The Super Summary of World History (103 page)

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    The fall of the Western Roman Empire took decades, so the date of 455 is somewhat arbitrary, but by this date the governmental protections (army) and bureaucracy (administration) were gone forever.

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    Some philosophers say the world outside our brain cavity is nothing but chaos, and we mentally impose order on a disordered world.

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    Genesis 4: 1-16

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    Freud would say human beings were irrational, and this may prove it. See Sigmund Freud under 1900: The Dividing Line to the Modern World in this tome.

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    Not so in Meso-America. The Mayan, Aztecs, and Incas—just to name three—did not establish their great cities on major rivers. As time went on in the ancient world many cities would be established away from great rivers (Hattus, the Hittite capitol, and Nineveh, the Assyrian capitol for example).

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    Here is an example: assume a civilization grew up before 15,000 BC in the area of present day Moscow. Then the latest ice-age hit and the massive mile thick glaciers scraped the area clean. How could such a civilization be found? The moraines in front of the glaciers might contain some evidence, but it would be shattered & pulverized evidence, to say the least.

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    Science has not explained how life can come from dead matter, or how human consciousness developed, or where races of people came from. to name a few items. Plus, science does not answer
why
, it answers
how
.

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    God’s truth is “revealed” to man; that is, the gods tell man what is good or evil as man cannot discover the god’s truth on their own. Note how virtue differs: in Norse society killing the enemy is a large virtue, in Christian society one is encouraged to love ones enemies.

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    Israel, Syria; India, Pakistan; Iran, Iraq . . . etc.

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    From this point forward, dates will be rendered with the year only, unless we specifically are referring to BC dates; thus, a date with no AD or BC is assumed to be AD.

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    Note that in spite of the Mongol invasion and conquest of China, its culture, language, and administration remained nearly the same right into modern times.

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    “
Witch hunters
” as they styled themselves. One stated that his book on how to detect witches was covered with the skin of a witch. The killing began about 1250 and lasted until 1712 (the last witch trial in England). In 1487, the height of the witch hunts, a book was published describing witches’ habits and how to detect them named
Malleus Maleficarum
(Hammer of Witches). Thousands died from these inquisitions across Europe, and men were often killed as well as women, but women seemed to have borne the brunt of the mania.

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    Through Islam, oddly enough. Islam never took these ancient ideas into their philosophy. In the West they caused a revolution, in the Islamic world, nothing.

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    Ancient Egypt stayed as it was for four thousand years for a reason; new ideas were avoided to maintain the status quo.

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    Devout Muslims say the original language of the Koran is pure, and even translations to another language corrupt the book.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades
, Spencer, 2005, Regnery Publishing, Inc

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    Note this was 5 years before Columbus sailed for India in 1492. All of Europe knew the Portuguese had turned the south coast of Africa, and everyone figured the way to India around Africa was now a Portuguese monopoly.

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    This was one of the most important naval engagements in history. Vasco de Gama was brilliant in the handling of his fleet, and the victory ended Muslim dominance of the Indian Ocean till this day (2010).

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The Discoverers: a History of Man’s Search to Know His World and Himself
by Boorstin, Daniel J. 2001, is one of the best books on this subject.

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    They were called Indians because Columbus thought he had reached India, or the Indies. The inappropriate name stuck.

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    Cortez conquered the Aztecs in 1521, and Pizarro conquered the Incas in 1532.

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    Atlantis is the most commonly referred to point of origin for cultures that are thousands of miles apart but manage to think and build much the same. Plato aside, there is no physical or other proof for the existence of Atlantis as a continent or a culture. Too bad, because it would be a lot of fun if such a place had existed.

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    Although in Egypt they advanced to a smooth-sided pyramid.

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    Understand that this blood sacrifice entailed cutting the heart out of a living human victim and holding it up to the sun while the organ was still beating. Now that’s a blood sacrifice!

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    The Catholic Church demanded the natives not be enslaved, so the Spanish just called it by a different name and did the same thing.

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Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies
, by Jared Diamond, 2005.

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    The Black Death is reported in China about 1341; and by 1347, it had reached Europe. This was the last of several plagues to sweep over Europe.

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    The Shang dynasty was founded in 1600 BC, and the Chou was founded about 1050 BC. All dates in this section must be considered approximate; thus, when it says the dynasty lasted 200 years please be aware that means it lasted
approximately
200 years.

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    P. 41,
The Penguin Atlas of World History, Vol 1
, Kinder & Hilgemann, 1978, Penguin Books.

