History The human story from the first people to the modern world: the first farms and towns, Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, India and China, Greece and Rome, the Middle Ages, empires, revolutions and the wars of the last centuries, each told as events with causes, people and places Mova can reason about.
The history course of Mova's primary school: 87 lessons, 1532 sentences, each sentence with its syntax tree and pragmatics. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (Mova corpus 0.4).
1 The first people: hunters, gatherers and cave painters 18 sentences · For almost all of the time humans have existed, nobody farmed, built towns or wrote anything down: people li… 2 The first farms and towns 19 sentences · About 12,000 years ago some people stopped following the animals and started planting seeds and keeping anim… 3 Mesopotamia: the first cities and writing 21 sentences · Mesopotamia means the land between the rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates, in what is now mostly Iraq. 4 Mesopotamia: wheels, laws and empires 18 sentences · Once there were cities, people needed ways to move goods, settle quarrels and rule large lands, and Mesopota… 5 Ancient Egypt: the Nile and the pharaohs 19 sentences · Egypt is mostly desert, yet one of the greatest civilisations grew there, all thanks to one river, the Nile. 6 Ancient Egypt: pyramids, mummies and hieroglyphs 19 sentences · Egyptians believed life went on after death, and that the body was still needed there. 7 Ancient India: the Indus cities and the first kingdoms 15 sentences · About 4,500 years ago, while the pyramids were being built, great cities stood by the river Indus, in today'… 8 Ancient India: Ashoka, zero and our numbers 17 sentences · Ashoka, the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya, conquered the land of Kalinga in a terrible war in which very m… 9 Ancient China: dynasties, the First Emperor and the Great Wall 18 sentences · Chinese civilisation grew along two great rivers, the Yellow River and the Yangtze. 10 Ancient China: paper, silk, the Silk Road and Confucius 18 sentences · Look around a classroom: paper in your exercise book, a compass in the science cupboard, fireworks on New Ye… 11 Ancient Greece: city-states, Athens and Sparta 16 sentences · Greece is full of mountains, sea and islands, so instead of one country the Greeks lived in hundreds of sepa… 12 Ancient Greece: democracy, the Olympics, myths and thinkers 20 sentences · About 2,500 years ago the citizens of Athens met on a hill and voted on laws, war and peace themselves. 13 Rome: from a town on seven hills to a republic 19 sentences · Romans told a legend that their city was founded in 753 BC by twin brothers, Romulus and Remus, who as babie… 14 Rome: the empire, the legions and the roads 17 sentences · At its biggest, about 1,900 years ago, the Roman Empire stretched from Britain to Egypt and from Spain to Sy… 15 Rome: daily life, gladiators, Latin and Christianity 21 sentences · Rome had about a million people, a huge number for the time. 16 Rome: the fall of the West and what Rome left us 21 sentences · Emperor Constantine became the first Christian emperor, allowed Christians to worship freely in 313 and foun… 17 Native peoples of North America 21 sentences · People first came to the Americas at least 15,000 years ago, probably from Asia during the Ice Age, across a… 18 The Maya 17 sentences · They had a full writing system, brilliant maths with their own zero, and calendars that tracked the sun, the… 19 The Aztecs and the Inca 19 sentences · About 700 years ago a wandering people, the Aztecs or Mexica, settled in the Valley of Mexico. 20 The Middle Ages begin: the Vikings 20 sentences · The Middle Ages are the thousand years in Europe between the fall of Rome, around 500, and around 1500. 21 Castles, knights and cathedrals 20 sentences · In medieval Europe land was power: the king gave land to lords, the lords promised him soldiers, and peasant… 22 The Islamic golden age and the wider medieval world 17 sentences · While western Europe was building castles, some of the world's greatest centres of learning were in the Isla… 23 The Mongols 15 sentences · On the wide grasslands of Asia, called the steppe, the Mongols lived as nomads in round felt tents called ge… 24 The Black Death and the end of the Middle Ages 17 sentences · In 1347 ships from the Black Sea brought a deadly plague to Europe, and within a few years it killed perhaps… 25 Printing, the Renaissance and the Reformation 15 sentences · The Renaissance, which means rebirth, began in Italy in the 1400s, when artists and thinkers grew excited ag… 26 Explorers: around Africa and Columbus 17 sentences · In the 1400s Europeans wanted spices, silk and gold from Asia, but the land routes were long and controlled… 27 Explorers: Magellan around the world, and the people already there 17 sentences · In 1519 Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese sailor working for Spain, set off west with five ships