- Contact me and volunteer for a topic as soon as possible. If you do not contact me, you will be assigned a topic.
- This is a required course assignment.
- Your presentation may not exceed 15 minutes.
- Each presentation should:
- provide a brief initial identification of your topic and then proceed to a detailed description of the subject
- explain the significance of the subject to the history of that period and the history covered in the course
- include at least one map
- assess the historical importance of your topic/subject
- conclude by answering questions from the audience
- With regard to format, your presentation can be done using Powerpoint, Prezi, Slides, Spark or as a web page. You should include:
- a short video, not to exceed 5 minutes (NO CARTOON FORMAT videos!)
- images (each image should have a citation with the image)
- at least one map
- visual aids count, but they do not have to be fancy.
- Do not read the material on your slides. The material on the slides should be simply a quick summary of the more-detailed information that you are going to explain to the class. I will stop you if you are reading word-for-word from your slides.
- You should have a bibliography of sources used to prepare the presentation including at least ten different sources, at least one of which can be Wikipedia, but your sources should be more than just Wikipedia, Britannica and Encyclopdia.com. Your bibliography should also include a short annotated description of each of source.
- Before you organize your ideas, first brainstorm for ways to approach your presentation. Be creative!
- Proof, critique and revise your presentation. Do not wait until the last minute to work on this. Practice!
- I encourage you to email to me a rough draft of your presentation at least 24 hours before class so that I can provide some feedback to you.
- At least 10 slides, no more than 20!
- Some points to remember:
- You are the expert on your topic, not the audience. Do not fear the audience! They should fear you.
- Be prepared to answer difficult questions from the audience.
- No colloquial language (no expletives)
- Again, you are the expert on your topic, and this is a college-level presentation.
- Enjoy yourself!
- There are different ways to deliver your presentation.
- Make a movie of your presentation and post it on Youtube which we can then watch during class. See the information on online, narrated presentations. (You can remove at the end of the semester.)
- Run the presentation from your own computer via zoom, and we will share your screen to the class, as you talk.
Group Topics for HIS 112. Bold indicates that the topic is no longer available.
- 21 January, English Bill of Rights (Review the main events of English history in the seventeenth century, including the beheading of the king, the English civil war and then the Glorious Revolution; you should also explain important documents like the Petition of Right.)
- 4 February, South Asian 1947 Partition (Review the historical events leading up to the Partition.) How deal with it afterwards? How memorialize it? Reparations? You should use a current newspaper as at least one source
- 11 February, Industrialization in the Western world (Explain the basic development of the Industrial Revolution and focus on the revolution's impact outside of Europe and the United States.)
- 18 February, Revolts in Latin and Central America in the early nineteenth century (Explain the background to the revolts in Latin and Central America in the early nineteenth century.)
- 25 February, Sierra Leone and Blood Diamonds (Explain the background to conflict in Sierra Leone and the Blood Diamonds catastrophe.)
- 18 March, Bloody Sunday and the 1905 Revolution in Russia (Explain what happened on Bloody Sunday in Russia; review the main revolutionary events in Russian in 1904-1906; identify some of the important aspects of the Imperial Manifesto and Fundamental Laws to prepare for group work on the 1905 paragraph.)
- 25 March, Nanking Genocide (Explain the background to the Nanking Genocide and what happened in this Chinese city in 1937 to prepare for the group work on the Nanking genocide.)
- 1 April, Massacre at My Lai (Explain the main points of US involvement in the Vietnam War, what happened at My Lai in 1968, and the outcomes of the massacre.)
- 8 April, El Salvador Civil War (Explain the background to the Salvadoran Civil War and the activities of the death squads in El Salvador between 1979 and 1992 to prepare for group work on these atrocities.)
- 15 April, Rwanda (Explain the background to the Rwandan Genocide and what happened in Rwanda in 1994.)
- 22 April, Bosnian War and Genocide 1992-1995 (Explain the background to the first war in Bosnia and the human catastrophe that ensued.)
- THESE ARE TOPICS NOT BEING USED THIS SEMESTER
- 16 September, Tokugawa Japan (Review the main points from from Monday's class on Japanese history; explain the background to the exclusion decrees; identify some of the important aspects of the decrees to prepare for group work on the Japan paragraph.)
- 30 September, the Decembrist Revolt in Russia (Review the main points of Russian history in the reign of Tsar Aleksandr I and explain the background to the Decembrist conspiracy to prepare for group work on the Decembrist paragraph.)
- 7 October, Boer War (Explain what happened in the Boer War and why this was an important turning point in European imperialism.)
- Darfur, (Explain the background to the war in Darfur (2003-) and the human catastrophe that ensued to prepare for group work on Darfur.)
