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A Little History of the World No.2:

Humans were once hunter-gatherers, covering hundreds of miles in searching food. Suddenly we settled down into villages, towns and then cities. What made humans settle down? A great river.

Bonus fact: the Nile flooded so regularly it allowed people to create the first calendars.

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It’s the start of a brand new series!

Inspired by the classic book ‘A Little History of the World’ by E.H. Gombrich, we are taking you on a tour of world history over the last 5500 years. Every day throughout April a new chapter will be posted.

When did history start?

We start by asking when did history start? Did you know that the dinosaurs are not part of history and neither are cavemen. In fact, history didn’t start until around 3150 BCE when humans started thinking differently about their existence…

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Last edits coming together for our brand new history series launching on Tuesday next week. 

You’ll want to be following us on Instagram to enjoy it.

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Do you remember what you were doing exactly one year ago on 21st March 2013? It probably seemed like an ordinary day. Did you feel any older? Maybe you should have, because that was the day the universe aged - a lot. Scientists working on the European Space Agency’s Planck Satellite project, studying the earliest moments of the Big Bang, realised our calculation for the age of the universe was off a little. 

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"The line of demarcation between prehistoric and historical times is crossed when people cease to live only in the present, and become consciously interested both in their past and in their future. History begins with the handing down of tradition; and tradition means the carrying of the habits and lessons of the past into the future. Records of the past begin to be kept for the benefit of future generations."

— A great definition from historian E.H.Carr in What is History?

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Ok so you know about the ancient Egyptians, and the Romans and the Greeks, but how do they all fit together? Who came first and did they exist at the same time? We’ve compressed 3150 years of history into, ahem, 15 seconds to show you how the ancient world looked.

More at delve.tv 

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We’re beginning pre-production on an exciting new project on our Instagram channel.

The entire history of civilisation, in 15-second chapters. Yep, you heard right! It’s a chance to fill in the gaps in your historical knowledge, and a tribute to a wonderful history book from the 1930s. 

Fingers crossed the first one will be up in April. Make sure you’re following us over at Instagram!

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The 17 children of Queen Anne (1665-1714).

Sometimes a table is all it takes to evoke a lifetime of sadness. 

(Read more here).

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We’ve just launched a brand new website to host all of our essays in one place. You can take a look here. As well as our long essays and Instagram videos, there are also links to delve deeper into the topics we explore.

So this Tumblr is now going to become a place to discover knowledge more generally and have a conversation. We’ll share other great videos exploring new subjects and talk about our projects as they go into production. 

Thanks for following!

Adam

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All of history’s greatest figures achieved success in almost exactly the same way. But rather than celebrating this part of the creative process we ignore it.

This missing chapter in the story of success reveals the secret to doing meaningful work. But in the modern world, full of distraction, do we have what it takes to do great things?

The second in a two-part series about creativity.

Part One: Why Leonardo daVinci was no genius (and what means for the rest of us)