From a hazy mixture of history and legend, we learn that China's first ruling family was the Hsia. The legendary first emperors are said to have tamed the rivers, so that farmers could grow millet and wheat. The

In the AD 500s, an Italian named Benedict of  Nursia drew up a set of rules for monks (or people in monasteries). All monks must be poor, unmarried and obedient. Monks wore simple robes, shaved their

Rome grew from a small kingdom in Italy. It became a republic and one of the mightiest empires of the ancient world, with an empire stretching the length of the Mediterranean Sea. At its peak, the Roman Empire

Egyptian picture-writing is known as  HIEROGLYPHICS. This language is made up of about 750 signs, with pictures of people, animals and objects. until hieroglyphics was deciphered in modern times, it was not known that most of the picture represented sounds and syllables, not whole words. Scribes used a quick form of writing which was called hieratic. The Egyptians were also good in maths, particularly geometry, which they use in architecture and surveying. They drew up an accurate 12-month calendar of 365 days, and used water clocks to measure time.

More than 5,000 years ago Europeans were building spectacular stone monuments. Many of these are still standing today, as mysterious relics of a long-gone society. The huge stones that were used are called megaliths

Climate is what the weather pattern is like over  a long time. The seasonal pattern of hot and cold, wet or dry, is averaged over 30 years. The climate is different around the world as it is not heated evenly by the

WHAT SHAPES THE COASTS?

Coastlines are constantly changing: they are either being eroded or built up. The waves are very powerful and can remove a large amount of material from a coastline, specially during a storm. The sand and pebbles removed from the coastline are carried by the sea and can be dropped further along a coast or out at sea. Many coastal features can be made by steady erosion of the cliffs and headlands such as sand dunes, spits and salt marshes. A beach can make the waves less powerful and reduce the amount erosion of the coast. Steep cliffs and wave-cut platforms can be formed in areas of hard rock. A bay can be carved out in an area where hard rock between it.

River start on the top of hills as small streams channelling  the rainfall or as a spring releasing ground water. They begin to cut at and change the landscape on the way to the sea. In the highlands the water can move

Over 10,000 years ago about a third of the land surface was covered by ice. Today a tenth is still covered in ice. Ice sheets can cover very large areas and can be very thick. The world's largest ice sheet covers most of