Task 1 - Chronology
Historians divide time up into sections. These sections help us put events into order.
BC – Before Christ (before the birth of Jesus)
AD – Anno Domini (In the year of our Lord) – the time after Jesus was born.
1000BC…100BC….5BC 4BC 3BC 2BC 1BC
1AD 2AD 3AD 4AD 5AD….. 2013AD
BC dates
AD dates
BC dates count backwards
AD dates count forwards
The years we live in now all come from year 1 AD, the year that Jesus may have been born;
therefore we live 2013 years after Jesus was born. The tricky part comes when looking at
events before Jesus was born. 100BC is further back in time than 20BC.
(There was no year 0 – time went from 1BC to 1AD)
Match up the words to the definitions. Write them out on the empty grid (6 marks)
Words
Century
BC
Decade
AD
Period
Millennium
Century
BC
Decade
AD
Period
Millennium
Definition (Meaning)
Anno Domini
One thousand years
Separate division of
time
Before Christ
One hundred years
Ten years
Here is a list of events. They are not in the correct order. First you must put them into the
right chronological order. This means the first one will be furthest back in time, following on
until the most recent event.








Battle of Hastings 1066 AD
Birth of Christ Year 1 AD
Egyptian Era 3000 BC
Founding of Rome 800 BC
Great Fire of London 1666 AD
Gulf War 1991 AD
Henry VIII comes to the throne 1509 AD
Man walks on the moon 1969 AD
Oldest event
Most recent event
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Task 2 – Dividing time
Which century?
A century is 100 years. We number the centuries to make it easier to explain when things
happened. For example, 2013 is in the 21st Century AD. The Romans invaded Britain in the
1st Century AD
Finding out which year is in which century can be tricky. The easiest way to do this is:
1. look at the year
1821 AD
2. cover the last 2 figures of the year
18**
3. look at the first figure(s) of the year
18
4. Add one
18 + 1 = 19
th
5. Remember to add AD or BC back on.
19 Century AD
So the year 1821 is in the 19th century.
Fill in the blank in this sentence:
1. The year 1584 is in the _______ century.
Now write a sentence for the following years:
2. 1275 _______________________________________
3. 2001_______________________________________
4. 1899 _______________________________________
5. 654 _______________________________________
When we talk about decades we don’t say “the second decade”. We say “the twenties”. So
1933 was in the thirties of the twentieth century.
Fill in this paragraph with the correct information:
I was born in the _________ century. The decade I was born in was the
__________. My year of birth is _______ (BC/AD). In my lifetime I have
entered a new ________ and now live in the ________ century.
Task 3 - Anachronisms
Anachronism – something which is historically wrong as it could not have
existed in the historical era described. For example, if you wrote about a
Roman soldier wearing a digital watch, or a medieval knight driving a tank.
Your task is to go through the following passage and underline the
anachronisms. There are twelve to find.
The year is 1500. The artist sat down on the hill overlooking the village in
the valley. He got out his brush and neon gel pens, and began to paint what
he could see. It was such a pretty village with one large manor house, a
small church and a few thatched cottages. There were masses of open
countryside and a river ran close to the village. In the grounds of the manor
house he could see a man mowing the lawn and another cutting down trees
with a chainsaw. In the nearby street were some children playing with
marbles and a couple on a push bike. The air was fresh with flowers until all
of a sudden there was an awful whiff! The artist could see a red tractor in
the distance – it was spreading muck. In the other large fields were lots of
farmers cutting the hay and loading it onto horse drawn wagons. The village
was near the coast and on the little beach were more children building sand
castles and playing with dinghies in the water. They were glad it was Sunday
because it meant they had a day off from helping their parents to make
clothes from wool in the upstairs rooms of their homes. The artist could
also see a huge steam ship chugging closer to the shore to seek shelter from
the coming bad weather. Suddenly he heard the church bells ringing – it was
time for the villagers to go to afternoon service. He had heard on the radio
that there was to be a new vicar starting this week. Even when drinking ale
in the local inn, he could tell people were excited about this. They were also
impressed with the new gas cookers that had been sold in the local
supermarket, and could now look forward to Sundays with oven roasted lamb
before having a game of football at the local stadium. The last thing the
artist painted before he finished that day was the new train that had
puffed its way around the hill.
Task 4 – City of Rome
This term in your lessons you have been learning about Rome and the Roman army. You will
now do some research into the city of Rome.
What are you researching? You need to find out about some buildings in Ancient Rome. You
can look up any important buildings that you would like. Some examples are the Colosseum,
the Circus Maximus, the Forum (not exactly a building but an open town centre), Roman
temples or Trajan’s Column.
Where can you research? You can look in the school library, or on the internet. You could
go to your local library. You could also ask the History teachers at school to show you places
to research. Finally, you can come to the Thursday night History homework club or any
other homework club for help.
How should you present your research? You need to put a picture, hand drawn or printed,
and some facts about the building.
Good = two buildings
researched and
presented.
Better = three
buildings researched
and presented.
Building________________
Information:
Picture:
Exceptional = four
buildings researched
and presented.
Building________________
Information:
Picture:
Building________________
Information:
Picture:
Building________________
Information:
Picture:
Task 5 – What was Ancient Rome like?
Based upon your lessons in History and also your research into the buildings in the city of
Rome, answer the following question:
Would you rather live in Ancient Rome or in Haslingden in 2013?
Good = you have given an
opinion with at least one
reason.
Better = you have
completely explained your
opinion with at least two
reasons.
Exceptional = you have
explained two sides to your
answer and then chosen
which side you prefer.