- 4 February, Akbar (Review the main points from Monday's class on the Gunpowder Empires; provide information on the reign of Akbar; explain what was the Akbar-nama to prepare for group work on the Akbar-nama.)
Group Presentation Topics for HIS 101 NON-HYBRID. Bold indicates that the topic is no longer available.
- 25 August
- 1 September, Prehistory
- 8 September
- 15 September, Ancient Near East (Hammurabi)
- 22 September, Ancient Greece (Pericles)
- 29 September, Ancient Rome (early Christianity, Sermon on the Mount)
- 6 October, Islam (Hadith)
- 13 October
- 20 October, Charlemagne (Einhard's Life of Charlemagne)
- 27 October, Middle Ages (feudalism)
- 3 November, Late Middle Ages (Magna Carta)
- 10 November, Protestant Reformation (Luther's 95 Theses)
- 17 November, Renaissance (Medici)
- 24 November
- 1 December, Explorations (Columbus)
Topics for HIS 101, Fall 2021 (The approximate week of the course is indicated in parenthesis.) Bold indicates that the topic is no longer available.
- Wednesday, 15 September: Stonehenge (4) ; Göbekli Tepe (4)
- Monday, 20 September: Çatalhöyük (5); Mississippian mound culture (5)
- Monday, 27 September: Hammurabi (6); Ancient Egypt (Old Kingdom) (6)
- Monday, 4 October: Pericles (7); Aristotle (7)
- Monday, 18 October: Cicero (9); Marcus Aurelius (9)
- Monday, 25 October: The early Islamic caliphates (10); Byzantine Christianity (10)
- Monday, 1 November: Primary Chronicle (11); Russkaia pravda (11)
- Monday, 8 November: Charlemagne (12); Magna Carta (12)
- Monday, 15 November: Black Death (13); Columbus (13)
Topics for HIS 101, Fall 2021 (The approximate week of the course is indicated in parenthesis.) Bold indicates that the topic is no longer available.
- Stonehenge (4)
- Göbekli Tepe (4)
- Çatalhöyük (5)
- Mississippian mound culture (5)
- Hammurabi (6)
- Ancient Egypt (Old Kingdom) (6)
- Pericles (7)
- Aristotle (7)
- Cicero (9)
- Marcus Aurelius (9)
- The early Islamic caliphates (10)
- Byzantine Christianity (10)
- Rus' (11)
- Russkaia pravda (11)
- Charlemagne (12)
- Magna Carta (12)
- Black Death (13)
- Columbus (13)
HIS 101 (The approximate week of the course is indicated in parenthesis.) Bold indicates that the topic is no longer available.
- You may suggest your own topic for instructor approval.
- Hammurabi (3)
- Babylonian Empire (3)
- Old Kingdom (3)
- Fertile Crescent (3)
- Uruk (3)
- Sargon of Akkad (3)
- Pharaoh Ramses II (3)
- Alexander the Great (4)
- Cyrus the Great (4)
- Pericles (4)
- Plato (4)
- Aristotle (4)
- Socrates (4)
- Marcus Aurelius (5)
- The Five Good Emperors (5)
- Pax Romana (5)
- St. Paul (5)
- St. Augustine (5)
- Council of Nicaea (5)
- Abu Bakr (6)
- Khadijah bint Khuwaylid (6)
- Umayyad Caliphate (6)
- Abbasid Caliphate (6)
- Charlemagne (7)
- Alcuin of York (7)
- St Benedict (7)
- Quadrivium and trivium (7)
- Grand Prince Vladimir (8)
- Justinian the Great (8)
- Great Schism 1054 (8)
- Empress Theodora (8)
- Magna Carta (9)
- Chartres cathedral (9)
- Doomsday Book (9)
- Feudalism (10)
- Manorialism (10)
- Duke William II of Normandy, aka William the Conqueror (10)
- Prince Aleksandr Nevskii (11)
- Tsar Ivan IV (11)
- Batu Khan and the Golden Horde (Золотая Орда) (11)
- Richard, heart of a lion (12)
- Pope Urban 2 (12)
- An-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub (aka Saladin) (12)
- Joan of Arc (12)
- Magna Carta (12)
- Johann Tetzel (13)
- Wycliffe (13)
- Jan Hus (13)
- Martin Luther (13)
- Michelangelo (15)
- Da Vinci (15)
- Raphael (15)
- Titian (15)
- Lorenzo the Magnificent (15)
- John Cabot (16)
- Bartolomeu Dias (16)
- Christopher Columbus (16)
- Prince Henry the Navigator (16)
Group Presentation Topics for HIS 111. Bold indicates that the topic is no longer available.
