Hunt The Past is dedicated to bringing well rounded units together for classroom and home use. History is vast, so we break it down into small easily digestible lesson plans to serve as a guide and provide insight into the complexities of the past.
If there is a Unit or Lesson Plan, you desire, not available, please email: zack@historicalconquest.com
COMING SOON: A new customizable lesson plan system to design your own lessons and schedules.
ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN HISTORY (up to 32 weeks)
(Being Written)
Mesopotamia/Babylonians (3,000 – 539 BCE) – The Fertile Crescent of the Ancient Near East (Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Turkey, and Iran), centered on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Beginning of the written word, codification of laws and the rise of city-states.
Ancient Egypt (3,000 BCE– 30 BCE) – Rise of a unified civilization based around the Nile River in North Africa to its acquisition by Rome. Home to the Pyramids and Sphinx, Egypt once ruled from modern Sudan to northern Syria.
The Bronze Age (3,000 – 1200 BCE) – Period in history dominated by the use of bronze. Flourishing international trade across the Aegean and Mediterranean marked by the apogees of ancient Egypt, the Hittite Empire, and Mycenaean Greece. Almost all the great late Bronze Age Kingdoms however, succumbed before the onslaught of outside invaders known as the Sea People, leading to widespread collapse and the beginning of a Dark age.
Persian Empires (550 BCE – 651 CE) – Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sassanids. Tough, cosmopolitan, victorious, and vain; the various incarnations of ancient Persian power stretching across the three main dynasties upon whose rise and fall Persian power fluctuated. Some much more to Persia than what the Greeks and Romans have to say about them.
Classical Greece (510 – 323 BCE) – Rise of Athenian Democracy and power. The Persian Wars; The Peloponnesian Wars, Spartan Hegemony, rise of Thebes, and the Macedonian Conquest. Governments and society varied considerably among the individual Greek city-states.
Hellenistic Period (334 – 31 BCE) – Alexander the Great’s military conquests forge an empire stretching from Greece to India, but doesn’t long survive him. His Generals go to war over the spoils leading to the rise of individual Hellenistic Kingdoms from Egypt to Bactria.
Roman Republic (509 – 27 BCE) – After the deposition of the last Roman King, this small Italian city-state embraces a new Republican concept of government; one in which, service to the state in exchange for participation in the Republican process spirits Rome’s rise to that of an Imperial power embracing the whole Mediterranean world. It was a Republic that could not last, and fell into tyranny almost voluntarily.
Roman Empire – (27 BCE – 1453 CE) – Now under the rule of a single autocratic Emperor, Rome expands its reach further until it becomes too big for its own good. Civil Wars centered on Imperial succession often pits Rome’s legions against one another while new and profound sects like Christianity evolve from persecuted fringe groups to the state religion of the Empire. Under Diocletian the Empire divides east and west, with the Imperial lineage surviving in the east for a thousand years after the fall of the Roman west. No such thing as the ‘Byzantine Empire,’ the Romans in Constantinople knew themselves to be Roman until Constantinople fell to the Ottomans on May 29, 1453.
The Rise of Islam (622 – 1258) – Beginning as an outcast fringe group in the Arabian desert; Islam emerges as a unifying force under the charismatic figure of the Prophet Muhammed. In the wake of his death the Muslim Community nearly splits forcing the Caliph Abu Bakr to turn his peoples energies towards a common goal. So begins the rise of Imperial Islam centered upon three dynasties: the Rashiduns, Ummayads, and Abbassids. Civil War, rebellion, political infighting and one of the greatest periods of intellectual and cultural development in human history.
Ancient Asia (more to come)
Ancient China (4,000 – 221 BCE) – Beginnings of Chinese society in the Hong Ho valley; earliest dynasties: Shang and Zhou. Political disintegration and infighting among fractured warring Kingdoms in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods. Beginnings of Daoism and Confucian teachings. Unification under the Qin Dynasty.
Imperial China (221 BCE – 1912) – From the Qin to the fall of the Qing dynasty and the arrival of the Republic of China.
THE EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES (DARK AGES, MEDIEVAL, & ENLIGHTENMENT) (Up to 32 Weeks)
(Being Written)
The Early Middle Ages (500 – 1000) – Fall of the Roman west; rise of the Franks. Missionaries out from Ireland spreading the faith across western Europe. Irish monasteries preserve classical learning on Europe’s periphery. Norse and Magyar invasions; slow population growth and technological innovation.
Carolingian Empire (800 -888) – Forged by Charlemagne, the Frankish empire extends from northern Spain to the borders of Poland. A resurrected Rome in the west, Charlemagne’s court presides over an intellectual renaissance but is soon destroyed by civil war among Charlemagne’s grandsons, splintering the realm into separate rival kingdoms.
