history1

World History - Lesson 1

Jaron Summers

I have decided to write a history book that is easy enough for any (smarter than average) nine year old to understand. Becki, a distant cousin, is about nine and she is smarter than average. Way smarter.

Here goes:

World History - Lesson 1

Becki, do you know why you are such a good typist?

It runs in our family. Your grandfather (Ken) had an aunt * named Ivie, or was it Ivy?—anyway she was the fastest typist in the British Empire.

I'm not kidding.

And in her day the British Empire was really big, it was so big the sun never set on it.

Imagine that.

The reason the British Empire was so big was because the people in England (your great-eversogreat-grandfathers) built a huge navy and they sailed around the world and landed in different countries and then they would say that they had "discovered" these countries. (Really, the countries were there all along.)

Anyway, in places like Africa and India our eversogreat grandfathers would insist we owned these discoveries and the natives would say "what about us, don't we own them?"

No, we would say, we, by George, own them and then we would plant a flag (The Union Jack) and blow up anyone who did not let us be their king (or queen).

We had an advantage over the natives.

It was not that we were smarter or stronger or more cunning.

We had GUNPOWDER and it was great stuff—if you wanted to become a king or queen and make certain that natives went along with British thought.

You might wonder what British thought was.

Well, it was very simple.

The British thought they should rule the world because, well, they just thought it was a fine idea. And it was for them.

Later they called the natives "slaves."

When the natives got tired of being slaves, they became terrorists. They stole gunpowder from the British and blew up the redcoats.

Red.

That was the color of the uniform that the British officers wore so that when they were shot in battle their men would not see them bleed and retreat in panic.

Our eversogreat grandfathers tried to think of everything.

Chapter One assignment. Check out "Gunboat Diplomacy."

* Historical footnote: Ivy was also my aunt but she liked your grandfather better than me. She said I was goofy. Oh, well. To find out more about Aunt Ivy, click here: wedding.

(Please scroll down for the other 10 chapters of my History of the World.)