WH3219 October 2016
To understand the past it is often important to talk about our modern world What innovations come to mind for the following topics Transportation Infrastructure Warfare Communications Health Care These five categories will form the basis of our next several classes as we explore some ancient, medieval, and modern innovations which have greatly impacted the human experience
Students should compare the human experience before and after the innovation. Students should select a significant innovation or invention from any point in history and discuss how it changed the human experience. In this section we will briefly explore the following: Ancient World (Phoenician Boats & Roman Aqueducts) Middle Ages ( Stirrup & Printing Press) Modern World (Small pox vaccine)
Ancient Phoenician was located in modern- day Lebanon The Phoenicians never formed an empire but rather was a collection of separate city-states with independent governments that worked together as a unit. After 1100 B.C.E the Phoenicians emerged to dominate trade in & around the Mediterranean
Phoenicia was located in a great spot for trade because it lay along well-traveled routes between Egypt and Asia. However, the Phoenicians did more than just trade with merchants who happened to pass through their region. The Phoenicians became expert sailors and went looking for opportunities to make money.
Reputation for being remarkable shipbuilders & seafarers They explored & colonized areas in around the Mediterranean sea, Strait of Gibraltar & even Britain (according to some historians) Historians call them the carriers of civilization because they spread Middle East civilization around the Mediterranean Trade spread products & ideas from one place to another
As merchants, the Phoenicians needed a way of recording transactions clearly & quickly so they developed a writing system that used symbols to represent sounds. The Phoenician system was phonetic that is, one sign was used for one sound. As they traveled around the Mediterranean, the Phoenicians introduced this writing system to their trading partners.
History of the Phoenicians ( first 5 mins up to section on Alphabet)
What is the significance of water management in our society? (Think about issues we face, how would our differ without adequate water supplies?) Water management was also a concern for the Ancient Romans. They used aqueducts as a means to transport water from one place to another
What is a aqueduct? It is a water supply or navigable channel constructed to convey water. In modern engineering, the term is used for any system of pipes, ditches, canals, tunnels, and other structures used for this purpose. In a more restricted use, aqueduct (occasionally water bridge) applies to any bridge or viaduct that transports water - instead of a path, road or railway - across a gap. Video overview.google Drive videos 1, 2, 3
What would Rome & the Roman Empire have been like without the aqueducts? The Romans could not have built cities as big as they did without aqueducts and some of their cities wouldn't have existed at all. With water from aqueducts, the Romans could have their baths, their fountains, and their drinking water. Without imported water, their society would not have been a bath culture
What would Rome & the Roman Empire have been like without the aqueducts? The city would not been as clean without sewers took aqueduct overflow and flushed the refuse into the river, which damaged the river, but kept the city of Rome clean. With a population of 1 million at it s peak, local rivers, wells, & springs would have become contaminated very easily.all major cities need reliable sources of water to sustain their populations
A flat-based loop or ring hung from either side of a horse's saddle to support the rider's foot in mounting and riding Simple yet innovative & revolutionary The solution What would be an issue with riding?
Prior to stirrups, chariot warfare was the primary use of horses in combat. Riding without stirrups was exceedingly difficult requiring a extraordinarily skilled horseman to ride, let alone shoot, throw, or strike effectively at the same time. Originating in central Asia around 1000 BC, the stirrup created the mounted horsemen which would dominate the battlefield for the next 2000 years
The stirrup allowed horsemen to travel faster over greater distance & carrying weapons such as spear, sword, etc. It was the horse soldiers from North of China, the Mongols, led by leaders such as Genghis Khan, that conquered much of the known world relying of the advantages afforded by the stirrup. Between 600 and 700 CE, steppe warriors from what is today Russia introduced the stirrup to Europe. Resisting Viking and mounted warriors from the East, the nobility of Europe began to fight of horseback as medieval knights
Combining the best ideas of the enemy with their own, they integrated mounted warriors, stirrups, saddles and lances into a new fighting system that was codependent on the economic structure of the society. The result was medieval mounted knight and feudalism. Dr. Lynn White Jr. in his book Medieval Technology and Social Change states: Few inventions have been so simple as the stirrup, but few have had so catalytic an influence on history. The requirements of the new mode of warfare which it made possible found expression in a new form of western European society dominated by an aristocracy of warriors endowed with land so that they might fight in a new and highly specialized way.... The Man on Horseback, as we have known him during the past millennium, was made possible by the stirrup.... It allowed the Europeans, for better or worse, to mount excursions into the lands of Arabia on the Crusades and to battle with each other for hundreds of years and the system of government it spawned was to influence the west for hundreds of years.
Prior to the invention of the Printing Press in 1450s, bookmaking entailed copying all the words and illustrations by hand. Often the copying had been done onto parchment, animal skin that had been scraped until it was clean, smooth, and thin. The labor that went into creating them made each book very expensive.
When Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1445, he forever changed the lives of people in Europe and, eventually, all over the world. Because Gutenberg's press could produce books quickly and with relatively little effort, bookmaking became much less expensive, allowing more people to buy reading material. Video and handout from Google Drive
Changes in Society Printing makes information widely available Illiterate people benefit by having books read to them in their own language Published accounts of maps and charts lead to more discoveries Published legal proceedings and documents makes right clearer to people Increased literacy led to the challenging of the established order and existing ideas. Political structures and religious practices are questioned.
Smallpox is a viral infection and highly contagious. It forms blisters on the human body. It is a disease that requires close human contact to replicate and survive. The total incubation period lasts 12 days, at which point the patient will either have died or survived. The mortality rate is alarming and survivors suffered horrible disfigurement. Due to animal domestication and living into close proximity to animals, many diseases cross over to human hosts including smallpox. Over time many humans exposed to smallpox developed immunity. The same was not true for Native Americans who died in huge numbers after the introduction of Smallpox by Europeans.
Edward Jenner was an English country doctor in the late 1700s. In his practice, smallpox was one of the most common and worst problems he encountered. In 1788, an small pox epidemic occurred where Jenner practiced medicine and he noticed that the cattle farmers were not the ones dying from smallpox. Jenner theorized that cowpox (a much milder but similar disease to smallpox) was somehow protecting the farmers. Jenner extracted cowpox fluid and exposed a local boy who developed cowpox. He then exposed the boy to smallpox who remained healthy. Jenner achieved his goal of smallpox protection through observation, trial and error and without knowledge of viruses. His breakthrough led to the advent of modern vaccinations. Once a global scourge and responsible for as many as 300-500 million deaths in the 20 th century alone, the last recorded death by Smallpox was in 1978.