As the Greek influence was declining the Roman empire was gaining. Based in Rome, Italy they at one time controlled vast geographical areas, including for a couple of hundred years most of England. The greatest legacy of the Roman empire was, arguably, the use of Latin as the language used for intellectual and political discourse. It was only about 300 hundrd years ago that local languages began to become prevalent for these functions.

As Rome lost its influence and withdrew its armies of occupation Europe slipped into what are called the Dark Ages. The name arises from our lack of detailed information and the belief that no progress occurred during this period.

The Dark Ages gave way to the Middle Ages which are better documented. Greater political control over larger geographical areas was the key feature leading to the beginnings of the idea of nations. It was at this time that the acceptance of Greek ideas was first questioned.

Another named period is the Renaissance. Based in what is now part of southern Italy this period is best known for its artistic, in particular painting, output. What is less known is that this artistic output was a result of close interaction of technology, art, and mathematics. New painting materials were discovered. The idea of perspective, which gives a three dimension feel to two dimensional painting is use of mathematics. (The camera obscurer may have been invented and used at this time.)

From the Middle Ages onwards many wars were fought, both between nations and within nations, for a variety of reasons. Apart from dying and other inconveniences these had little impact on the majority of the population. The power and prosperity of the ruling classes both grew and diminished.

In the early part of the Middle Ages over a period of about 150 years there was a recurrent plague which killed a significant part of the population. This was caused by a form of life called viruses although they weren't even suspected to exist until the late 19th centuary. It wasn't until the mid 20th centuary that it was confirmed they exist. They cause colds, flu, and other diseses. Modern medicine has produced vaccinations for the more serious ones which enhance our natural ability to fight viruses.

During the latter part of this period, about 300 to 350 years ago, the ideas of a movement called the Enlightenment occurred. The basic idea was that we can and should think rationally only. The intent was that there was no room for superstition or emotion. The idea of the individual having inherent rights was also born by this movement.

Together, the Renaissance and Enlightenment may have been the cause of some well off people devoting their lives to investigating nature by experiment. Thus modern science was born. It was during these times that two key ideas arrived in Europe from India via Middle Eastern Arab intellectuals. The first was the symbols, and their use, that we now use for numbers. The second was the idea of zero and its symbol, 0, being used in written numbers. Together these made numbers significantly easier to understand and manipulate.

The nineteenth centuary saw science and technology rapidly progress, leading to a population both using and dependant upon manufacturing, a significant change from being largely dependant upon agriculture.

The 19th centuary doesn't appear to have been a good time for the majority of the British population. The change from mainly agricultural work to factory and city life was not an entirely smooth transition. There were some exceptions, two of whom I'll mention. Darwin, by dint of hard work, came up with the idea of evolution (which we've touched on). The age of the Earth slowly begun to be seen as older and older, although 4 and a half billion had to wait until the 20th centuary. Darwin had it relatively easy since he came from a well off family. Faraday came from a poor family, got very little schooling, and became a book binder. Somehow he developed a passion for science becoming first a lowly assistant, basically a bottle washer, for the British Association of Science(?). Through dedication, hard work, curiosity, and creativity he rose to the top. Along the way he discovered that magnetism and electricity were intimately linked together. All the power you use via electricity is the result. Not having a good education meant that he wasn't mathematically minded. Many years later James Clerk Maxwell created a set of maths equations that describe eletromagnetism as it became known. It soon became known that light, radio waves, X rays were all forms of electromagnetism.

Potential second level topics.

• Roman Empire - overview
• Dark Ages
• Middle Ages
• Renaissance
• Overview of national/international wars/politics from 1500 to now
• Arabic influences
• Enlightenment - more detailed overview
• Well remembered topics - Reformation/English civil war/French revolution/slavery/Napolean to 1850ish
• Victorian society