In India, Ashoka the Great commissions the oldest written evidence of Buddhism. In China, the Qin dynasty begins to piece together the Great Wall. In Rome, the Republic is rising to power. And in Carthage, a famous general sets out plans to sneak attack Rome from the north.

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Note: The links below are not our official sources. These pictures, maps, encyclopedia entries, etc are to peruse for more depth. Visit our site for official sources.

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Mauryan Dynasty in India

• Ashoka the Great.
• Mauryan Empire.
• Chandragupta Maurya.
• Capital city at Pataliputra.
• The Edicts of Ashoka. Example, example, example.
• Great explanation of Prakrit— the language of the edicts.
• Spread of Buddhism throughout the world today.
• India is less than one percent Buddhist today.
• You can flip through this paper to read examples of violent Assyrian inscriptions. For example, “I cut their throats like lambs. I cut off their precious lives (as one cuts) a string. Like the many waters of a storm, I made (the contents of) their gullets and entrails run down upon the wide earth.”

Qin Dynasty

• Warring States Period.
• Contention of the Hundred Schools of Thought.
• Qin Shi Huang name.
• Unification of China.
• Standardized round coins with a square in the center were made using a mold.
• Summary of the standardization of Chinese writing.
• The Qin Great Wall is the unification of many older shorter walls. The oldest wall (probably) is the Qi Wall.
• Forced labor along the Wall.
• Great interview with William Lindesay and runner, historian and author who is known for his work on the conservation of the Great Wall.
• There are many variations on the story of Lady Meng Jiang example, example, example, example.
• Summary of Legalism.
• Brief history of burning books.
• The mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang is a Unesco World Heritage Site.
• Terracotta Warriors.
• Each terracotta warrior has a unique face. Example, example, example, example.

Rome

• Story of Romulus and Remus.
• Romulus and Remus in art, example, example, example.
• Rome also developed an origin story connecting them to Greece as the descendants of Aeneas.
• The Battle of Veii.
• City walls.
• Slavery in ancient Rome.
• The Roman government was run by two consuls.
• In a time of crisis a temporary dictator could be appointed.
• Patricians and plebeians.
• Roman citizenship.
• Explanation of the Roman Grain Dole.

Carthage - Hannibal

• Geography of Tunisia and Sicily or the Straight of Sicily.
• It was the Phoenicians who first settled Carthage.
• Remnants of the city walls.
• Artist rendition of the harbor at Carthage. Another example here.
• You can see remnants of it in this picture from 1958.
• Description of “booms” or chains strung across waterways as a defense strategy.
• New study looking at the genetics of the Carthaginians.
• Government structure of Carthage.
• Carthaginians were known for their ability to sail. They likely sailed to the Niger River Delta and possibly all the way around Africa.
• Carthaginian war ship.
• Summary of Punic Wars.
• Where was Hannibal’s route across the Alps?
• A great set of blog posts all about war elephants.
• Battle of Cannae.
• Illustration of Hannibal’s route in the Second Punic War.
• Summary of the Fall of Carthage.
• Quote from Hector’s wife in the Iliad. (Book 4,164–5).

The Hebrew Bible is composed during the Second Temple Period in Israel. In Nigeria, we visit a major civilization known as the Nok, whose history is baked into terracotta. Then in North America the Adena and Hopewell cultures are building earthen-mounds. In the Mediterranean, The Classical Age of Greece is underway. And finally, the story of Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic World he began.

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⁠⁠worldhistory24.com⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠google earth (ep 7)⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠support⁠⁠

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Note: Visit our site if you're after official episode sources. Links below are to peruse and to compliment the episode for more depth.

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Second Temple Period  ·  Writing of the Bible

• Listen to the prologue to the Canterbury Tales here. It is recognizable as English but only just.
• Many stories in the Bible are familiar, Eden, Joseph, Noah’s Arc.
• The oldest parts of the Bible are the Song of Deborah and the Song of the Sea.
• Ten Commandments.
• Isaac and Ishmael.
• Abrahamic religions.

