The document discusses several key themes in history: 1. The importance of learning from history so humanity can progress in a positive direction. Understanding past events helps avoid mistakes and create a better future. 2. Debate around human origins and migration patterns, with evidence that modern humans descended from a single tribe in Africa around 100,000 years ago. 3. The catastrophic climate events of 535 CE that impacted many parts of the world, likely caused by a large volcanic eruption, and what scientists have learned about past climate change from studying this event. 4. Changing interpretations of the population and sophistication of pre-colonial Americas, with evidence suggesting millions more people lived there than previously believed.

1. Theme 1: History, Science, and Trade by Amanda Garibay Most Important Themes: The importance of History The Journey of Men and where we originated from The Catastrophe known as the Dark Ages Changing through interpretations in America The Discovery of the World and Trade

2. What is History? Interpreting events , de ciding the important, charting the significant is a necessary part of being human, and that’s what makes history. As humans we learn from the past and hopefully move forward in a better direction due to the history created by us humans. It is our jobs to learn from our past so that theirs a brighter tomorrow. History empowers with practical knowledge, comes with dangerous edges, and provides beautiful possibilities.

3. Key Points History has been considered as the necessary knowledge of a responsible citizen, as truth to right former wrongs, as propaganda, or as vacuous opinion. History is story written or carved, painted or sung collection of events, often explained and interpreted, somehow always important. History are verifiable in the sense that one can often bring other records, reliable witnesses, and acceptable logic to prove an event happened at a particular time and place, was done by certain people, and caused unambiguous effects. Most history books are secondary records. They can be more-or less-accurate than first-person, primary accounts; they can be reliable stories or sheer propaganda.

4. The Journey of Man For centuries people have argued on where we humans have come from. The truth is we don’t know, however Dr. Wells had made some suggestions and was able to trace modern humans to one tribe. According to Dr. Wells we are all related, and with the help of technology today we are able to trace back the journey of man.

5. Key Points Today, there is general agreement that Homo erectus, the precursor to modern humans, evolved in Africa and gradually expanded to Eurasia beginning about 1.7 million years ago. According to Spencer Well s documentary, the six billion inhabitants of the earth today are all relatives, descendant from the modern San Bushmen of sub-Saharan Africa. Many archaeologists disagree, saying the fossil record shows that a first wave of migration occurred around 100,000 years ago. Dr. Wells had made some suggestions and was able to trace modern humans to one tribe. Other possible triggers for the burst of migration 45,000 years ago include an increase in population, which spurred competition and innovation; a change in diet, with consumption of more meat and fish; the acquisition of language; and climate change.

6. Catastrophe! Global history is important to know because with the knowledge of understanding how and why certain events occurred, scientist today can use technology to try to manipulate the situation so that another world wide catastrophe doesn’t take place.

7. Key Points Catastrophe is when the worlds climate changed for the worse around the time of 535 A.D. Clouds of dust enveloped the earth. Rain poured red, as if tinted with blood. The sun began to go dark. Bitter cold gripped the land for two years, followed by drought, plague and famine. Some feared it was the end of the world. The catastrophe effected countries around the world such as Turkey, Italy, Korea, Japan, and China. Fore years, no one knew what caused the great catastrophe. While David Keys is not a professional historian, he has compiled evidence from a great many different sources, including scientists and historians, to propose a bold hypothesis. His theory is that the climactic disturbance in the mid sixth century AD was due to an enormous volcanic eruption - likely from Krakatoa in Indonesia. Ice cores, tree rings, carbon 14 dating helps scientist conclude the meaning of the catastrophic event back in 535 A.D.

8. Changing Interpretations Of Americas Past Faced with such stories, historians have long wondered how many people lived in the Americas long before it has become what it is interpreted as today. How America is interpreted today is different compared to what it has been interpreted many ages ago.

9. Key Points Before it became the New World, the Western Hemisphere was vastly more populous and sophisticated than has been thought in altogether more salubrious place to live at the time than, say, Europe. New evidence of both the extent of the population and its agricultural advancement leads to a remarkable conjecture. Much of the environmental movement is animated. William Denevan, a geographer at the University of Wisconsin, calls, polemically, "the pristine myth” th e belief that the Americas in 1491 were an almost unmarked land. Over the centuries the burning from the Indians created an intricate ecosystem of fire-adapted plant species dependent on native pyrophilia, which started the change of Americas. So many epidemics occurred in the Americas, Dobyns argued, that the old data used by Mooney and his successors represented population nadirs. From the few cases in which before-and-after totals are known with relative certainty, Dobyns estimated that in the first 130 years of contact about 95 percent of the people in the Americas died th e worst demographic calamity in recorded history. For four years his Soto’s force, looking for gold, wandered through what is now Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas, wrecking almost everything it touched. The inhabitants often fought back vigorously, but they had never before encountered an army with horses and guns. That was a big part of “inventing by millions.”

10. The World and Trade The discovery of the world was all very new during the late 1400’s. This was a time of exploration to view the world. The new world and the history of trade are what defined these times as the voyage of discovery. The years run slow, but yet shall come A time when Ocean frees our bonds, When vast new worlds shall stand revealed, Iceland shall not be the last of lands…

11. Key Points The realization that the earth is a globe did not originate until Christian Europe had inherited this idea from classical Greece. Christopher Columbus set sail in 1492, when people in the Eastern Hemisphere only knew the tripartite division of Europe, Asia, and Africa. His voyage proved the globe was not just a single ecumene surrounded by cast sea. Christopher Columbus’s voyage encouraged others to venture out. Examples are; The grand tour to Europe, Turkey to Africa, South Asia, China and Japan, The Western Hemisphere, and the voyage led by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in the 1500’s. The discovery of the world resulted in trade throughout the globe. When fifteenth-century China began replacing depreciated paper and copper currency with silver, it set into play forces that would affect remote people on five continents. Trade involved chocolate from the Aztecs cacao bean, coffee from an Arabica native plant in Ethiopia, sugar from the U.S. shores of the Haitian island,tobacco, and other items.