- 1 September Pre-history
- 8 September
- 15 September, Week 3, Ancient Near East (Hammurabi)
- 22 September, Classical China (Mandate of Heaven)
- 29 September, Classical South Asia (Kautilya's Arthashastra)
- 6 October, Classical Mediterranean (Pericles)
- 13 October
- 20 October, Classical Islam (Hadith)
- 27 October, Rus' (Primary Chronicle)
- 3 November, Mongols (Rubruck)
- 10 November, Africa (Accounts of Meröe, Kush, and Axum)
- 17 November, Europe (Columbus)
- 24 November
- 1 December, Mesoamerica (Popol Vuh)
Possible topics for HIS 111 (The approximate week of the course is indicated in parenthesis.) Bold indicates that the topic is no longer available.
- You may suggest your own topic for instructor approval.
- Stonehenge (2)
- Göbekli Tepe (2)
- Sargon of Akkad (4)
- Pharaoh Ramses II (4)
- Ancient Mesopotamia (4)
- Zhou (Chou) Dynasty (5)
- Wu Zetian (5)
- Confucius (5)
- Harappa (6)
- Asoka (Ashoka) (6)
- Gautama Buddha (6)
- Plato (7)
- Cyrus the Great (7)
- Socrates (7)
- Abbasid Caliphate (9)
- Muhammad of Mecca (9)
- Umayyad Caliphate (9)
- Vladmir the Great (10)
- Rus' (10)
- Justinian (10)
- Ghenghis Khan (Chinggis Khan) (11)
- Delhi Sultanate (11)
- Golden Horde (and the other hordes) (11)
- Great Zimbabwe (12)
- Mansa Musa (12)
- Bantu Migration (12)
- Renaissance (13)
- Humanism (13)
- Martin Luther (13)
- Michelangelo (13)
- Maya (15)
- Inka (15)
- Aztec (15)
Possible topics for HIS 112 (The approximate week of the course is indicated in parenthesis.) Bold indicates that the topic is no longer available.
- You may suggest your own topic for instructor approval.
- John Locke (2)
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau (2)
- Tokugawa Ieyasu, aka Matsudaira Takechiyo aka Matsudaira Motoyasu (3)
- Opium Wars (3)
- Akbar (4)
- Bangladesh (4)
- Mary Wollstonecraft (5)
- Karl Marx (5)
- Simón Bolívar (6)
- José de San Martín (6)
- Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener (7)
- Genocide in Australia, the "Stolen Generation." (7)
- Armenian Genocide (8)
- Easter Uprising (8)
- Amritsar Masacre 1919 (8)
- Holodomor, Ukraine Famine (9)
- Bloody Sunday 1905 (9)
- Operation Keelhaul (10)
- Nuremburg War Crime Trials (10)
- Ho Chi Minh (11)
- The Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge (11)
- 1989 Panama, the United States Invasion (12)
- 1973 Chile, United States Intervention in Chile (12)
- Guatemalan Civil War (12)
- Biafra and the Nigerian Civil War (13)
- Herero Genocide (13)
- Sharpeville Massacre (13)
- Congo Crisis
- 1923 Greek-Turkish Population Exchange (14)
- Solidarity (Solidarność) (14)
- Megistu Haile Mariam (15)
- Aum Shinrikyo and the Tokyo Subway Gas Attack
- Darfur (15)
- THESE TOPICS ARE NOT AVAILABLE SPRING 2021
- Dag Hammarskoljd (12)
- Kwame Nkrumah (11)
- Jawaharlal Nehru (13)
- Muhammad Ali Jinnah (13)
- Stalin (9)
- Emiliano Zapata (6)
- Boxer Rebellion, 1899-1901 (3)
- Taiping Rebellion, 1850-1864 (3)
- Hong Taiji (3)
- Mazzini (5)
- Anglo-Zulu War and the Battle for Rorke's Drift Station (7)
- Eleanor Roosevelt (16)
- Shāh 'Abbās the Great aka Shāh 'Abbās I (4)
- Devshirme (4)
- Voltaire (2)
- Louis XIV (2)
- The Black Hole of Calcutta (4)
Possible topics for HIS 102 (The approximate week of the course is indicated in parenthesis.) Bold indicates that the topic is no longer available.
- You may suggest your own topic for instructor approval.
