History in Pictures, Part I

History is about what happened a long, long time ago. A long time ago, things looked different. Here is how some things looked.

There were no cars.

Some people rode horses.

Sometimes horses pulled carriages,

and sometimes horses pulled wagons, or carts.

Many poor farmers, called peasants, just walked.

Many streets were muddy.

Most people did not live in cities.

Instead, they lived in the country, and worked on farms.

Peasants were very poor, and their houses were not fancy.

But there were rich people, called kings,

princes and princesses,

and aristocrats,

who lived in huge, fancy castles

and palaces.

Kings and queens were the richest people

in their country, called a kingdom. They ruled. That means they could tell everybody what to do.

Kings wanted to make their kingdoms bigger and bigger. They wanted more and more land.

So kings fought each other! Kings got armies of men together

and armies fought big fights, called battles!

There were no guns.

So the soldiers in armies fought with swords

and archers used bows and arrows,

and other deadly weapons. “Deadly” means people died.

After a king won many battles,

sometimes, he combined many kingdoms—and made an empire.

The End