The Nok

• Another description of the Nok with great pictures.
• Description of the Nok Terracotta from the Met. First wide spread statuary in west Africa.
• Nok animal statuary: Example, example.
• Nok sculptures of people - See the classic posture and the perforated eyes: Example, example, example.
• Clay is microscopic bits of weathered feldspar.
• Under a electron microscope clay particles looks like stacks of pancakes.
• One of the articles that references the teaspoon of soil on the Niger vs. ton of soil on the Nile quote.

Woodland Period in North America

• Ohio River Basin map, seasonal living. homes of bent samplings. Caves in the region. diet. earliest domesticates. distinction is fake news.
• Mound - Example, example, example, example, example.
• The grave goods of the Adena and Hopewell include pipes, tablets, copper.
• Reminder of Poverty Point. (Discussed in episode 3).
• Hopewell Earthworks. Unesco site.
• Geometric mounds - Example, example, example.
• Many of the Hopewell earthworks align with the rising and setting of the moon at the solstices or equinoxes.
• One set of mounds that has been used as a golf course for 100 years.
• Serpents Mound.

Classical Period of Ancient Greece   

• The Bronze Age Collapse.
• The Greek Dark Age.
• The Greek Heroic Age.
• Are the tales of the Trojan War memories of the Bronze Age Collapse?
• Greek Alphabet.
• Athens and Sparta fought a series of wars called the Peloponnesian Wars .
• The Olympics was a way for Greek city-states to compete without all out war.
• Democracy in Athens.
• Slavery in Athens and Sparta.
• The Parthenon.
• Plato has his character of Socrates call the Greeks Ants or frogs around the pond.
• Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates are philosophizing.
• Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, and Aeschylus. Not to mention Homer and Sappho.
• Cleisthenes of Athens, Herodotus, Pythagoras, Euclid, Archimedes shouts Eureka.
• Why do so many public buildings in the US look like Greek Temples?
• Hadestown, Song of Achilles, Percy Jackson, 300.

Alexander the Great

• Phillip the Second.
• A picture of the borders of Alexander’s empire.

WorldHistory24.com In this Season 1 finale, three massive philosophical and spiritual shifts take place: Confucius in China, Buddha in India, and Zoroastrianism in Persia. We will visit the Celts throughout Europe and end with the brand new discovery of a civilization hidden for millennia beneath the trees of the Amazon which will rewrite the history of Ecuador.

• Indo-European Language Family
• Celts
• Buddha
• Buddhism
• Spring and Autumn
• Confucius
• Contention of the Hundred Schools of Thought
• Cyrus
• Persian Empire
• Behistun Inscription
• Zoroastrianism
• New Discovery in Ecuador

Sources, pictures, links and information about how to support us at our site WorldHistory24.com

Worldhistory24.com This episode will follow the expansion of the Bantu people throughout central and southern Africa. In the intersection of EurAsia, the Assyrian Empire will fall and the Babylonians take their place, conquering many peoples and famously taking the Israelites captive.  We will discuss the invention and proliferation of the idea of an alphabet. We will see the rise of the kingdom of Kush and finally look at the 10 thousand year old Joman culture in Japan.

• Bantu Expansion
• Iron Working in Central and Southern Africa
• Fall of Assyria
• Ashurbanipal’s Archive
• Babylon
• Siege of Jerusalem
• Babylonian Captivity
• Phoenicians
• Founding of Carthage
• Invention of the Alphabet
• Kingdom of Kush
• 25th Dynasty of Egypt
• Jomon Culture

Sources, pictures, links and information about how to support us at our site WorldHistory24.com

Worldhistory24.com Ellie takes us back to the corner of AfroEurAsia to witness the dramatic close of the bronze age, the rise of a new metal, a new Empire, and the origins of a new religion. In India we’ll see a new spiritual movement in Sanskrit, and finally in Mesoamerica our final so-called cradle.

