The Super Summary of World History

by Alan Dale Daniel

  Figure 83 B. Marden, Vine, 1992-1993

  This worldview of meaninglessness does have challengers. Classic music survives as the scores to popular films (Star Wars, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Chronicles of Narnia), some of the best attended movies of all time set forth themes of good versus evil where evil is conquered (The 300, National Treasure, The War of the Worlds, the Star Wars Trilogy, the Passion of the Christ), and religion has many followers. Still, one must admit the overwhelming popularity of modern music and art tell us that we are under the malevolent influence of World War I, the Depression, World War II, the cold war, and the ever-present danger of atomic annihilation. Cynicism, irrationality, and meaninglessness are the tattoos of modern life, but we also notice the marvels of technology are pointing to a brighter future if our world chooses to embrace it. If one thinks about it, the mere fact that our universe is highly ordered, from the galaxy to the atom, should confirm that life is not just chaos.

  Can history tell us to what future the present is heading? Not specifically, but we can make some predictions based on the assumption that the major trends of the past will continue. By major trends, I do not mean events that have occurred in the past one hundred years, but events with the commonality of repetition that have been recurring for thousands of years.

  If we can depend on anything, it will be that people will keep killing one another. There will be unremitting wars and slaughters of blameless people. Philosophers of hate will continue to attract adherents who will slaughter others who have the audacity to be different. This really is not a prediction; it is only holding up a mirror to the past, seeing what was, and extrapolating it into what will be.

  If technological trends continue as they have since the Paleolithic, computers and technology will have more and more control over our lives, and every aspect of our existence may soon be in the hands of machines. Medicine is on the verge of defeating death. Is there any doubt that people start aging because something throws the DNA switches in our genes to command our cells to stop producing the stem cells needed to heal and correct deterioration in our bodies? According to Science News, scientists have discovered how to throw certain DNA switches. Once they discover which switches in the DNA code control aging they will be able to throw those switches and stop the aging process. In many ways the future looks bright, but there is always the cloud of human character hanging over humankind. Humans now have the power to destroy the entire planet overnight, and there is no doubt that some people are willing to destroy everything with a smile. Humanity may defeat death, disease, and other human problems with advancing technology, but human nature will remain the same. When it comes to inventing tools humans are unsurpassed. Avoiding our human characteristics for killing, conquest, and control is the problem.

  The Hebrew prophets who wrote some three thousand years ago foretold of a future world governed by numbers and occupied by people who lived well past one hundred years of age.[390] These prophets predicted that everyone would have to have a number to buy or sell, and they predicted a one world government that would operate this system. Strangely, in the year 2010, we can see the outlines of this world forming. Prior to the advent of computers it was impossible to understand how everyone could be assigned a number and forced to use it to participate in the economy. With computer technology we can understand how easily the near future could contain such an economic system.

  Today, it looks like the Hebrew prophets were right about the future world economy and the possibility of defeating death. These same prophets said the world would end in chaos, war, famine, pestilence, and plague. If this proves to be correct, then the world will end as it existed with the only difference being a much-increased degree of chaos, war, famine, pestilence, and plague. This prediction sounds reasonable given our increase in war-making capability. The world must also take note that our planet is a dynamic place where asteroid strikes, volcanic explosions, and changing weather all place humankind in constant jeopardy. There have been mass extinctions in the past, and we would be foolish to assume there will not be others. The Bible seems[391] to foretell of a combination of man-made and natural destructive events that will annihilate the world. As far as predictions about the future goes, this is about as good as it gets because it nicely covers what has happened in the past and simply brings the events of the past forward—with a twist thrown in of God’s return to earth. It is interesting to note that many ancient cultures agree that the world will end in terrible violence.

  The only way out of this evil termination of the world is to change human nature, and history says this will not happen. The one commonality in all history is the unchanging qualities of human nature. No matter where we study the past, we can count on one never changing thread: human nature stays the same. We can read the writings of Marcus Aurelius (121-80 BC) and discover his thoughts were not so different from ours today, in spite of the gulf of two thousand years between his thoughts and ours. Cain killed Abel for no good reason according to the Bible, and everywhere we look people are still killing one another for no good reason. It seems people have been cheating, lying, seducing, raping, murdering, stealing, and conquering—among a host of other ills—since the human race started. If this does not change then the ancient Hebrew prophets will be correct, and we will end up the same way we started out, murdering one another.

  Human nature is dogged by irrationality. People murder with increasing gusto, massive amounts of money are spent buying propaganda, pornography, illegal drugs, other fundamentally irrational things, more nations are acquiring nuclear weapons, and people ignore the plight of others. Meanwhile, science, empirical knowledge, new inventions, and new discoveries continue to accelerate and better the human condition. The dual nature of human beings is clear in this divergence. On the one hand, we enjoy magnificent rationality and progress while on the other hand we suffer irrationality striving to undo every advance. No human society has ever overcome the dual nature of humankind. The future may depend on our ability to meet this heretofore-impossible challenge.

