1. Patricia Fonseca
History 140 online class #71183
Theme 1: Big History slideshow

2. Big History
• Big History covers the wide span of time starting from the
Big Bang until the present time.
• It encompasses how everything surrounding us, including
cosmic events and the environment, plays a part in shaping
what our society has evolved into.
• Big History uses a mixture of the different sciences such as
astronomy, geology and biology along with history to gain
knowledge of our universe and it’s past and is based on
collective learning. With all of these sources integrated, a
better understanding of Big History is gained.
• Big History includes huge spans in scales that range from
units of time (the Big Bang to the present) to individual
objects (whole galaxies to tiny atoms).

3. The Day the Universe Changed
• As a society, we evolve and change as our
understanding of things changes.
• Some societies prefer to avoid any
growth.
• Asking questions leads to various
advances in knowledge, technology,
etc.
• We employ institutions to monitor
the amount of growth we experience.

4. The Journey of Man
• Evolution, including biological evolution, is our history.
• Genetics, blood in particular, is what links us to our past.
• Genetic evidence mixed with archaeological evidence has
allowed scientists to follow the migration of man to expand our
knowledge of our ancestral history.
• A marker inherited by a single man has proven the migration of
man where archeological evidence was not found.

5. The Journey of Man
• Genetic sampling within communities can lead
archeologists in the right direction to pick up the lead of
the migration of man.
• Geological evidence provides the historical evidence of
how past societies lived.
• Before history was written down and preserved,
societies would preserve their past through verbal
communication to the younger generations who in turn
would pass down the information to the next generation.
• Combining all of the available evidence gives a more
complete picture of our ancestral past.

6. Catastrophe!
• Catastrophes change the course of our lives in a single instance.
• Climatic events, disease, war and famines can wipe out the whole of civilization.
They bring bizarre weather, turbulent skies, frost, blending of seasons,
droughts in some areas and floods in others.
• Mr. Keys researched various environmental catastrophes. He employs
climatologists, astronomers, physicists, and historians to piece together how
these events changed different civilizations.
• These events have even changed the shape of our land masses.
• Learning about Earth’s past has given us the information to piece together
patterns Earth experiences.
• Every thousand years Earth experiences a massive climate downturn. By
learning our history’s patterns we can predict certain events.

7. Catastrophe!
• Mr. Keys learned that outbreaks of the plague were
caused by climate changes.
• Cooling conditions and rain increase the likelihood of
the plague.
• As infection spreads and the disease starts wreaking
havoc, people started roaming in search of food and
water, carrying the disease with them into different
civilizations.
• In turn, this is how the plague leads to massive deaths,
chaos, pandemonium, military vitality suffered,
economies suffered, and farming suffered.

8. Guns, Germs, and Steel
• A civilization’s environment plays an integral part of that
society’s success. The geography, the shape of the continents,
the crops, and the animals that shaped a society’s way of life.
• The available plants and fruits to eat, as well as, the available
livestock will determine the extent of growth.
• A civilization’s growth is limited by it’s local resources.
Farming, for example, is limited to the animals that are
available and can thrive with the local resources without
exploiting the lands.

9. Guns, Germs, and Steel
• The ability to maintain livestock that could provide food, milk, wool,
leather, manure, and muscle power can transform an entire civilization.
• This lead to farming increases which allowed the society to feed more
people but also the ability to travel farther and faster to protect their
lands and conquer others.
• Places that are isolated do not have the benefit of innovation of other
areas.
• As foreign invaders moved into isolated areas bringing disease, guns, and
technology that had never been seen before, native populations were
decimated.

10. The World & Trade
• As traveling became more frequent, societies were exposed
to rare and new items.
• Explorers started traveling to distant places and bringing
back silks and spices from foreign countries that soon
became extremely valuable.
• Columbus realized he could make much more in profits if he
cut out the middle man merchant and directly traded with
China himself.

11. The World & Trade
• Certain spices that provided effects, such as caffeine, were more
valuable than others and were used in times of war and during religious
practices.
• Some of the spices were so rare that they were able to be used as money
to pay off debts.
• Certain spices were not plentiful and took a long time to grow, harvest,
pack up, and haul to distant destinations further increasing inflation.
• In the case of the potato, their ability to thrive in cold conditions and their
refrain from spoiling during storage made them a desired commodity
during times of war and famine.