and about 27… 28 Explorers: Cook and the Pacific 15 sentences · Long before any European ship arrived, Polynesian navigators crossed the Pacific in double canoes, reading t… 29 The age of science 15 sentences · For centuries people trusted old books to say how the world works; in the age of science they began to test… 30 The Industrial Revolution 16 sentences · From about 1760, first in Britain, people began making things with machines in big factories instead of by h… 31 Slavery and its abolition 16 sentences · Slavery, when people are owned by others and forced to work without pay or freedom, has happened in many pla… 32 Votes for women 17 sentences · Two hundred years ago in most countries only men who owned property could vote, and no women anywhere could… 33 The First World War 18 sentences · By 1914 the big countries of Europe were rivals with large armies, tied together in two groups of allies, so… 34 The Second World War 14 sentences · In the 1930s a huge economic crisis, the Great Depression, left millions without jobs, and in some countries… 35 Space: from Sputnik to the Moon 17 sentences · After the Second World War the USA and the Soviet Union became rivals in the Cold War, and they raced to be… 36 Computers and the internet 17 sentences · In the 1840s Ada Lovelace wrote what many call the first computer program, for a calculating machine that Ch… 37 Britain and Ireland: a short story 18 sentences · Britain was settled wave after wave by Celtic Britons, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans, and in mod… 38 The United States: a short story 17 sentences · Native nations had lived across North America for thousands of years when, in the 1600s and 1700s, English s… 39 Canada: a short story 17 sentences · For thousands of years Canada has been home to First Nations and Inuit peoples, with many languages and ways… 40 Australia and New Zealand: a short story 15 sentences · In 1788 eleven British ships, the First Fleet, brought convicts and soldiers to Sydney Cove; many convicts h… 41 Kyiv's beginnings and Kyivan Rus 15 sentences · Danylo, a boy in the class, tells history like a football fan: Kyiv is the oldest, the biggest and the best,… 42 Volodymyr, Yaroslav the Wise and the Mongols 14 sentences · Around 988 Prince Volodymyr of Kyiv took Christianity from Byzantium; Danylo says he dunked everyone in the… 43 Lithuanian and Polish times, the first Cossacks 13 sentences · In 1569 the Union of Lublin put most Ukrainian lands under the Polish crown; it was peaceful for the nobles… 44 The Cossacks, the Sich and the Hetmanate 11 sentences · In 1648 Bohdan Khmelnytsky led a huge uprising and built a Cossack state, the Hetmanate; it is a hero's stor… 45 Two empires and Shevchenko 9 sentences · In the 1800s Ukrainian lands were split between two empires: most in the Russian Empire, and Galicia, Bukovy… 46 The struggle of 1917–21 and the Holodomor 12 sentences · Those years were like a playground where five bigger kids fight over one ball at once: Bolsheviks, White Rus… 47 Ukraine in the Second World War 13 sentences · In 1939 Hitler and Stalin secretly split eastern Europe between them, and the Soviet Union took Galicia and… 48 Chornobyl and independence in 1991 13 sentences · On 26 April 1986 reactor 4 at the Chornobyl nuclear plant exploded; the authorities kept quiet for days, the… 49 The Orange Revolution, the Maidan and the war 14 sentences · In 2004 a presidential election was falsified, and hundreds of thousands of people in orange scarves stood p… 50 Today's Ukraine and Danylo's exaggerations 15 sentences · Danylo loves Ukraine so much that his stories grow in the telling, like a fish that gets bigger each time a… 51 China: five thousand years and the oldest dynasties 19 sentences · Your friend Mei says China has 5,000 years of history and is the oldest country on Earth; the history teache… 52 China: the First Emperor, the Terracotta Army and the Great Wall 21 sentences · Mei says the First Emperor was the greatest ruler ever; the teacher says he was a tyrant. 53 China: the four great inventions 17 sentences · This time the teacher agrees completely: all four were first developed in China and spread west over centuri… 54 China: the Silk Road and the Tang 19 sentences · Mei says China built the Silk Road and only silk went along it. 55 China: the Song and the Mongols 15 sentences · Under the Song dynasty, from 960 to 1279, China had huge cities, iron works, canals and the world's first go… 56 China: the Ming and Zheng He's voyages 19 sentences · The Ming dynasty, from 1368 to 1644, moved the capital to Beijing and built the Forbidden City, a palace of… 57 China: the Qing and the Opium Wars 22 sentences · The last imperial dynasty, the Qing, ruled from 1644 to 1912. 58 China: 1911, 1949 and Mao 25 sentences · In 1911 an uprising in the city of Wuchang toppled the Qing, and in 1912 China became a republic with Sun Ya… 59 China: modern China, space and contested topics 21 sentences · Since about 1980 China has changed faster than almost any country in history. 