History Words

Chronology: putting people, periods and events in the order in which they happened. You could do this as a timeline for example.

A period of History – a chunk or section of the past, e.g The Medieval period lasted from approximately 1066 to 1500.

BC – “Before Christ” – the time in the past before Jesus Christ is estimated to have been born.

AD – “Anno Domini” (“The Year of Our Lord”). The years after the birth of Christ.

A decade – a period of 10 years.

A century – a period of 100 years. We often refer to events as taking place in a certain century, for example Henry VIII was King of England between 1509 and 1547, but we often say he reigned in the 16th century. Remember that the first century started in the year 1.

A millennium – a period of 1000 years.

An anachronism is something that is out of place. It is in the wrong place or period.

Sources are the things that are left over from the past. Historians use sources to find evidence about the past.

A primary source is one that comes from the time a historian is studying.

A secondary source is one that comes from after the time a historian is studying.

A fact is something we know happened for sure, for example that the first man walked on the moon in 1969.

An opinion is someone’s view about something, eg that Henry VIII was a bad king.

Bias is when something is one-sided. The verb is “to be biased”. Biased sources can still be very useful to historians because they tell us about people’s opinions.

Hypothesis – a possible explanation of something that happened.

Interpretation – A particular version of explaining what happened in the past.