Plain, which is a small plain, between Huang He and Yangtze, was the center of its civilization.

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5) Civilizations Emerges in Shang Times 

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5) Civilizations Emerges in Shang Times 

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Around 2000 B.C., as cities started to grow, the first Chinese dynasty started to rise. The Xis Dynasty was the first dynasty that emerged around this time and its ruler was an engineer and mathematician named Yu. His flood control systems had helped tame the Huang He and its tributaries so that settlements could grow.

Later, the Shang Dynasty rose to power in northern China in 1700 B.C. and lasted till 1027 B.C. It was the first family of Chinese rulers to leave written records.

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One of the capitals of the Shang Dynasty, among the oldest and most important, was the Anyang, which was built out of wood. The upper class lived in the city while the lower class lived outside of the city. The Shang people have massive walls for military defense because they were always waging war.

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The Chinese viewed people who lived outside of Chinese civilization as barbarians. They saw their country as the center of the civilization world, as their own name for China was the Middle Kingdom. From the earliest times, China had strong unifying bonds since the group is more important that the individual.

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The family was central to Chinese society. The most important virtue was respect one's parents. The elder men in the family made important decisions and controlled the family's property. However for the women, they were expected to obey all men including their fathers, their husbands, and their own sons.

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Shang society was divided between the nobles and the peasants. The kings and worrier-nobles owned the land and led the society. In exchange for local control, the nobles would govern scattered villages within the Shang lands and send tribute to the Shang ruler.

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The Chinese believed that spirits of the dead can affect the family fortunes. Which meant that they had the power to either bring good fortunes or disaster to living members of the family. To them, the spirits were more like troublesome or helpful neighbors who needed attention and respect. Every family paid respect to the father's ancestors and made sacrifices in their honor.

The Shang worshiped a supreme god, Shang Di, as well as many other gods. Shang rulers consulted the gods through the use of oracle bones, animal bones, and tortoise shells on which priests had scratched questions for the gods. Later a priest would apply a hot poker to it which would cause it to crack. After that they would interpret the cracks and see how the gods had answered.

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The Chinese writing system used symbols to represent syllables, not ideas. There were no links between China's spoken language and its written language. This meant that one could read Chinese without being able to speak a word of it.

This system of writing had one major benefit which was that people in all parts of China could use the same system of writing even if their spoken language were very different. Moreover, it made the control of land easier since this system of writing had helped unify large and diverse groups of people.

The disadvantage of this writing system was that there were huge number of characters to be memorized which made the system of writing difficult to learn. A person needed to know 1,500 characters in order to be barley literate and to be a true scholar, one must know at least 10,000 characters. This had limited the number of literate, educated Chinese.

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In 1027 B.C., Zhou Dynasty took control of China. The brought new ideas to the Chinese civilizations, however, they still adopted much of the Shang culture.

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The Zhou leaders declared that the final Shang king had been a poor ruler that the gods had taken his power away and gave it to the Zhou instead. This justification turned over time into an open view that royal authority came from heaven. Mandate Heaven is a belief that a just ruler had divine approval. This became central to the Chinese view of government. The Chinese explanation for rebellion, civil war, and rise of the new dynasty was from the floods, riots, and other calamities that might be signs of the ancestral spirits being displeased with a king's rule.

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Feudalism is a system where kings give land to nobles or lords in exchange for their services. The nobles would owe their loyalty and military service to the king in return.

Overtime, the nobles grew stronger as the town grew into cities and expanded. They became less and less dependent on the king and fought against each other over wealth and territory.

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15) Improvements in Technology and Trades

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15) Improvements in Technology and Trades

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- Roads and canals were built to improve transportation and stimulate trade and agriculture

- Coined money was introduced which improved trade

- Blast furnaces which produced cast iron were developed which helped them to create weapons such as dagger-axes and swords. They also used them for making sickles, knives, and spades which made farm work easier and more productive.

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The Zhou Dynasty ruled from 1027 B.C. to 256 B.C., which was very stable. However, in 771 B.C., the nomads from north and west sacked the Zhou capital and murdered their monarch. Some members of the royal family escaped and set up a new capital in Luoyang. They were almost powerless there since they could not control the nobles. In the end, internal wars between the lords fighting over territories destroyed the traditions of dynasty.