Chapter 12: The Worlds of the Fifteenth Century

Just read chapter 12 today about the fifteenth century and what happened during this time. The chapter started out by talking about Cristopher Columbus and his great journey to the Americas. Also talked about what main events that also happened, like Timur launching the last major nomadic invasion of adjacent civilizations, the ottoman empire conquering the Byzantines, and the Spanish christians reconquering the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors. Further in the reading,the book takes about the Native American tribes and how they had to change their ways to survive.

Chapter 9: The worlds of Islam

Just read chapter 9, very interesting and new things I learned about the islamic religion. I didn't know that the Arabs who believed in Allah and believed that they were children of Abraham. Learned that Muhammad was born in Mecca in 570 C.E. and that he lost his parents when he was a young boy. Also that he was a political and a military leader.

Just read chapter 10: The Worlds of Christendom. Reading the different types of Christianity, their traditions, and their beliefs of Jesus. How they built their churches, where they built them, and why they named them. Also learned about the Byzantine state, and Justinian's conquests of the old Western Roman Empire from the the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and the Vandals, and their traditions of christianity. This was a very interesting read.

Just read chapter 7 about the silk roads. Very interesting that there were multiple silk roads, and how they moved trading goods from one place to another, and surprised  on how big the caravans were. How they would have to be careful and watch out for bandits. Also looking at what parts of Eurasia would specialize in certain trades for the silk road, and how disease was spread was also interesting, especially how fast the diseases spread from one place to another.

Just read chapter six in our class textbook, and was very fascinated about the mesoamerican civilizations. I was fascinated specifically on the Mayan empire. They had a very unique way of writing, just like the Egyptians, used a system of hieroglyphic symbols. Most of their hieroglyphs are still on most of their structures that are still standing today. I was also fascinated on their way of warfare. They would capture people and bring them to their cities, and sacrifice the capturers to their gods.

Just read my text book today about the end of the first civilizations and the start of the classical era when states and empires in Eurasia and North Africa started to appear. One section really stood out to me because it's one of my favorite subjects in history is the collision between the Greeks and the Persians. Seeing how the Persian empires boarders went from Asia-Minor all the way to the Hindu Kush, how difficult it must have been to control that big of an empire and to keep all of those people under one rule, since most of them were of different cultures. Then the Greeks and their multiple city states, Sparta, Athens, Corinth, and many others stopped the Persians from conquering all of Greece, and we cannot forget Leonidas and the famous 300 Spartans and how they held off the Persians for so long. I didn't not realize though that it all started when the Persians conquered Ionia and the Ionians revolted and asked Athens to help them. Very interesting section indeed.

Just read some interesting documents in our class text book about some of the first civilizations writing and story telling. I think the documents at the end of the chapter illustrate the civilizations origins stories and the hierarchies of class.