The Much-Requested Timeline Song

I keep getting emails requesting our timeline song, which I promised awhile back that I would post. Here it is at long last! I explained in one of my earlier history posts that I teach my children a literal, six-day creation. This worldview influences the timeline of history because interpreting history and archaeology using biblical presuppositions rather than secular presuppositions affects the dates for various ancient empires, such as Egypt. Therefore, I haven’t been able to use any of the timeline songs that I’ve found, like Veritas or Classical Conversations, because the dates don’t line up with the Answers in Genesis/Ussher young earth timeline. Also, those timeline songs didn’t include several of the events or the dates that I wanted my children to learn. So…I made up my own song with everything in the right order and including all the things I deemed important for my kids based on a mixture of Veritas and Classical Conversations (CC), but also including a few additional things I felt were too important to leave out.

Here is some more of why and how I came up with my timeline song:

• I wanted to include more specific dates than the CC song includes (such as 586 BC and 44 BC and 1066, etc.). I think a timeline needs to include more than just events in order with dates for eras. There are certains dates that kids should know, in my opinion.
• There were some things included in the CC timeline, especially, that I didn’t feel were important for my kids to know, so I pulled those events or people out. For instance, I didn’t feel like it was important to include “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World” as a timeline event. We can learn what those were separately and even when they were each built, but especially as the seven wonders were built over a span of 2000 years, that doesn’t seem like a great thing to include in a timeline.
• There were other things in the Veritas timeline, especially, that seemed redundant as memory pegs. For instance, the Veritas cards begin with Creation (card 1), The Fall in the Garden (card 2), and Cain and Abel (card 3). Those are all very important events and people, but my kids are well aware that all those events and people were at the beginning of Genesis, so we don’t need three cards for that.
• I kept in mind that Veritas uses the cards as the core of their curriculum. This means that there are some cards included about which the information is important to learn in history studies, but I didn’t deem it necessary to include in a timeline that will serve as a reference point in my kids’ memories–for instance, Great Generals of the War Between the States, which has, of course, the same dates as the Civil War, or Cowboys and the West. Things like that. Except for the periods of the arts, I tried to stick to important events and people rather than eras or more general things in the song I put together for my kids. (Actually, it’s for all of us. Scott has even said that he wants to learn it too!)
• There was no way I could include everything on both these sets of cards, but they both had separate events or people that I felt were important and needed to be included. They both emphasize different things, and they both leave out some important things that the other covers. That’s why I pick and choose and mix them together.
• I did extensive research, especially on Answers in Genesis and in other young earth books to make sure I was placing these dates correctly. Some other timelines that helped me tremendously were The Big Book of History timeline book and The Seven C’s of History Timeline Poster.

Sing the whole song to the tune of Ten Little Indians (It’s not perfect, but you can make it work. I’m hoping to get a chance to get together with Scott and make a video of the song with motions. Until then, though, hopefully this will give you the general idea.) Here’s a short clip of our kids from last year when they were just beginning to learn the song to give you some sense of how it goes:

ANCIENT TIMES:

Creation and the Fall, 4004 B.C.,
Flood, Tower of Babel, Mesopotamia and Sumer,
Founding of Egypt and the Old Kingdom
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

Hittites and Canaanites, Kush and Assyria,
Minoans and Mycenaeans, Babylonians and Hammurabi,
Joseph in Egypt and the Twelve Tribes,
They lived there ‘til the Middle Kingdom

Moses, the Exodus and Desert Wandering,
Conquest and Judges, Hyksos Invasion,
Olmecs living in Mesoamerica,
Next comes 1200 B.C.

Indus River Valley Civilization,
Phoenicians and the Alphabet, China’s Shang Dynasty,
Trojan War and the Greek Dark Ages,
Israel’s United Kingdom

New Kingdom in Egypt, Early Native Americans,
Israel Divides, Amenhotep worships one god,
Reign of King Tut, poets Homer and Hesiod,
Romulus and Remus found Rome

Israel Falls to Assyria, Assyria Falls to Babylon,
Confucius in China, Buddha in India,
Judah Falls to Babylon, Temple Destroyed,
586 B.C.

Babylon Falls to Cyrus of Persia,
Jews Return and Rebuild the Temple,
Roman Republic, Golden Age of Greece,
Peloponnesian Wars

Alexander the Great, India’s Mauryan Empire,
Mayans of Mesoamerica, Punic Wars and Hannibal,
Rome Conquers Greece, then comes Julius Caesar,
Killed in 44 B.C.

Egypt Falls to Rome, then comes Caesar Augustus,
He brings Pax Romana circa 27 B.C.
John the Baptist born in 5 B.C.
Then comes the Birth of Christ.