• Bronze Age Collapse
• Sea People
• Oldest Surviving Melody: Hurrian Hymn No. 6
• Iron Age
• Assyrian Empire
• Canaan
• Origins of Israel and Judah
• Legend of the Lost Tribes of Israel
• Vedic period
• Hinduism
• Olmecs
• Corn

Sources, pictures, links and more at WorldHistory24.com

Worldhistory24.com This third episode covers what's sometimes called "The Late Bronze Age." Ellie takes us on a world tour to see the Shang Dynasty in China, the Minoans on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean, the Kerma civilization in Sudan, Poverty Point in the United States, and the Austronesian Expansion across Islands Southeast Asia. We’ll see pools of wine, volcanoes, minotaurs, shipwrecks, ringing rocks, epic ocean voyages, and pyramids in North America!

• The Late Bronze Age
• Shang Dynasty
• Origin of Chinese Characters
• Legend of Atlantis
• Minoans
• Mycenaeans and the Minotaur
• Kingdom of Kerma
• Poverty Point
• Pyramids in Louisiana
• The Austronesian Expansion
• The Longest Open-Ocean Voyage
• What Makes “A People?”

Sources, discussion, pictures, links and information about how to support us at our website WorldHistory24.com

Worldhistory24.com Although this time is often called "The Bronze Age," the use of bronze was not universal, nor was it the only seismic shift in human history occurring at this time, massive civilizations were coalescing and beginning to write their own history, literature, songs, laws and tax codes. Many people’s lives were defined by slavery and warfare. This episode will examine 5 of these early civilizations in modern day Iraq, Peru, India, Egypt, and China, these history classes refer to as “The Five Cradles of Civilization.” Although we will have to dismantle each word in this phrase, we will borrow its framework and zoom through them, discussing food, art, monuments, language, government and more, along the way. After visiting these 5 cradles between 4000 and 1700 BCE, we will hopefully have a more contextualized sense of the word “civilization.”

• “The Five Cradles of Civilization”
• Sumer and Akkad in Mesopotamia
• How Writing Systems Develop
• Hammurabi’s Code
• Norte Chico/Caral
• Pyramids
• Ancient Egypt
• More Pyramids
• How to “Unite” a Land
• Indus Valley/Harappa
• Xia Dynasty
• Origins of Dynastic China
• What is a Civilization?

Sources, pictures, links and information about how to support us at our site Worldhistory24.com

⁠WorldHistory24.com In this first episode, we cover the origin story of humanity: how the first hominin groups evolved in Africa and spread across the planet creating art, instruments and stone tools. Eventually these many diverse hominin groups went extinct leaving our species, Homo sapiens, alone on the earth. We discuss the fascinating and complicated neolithic age when many groups began to rely more on cultivated foods. Some people began to work with metal taking parts of the world into the copper age. During this time we find humans living in permanent settlements, some lasting over a thousand years, well before the rise of the first commonly acknowledged "cities." These early human groups invented such essentials as cheese, tea, chocolate, alcohol and their lives and decisions still affect ours every day.

• Welcome to WH24
• First Use of Stone Tools
• Early Human Groups
• Fire
• Out of Africa 1 & 2
• Neanderthals
• Oldest Instruments
• Last Humans on Earth
• Ice Ages & Water Levels
• Bering Strait Land Bridge
• Agriculture
• Çatalhöyük
• Copper Metallurgy
• The Problems with “Civilization”

Sources, pictures, links and information about how to support us at our website WorldHistory24.com

Welcome to your chronological crash course. We are so glad you're here. Episode 1 airs on January 24th on all podcast platforms!

Website: worldhistory24.com

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In this teaser, Ellie maps the evolution of all life onto the span of your arms. From single celled organisms up to modern humans (multicellular). This timeline contextualizes the stories we will tell in this podcasts within the broader story of the planet on which they unfold.