Indus Valley Civilization
Nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, when railway lines were being laid down for the time in Punjab, engineers stumbled upon the site of Harappa in present-day Pakistan. To these people, it seemed like a dump from where they could get free, ready-made, high-quality bricks. So they carried thousands of bricks from the walls of the old buildings of the city to build railway lines. Many buildings were destroyed to complete the railway. Then, 80 years later archaeologists came to know about this site and started to discover its secrets. And they realized that this was the oldest city on the sub-continent. It was made 4,700 years ago! Most of the old sites are now pulled down to make way for new roads and buildings. This is because people do not understand the gain of learning about the past.
- 3300 BC: The Indus Valley Civilization starts to develop.
- 3200 BC: Spread of cities, ploughs used in fields, evidence of early writing discovered.
- 2600 BC: Large cities flourish in the Indus Valley Civilization.1700 BC: The Indus Valley Civilization has ended
The main form of transportation was bullock carts and boats. Traders traveled in carts or by boat. Indus valley boats were long and narrow. They had a cabin in the middle and were rowed. People did not travel much at all. They would usually walk everywhere they needed to go. Even with this invention that they did not use, they were one of the first civilizations to create transportation.
The Indus Valley Civilization picked up agriculture from the Mesopotamia civilization. Farming and agriculture had begin in India in 900 BC. The Indus Valley Civilization relied on the considerable technological achievements of the pre-Harappan culture, including the plough. The farmers of the Indus Valley grew peas, sesame, and dates. Rice was cultivated in the Indus Valley Civilization.
Many people over the world have a strongly heated debate about how civilization actually ended. Here are 4 points: The 3 based conclusions are on ecological factors: intense flooding, decrease in precipitation (reduction of rainfall), and the desiccation of the Sarasvati River. The last reason is that the Aryans invaded the Indus Valley Civilization. This hypothesis was proposed by Sir R.E. Mortimer Wheeler and Stuart Piggott.
The Indus River is known as a huge river stretching over 2000 – 3200 miles. This river flows through 4 countries – Pakistan, India, China, and Afghanistan. This river is known as Pakistan’s national river. There are 3 reasons. Here is the first one: Pakistan receives the most amount of water from this river – upto 47%, while India receives 39%, China receives 8%, and Afghanistan receives 6%. The second reason is that it is the longest river in Pakistan and it helps fishers. The third reason is that this river played a major role in the Indus Valley Civilization (Also known as the Harappan Civilization).
In present-day Harappa, scientists are trying to make this place the same as it was a thousand years ago. Here are 3 things that they are still doing: They have uncovered even more secrets of this civilization. They are reconstructing many old monuments such as the 4,500-year-old Rakhigarhi cemetery. They are also trying to find the type of people who lived there and are designing faces of them.
- This is known as the oldest civilization ever created in the world.
- This was the largest civilization among all the other civilizations.
- The Indus River played a major role in the Indus Valley civilization.
- Everybody comes up with a hypothesis of how the Indus Valley Civilization collapsed. Nobody knows the actual reason why it collapsed, and this is still a mystery to present-day scientists now.
Burma
Myanmar also known as Burma till 1989 is a country in Southeast Asia. It is the 26th largest country in the world with a population of 53,800,000. It is built around the river Irrawaddy. The country’s capital is Naypyidaw. It is known for resources like jade, gems, oil, natural gas, and teak and has the highest solar power potential in the Great Mekong Sub-region. Myanmar is famous for its temples, pagodas, and monasteries. Famous places include pagodas like Shwedagon Pagoda, Kyaik Htee Yoe Pagoda, Sule Pagoda, and Kuthodaw Pagoda, and Temples like Old Bagan, and Ananda Temple.
Prehistory, Middle Ages, and Conflicts
Homo erectus have lived in this region 750,000 years ago and Homo Sapiens came to about 25,000 YA. By the 2nd century BCE, several cities started developing in this region. By the 9th century CE, several states started being formed by the Pyu people. The Bamar people founded a small settlement in Bagan. The Pagan empire rose in the 1050s and fell in the 1300s. Next 250 years the power kept changing. The next dynasty that would rule for a long was the Toungoo dynasty(266 years). Then another period of wars until the 1850s when the British came.
Present
From 1885 to 1948 Burma was a part of the British empire. During WW II Burma was a major battleground as it lay between Japan and India. The British defended and the Japanese attacked and raided. In 1948 Burma became independent. But by 1962 dictatorial rule was established and by 2011 it again became a republic. 2012 civil wars were followed by peace until 2021 when another coup occurred and Burma became a dictatorial country once again.
London
The city of London is built around the river Thames thus to understand London one needs to know the history of the Thames. London first came to being courtesy of the Thames. After invading Britain in AD43 the Romans made their way along the river, finally coming to a perfect point for a port, very close to where London Bridge stands today, and the Romans settled there, naming the area Londinium (on the current site of the City of London). The earliest date back to 6000 BC to the stone age.
Agriculture
Agriculture in London is a rather small enterprise, with only 8.6% of the Greater London area being used for commercial farming, nearly all of which is close to Greater London’s outer boundaries. Many areas which now form part of Greater London were formerly rural and agricultural outskirts and still bear names that indicate this past: Ealing Common, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Shepherd’s Bush, and Wormwood Scrubs, for example. In 1938, the Greater London area became the first region in Britain to use a green belt policy and introduced the Metropolitan Green Belt in order to combat urban sprawl. A lot of the River Thames passes through rural areas and farmland. Farmers use the river water to water their crops in dry weather.
Economy
The tidal Thames and the Port of London generate 43,500 full-time equivalent jobs, of which 27,000 are people directly employed in port-related operations. Between Oxford and London, towns along the river grew rich from the inland trade. A network of canals linked the Thames to London beginning in 1790; coal from the Midlands, malt, meal, wool, timber, cement, and cheese were transported downriver.
The Renaissance is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas and achievements of classical antiquity.
Classical antiquity is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome known as the Greco-Roman world. It is the period in which both Greek and Roman societies flourished and wielded huge influence throughout much of Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia.
Surviving fragments of classical culture led to a revival beginning in the 14th century which later came to be known as the Renaissance, and various neo-classical revivals occurred in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Everyday Reflections 