YU can remember the big things that have happened in yurwn lifetime.
Perhaps yu may have heard yur grandparentsr yur parents tell abut things that happened in theirwn lives-things like Wrld War IIr the wars in Krear Vietnam.
And yur grandparents，f curse， had parents and grandparents and great grandparents， just like yu.
Perhaps yur
great，
great，
great，
grandparents
may have been living when Washingtn was President， and hisgreat，great，great，great，great，
grandparents
were living in the daysf Julius Caesar.
Althugh these ancestrs， as they are called， are dead lng since， the stryf what did happen in all their lifetimes "way，" way back has been written dwn in bks and this stry is histry-his stryne by named it.
Christ was living in the Year 1-n， nt the first yearf the wrld，f curse.
D yu knw hw many years ag that was？ Yu can tell if yu knw what year this is nw.
If Christ were living tday， hwld wuld He be？
Tw thusand years may seem a lng time. But perhaps yu have seenr heardf a manr a wman wh was a hundred yearsld. Have yu？
Well， in tw thusand yearsnly twenty peple， each a hundred yearsld，might have livedne after thether-twenty peplene after thether since the timef Christ-and that desn"t seem s lng after all！
Everything that happened befre Christ was brn is called B.C.， which yu can guess are the initialsf Befre Christ， s B.C. stands fr Befre Christ. S much is easy.
Everything that has happened in the wrld since the timef Christ is calledA.D. This is nt s easy， fr thugh A. might stand fr After， we knw D. is nt the initialf Christ.
As a matterf fact， A.D. are the initialsf tw Latin wrds， Ann Dmini. Ann means in the year， Dminif the Lrd， which inrdinary， everyday language meansf curse since the timef Christ.
I have tld yu abut things I have had t guess at. We call these things befre-histry，r pre-histry， which means the same thing. But the things that have happened in the lifetimef peple wh wrte them dwn-the stries I dn"t have t guess at-we call histry. The first histry that we feel fairly sure is true begins with the peple in Nrth Africa and the Middle East.
Sme peple began writing dwn their stries thusandsf years ag. What"s interesting is that different peples in partsf the wrld that were really far apart figuredut all by themselves hw t write， and they did this at different times. Ancient peple in the Middle East invented a written language called cuneifrm Ancient peple in Egypt wrte in hierglyphics. Centuries ag， peple in India were writing in Sanskrit. Peple as far away as China， Nubia， and Central America invented theirwn writing. S did peplen the islandf Crete in the Mediterranean Sea， halfway between Egypt and Greece.
Tday， we knw hw t read smef these languages frm several thusand years ag. Butther languages are like an unslved puzzle. We see the writing， but we dn"t have any idea what it means.
If yu think abut all these early civilizatins， whichnes d yu suppse we knw the mst abut？ Thenes whse writing we can read，r thethers？ Well， I"ll bet yu all guessed the right answer t that questin！f curse， we knw the mst abut places whse stries we can read.
Fur places whse early stries we can read abut are Egypt， Mesptamia， India， and China. We can read their writing， s we knw what peple were there during all thse lng years ag. We"re nt as gdn the writingf Nubiar Central Americar Crete， s we dn"t knw as much abut what was happening in thse places lng， lng ag.
What"s really interesting is what we d knw abut the places whse histry we can read. We knw that all furf thse ancient civilizatins grew up alng river valleys.
Egypt was built alng the Nile River valley. And Mesptamia grew alng the valleysf tw rivers-the Tigris and the Euphrates. But yu already knw abut thse rivers.
Nw here are tw new rivers fr yu. India"s first histry tk place alng the valleyf the Indus River and China"s alng the Huang River. The Huang River is smetimes called the Yellw River because the river"s bttm is thick yellw mud.
Even thugh they lived far apart， the peples wh lived alng these rivers did a ltf the same things. This isn"t t surprising when yu think abut it. Yu may never have visited Africar Indiar China tday， but yu can guess that girls and bys there play games， and that mthers ck， and sn. Even in ancient times， peple arund the wrld did manyf the same things.
The river valleys were a gd place t live because fd was plentiful. There was ltsf water fr animals t drink， and t use t water plants. S men and wmen and bys and girls all settled dwn next t the rivers-in Egypt， in Mesptamia， in India and in China.
Sn enugh peple were living s clse tgether that they were living in what we call a twn. Then peple in these twns began t build little bats， then bigger bats. Sn the bats were sailing up and dwn the river t the next twn and t twns farther away. The twns began t trade with eachther. And smetimes the twns began t fight with eachther.
nef the best ways t stp the twns frm having little wars was t put them all under the rulefne persn. S， in place after place， a gvernment grew up. Smetimes the twns agreed t get tgether.ther times they were united whenne strng man cnquered his neighbrs. Either way， a king，r emperr，r pharah was in chargef the gvernment and was rulerf what weTrading batf river valley twn ( 河谷镇的商船 )nw call a natin.
S， if yu lk back at these river civilizatins， yu can see a piecef histry that is really quite remarkable. At a time when many peple were still hunters and gatherers， maybe even living in caves， smething new and exciting was happening first in Egypt and Mesptamia and sn afterwards in India and China. Peple settled dwn and farmed， then built twns， then traded with eachther， and then built natins. And， smetime during all this， they figuredut that it wuld be a great thing t write-and s they wrte dwn their histry fr us t read tday.