  A Final Thought

  Look back over the history that we have covered. From the very start of history to the year 2010, at least one political division has been clear. Governments by dictators, kings, and tyrants who believed the state was everything and the individual was nothing, have been faced down by men who thought the individual was greater than the state, and only by respecting the individual did the government have any right to exist. From Marathon to Inchon and beyond, this has been true. It is still true today, and America is currently the only nation able to face down the tyrants and dictators of the world. America alone holds the future of freedom. If the United States of America fails, that dream of individual liberty fails. If radicals manage to change America by degrading its culture and its government America will fail, and with it individual liberty based on individual rights.

  Observe closely what is happening around you. Read history and compare the events of the past to the events of today. Evaluate what the results of failure have been throughout time. Then look around and discern how today’s decisions bring tomorrow’s blessings or curses. It is decisions that make history. Make your decisions in favor of the bright line of liberty for the individual. Uphold the memory of Thermopylae and Trenton. A million ghosts of liberty are looking to you. Learn about the past and then, as you go into the future, demand that the ancient dream of the individual being greater than the state remains alive and well.

  Your friend,

  AD2

  Online Sources

  Many of our maps and information for commentary came from THE UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY WEST POINT history site at:

  http://www.dean.usma.edu/history/web03/atlases/AtlasesTable-fContents.html

  West Point also publishes a wonderful set of books with attendant maps on World War II, Europe, and the Pacific in separate volumes (one book is text and another is a complete set of maps) and World War I. And the UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS LIBRARY Web s
ite at:

  http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical

  Wikipedia can be a wonderful resource for information:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kursk

  will take you to the important WWII battle of Kursk. Type in World War II, and Wikipedia will take you through the entire conflict. The same is true for any era of history from prehistory to the cold war.

  The Hyperwar site discusses the US Navy in World War II:

  http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/USNatWar

  US War Photos has an enormous number of excellent photos from WWII

  http://www.uswarphotos.com/WWIIPhotos/index.html

  The Library of Congress in online and has a vast number of resources

  http://www.loc.gov/index.html

  This is a link directly to the University of Texas maps of Europe by Perry

  http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/europe.html

  This is a link directly to the University of Texas maps of WWII by Perry

  http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/history_ww2.html

  This is a link directly to the historical maps by William R. Shepherd

  http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/history_shepherd_1923.html

  The National Atlas has good resources covering historical as well as modern maps

  http://www.nationalatlas.gov/

  Table of Figures

  Figure 1 Neolithic Cave Painting 30,000 BC

  Figure 2 Cave Painting 30,000 BC, Valtorta Cave

  Figure 3 Sargon of Agade—first conquer

  Figure 4 Egypt & the Middle East

  Figure 5 Babylon, The Hanging Gardens

  Figure 6 Harappan Civilization

  Figure 7 Maurya Empire

  Figure 8 Battle of Marathon

  Figure 9 Persian Wars—Xerxes Attacks

  Figure 10 Alexander’s Empire

  Figure 11 Hannibal at Cannae

  Figure 12 Roman Empire at its height under Trajan—115 AD

  Figure 13 Barbarian Invasions of Rome 100-500 AD

  Figure 14 Holy Roman Empire.

  Figure 15 The Mongol Empire about 1253

  Figure 16 Jan van Eyck, The Ancolfini Portrait, Mid 1400s

  Figure 17 Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665-1675

  Figure 18 Drawing of Renaissance Ship

  Figure 19 Spanish and Portuguese Empires Black Equals Portugal

  Figure 20 Colonial Empires 1800

  Figure 21 Aztec Capitol of Tenochtitlan

  Figure 22 Meso-American Cultural Sites (Maya)

  Figure 23 Jin (North) and Song(South) Dynasties 1142 AD

  Figure 24 Japan, Korea area map

  Figure 25 Justinian’s Empire (Byzantium) 527-585 AD

  Figure 26 Byzantine Empire 867 AD

  Figure 27 Islamic Caliphate to 750 AD

  Figure 28 Trenton 1776

  Figure 29 1776 Washington Crossing the Delaware

  Figure 30 Saratoga September 1777

  Figure 31 Route of the Spanish Armada

  Figure 32 Napoleon’s Empire 1810

  Figure 33 Monet, Hotel de Roches Noires, Trouville, 1870.

  Figure 34 Westward American Expansion—Early 1800

  Figure 35 The Mexican American War

  Figure 36 American Civil War

  Figure 37 Principle Campaigns of the Civil War—1: Split the South down the Mississippi, 2: Split the South across Georgia, 3: Defeat Lee in Virginia, 4: Maintain a tight naval blockade

  Figure 38 Ft Sumter Bombardment—1861

  Figure 39 Gettysburg,—Pickett’s Charge—arrow labeled 3

  Figure 40 Grant’s Overland Campaign

  Figure 41 Sherman Takes Atlanta—1864

  Figure 42 Tesla, father of the modern world

  Figure 43 The British Empire in 1923

  Figure 44 Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, 1912

  Figure 45 Munch, The Scream, 1893

  Figure 46 Drawing of Pickett’s Charge, Gettysburg

  Figure 47 Photograph of Confederate Dead at Antietam

  Figure 48 Europe 1914

  Figure 49 The Schlieffen Plan

  Figure 50 Trench System, from English Army Manual 1914

  Figure 51 Lack of Movement on Western Front (Shaded Areas with arrows Show Changes in the Front)

