DATING HISTORICAL EVENTS_TOPIC 1_HISTORY FORM

DATING HISTORICAL EVENTS

Historians usually divide time into several categories, namely

·   Day – is a duration of twenty four hours (24hrs)

·   A week – is a duration of seven days (7days)

·   Month – is the duration of four weeks (4 weeks)

·   A year – is a duration of twelve months (12 moths)

·   A decade – is a duration of ten years (10 yrs)

-        A century – is the duration of one hundred years (100 yrs)

·   A millennium – is the duration of thousand years (1000 yrs)

·  A generation – is the average differences on ages between a child and his/her parent.

·  Age – is the period based on ma’s economic activities and type of tools used e.g. stone age, iron age, industrial age, science and technology age, etc.

·   A period – is determined by one continuous event lasting for number of years

E.g. Period of slave trade in East Africa

       Period of long distance trade

       Period of colonial rule in Africa

     Some points has chosen in order to divide time

·         Year ZERO – present the year when Jesus Christ was born

It is known as Anno Domino (A.D) meaning the year of the Lord

·         All years before zero are called (B.C) meaning (Before Christ)

HOW TO DETERMINE DATES

Dates are instrument in a science of history; these historians divided dates into four ways;

    1.      Recalling events: - here important events are recalled/remembered e.g. drought, farming, floods, birth, eruption of diseases etc.

   2.      by studying languages: - Some names helps people to remember dates of some events. E.g., Word “Karafuu” started when Cloves were introduced in Zanzibar.

    3.      Carbon 14 is a scientific method of determining dates. It used in the finding dates for remains of animals or plants, which died beyond 5000 years ago. Carbon 14 is a gas found in carbon dioxide, which exists in the atmosphere.  It absorbed by plant and other living organisms. When died carbon 14 that starts to decay at a fixed rate from the time of death.

    4.      Orders of events: ways showing order of events, period and ages, among them are-

·         Time graph

·         Time chart

·         Time line

·         Family tree

S/N	PERIOD A.D	EVENTS
1	1884-1885	The Britain Conference
2	1914-1918	The first World war period
3	1939-1945	The second world war period
4	1961	Tanganyika become independent
5	1962	Tanganyika became republic
6	1992	Introduction of multipart’s in Tanzania.