Mr. Kallusingh World History

Greece is located on the Balkan Peninsula

The peninsula has short mountain ranges that keep the different parts of Greece separate, leading to city-states

They did not have rivers to depend on they used the surrounding seas, Aegean Sea/ Adriatic Sea/ Ionian Sea/ Mediterranean Sea

Minoans built a large civilization on the island Crete 4000 years ago that had running water, great traders, and paintings in the palace frescoes

Mycenaeans were a violent group of people that raided the Mediterranean for food and spread the Minoan writing linear B

Hellenic Period is the time period when Greece was developing their culture, right before Alexander conquered them

Hellenistic Period was the spread of Greek culture around the world as Alexander the Great conquered the world

The Greeks called their city-state a polis, most of these city-states were very small in size and usually had less than 10,000 people

Since the Greeks did not have a lot of land suitable for farming, they would setup colonies to produce more crops

Initially city-states were run by kings that were backed by nobles because they could afford to support armies, then they nobles setup aristocracies, then tyrants emerged to stop the nobles greed, and finally popular government took over democracy

A tyrant is someone who uses absolute power brutally

These are the two largest Greek city-states Sparta having 250,000 and Athens having 315,000

Sparta was a military society that only produced warriors

Athens eventually controlled all of Greece spreading Greek culture through the world

Due to the Persian invasions Athens gained a lot of power and money, Pericles brought Athenian society to its height

Athens tried to unite Greece under their control and this lead to the Peloponnesian War in which Sparta won eventually but it left Greece in disarray

Most marriages are prearranged Women essentially had no rights People were educated to be well

rounded Art was very important as they built

lots of architecture, made many paintings, and created lots of sculptures

Greek philosophy was about educating yourself, figuring the world out like math and science

On of the earliest ways for Greeks to use writing was in History, then they began to use it in more creative ways like theatre