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    Christians may argue this is “self-salvation.” In Christian theology, Jesus Christ alone can save a person’s soul, and one must confess Jesus is the Son of God and that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for their sins. A Buddhist (or Hindu) would see this as somewhat foolish, in large part because it avoids the question of conforming one’s mind to the necessary attitude to reach the oneness of the universe. Hindus think there are many paths to truth so they accept Jesus as one way to the truth; however, Christians argue there is only one way, Jesus. In both Buddhism and Hinduism there are many complexities that go far beyond the ability of this text to explain them.

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    These “nomads” from the center of the Asian land mass were a problem for everyone. They attacked, under various names, China, Europe, the Middle East, and India. Their ability to use cavalry to defeat the civilized world on all sides of them is amazing. As historians, we have a problem understanding their background because they left very little written information about themselves. No writing, no history. The Huns were the great problem for the Han and constant wars were fought between the two “civilizations”. The Great Wall was constructed to keep the Huns out more than anyone else.

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    This date is highly variable.

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    It can be argued that China’s entry into the Korean War and the Vietnam War was for the purpose of keeping foreigners out of its sphere of influence.

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    Please see the previous chapters on India and the Aryans.

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    “upper” here means southern. Egypt considered the mouth of the Nile at the Mediterranean Sea the “lower” Nile.

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    The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon, Penguin Classics,
ISBN 0140433945
, p.563;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodora_(6th_century)

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    None-the-less, this success was marred by civil war, in which split the Muslim world into two sects:
Sunni
, the majority of Muslims, perhaps 80 percent belong to this sect, believing the Muslim leader does not have to be a descendent of Muhammad, and the
Shiites
who believe Muhammad’s son in law Ali should have been the leader of the Muslims. This division in the Islamic world continues today, and the consequences have been chaotic and bloody. Each sect believes the other is reprobate and in need of extermination. This led to conflicts of the most violent character which continue into 2010.

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    Acre fell in 1291, and this was the last of the major Levant Crusader strongholds; however, the island of Rhodes held on until 1522 and the island of Malta until 1798.

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    This was the discovery of America because it was
publicized
. The Vikings and others may have arrived first, but they did nothing with the knowledge. Columbus came back and let everyone know how great he was; unfortunately, he failed to understand where he had been. Nonetheless, everyone in Europe knew that new lands had been found; thus, it was Columbus who discovered America because one who discovers something and keeps it secret has discovered nothing—except for himself.

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    OK, OK . . . . So they were not ALL English colonist, but I just can’t type English, German, Irish, Dutch, French, Russian, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Belgian, Italian, Sicilian, Swiss, Portuguese, Scottish, Welsh, and Lord knows how many others every time I type “colonist” . . . so . . .
English
colonist it is. They were the majority after all.

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    Self-made meaning they had earned their money themselves and did not inherit it. Many in England enjoyed wealth by inheritance, and they also enjoyed power and position by inheritance. In the New World, they didn’t like people showing up acting as if they deserved something because of their birth. The New World expected people to earn their money and position, and not inherit it from an ancient ancestor. Many men in Parliament were there because of an inheritance of one kind or another.

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    This name, the Intolerable Acts, came from the American propagandist. The Adams cousins
were especially good at this kind of thing.

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    December 16, 1773. A group of men dressed like Indians boarded an English ship loaded with tea and threw the cargo overboard. This was a protest against English taxes on tea. Americans then began drinking coffee as a replacement for tea (tax avoidance) and never stopped. When you drink coffee, you are drinking to tax avoidance and revolution.

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    p. 720,
The New Penguin History of the World
, Roberts, J., 2007, Penguin books.

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    The “shot heard round the world.” Note that the British troops, who wore bright red coats, were called the Red Coats the world over.

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    A
musket
is a long gun with no grooves in the barrel to spin the projectile. A
rifle
has grooves in the barrel to spin the projectile (a ball of lead in this case), and it makes the projectile more accurate over a longer distance. A musket had a hard time hitting something the size of a man at one hundred yards; a rifle could do that easily, and in experienced hands could hit such a target at two hundred yards or more.

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    It was actually Breeds Hill, but who cares at this point.

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    1776, David McCullough, 2006, Simon and Schuster

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    In fact, the world was still in the so-called Little Ice Age.

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    p. 148 et seq
Great Rivals in History, When Politics Gets Personal
, Cummins, J, 2008, Metro Books. The chapter is entitled “Benedict Arnold and Horatio Gates, A Clash for Control.” And the title says it all.

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    It would seem that after two hundred plus years calling someone a “Benedict Arnold” wouldn’t be such a mighty insult, but it is. Arnold now has the recognition he craved, but recognition of the wrong kind.

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    The Articles of Confederation were adopted by the Continental Congress in 1777, and were used throughout the Revolutionary War. They were used after the war (1782) until the adoption of the Constitution in 1789.

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    And later said in the Tenth Amendment that any power not specifically named in the document was given to the states, or the people.