CONTEMPORARY AGE

The Contemporary Age began about two hundred years ago and was a time of industry and changes in society. New inventions like the steam engine changed the way that people lived and worked. The steam engine made work quicker and easier. It was used in machines and transport.

Factories made mass-produced products. People moved to towns and cities for work and urban populations increased.  Cities grew and changed. There were new streets and shops. There were services such as schools, hospitals and public transport.

There were also important scientific inventions during this period, such as the discovery of electricity. Some inventions in medicine included the x-ray and vaccinations. Some inventions in communication were the radio and the telephone. 

MIDDLE AGES

The Middle Ages began about 1500 years ago. During this period, two civilizations lived in the Iberian Peninsula: Christian civilization and the Islamic civilization.

The Christian civilization in the Iberian Peninsula began when the Romans arrived. Christian Spain was divided into areas called kingdoms. Each of these kingdoms had a king. The kingdoms attacked each other, so people built castles and walls to defend their towns and cities.

The Christian civilisation built religious buildings such as churches and cathedrals. 

During this period, there were four groups of Christians:

a)    The nobles owned the land given to them by the king. They lived in castles.

b)   The clergy were the religious people of the Middle Ages. They looked after their own land and helped the poor. They could often read and write in Latin.

c)    The craftmen were skilled workers and made products from materials such as glass ans wood.

d)   The peasants worked hard on the land of the nobles. The peasants didn´t receive a salary, but the nobles gave them protection. 

The Islamic civilization in the Iberian Peninsula began when the Muslims arrived from the North of Africa. The Islamic civilization built religious buildings such as mosques.

ANCIENCT HISTORY

Ancient history began more than four thousand years ago, when people invented writing. During this time, the first civilisations developed in countries such as: Greece, Egypt, China and Mexico.

People in these first civilisations lived together in communities and didn´t have to move from place to place to find food aand shelter. This meant that they had time to build cities with public and private buildings, write laws, develop skills and have jobs. 

Civilisation: (noun) a society that shares the same culture and institutions.

One of the most important civilisations in ancient history was the Roman Civilisation. Roman territory was called the Roman Empire and the capital of the Roman Empire was Rome. The Romans had a strong army and this helped increase their territory. The Romans arrived in the Iberian Peninsula about two thousand years ago. 

A) The Romans built outdoor theathres called amphitheatres where people watched fights between gladiators, and between gladiators and wild animals.

B) The Romans built stone roads to connect cities.

C) The Romans built bridges over rivers.

D) The Romans built aqueducts to carry water from rivers and lakes to cities. 

HISTORY

History is everything that happened in the past. History is important because we can learn from the past. We can understand why things happen in our world and use this information to make our lives better. 

We can use historical sources to learn about history. Historical sources are objects that give us information about the past. Historical sources can be photos, paintings, written documents, buildings or objects that people used in the past. 

We can use measurements of time to organize information about the past. 

· A year is made up of twelve months. 

· A decade is made up of ten years.

· A century is made up of one hundred years.

· A millennium is made up of one thousand years. 

We can divide history into five main periods:Prehistory, Ancient history, the Middle Ages, the Modern Age, and the Contemporary Age.