【中文阅读】
你一定能记得你自己生活中发生过的大事。 可能你也听过你的祖父母或父母说起过他们生活中发生的那些大事--比如第二次世界大战、朝鲜战争或越南战争等等。 当然，你的祖父母完全也像你一样，有他们的父母、祖父母和曾祖父母。
可能你的曾
曾
曾
祖父母
生活在华盛顿总统时期，而他的
曾
曾
曾
曾
曾
祖父母
生活在尤里乌斯 恺撒大帝时期。 尽管这些祖先们，正如他们被称为祖先那样，很久以前就已经去世，但是久远、久远以前发生在他们那个时代的故事还是被写进了各种各样的书里，而这个故事则 是历史--一个小男孩曾命名为他的历史。
基督诞生于公元 1 年--不，当然不是世界历史的第一年。 你知道那一年到现在已经过去了多少年了吗？ 如果你知道今年是哪一年，你就能回答了。
如果基督还活着，他今年该多少岁了？ 两千年似乎是很长的时间。不过，你可能见过或听说过一个活了 100 岁的老人，对吧？
那么，两千年的时间里，只要有二十个人，每个人活了 100 岁，而且是一个接 着一个--从基督那时开始，二十个人这样一个接着一个地活到现在--而那似乎 一点也不漫长啊！
发生在"基督诞生前"的每件事都被说成"B. C."（公元前），你可能已经猜出 来了，这里的 B 和 C 是 Befre Christ 两个单词的首字母（基督诞生前），因此，"B.
C."表示的就是"基督诞生前"的意思。就这么简单。 发生在基督诞生后的每件事都被说成"A. D."。这一点不太好理解，因为，尽管A 可以表示 after( 在……之后 )，但是我们知道"D"并不是 Christ（基督）的首字母。 事 实 上，"A. D." 是 两 个 拉 丁 语 单 词 Ann Dmini 的 首 字 母 缩 写。Ann 表 示"在……年"，而 Dmini 表示"上帝的"，用通俗的平常话来说，两个单词连起来当 然表示的就是"从基督诞生开始"的意思了。
我曾告诉过你们那些我必须靠猜想才知道的事情。当我们把那些事发生的时期 说成"有历史之前"或"史前"时，两个说法意思是一样的。但是，那些被当时的 人记载下的事情--那些用不着猜测的故事--我们称为历史。我们认为可信的最 早的历史始于北非人和中东人。
早在几千年以前就有人开始写下他们自己的故事。有意思的是在世界各地、远 隔千山万水的不同民族都各自想出了自己的文字，只不过是在不同的时间罢了。古 代中东人发明了楔形文字。古埃及人则使用象形文字。几个世纪以前，印度人在用 梵语书写。远在中国、努比亚和中美洲那儿的人也发明了他们自己的文字。在地中 海、位于埃及和希腊之间有一个克里特岛，那里的人也发明了文字。
这些几千年前传下来的文字，我们现在可以读懂其中一些。但是还有一些就像 是未解之谜。看到这些文字，我们根本不知道它们是什么意思。
想想所有这些早期文明，你认为哪些文明是我们最了解的呢？是那些我们能读 懂文字的，还是读不懂的呢？哈，我敢说，你们都猜对了！哪个地方的历史记录我 们能读懂，自然就是我们最了解的了。
有四个地方的历史记录我们能读懂，它们分别是埃及、美索不达米亚、印度和 中国。我们能读懂他们的文字，所以我们能够知道这么漫长的历史中那儿人们的真 实生活。对于努比亚、中美洲和克里特的文字我们就不那么在行了，所以对于这些 地区很久、很久以前发生的事我们就所知不多了。
真正让人感兴趣的是，那些我们能读得懂历史的地区，我们究竟了解到了什么。 我们知道，这四个古代文明都是沿着河谷发展起来的。
埃及是沿着尼罗河河谷建立起来的。而美索不达米亚则是沿着两条河的河谷发 展起来的--底格里斯河和幼发拉底河。不过，你们已经知道这几条河流了。
现在，再向你们介绍两条河流。印度的早期历史起源于印度河河谷，而中国的 历史则起源于黄河流域。黄河之所以叫黄河，是因为这条河的河底堆积着大量的黄色泥沙。
尽管沿着这些河流生活的不同民族相距遥远，但是他们做了很多相同的事。如 果你思索一下，对此就不会感到太惊讶。你可能从未去过非洲、印度或中国，但是 你可以猜出来，那儿的男孩、女孩也做游戏，他们的妈妈也都负责做饭，等等。即 使在古代，世界各地的人们做的很多事都一样。
河谷是适合生存的地方，因为那儿食物丰富，也有充足的水源供动物饮用和灌 溉作物，所以，在埃及、美索不达米亚、印度和中国--男人、女人和孩子们都在 河流附近定居下来。
很快，住在一处的人越来越多，越来越密，就形成了我们今天所说的城镇。然 后，这些城镇里的人开始建造小船，接着是大船。没多久，这些船沿着河或朝上游 或朝下游航行到附近的城镇，再到更远的城镇。城镇之间开始了贸易往来，有时城镇 之间也发生争斗。
避免这些城镇之间发生争斗的最好办法之一就是让它们由一个人来统治。于是， 各地相继成立了"政府"。有时这些城镇会同意联合起来，有时则是因为一个势力强 大的人征服了邻近的城镇而将它们联为一体。不管哪种方式，都会有一个国王或皇 帝或法老掌管政府，成为我们现在所说的国家的统治者。
回顾一下这些河谷文明，你就会看到一段真正辉煌的历史。当很多人还在靠狩 猎和采集为生，甚至有的还生活在洞穴里的时候，首先在埃及，美索不达米亚，紧 接着在印度和中国，新奇而又令人振奋的事情发生了。人们先是定居下来、学会了 农耕，然后建立了城镇、彼此通商，随后建立了国家。在这个过程中，他们想到能 用文字书写是件了不起的事--所以他们就开始写下自己的历史供我们今天阅读。
公元前 3500 年
