Session 11 - In Search of Shangri La

The darker the age, the more desperate we are for illumination. This is certainly true of the tale of Shangri-La, which differs from other myths in that it's a largely modern story. In 1933, British novelist James Hilton published Lost Horizon, which became an instant hit with the public. It follows the fortunes of a group of Western travellers whose aeroplane crashes in the remote, unexplored part of the Himalayas that we now know as Tibet. The group find themselves in an earthly paradise, where materialism, modern cynicism - and the threat of war - are unknown. Despite its modernity as a popular myth, the notion of an earthly paradise beyond the Himalayas had been known to Western scholars for centuries.

Wikipedia - Shangri La
BBC History - Shangri La
Wikipedia - Shambhala
Wikipedia - Antonio de Andrade
Wikipedia - History of Tibet

Session 10 - In Search of the Queen of Sheba

The story of the Queen of Sheba appears in religious texts sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Described in the Bible as simply a Queen of the East, modern scholars believe she came from the Kingdom of Axum in Ethiopia, the Kingdom of Saba in Yemen, or both. Their main clue is that she brought bales of incense with her as a gift; frankincense only grows in these two areas. Both countries claim her as theirs. Given that they are separated by only 25 kilometers of water, both could be right.

National Geographic - Mysterious Queen of Sheba legend
The Guardian.com - Archaeologists and the quest for Sheba goldmines
Wikipedia.- Queen of Sheba

The Incredible Human Journey - The Americas - Session 9

 We investigate how humans may have reached North and South America, looking at routes across the Canadian ice sheet and from Australia across the Pacific.

Early Settlement of the Americas - Wikipedia
When and how did the first humans arrive in America - National Geographic
The first people who populated the Americas - The BBC
Prehistoric migrations to the Americas - New York Times

The Incredible Human Journey - Europe - Session 8

In Europe, we investigate how our species coped with the rival Neanderthals and the Ice Age.

australian Museum.- Homo Neanderthalensis
Nature.com - Oldest homo sapiens fossil claim
European early modern humans - Wikipedia
Thoughtco.com - We dont call them cro-magnon anymore
Cave Painting - Wikipedia

The Incredible Human Journey - Asia - Session 7

We discover how humans journeyed to Asia and survived in the the Arctic regions of Northern Siberia and their arrival in China.

New evidence about the human occupation of asia
Australian Museum.- Human evolution - The first-migrations out of Africa
The Out of Asia theory - Wikipedia
Rewriting of human origins ongoing in East Asia
The Atlantic - Early Humans left Africa 250000 years earlier than thought
The Smithonian - Earliest-humans in China

The Incredible Human Journey - Out of Africa - Session 6

We discover the incredible story of how humans left Africa to colonise the world - overcoming hostile terrain, extreme weather and other species of human. She pieces together precious fragments of bone, stone and new DNA evidence and discovers how this journey changed these African ancestors into the people of today.

List of first human settlements - Wikipedia
Early expansions of_hominins out of Africa - Wikipedia
Middle Paleolithic People -Wikipedia
The Guardian.com - Oldest homo sapiens bones ever found 2007
The Atlantic - Early Humans Left Africa 250000 years earlier than thought
Ssmithsonian magazine - Earliest humans remains outside africa-
Newsweek.com/Clues that ancient migration route out of africa discovered near Red Sea
The Conversation - Out of- Africa - Modern humans left the home continent in at least two waves

The Incredible Human Journey - How we got to Australia Session 5

Here we discover how humans left Afirca to colonise the world and our ancestors' seemingly impossible to Australia

Human Evolution - Wikipedia

Homo-Floresiensis - making sense of the small-Bodied Hominin Fossils from Flores

Australian Museum - .homo-floresiensis

Hunter Gatherer 

Shangri La - Wikipedia

Upper Yarra U3A Adventures in History: Aboriginal Settlement of the Asutralian Continent Session 4

9,000 years ago people in Australia were learning to manipulate available plants and animals to increase food resources. They transformed an entire continent into a fully sustainable estate, until outsiders arrived.

History of Agriculture - Wikipedia
Birth of agriculture - a neolithic revolution
An-early heartland of agriculture is found in New Guinea
Torres Strait Islands
History of Australia - Wikipedia

Upper Yarra U3A Adventures in History: Aboriginal Settlement of the Asutralian Continent Session 3

From eighteen thousand years ago, melting polar ice caps began drowning 25% of Greater Australia. And we met Narrabeen Man, found under a bus stop on Sydney's Northern Beaches.

The ice age struck indigenous Australians hard
Australia: The Land Where Time Began
Australian Megafauna - WikipediaAboriginal Australians co-existed with the megafauna for at least 17,000 years

Upper Yarra U3A Adventures in History: Aboriginal Settlement of the Asutralian Continent Session 2

For thousands of years people lived with Australia's strange and ferocious mega fauna but all beasts went extinct during the last ice age. Temperatures were 6 degrees colder; it was dry and windy and lasted over 10,000 years.

Australian Megafauna - Wikipedia
Aboriginal Australians co-existed with Megafauna for at least 17,000 years
The Age of the Megafauna - The ABC
Ice age struck indigenous australians hard
It's Liife Jim, But Not As We Know It

All in The Mind - Songlines (Iindigenous Memory Code) - The ABC

How ancient aboriginal star maps have shaped Australias highway network

Prehistoric Koonalda Cave

Upper Yarra U3A Adventures in History: Aboriginal Settlement of the Asutralian Continent - Session 1 - The First Arrival.