  Figure 52 Tanks on the Western Front, Vimy 1917

  Figure 53 The Fall of France 1940

  Figure 54 Southern Approaches to Europe

  Figure 55 Operation Barbarossa 1941

  Figure 56 Pearl Harbor Air Raid, December 7, 1941

  Figure 57 Japanese Advance on Singapore

  Figure 58 Japanese conquest of the Philippines 1942

  Figure 59 Japanese assaults on Bataan 1942

  Figure 60 Japanese Conquest 1942

  Figure 61 German Summer Offensive 1942

  Figure 62 Invasion of Italy 1943

  Figure 63 Italy—Allied Assaults on Gustov Line and Anzio 1943-4

  Figure 64 American Dual Offensives Against Japan

  Figure 65 Betio (Tarawa) Map

  Figure 66 Marines at Tarawa

  Figure 67 New Guinea & Rabaul Offensives

  Figure 68 US Assault on the Philippines 1944

  Figure 69 The D-Day Plan

  Figure 70 D-Day Plus Six

  Figure 71 D-Day and Beyond

  Figure 72 Battle of the Bulge, Dec 1944

  Figure 73 Soviet Operations 1943-1944

  Figure 74 Planned Assault on Japan, Op Olympic & Coronet

  Figure 75 President Ronald Reagan

  Figure 76 Map of Korean War

  Figure 77 MacArthur’s Advance North

  Figure 78 US Marine March from Chosen

  Figure 82 F-86 Saber

  Figure 80 Vietnam & Ho Chi Minh Trail

  Figure 81 US Helicopters lift off

  Figure 82 Marines in Vietnam

  Figure 83 B. Marden, Vine, 1992-1993

  Endnotes

  [1] The four fundamental forces in the universe: gravity, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and the electromagnetic force.

  [2] The repeated word sapiens—meaning wise—is correct, but hereinafter we will stick to one sapiens after Homo.

  [3] There are some indications in Java that Homo erectus was still around forth to fifty thousand years ago. For a completely different take on ancient man and the case for different time frames for human existence, see Bones of Contention, Lebenow, Baker Books, 2004 or Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth, Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution Is Wrong, Wells, Regnery Publishing, 2002. Another alternate explanation is Darwin’s Black Box, The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, Behe, Free Press, 2006.

  [4] Used fire, but they did not make fire. It seems the art of creating fire from scratch was not mastered.

  [5] Prior to this, art in any form is nearly nonexistent. It seems proto-humans were not able to create art or what they did create was lost. Note this art is a form of communication and can tell us a lot about the world at the date it was made. These wonderful cave paintings, in full color, are at http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_painting.

  [6] Current theory (AGAIN). Please note that the current theory means the current widely accepted theory. There are always many other theories around, but one is generally the current accepted theory (meaning widely accepted). EVERYTHING is open to better theories, but most never make it because they cannot overcome the current widely accepted theory. I now theorize this is getting dull . . .

  [7] China’s ability to keep secret how silk was made for 2,000 years also contributed to the monopoly.

  [8] Another choice is to defend behind your walls, but that means a siege during which the population faces starvation and numerous assaults from the invader attempting to breach the walls. If your city was well prepared with lots of stored food and ample water it would be wise to try and hold out inside the walls. What would you do if you led the city?

  [9] The term Pharaoh comes from the New Kingdom. In earlier times Egyptian rulers were just
kings. I will use the term Pharaoh for all the Egyptian rulers.

  [10] The architect, Imhotep, is one of the few names of lesser officials surviving into our time.

  [11] We should note the stone part of Stonehenge in England was constructed about 2900 BC, nearly 400 years before the Great Pyramid. 400 years is nearly twice as long as the USA has been a nation. One of our greatest challenges is understanding Stonehenge. What makes it so hard is its complexity, as it is tied into the surrounding countryside and other local ceremonial monuments.

  [12] In ancient Egypt, the east was associated with life and the west with death. This was because the sun rose from the east giving life, and set in the west bringing darkness and death. By going east, the Hebrews were symbolically traveling toward life. Dr. Richard Buehrer’s concepts.

  [13] The Rosetta Stone, a slab of stone with Egyptian hieroglyphics and two other later known languages carrying the same message, enabled the hieroglyphics to be deciphered.

  [14] The sarcophagi in all three great pyramids are gone, apparently stolen by grave robbers in the distant past. In the Great Pyramid everything is gone except the lower stone shell of the sarcophagus. The Valley of the Kings is the burial place of over 60 Pharaohs.

  [15] Inside the Great Pyramid, there is a kind of graffiti above the vault in the kings’ chamber saying a certain group of workers built it for Khufu; however, the discovery of these markings is in question. Originally, the markings were in candle smoke that may have been made by the workers on the expedition finding the markings, but this too is speculation.

  [16] Tigris and Euphrates—Tigris being the upper river (T = top). The irrigation systems lasted until the Mongols murdered everyone in the area about AD 1200, then they silted up never to be repaired. (See the Mongols in the Dark Ages section)