- Isaac Newton (3)
- Gottfried Leibniz (3)
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau (3)
- John Locke (3)
- Denis Diderot (3)
- Voltaire (3)
- Immanuel Kant (3)
- Frederick the Great (3)
- Catherine the Great (3)
- Maximilien Robespierre (3)
- Saint Just (3)
- Daniel Defoe (3)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (3)
- James Watt (4)
- Henry Bessemer (4)
- George Stephenson (4)
- Thomas Newcomen (4)
- Gustave Courbet (4)
- Tsar Alexander I (5)
- Pavel Pestel (5)
- Mary Shelley (5)
- Charles Fourier (5)
- Friedrich Engels (5)
- Novalis (5)
- Ludwig van Beethoven (5)
- Otto von Bismarck (6)
- Camilo Benso, count di Cavour (6)
- Mikhail Bakunin (6)
- Fedor Dostoevskii (6)
- Modest Mussorgsky (6)
- Giuseppe Garibaldi (6)
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir (6)
- Rudyard Kipling (8)
- Friedrich Nietzsche (8)
- David Livingstone (8)
- Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener (8)
- Alfred Dreyfus (8)
- Mark Twain (8)
- Erich Maria Remarque (10)
- Marshal Pétain (10)
- Lenin (10)
- Trotskii (10)
- Marc Chagall (10)
- Vladimir Mayakovskii (10)
- Erich Maria Remarque (10)
- Franz Kafka (10)
- Benito Mussolini (12)
- Albert Speer (12)
- Pablo Picasso (12)
- Winston Churchill (12)
- Zhou Enlai (12)
- Jean-Paul Sartre (12)
- Jackson Pollock (12)
- Nikita Khrushchev (12)
- Ho Chi Minh (12)
- Chinua Achebe (14)
- Mohandas Gandhi (14)
- Jomo Kenyatta (14)
- Ahmed Sékou Touré (14)
- Muhammad Ali Jinnah (14)
- Salman Rushdie (14)
- Franz Fanon (14)
- J. K. Rowling (15)
- Steven Spielberg (15)
- Roy Lichtenstein (15)
- Banksy (15)
- Jeff Bezos (15)
- Larry Page (15)
- Michael Jordan (15)
- Steve Jobs (15)
Some notes.
- James Watt (2)
- Isaac Newton (2)
- Denis Diderot (2)
- Nurhaci (1559, reigned 1616-1626) (5)
- Albert camus
- Anime and Manga
- Pague Spring
- Kent State Shootings
- Calley and the My Lai massacre
- Lech walesa
- Chernobyl
- Rudyard Kipling (7)
- Congo
- Keith Haring
- Asia Tigers
- Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969)
- Voltaire
- Hubble
- Friedrich Nietzsche (7)
- David Livingstone (7)
- Alfred Dreyfus (7)
- tet offensive
- Mary wollstonecraft
- Joffre
- Foch
- Pershing
- Einstein and uncertainity principle quantum mechanics
- Immanuel Kant (3)
- Frederick the Great (3)
- Catherine the Great (3)
- Maximilien Robespierre (3)
- Saint Just (3)
- Daniel Defoe (3)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (3)
- East Timor 1999 (4 or 16)
- Meiji Restoration
- Katsushika Hokusai 1760 (exact date questionable) – May 10, 1849)
- Cao Xueqin (1715-63)
- Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972) was one of the foremost advocates of pan-Africanism and one of the founders of the Organization of African Unity. He became Ghana's first prime minister and president. In 1964, he was elected president for life, and political parties were prohibited except for the ruling Convention People's Party. Nkrumah was deposed in 1966. (11)
- 1985 Nicaragua, Iran Contra
- 1961 Cuba, The Bay of Pigs invasion failed to achieve a regime change.
