Heloise and Abelard The story of Peter Abelard and his wife Heloise is one of the saddest love stories of Western history. Abelard, who was born in 1079 AD, came to Paris as a young man and taught classes at the new Christian church school there. (This was just a few years after the Norman Conquest). Abelard [...]
History of schools: Scribes writing (New Kingdom Egypt) The history of schools From the Stone Age to the end of the Middle Ages, most children never went to school at all. They stayed home until they were able to work, maybe five to ten years old, and then they worked, at home or [...]
Medieval university With the fall of Rome, the universities of northern Europe closed too. The end of Mediterranean trade meant that nobody could afford to get an advanced education anymore. In Europe, there were only small schools run by the Catholic church. Or independent scholars gave public lectures and tutored private students. Or there [...]
Shirij Madrasa, Fez, Morocco, about 1350 AD If you had done well at your maktab (elementary school), your parents might decide to send you on to a madrassa (high school and college) when you were about fourteen years old. That's the same age as most kids today when they start high school. (But Ibn Khaldun and [...]
Takht-i Bahi, a Buddhist monastery in eastern Pakistan (about 50 AD) While Gautama Buddha was still alive, about 500 BC, some men and women in India who were following his teachings decided to try to live as pure and as good a life as they could. They left their work and their families and all their stuff to live alone or in small [...]
Buddhism in India - Buddha Reincarnation and the wheel In the 500s BC, during the later part of the Vedic period in India, the idea of reincarnation became very strong among Hindus. Most people believed that after you died, you would be reborn in another form, and then reborn again, and again, forever. But then people started [...]
Coin of Samudragupta In 319 AD, King Chandragupta I managed to unite all of northern India into a great empire again. (He was not related to the Mauryan Chandragupta, but he wanted people to think he was). Chandragupta I even conquered some of South India. People called him "King of Kings", like the Iranian emperors further north. [...]
Scribes writing (New Kingdom Egypt) Not very many kids in ancient Egypt went to school, and even fewer kids got to go to college when they grew up. In the time of the Pharaohs, there wasn't any university in Egypt (or anywhere else in the world). Advanced students worked with professional scribes, learning [...]
Han Dynasty dancer (a clay figurine). Her long sleeves are part of the dance, and also show that she doesn't have to do any practical work. Gaozu starts the Han Dynasty When Gaozu (who was also called Liu Pang) started the Han Dynasty in 202 BC, he didn't really change that much from the [...]
After the collapse of the Mongol Empire in the end of the Middle Ages, scientists and doctors had to find homes in the courts of the smaller kingdoms that succeeded the Mongols. Soon after 1700, Peter the Great started the first universities in Russia. Some students studied in Europe, and brought back new European ideas [...]