60 China: Mei's exaggerations and everyday China 19 sentences · Mei says China invented everything: paper, football, ice cream. 61 How we got here: the big steps on one long timeline 23 sentences · Leo, in his strategy game: «lol my tribe invented farming on turn 5, ez». 62 Everyday inventions: pots, boats, wheels, horses, clocks and glasses 22 sentences · Lucía's friend goes further: «The Aztecs didn't even have the wheel, they weren't that smart.» 63 Writing, laws and money: how strangers learned to trust each other 20 sentences · Jack's friend says writing was invented in one place and everyone copied the ABC. 64 Learning through the ages: schools, universities, libraries and science 21 sentences · Ryan moans about homework, so his teacher shows him a story from Sumer, about 4,000 years old, where a schoo… 65 Light, machines and medicine: how the last 250 years changed a normal day 24 sentences · Toby's friend says Fleming found penicillin and saved everybody in like a day. 66 From band to nation: families, tribes, kingdoms, empires and countries 23 sentences · Amir guesses the globe has like 300 countries. 67 Who decides: kings, councils, republics and democracies 19 sentences · Finn's dad says Magna Carta gave us all our rights. 68 Rules, courts, police, taxes and armies through time 18 sentences · Ivy's strategy game has armies ready at the click of a button, and Leo thinks jails, police and income tax h… 69 Rights won step by step: freedom, votes and children's rights 25 sentences · Ethan's friend says slavery ended in 1865, done. 70 Trade: why people swap, and the great trade routes 24 sentences · Mei's friend says the Silk Road was one long road like a motorway. 71 What trade carried: tomatoes, tea, horses, words, religions and diseases 14 sentences · Open the kitchen cupboard and you open a map of the world: the tomatoes in the pasta sauce came from the Ame… 72 Why some places grew rich 15 sentences · Look at a map at night from space and the bright spots sit on coasts and rivers: water gave drinking water,… 73 Cities: why they grow, and how water and sewers made them safe 17 sentences · Imagine your street with no bins, no drains and no taps: every bucket of dirty water poured out of the windo… 74 Cities then and now: the biggest cities of every age and of today 14 sentences · Today the answer depends on where you draw the city's edge: a 2025 UN report put Jakarta first, Dhaka second… 75 Ideas on the move: numbers, paper, letters, chess and news 18 sentences · Ideas travel like a football passed down a long line of players: the digits you write in maths came from Ind… 76 When civilizations meet: conquest, colonies and freedom, seen from both sides 17 sentences · Imagine a stranger walks into your house, plants a flag in the kitchen and announces he has «discovered» it… 77 What was lost and what was gained: languages, foods, music and knowledge 13 sentences · When two rivers meet, the water mixes into something new, but some fish from each river are lost; when peopl… 78 Humanity today: how many we are, how long we live, how poor and how rich 15 sentences · If the whole world were a class of 100 children, about 18 would be from India, about 17 from China, about 10… 79 Worries and hopes: climate, the UN, space, AI, and is the world getting better? 17 sentences · Ask a class «is the world getting better?» and it splits in half, and both halves can bring real evidence: f… 80 Games vs history: tech trees, barbarians, empty lands, wonders and falls 13 sentences · A strategy game is like a map of the London Underground: brilliantly useful, but the real city has bends, hi… 81 Alice's Victorian world: tea, croquet, pocket watches, shillings and chimney sweeps 16 sentences · The White Rabbit pulls a watch out of his waistcoat pocket, because men then carried pocket watches on a cha… 82 How writing began: from tally marks and pictures to the alphabet 17 sentences · It is a lovely story, but real writing took thousands of years and many peoples to grow. 83 Toad's Edwardian England: early motor cars, caravans, steam trains, wash day and gold sovereigns 20 sentences · «The Wind in the Willows» came out in 1908, when King Edward VII was on the throne, so that time is called t… 84 Gaols, magistrates and old punishments: from the stocks to the Children Act of 1908 19 sentences · In «The Wind in the Willows» Toad is tried by magistrates, given twenty years and dragged to the deepest dun… 85 Olympiad: timelines, centuries and which came first ★★★ 21 sentences · Grandad Ray in Leeds pegs a washing line across the garden: «Right, our kid, every metre is a thousand years… 86 Olympiad: cause and effect chains ★★★ 19 sentences · A cause is what makes something happen; an effect is what follows from it. 87 Olympiad: spot the anachronism ★★★ 19 sentences · Films, cartoons and games are full of them, and spotting them is a favourite olympiad puzzle. ← previous Geographynext → Language↑ back to the school This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/