- 1964 Brazil
- 1971 Bolivia, New Documents Bring to Light the U.S. Role in One of Bolivia’s Bloodiest Dictatorships
- Alfredo Stroessner, François Duvalier, Augusto Pinochet or Anastasio Somoza Debayle
- 1980 El Salvador
- Francisco Madero (1873-1913) (12)
- Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006)
- 1869 Suez canal
- Haile Mengistu Mariam (1937-) (11)
- "Wind of Change" speech (1960) given by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (11)
- Jomo Kenyata (1897-1978) was the first prime minister/president of Kenya in 1963. He had gained fame (and imprisonment) for his anti-colonial activities in the 1950s, including some role in the Mau Mau Rebellion. While an African nationalist, he was an extremely conservative politician, and within a year of independence, Kenya was a one-party country. (11)
- Ahmed Sékou Touré (1922-1984), formerly a trade union activist and perhaps a Marxist, was the first President of Guinea in 1958 and served until his death in 1984. Within two years of the country's independence, he declared the Parti démocratique de Guinée the only legal party in the state and ruled as a brutal dictator for the next twenty-four years. (11)
- Modibo Keïta (1915-1977) was the first president of Mali and a socialist politician in 1960. He also established a one-party state and in 1967 suspended the constitution. He was overthrown and imprisoned the following year. (11)
- Julius Nyerere (1922-1999) was another major force behind the Organization of African Unity. He became the first prime minister of Tanganyika and then president of the renamed Tanzania until 1985. An avowed socialist, Nyerere criticized two-party democracy and instituted a one-party state headed by the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). His political philosophy was known as ujamaa. (11)
- Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) was a black, nationalist, revolutionary opponent of the apartheid regime in South Africa and the first black president of South Africa in 1994. (11)
- Social Darwinism
- Richard Wagner
- Boer War
- Henry Bessemer (4)
- George Stephenson (4)
- Thomas Newcomen (4)
- Gustave Courbet (4)
- Tsar Alexander I (5)
- Pavel Pestel (5)
- Mary Shelley (5)
- Charles Fourier (5)
- Friedrich Engels (5)
- Novalis (5)
- Ludwig van Beethoven (5)
- Otto von Bismarck (6)
- Camilo Benso, count di Cavour (6)
- Mikhail Bakunin (6)
- Fedor Dostoevskii (6)
- Modest Mussorgsky (6)
- Giuseppe Garibaldi (6)
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir (6)
- Mark Twain (8)
- Erich Maria Remarque (10)
- Marshal Pétain (10)
- Marc Chagall (10)
- Vladimir Mayakovskii (10)
- Erich Maria Remarque (10)
- Franz Kafka (10)
- Benito Mussolini (12)
- Albert Speer (12)
- Pablo Picasso (12)
- Winston Churchill (12)
- Zhou Enlai (12)
- Jean-Paul Sartre (12)
- Jackson Pollock (12)
- Nikita Khrushchev (12)
- Ho Chi Minh (12)
- Chinua Achebe (14)
- Mohandas Gandhi (14)
- Jomo Kenyatta (14)
- Ahmed Sékou Touré (14)
- Muhammad Ali Jinnah (14)
- Salman Rushdie (14)
- Steven Spielberg (15)
- Roy Lichtenstein (15)
- Banksy (15)
- Jeff Bezos (15)
- Larry Page (15)
- Michael Jordan (15)
- Steve Jobs (15)
- Harrapa (2500 BCE)
Shang dynasty (600 BCE-1046 BCE)
Axum (100 BCE-650)
Kush (1070 BCE–350)
Fu Xi aka Fu-hsi (myth)
Laozi (Lao-Tzu 500BCE)
Chandragupta Maurya (340 BCE – 298 BCE)
Kautilya aka Chanakya (350 – 275 BCE)
Bhagavad Gita (200 BCE?)
Cao Cao aka Megde (155-220)
Arthasastra (200-300)
Hsuan Tsang aka Xuanzang or Chen Yi (602-64)
Harun al Rashid (763?-809)
Sufism (700s?)
Mahdi (the prophesied redeemer of Islam)
Song dynasty (960-1279)
Fan Kuan (990-1030)
Guido of Arezzo (992 – after 1033)
Avicenna (/ˌævəˈsɛnə/; Latinate form of Ibn-Sīnā (980-1037)
Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji (1021)
Alexios I Komnenos aka Alexius I Comnenus (1048-1118)
University of Bologna (1088)
Zhu Xi or Chu Hsi (1130-1200)
Angkor Wat (1100s)
Crusades (1100s)
China gunpowder (1100)
Genghis Khan (1162-1227)
Pope Innocent III (1160-1216)
Ibn Rushd aka Averroës (1126-98)
Ögedei Khan(1186-1241)
Kublai Khan (1215-1294)
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmi (1207-73)
Mali Empire (1230-1600)
Devshirme (1300s)
Chartres cathedral 1260
Tenochtitlan (1300)
Timur (d1405)
Ibn Khaldūn (1332-1406)
Zheng He (1371-1453)
Gutenberg Bible (1455)
Suleyman the Magnificent
Fall of Constantinople (1453)
Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521)
Andrea Palladio (1508-1580)
Süleyman the Magnificent (1494-1566)
