Who were our first ancestors?

Humans belong to a group of mammals called primates. It includes apes, monkeys and several much smaller animals such as lemurs and bush babies. As much as 50 million years ago, back in the Eocene Period, there were traces of primate-like animals. They were small and looked rather like squirrels, but their eyes faced forwards like modern monkeys and they had grasping hands and feet.

These animals evolved into monkey-like animals, but remains of primates are scarce and the fossil record contains many gaps. Those few remains that have been found are of tree-living monkeys that are very similar to monkeys living today.

The early ancestors of humans were called hominids, and they appear to have evolved in Africa where many of their remains have been discovered.

The earliest remains that were probably our ancestors are those of human-like apes called Australopithecus, which date back more than three million years. These creatures walked erect and looked similar to us, but their brain capacity was small. Several forms of Australopithecus heve been found. All of them were much shorter than modern humans, and their teeth show that they have a vegetarian diet.

The first true humans appeared around two million years ago in Africa. It has been named Homo habilis (handy man) because it used primitive stone tools. It was still rather ape-like, however, and was soon replaced by Homo erectus, which looked very much like us. It had a much heavier jaw, bony ridges over the eyes and a sloped-back forehead. Homo erectus appeared about 1.6 million years ago. Only a few incomplete fossils of these early humans have been found, but their tools have been discovered in large numbers.

Earth's Map

The earliest known maps were made in Babylon on clay tablets, as long ago as 2300 BC. Some Egyptian drawings and paintings found in tombs are almost as old. The Greek mathematician Ptolemy (AD 90-168) produced an enormous eight-volume guide to geography and map-making called The Guide to Geography. It was followed carefully by map-makers for almost 1,000 years.

It is not possible to draw the curved surface of the globe accurately on a flat sheet of paper. This problem puzzled mapmakers for many years. In 1569, Gerardus Mercator showed how to convert the rounded shape of the world into a cylindrical shape, which could be unrolled to make a flat map. However, this can distort the size of countries in the far north and south. Dividing the earth into "orange peel" segments gives a truer image of the size of countries.

What are perestroika and glasnost?

In the Soviet Union, the Communist Party controlled almost every aspect of people's lives. However, in the 1980's Soviet people were aware that their standard of living was slipping far behind that of the West. When Mikhail Gorbachev become party leader in 1985, he begun a process called perestroika, or restructuring. Some political activities were allowed, and economical reforms enabled people to run their own businesses. Gorbachev's policy of glasnost, or openness, allowed people to express themselves freely.

Gorbachev became Soviet president in 1990, but was thrown out in a coup the following year. He returns to power to ban the activities of the Communist Party. The Soviet Union swiftly fell apart, breaking up into its original 11 republics in 1991.

Who was Napoleon Bonaparte?

Napoleon Bonaparte was born on the French island of Corsica. He became a great general in the French army and achieved several military successes. After an unsuccessful campaign against the British in Egypt, Napoleon returned to France in 1799 and took complete control of the country with the backing of the Army.

Napoleon ruled France for 15 years, and in 1804 he crowned himself emperor. He governed effectively, and increased the power of the French army enormously by setting up a system of conscription. It meant that every adult Frenchman had to do military service for a time.

Napoleon had created a massive army, which he used to try and conquer Europe. The French armies conquered huge land territories including Austria and part of Russia, and proposed to invade Britain. Napoleon’s navy was finally defeated by Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar, however, and the invasion never took place. Instead Napoleon turned his attention to Spain and Portugal, which were given the support of Britain in their wars against the French.

What led to the Great War?

Continual trouble in the Balkans led to the formation of several complicated military alliances throughout Europe. The continent was eventually split into two groups. Britain, France, and later Russia joined to form the Entente Cordiale; Germany, Austri-Hungary and Italy formed the Triple Alliance. In 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was assassinated in Serbia, activating the alliance agreements. First Austria declared war on Serbia, Russia sided with Serbia, and then Germany declared war on Russia. Germany invaded Belgium, bringing the British and French into the conflict. The British, French and Russians became known as the Allies, while their opponents were the Central Powers.

World War I, or the Great War, was the first mechanized war in history. In the beginning, the fighting was similar to wars fought during the previous century. Mounted cavalry charged enemy lines but were cut down by fire from the recently developed machine guns. No modern tactics had been developed to handle the battles between armies spread across whole countries.

The battlefields became deadlocked, with few advances. The troops dug deep trenches. About 10 million men died in battles, which usually gained an advance of about one kilometer. Another 20 million men were wounded.

What are the Dead Sea Scrolls?

The Dead Sea Scrolls are religious writings that were first discovered in 1947, hidden in caves near the Dead Sea. The dry atmosphere of the caves had the effect of preserving the scrolls. About 800 scrolls have been found, mostly in a place called Qumbran in Israel. They date from between 150 BC and AD 68. They include all of the books of the Old Testament oe Hebrew Bible except for Esther.

Scholars believed that the scrolls were concealed by members of a religious sect called the Essenes, who lived in isolated community. They hid the scrolls to keep them safe during political unrest in the area, where they remained hidden for hundreds of years.

What is evolution?

Evolution is the name given to the gradual adaptation of living things to take advantage of the environment they live in.

This process, which takes place over millions of years, can mean that both animals and plants can change their appearance, size and habits, and eventually become new species.

We can see how evolution has changed living things by examining fossils. Fossils preserve the body parts of living creatures from long ago so that we can see how they have changed over millions of years. Sometimes the changes are very gradual, while others seem to have taken place quite rapidly. It is often possible to find a series of fossils, with each one showing a gradual change. This can tell us how a creature has altered due to the process of evolution. For example, scientists have traced the evolution of the horse from a tiny ancestor with normal toes to the large-hoofed animal we see today.