Timelines are useful because they can help us make sense of events in the past. Timelines are particularly useful in the study of history. Creating a history timeline will help to:
• understand the order in which events occurred • describe the time distances between events • identify what has changed over time • identify what has stayed the same over time • analyse how one event might relate to other events
• compare what might have been happening in different places at the same time • assess whether one event might have led to another event (cause and effect).
Generally, timelines are constructed using a sequence of dates with the addition of descriptive labels. The timeline may span thousands of years or cover a very short period. In print, timelines may be as simple as a horizontal or vertical line, or highly visual with use of colour and images. Using digital technology, online timelines can be interactive, whereby users click on a date to see a descriptive label, an image or hear an audio narrative or sound effects.
Source 2 A simple horizontal timeline of a speciýc historical period
Cosimo de’ Medici inherits Medici Bank
Gutenberg Bible is published
Columbus reaches the Bahamas
1429
1454
1492
Michelangelo finishes “David”
Machiavelli publishes “The Prince”
The Peace of Augsburg
First modern atlas is published
1513
1555
1570
1504
1.4.2 Showme How to create a timeline Timelines can cover very short or very long periods of time. They have the following features and requirements: • They can focus on just a few months or years. • They can focus on big, sweeping changes over thousands of years. • In most cases, they are divided up into equal blocks of time, such as decades or centuries. • This is not essential, but it helps us to see not only the order of events but also how close or how far apart they were. • A break in the timeline (shown using a zigzag line, for instance) can show a long span of time between one date and the next. • To make equal blocks of time, you need to use a scale — for example, 1 centimetre = 10 years. • Timelines can be horizontal (across the page), with the earliest dates on the left and latest dates to the right.
Jacaranda Humanities Alive 8 Victorian Curriculum Third Edition
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