Hernán Cortés (1485-1547)
Humayun (1508-56)
Babur (1483-1530)
Andreas Vesalius (anatomy 1540s)
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616)
Spanish armada (1588)
Matteo Ricci (1552-1610)
Kabuki drama (1600s)
Pope Gregory 13 and the Gregorian calendar (1582)
black plague London (1666)
Newcomen atmospheric engine (1712)
Carolus Linnaeus (1701-1778)
Ashanti Empire (1700s)
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
John Harrison (1693-1776)
Michael Faraday, (1791-1867)
Sewing machine (1790)
Haitian revolution (1791-1804)
Venezuela (1821)
George Stephenson RR (1830)
Telegraph (1844)
Simón Bolívar (1783-1830) 1853 Perry reaches Japan
bicycle (1860s)
Charles Goodyear (1800-1860)
Henry Bessemer (1813–1898)
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)
Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)
Modern Olympic games (1896)
Paul Cezanne (1839-1906)
Lev Tolstoi (1828-1910)
Alfred Nobel aka Mr. dynamite (1867)
Robert Koch’s germ theory (1876)
Edwin Drake (1859 Titusville)
Gregor Mendel (1822 -1884)
Wilhelm Roentgen xrays (1895)
Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)
Fashoda crisis (1898)
John D Rockefeller (1839-1937)
Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937)
Boers (1900)
Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)
Bakelite (1907)
Pankhurst family (1910s)
Santiago Ramon y Cajal (1852-1934)
Theodor Herzl (1860-1904)
Henry Ford (1863-1947)
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943)
refrigerator (1913)
Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937)
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Helen Keller (1880-1968)
Niels Bohr (1885-1962)
Penicillin (1928)
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
The Long March (1934)
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., (1887-1940)
Transistor (1947)
Francis Crick and James Watson and Maurice Wilkins and DNA (1953)
Ahmed Ben Bella (1918-2012)
Pan-Africanism (1960s)
Konrad Adenauer (1876 – 1967)
Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)
Alexander Calder (1898-1976)
Edwin Hubble (1889-1953)
Walt Disney (1901-66)
Billy Wilder (1906-2002)
Elvis Presley (1935-1977)
Mau Mau (1952-60)
Shining Path (1950-)
Pathet Lao (1955-)
Little Red Book, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (1964)
Belgian Congo (1960)
Rachel Carsen 1962
Jomo Kenyatta (1889?–1978)
Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972)
Sékou Touré (1922-1984)
Modibo Keita of Mali.1915-1977
Haile Selassie (1892-1975)
Julius Nyerere (1922-1999)
Mengistu Haile Mariam (1937-)
Solidarnosc (1980s)
Pol Pot (1925-98)
Alexander Dubček (1921-1992)
Todor Zhivkov (1911-1998)
Falklands War (1982)
Possible topics for HIS 102 (The approximate week of the course is indicated in parenthesis.)
- You may suggest your own topic for instructor approval.
- Isaac Newton (3)
- Gottfried Leibniz (3)
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau (3)
- John Locke (3)
- Denis Diderot (3)
- Voltaire (3)
- Immanuel Kant (3)
- Frederick the Great (3)
- Catherine the Great (3)
- Maximilien Robespierre (3)
- Saint Just (3)
- Daniel Defoe (3)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (3)
- James Watt (4)
- Henry Bessemer (4)
- George Stephenson (4)
- Thomas Newcomen (4)
- Gustave Courbet (4)
- Tsar Alexander I (5)
- Pavel Pestel (5)
- Mary Shelley (5)
- Charles Fourier (5)
- Friedrich Engels (5)
- Novalis (5)
- Ludwig van Beethoven (5)
- Otto von Bismarck (6)
- Camillo Benso, count di Cavour (6)
- Mikhail Bakunin (6)
- Fedor Dostoevskii (6)
- Modest Mussorgsky (6)
- Giuseppe Garibaldi (6)
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir (6)
- Rudyard Kipling (8)
- Friedrich Nietzsche (8)
- David Livingstone (8)
- Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener (8)
- Alfred Dreyfus (8)
- Mark Twain (8)
- Erich Maria Remarque (10)
- Marshal Pétain (10)
- Lenin (10)
- Trotskii (10)
- Marc Chagall (10)
- Vladimir Mayakovskii (10)
- Erich Maria Remarque (10)
- Franz Kafka (10)
- Benito Mussolini (12)
- Albert Speer (12)
- Pablo Picasso (12)
- Winston Churchill (12)
- Zhou Enlai (12)
- Jean-Paul Sartre (12)
- Jackson Pollock (12)
- Nikita Khrushchev (12)
- Ho Chi Minh (12)
- Chinua Achebe (14)
- Mohandas Gandhi (14)
- Jomo Kenyatta (14)
- Ahmed Sékou Touré (14)
- Muhammad Ali Jinnah (14)
- Salman Rushdie (14)
- Franz Fanon (14)
- J. K. Rowling (15)
- Steven Spielberg (15)
- Roy Lichtenstein (15)
- Banksy (15)
- Jeff Bezos (15)
- Larry Page (15)
- Michael Jordan (15)
- Steve Jobs (15)
Some notes.