The story of how people arrived and thrived on our continent. With startling new archaeological discoveries revealing how the first Australians adapted, migrated, fought and created in dramatically changing environments.

History of Indigenous Australians - Wikipedia
Recent African Origin of Modern Humans - Wikipedia
Griffith University - Rock Art
The Spread-of People to Australia/
Moyjil Point Ritchie
Archaeology Places Humans In Australia 120000 Years Ago

Upper Yarra U3A Adventures in History: The Mongols

Now that we have completed the story of China, I thought we might look at the Mongol empire.  Here are some links to some interesting reading.

The Mongol Empire - Wkipedia
Genghis Khan - Wikipedia
Kublai Khan - Wikipedia

Upper Yarra U3A Adventures in History: The China Story - Session 6

The Age of Revolution

This last session tells the tale of the great Taiping Rebellion in which 20 million died, and the fall of the Empire in 1911. We visit Hong Kong's Peninsula Hotel, jewel of the Jazz age, and follows Mao on the Long March to Yan'an, the base of the communist revolution. We meet a survivor of the Japanese massacre of Nanjing, describes the communist victory, and ends with Mao's death and the boom time of the last thirty years. The series ends as it began at home with the warmth of the Chinese family.

The Qing dynasty - Wikipedia
Hong Xiuquan - Wikipedia
Taiping Rebellion - Wikipedia
the Boxer Rebellion - Wikipedia
Pu Yi -Last emperor of China - Wikipedia
Sun Yat Sen - Wikipedia
Republic of China (1912 to 1949) - Wikipedia
The Shandong Problem - Wikipedia
The May Fourth Movement - Wikipedia
Chiang Kai Shek - Wikipedia
Mao Zedong - Wikipedia

Timeline of Chinese History

Upper Yarra U3A Adventures in History: The China Story - Session 5

We explore the dramatic tale of China's last empire, the Qing. In the 18th century China was the biggest economy in the world, and with that prosperity came a fabulously rich culture. From China's favourite novel, to opera and storytelling houses, and all-women's mosques, it's an age full of surprises. But then came the fateful clash with the British in the First Opium War, the beginning of the end of the empire.

The Qing dynasty - Wikipedia
(Brief) History of European - Asian trade
The Spice Trade - Wikipedia
Western Imperialism in Asia - Wikipedia
The Opium Wars - Wikipedia
The Treaty Ports - Wikipedia
The Macartney Embassy - Wikipedia

Upper Yarra U3A Adventures in History: The China Story - Session 4

The Ming

The Ming Dynasty was the time of the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, when China sent treasure ships on ocean voyages to Africa and the Persian Gulf. In Nanjing we see the building of a huge replica of a Ming ocean-going junk. In Suzhou the 'Venice of China', we explores the silk industry, ceramics and lacquer-making, and visits one of China's most beautiful gardens. Then in Macao, the arrival of Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci begins China's fateful modern exchanges with the West.

The Ming dynasty - Wikipedia
The Mongol Empire - Wikipedia
Grand Canal (China) Wikipedia
Chinese Exploration - Wikipedia
Zheng He - Wikipedia
Europeans in Medieval China - Wkipedia
Why didn't China discover Australia
Marco Polo Wikipedia
Matteo Ricci in China - Wikipedia

Upper Yarra U3A Adventures in History: The China Story - Session 3

The Golden Age

We look at the story of China's Renaissance, which happened long before the one in Europe. In the alleys of Kaifeng, the world's greatest city
before the 19th century, he hears legends, samples the cuisine and explores printing. We see a huge working replica of an astronomical clock made by 'China's Leonardo da Vinci', one of the inventions that made the Song a great era of science. And at a crunch Chinese Premier League match, we learn that the Chinese even invented soccer!
Song dynasty - Wkipedia
China -birthplace of football
Li Qingzhao - Poet
Jingkang incident - Wikipedia
Romance of the Three Kingdoms - Novel
Su Song - Inventor of an Astronomical Clock

Upper Yarra U3A Adventures in History: The China Story - Session 2

Silk Roads and China Ships

In a tale of fantastic geographical sweep, we conjure up China's first great international age, the Tang Dynasty. From picturesque old cities on the Yellow River he travels to the bazaars of the Silk Road in Central Asia, and on to India in the footsteps of the Chinese monk who brought Buddhist texts to China.We uncover the coming of Christianity, sails the Grand Canal, and tracks the spread of Chinese culture across East Asia, an influence 'as profound as Rome on the Latin West'.


Tang dynasty - Wikipedia
Silk Road
Chinese Buddhism - Wikipedia

Upper Yarra U3A Adventures in History: The China Story - Session 1

Travelling from the Silk Road to the Yellow Sea, we explore the history of the world's newest superpower. A thrilling and moving epic of the world's oldest continuous state with the landscapes, peoples, and stories that made today's China.

Ancestors

We go back to the beginnings of Chinese history to find clues to today's China. Starting with a family reunion, when 300 relatives gather to worship their ancestors on 'Tomb Sweeping Day,' We explore ancient myths and archaeological sites to uncover the origins of the Chinese state; he examines the first Chinese writing, and tells the dramatic tale of the bloodthirsty First Emperor, before an amazing climax with a million pilgrims at a festival on the Yellow River.

History of China - Wikipedia
Timeline and History Overview
Confucius - Wikipedia
Han dynasty - Wikipedia
Shang dynasty - Wikipedia
Qin dynasty - Wikipedia
Xia dynasty - Wikipedia
Zhou dynasty - Wikipedia