MIDDLE AGES, RENAISSANCE, AND REFORMATION:

Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension,
Pentecost and Early Church, Nero Persecutes the Christians,
Jerusalem destroyed in 70 A.D.
Mount Vesuvius erupts in Pompeii

Diocletian divides the Roman empire
Constantine issues the Edict of Milan
which legalizes Christianity in 313
Then comes the Council of Nicea

India and the Gupta Dynasty
Augustine Converts, Barbarians and Vikings invade Europe,
Jerome Completes the Vulgate, Then comes the Middle Ages
450 to 1500

Council of Chalcedon 451,
End of Western Roman Empire 476,
Bendict the Monk, Justinian the Great,
Mohammed, founder of Islam

Franks defeat the Muslims at the Battle of Tours,
Charles Martel, Pepin the Short, and Charlemagne,
Alfred the Great is the king of England,
Erik the Red and Leif Ericson

Otto the First and the Holy Roman Empire,
East-West Schism in 1054,
Feudal System of the Middle Ages,
Kings, Vassals, Knights, Freemen, Serfs

William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings
brings the Normans into England in 1066,
Then the eight Crusades to reclaim Jerusalem,
and Aztecs live in Mesoamerica

Francis of Assisi lives in poverty,
King John signs the Magna Carta 1215
Thomas Aquinas, Japan and the Shoguns,
Incas of South America

Ghengis Khan rules the Mongols,
Marco Polo travels to China,
Next comes the Renaissance circa 1300
to 1517

Hundred Years War and the Black Death
China’s Ming Dynasty, Great Papal Schism,
John Wycliffe and John Huss
earliest Reformers

Constantinople falls to the Ottoman Turks,
Gutenberg’s printing press, Prince Henry the Navigator,
Ferdinand and Isabella’s Spanish Inquisition,
Czar Ivan the Great of Russia

In 1492 Columbus sails the ocean blue,
In 1517 Martin Luther posts the Theses,
Spanish Explorers and Spanish Conquest
in Central and South America

Magellan circumnavigates the earth,
Ulrich Zwingli and the Anabaptists,
Act of Supremacy, King Henry the Eighth,
John Calvin’s Institutes

Explorers of the Northeast, Newfoundland and Canada
Council of Trent says man is saved by faith and works,
John Knox, the Scottish Reformer,
Bloody Mary in England

EXPLORATION AND EARLY AMERICA:

Baroque period of the arts,
Japan’s isolation, Raleigh settles Roanoke,
Elizabeth the First dies in 1603,
Jamestown founded 1607

Shakespeare dies in 1616
Mayflower lands at Plymouth 1620
Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Puritans
Roger Williams Founds Rhode Island

Age of Enlightenment begins in 1650,
Thirteen Colonies Formed, then the First Great Awakening,
Classical period of the arts,
French and Indian Wars

First Continental Congress seeks peace,
War for Independence and the Declaration
on July 4th, 1776
Treaty of Paris 1783

Constitutional Convention,
Founding Fathers: Franklin, Jefferson, Madison,
Washington, first President, 1789
French Revolution begins

Second Great Awakening, Louisiana Purchase,
Lewis and Clark and their expedition,
Napoleon crowned emperor, War of 1812,
Missouri Compromise

MODERN AGE:

Romantic Period of the arts,
Monroe Doctrine, Erie Canal,
Cotton Gin, then the Industrial Revolution
begins the 1830s

Cherokee Trail of Tears, Remember the Alamo,
Westward Expansion, War with Mexico,
Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto,
‘49ers and the Gold Rush

Queen Victoria rules the British Empire
Darwin’s Origin of the Species
Lincoln and the Civil War 1861,
Transcontinental Railroad

Franco-Prussian War, Bismarck unifies Germany,
Battle of Little Big Horn, Boer Wars in Africa,
American Age of Industry and Spanish American War,
Next Comes 1900

Age of Immigration to America,
Wright Brothers, Model T, Mexican Revolution,
World War I, 1914 to 18,
Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution

Modern Period of the Arts,
Roaring Twenties, then the Great Depression,
World War II, 1939
to 1945

The Cold War with the USSR,
Jewish State Established in 1948,
Mao and the Communist Victory in China,
Korean War 1950

Civil Rights, Space Race, Vietnam,
in the 1960s to 1970s,
Fall of Communism in Eastern Europe,
Attack on 9-11-2001

Until I get the video done, there’s really no practical way to explain our motions to you. (I really will try to get a video up in August!) However, here is a pdf from a CC mom from whom I borrowed a whole bunch of our motions. For the rest, I just got creative and tried to come up with something that would either make the event memorable or that would depict something important about the event.