- James Watt (2)
- Isaac Newton (2)
- Denis Diderot (2)
- Nurhaci (1559, reigned 1616-1626) (5)
- Albert camus
- Anime and Manga
- Pague Spring
- Kent State Shootings
- Calley and the My lai massacre
- Lech walesa
- Chernobyl
- Rudyard Kipling (7)
- Congo
- Keith Haring
- Asia Tigers
- Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969)
- Voltaire
- Hubble
- Friedrich Nietzsche (7)
- David Livingstone (7)
- Alfred Dreyfus (7)
- tet offensive
- Mary wollstonecraft
- Joffre
- Foch
- Pershing
- Einstein and uncertainity principle quantum mechanics
- Immanuel Kant (3)
- Frederick the Great (3)
- Catherine the Great (3)
- Maximilien Robespierre (3)
- Saint Just (3)
- Daniel Defoe (3)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (3)
- East Timor 1999 (4 or 16)
- Meiji Restoration
- Katsushika Hokusai 1760 (exact date questionable) – May 10, 1849)
- Cao Xueqin (1715-63)
- Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972) was one of the foremost advocates of pan-Africanism and one of the founders of the Organization of African Unity. He became Ghana's first prime minister and president. In 1964, he was elected president for life, and political parties were prohibited except for the ruling Convention People's Party. Nkrumah was deposed in 1966. (11)
- 1985 Nicaragua, Iran Contra
- 1961 Cuba, The Bay of Pigs invasion failed to achieve a regime change.
- 1964 Brazil
- 1971 Bolivia, New Documents Bring to Light the U.S. Role in One of Bolivia’s Bloodiest Dictatorships
- Alfredo Stroessner, François Duvalier, Augusto Pinochet or Anastasio Somoza Debayle
- 1980 El Salvador
- Francisco Madero (1873-1913) (12)
- Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006)
- 1869 Suez canal
- Haile Mengistu Mariam (1937-) (11)
- "Wind of Change" speech (1960) given by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (11)
- Jomo Kenyata (1897-1978) was the first prime minister/president of Kenya in 1963. He had gained fame (and imprisonment) for his anti-colonial activities in the 1950s, including some role in the Mau Mau Rebellion. While an African nationalist, he was an extremely conservative politician, and within a year of independence, Kenya was a one-party country. (11)
- Ahmed Sékou Touré (1922-1984), formerly a trade union activist and perhaps a Marxist, was the first President of Guinea in 1958 and served until his death in 1984. Within two years of the country's independence, he declared the Parti démocratique de Guinée the only legal party in the state and ruled as a brutal dictator for the next twenty-four years. (11)
- Modibo Keïta (1915-1977) was the first president of Mali and a socialist politician in 1960. He also established a one-party state and in 1967 suspended the constitution. He was overthrown and imprisoned the following year. (11)
- Julius Nyerere (1922-1999) was another major force behind the Organization of African Unity. He became the first prime minister of Tanganyika and then president of the renamed Tanzania until 1985. An avowed socialist, Nyerere criticized two-party democracy and instituted a one-party state headed by the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). His political philosophy was known as ujamaa. (11)
- Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) was a black, nationalist, revolutionary opponent of the apartheid regime in South Africa and the first black president of South Africa in 1994. (11)
- Social Darwinism
- Richard Wagner
- Boer War
- Henry Bessemer (4)
- George Stephenson (4)
- Thomas Newcomen (4)
- Gustave Courbet (4)
- Tsar Alexander I (5)
- Pavel Pestel (5)
- Mary Shelley (5)
- Charles Fourier (5)
- Friedrich Engels (5)
- Novalis (5)
- Ludwig van Beethoven (5)
- Otto von Bismarck (6)
- Camilo Benso, count di Cavour (6)
- Mikhail Bakunin (6)
- Fedor Dostoevskii (6)
- Modest Mussorgsky (6)
- Giuseppe Garibaldi (6)
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir (6)
- Mark Twain (8)
- Erich Maria Remarque (10)
- Marshal Pétain (10)
- Marc Chagall (10)
- Vladimir Mayakovskii (10)
- Erich Maria Remarque (10)
- Franz Kafka (10)
- Benito Mussolini (12)
- Albert Speer (12)
- Pablo Picasso (12)
- Winston Churchill (12)
- Zhou Enlai (12)
- Jean-Paul Sartre (12)
- Jackson Pollock (12)
- Nikita Khrushchev (12)
- Ho Chi Minh (12)
- Chinua Achebe (14)
- Mohandas Gandhi (14)
- Jomo Kenyatta (14)
- Ahmed Sékou Touré (14)
- Muhammad Ali Jinnah (14)
- Salman Rushdie (14)
- Steven Spielberg (15)
- Roy Lichtenstein (15)
- Banksy (15)
- Jeff Bezos (15)
- Larry Page (15)
- Michael Jordan (15)
- Steve Jobs (15)
- Harrapa (2500 BCE)
Shang dynasty (600 BCE-1046 BCE)
Axum (100 BCE-650)
Kush (1070 BCE–350)
Fu Xi aka Fu-hsi (myth)
Laozi (Lao-Tzu 500BCE)
Chandragupta Maurya (340 BCE – 298 BCE)
Kautilya aka Chanakya (350 – 275 BCE)
Bhagavad Gita (200 BCE?)