The High Middle Ages (950 – 1250) – Period of population increase; unusual global temperatures lead to greater prosperity and population growth. Scholasticism, the Church’s philosophical doctrine based on Aristotelian logic is at its peak.
The Crusades to the Levant (1095 – 1291) The First Crusade to the Fall of Acre and with it the demise of the last Crusader States in the eastern Mediterranean.
THE RENAISSANCE (AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT)
(Up to 32 Weeks) (Being Written)
Famine, Plagues, and Wars (1315-1464) – From the Great Famine of 1315, to Black Plague. (1)
Arts & Humanities – Paintings, sculptures, music, and everything in between. (3)
Religion – Enlightenment and the printing press, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Galileo. (3)
Science – A scientific revolution of Astronomy, Mathematics, and Scientific Method. (3)
Navigation and Exploration – Christopher Columbus, Willem Janszoon, and Captain Cook. (3)
The Renaissance (14th – 16th Century) – Great social change; intellectual shift from the Middle Ages.
Germany and Low Countries (15th Century) – Gutenberg, Reuchlin, Durer, and Luther. (3)
Western Europe, Russia (15th – 18th Century) – Religion, Literature, and Architecture. (2)
Ottoman & Asian Renaissance (15th-18th Century) – Religion, Literature, and Architecture.
THE FOUNDING OF AMERICA (Up to 32 Weeks)
Ancient America – North America, Mesoamerica (Olmec to Aztec) and South Americas.
Early Exploration and Conquest (1492 – 1534) Arrival of Spaniards into the Caribbean; the explorations and conquests that followed in the decades immediately after.
Indigenous and Spanish Reactions to Conquest (1492- 1545) Not all Spaniards agreed with their countrymen’s actions in the New World, nor did every indigenous nation take up arms against the Conquistadors. See the variety of reactions from the participants; everything from self-condemnation and legislative reform among the Spaniards to opportunistic alliances made between Mesoamericans and Spaniards against common enemies.
Slavery in America – The movement of people to populate America.
Religion in America – Catholic Missionaries, Quakers, Protestants, and Salem Trials.
Exploration and the rise of colonial Empires– From Exploration, to the Colonization of the Continent.
French and Indian War – From Benjamin Franklin’s vision of a union, to the first war.
American Revolution – From taxation without representation, to the Constitution.
War of 1812 – From a country at war, to the British reuniting the country once more.
Western Expansion and Industrial Revolution – Expansion of the United States and Industry.
A UNITED NATION OF STATES (Up to 32 Weeks)
(Being Written)
Civil War (1861 – 1865) – A nation torn apart, over states rights and slavery.
Reconstruction (1865 – 1877) – Reuniting and rebuilding a country of united states.
Black Freedom (1865 -1913) – From reconciliation, position, prosperity, to segregation.
Industrial Revolution (1865 – 1917) – From machinery and transportation, to energy.
Gilded Age (1875 -1900) – Rapid economic growth and immigration into the country.
Progressive Era (1890 – 1930) – Widespread social activism, and political reform.
World War I (1914 – 1924) – Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria to the Eleventh Hour.
Music Eras (1918 – 1946) – Jazz, Swing, and the changing of America, through music.
World War II (1935 – 1948) – Who was Adolf Hitler, and how he was overcome.
Civil Rights (1913 – 1971) – From Woodrow Wilson and Jim Crow Laws, to Desegregation.
Cold War (1947 – 1991) – Geopolitical Tension between United States & Soviet Union.
Information Age (1981 – Present) – The development of computers, to social media.
TEXAS HISTORY (Up to 32 Weeks)
Natural Texas – Three major indigenous tribes at their peak, pre-Columbus.
Spanish Exploration (1519-1821) – From Alonso Álvarez de Pineda, to the 4 Spanish Slaves.
French Texas (1684-1689) – Supplies, Pirates, and the second established colony.
Spanish Texas (1690-1821) – After a French fort was destroyed, the Spanish move in.
Mexican Texas (1821-1836) – The Mexican War of Independence, from Spain on.
Texas Revolution (1835-1836) – Mexican Revolution at the Alamo, and Independence.
Republic of Texas (1836-1845) – A new land to govern; nationalists vs. US annexation.
Statehood (1845-1860) – A single vote admitted Texas. and the war that ensued.
Civil War Era (1861-1865) – Unbalance, by adding one more slave state, causes tension.
Reconstruction (1865-1876) – Confederates, Juneteenth, and the black Republican Party.
19th Century Texas (1876-1899) – Racial tension strips power from the people.
Prosperity, Depression, War, and Recovery (1900-1945) – Strongest Hurricane in US History.
Modernizing Texas (1945-Present) – Droughts, Assassination, Education, and Prosperity.
