Road Trip Through History

Task:

Your job over the next few weeks is to design a vacation that will actually allow you to see the settings of those interesting historical facts.  You will be connecting history to the ultimate experience, a two-week dream vacation.  Your vacation plan must be very strategically designed; you must visit locales that are somehow related.  For example, maybe your first stop will be the lands of ancient Mesopotamia where the first irrigation systems were developed to help grow crops.  The destination that follows may then be Rome where slaves did much of the agricultural work, while those of higher social standing formed the Roman republic.  From there you may travel to another “republic” where some other significant event, innovation, idea, or change occurred. 

The most important connection, however, is YOU.  You will pick nine related historical events, the ninth of which must somehow lead you home to Illinois in 2007.  The site of the tenth event will be your house, your favorite restaurant, the movie theater you go to—wherever you are making history every day!

You will use a map of the world as your guide, along with encyclopedias, the internet, and maybe even your textbook.  Your final product will be a map-based itinerary of the ten “must see” places in the history of the western world.  Don’t worry; you have an unlimited budget, but only 14 days to complete this once-in-a-lifetime voyage.

For each “must see” historical site, you must provide all of the following information:

• Name of the town or city and country (both modern and historic, if applicable) you are visiting
• Explanation of why it is a “must see” (at least TWO well-written and edited paragraphs)
  • What major historical event occurred in this place?
  • When did the historical event occur?
  • Why do you need to visit this site at this point in your trip?
• An image (photograph, sketch, or painting) related to the site