Cao Cao aka Megde (155-220)
Arthasastra (200-300)
Hsuan Tsang aka Xuanzang or Chen Yi (602-64)
Harun al Rashid (763?-809)
Sufism (700s?)
Mahdi (the prophesied redeemer of Islam)
Song dynasty (960-1279)
Fan Kuan (990-1030)
Guido of Arezzo (992 – after 1033)
Avicenna (/ˌævəˈsɛnə/; Latinate form of Ibn-Sīnā (980-1037)
Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji (1021)
Alexios I Komnenos aka Alexius I Comnenus (1048-1118)
University of Bologna (1088)
Zhu Xi or Chu Hsi (1130-1200)
Angkor Wat (1100s)
Crusades (1100s)
China gunpowder (1100)
Genghis Khan (1162-1227)
Pope Innocent III (1160-1216)
Ibn Rushd aka Averroës (1126-98)
Ögedei Khan(1186-1241)
Kublai Khan (1215-1294)
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmi (1207-73)
Mali Empire (1230-1600)
Devshirme (1300s)
Chartres cathedral 1260
Tenochtitlan (1300)
Timur (d1405)
Ibn Khaldūn (1332-1406)
Zheng He (1371-1453)
Gutenberg Bible (1455)
Suleyman the Magnificent
Fall of Constantinople (1453)
Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521)
Andrea Palladio (1508-1580)
Süleyman the Magnificent (1494-1566)
Hernán Cortés (1485-1547)
Humayun (1508-56)
Babur (1483-1530)
Andreas Vesalius (anatomy 1540s)
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616)
Spanish armada (1588)
Matteo Ricci (1552-1610)
Kabuki drama (1600s)
Pope Gregory 13 and the Gregorian calendar (1582)
black plague London (1666)
Newcomen atmospheric engine (1712)
Carolus Linnaeus (1701-1778)
Ashanti Empire (1700s)
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
John Harrison (1693-1776)
Michael Faraday, (1791-1867)
Sewing machine (1790)
Haitian revolution (1791-1804)
Venezuela (1821)
George Stephenson RR (1830)
Telegraph (1844)
Simón Bolívar (1783-1830) 1853 Perry reaches Japan
bicycle (1860s)
Charles Goodyear (1800-1860)
Henry Bessemer (1813–1898)
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)
Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)
Modern Olympic games (1896)
Paul Cezanne (1839-1906)
Lev Tolstoi (1828-1910)
Alfred Nobel aka Mr. dynamite (1867)
Robert Koch’s germ theory (1876)
Edwin Drake (1859 Titusville)
Gregor Mendel (1822 -1884)
Wilhelm Roentgen xrays (1895)
Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)
Fashoda crisis (1898)
John D Rockefeller (1839-1937)
Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937)
Boers (1900)
Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)
Bakelite (1907)
Pankhurst family (1910s)
Santiago Ramon y Cajal (1852-1934)
Theodor Herzl (1860-1904)
Henry Ford (1863-1947)
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943)
refrigerator (1913)
Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937)
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Helen Keller (1880-1968)
Niels Bohr (1885-1962)
Penicillin (1928)
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
The Long March (1934)
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., (1887-1940)
Transistor (1947)
Francis Crick and James Watson and Maurice Wilkins and DNA (1953)
Ahmed Ben Bella (1918-2012)
Pan-Africanism (1960s)
Konrad Adenauer (1876 – 1967)
Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)
Alexander Calder (1898-1976)
Edwin Hubble (1889-1953)
Walt Disney (1901-66)
Billy Wilder (1906-2002)
Elvis Presley (1935-1977)
Mau Mau (1952-60)
Shining Path (1950-)
Pathet Lao (1955-)
Little Red Book, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (1964)
Belgian Congo (1960)
Rachel Carsen 1962
Jomo Kenyatta (1889?–1978)
Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972)
Sékou Touré (1922-1984)
Modibo Keita of Mali.1915-1977
Haile Selassie (1892-1975)
Julius Nyerere (1922-1999)
Mengistu Haile Mariam (1937-)
Solidarnosc (1980s)
Pol Pot (1925-98)
Alexander Dubček (1921-1992)
Todor Zhivkov (1911-1998)
Falklands War (1982)