Long Ago and Today
Lesson 2 of 4 5 min +30 XP

How We Know: Clues & Timelines

Being a history detective.

What you'll learn

  • Name a source about the past
  • Order events on a timeline
  • Explain a clue
The detective of old things

Find an old ticket stub in a drawer and you can guess when and where someone went. Historians are detectives like that — using clues (letters, tools, photos) and lining events up on a timeline to figure out what happened long ago.

Clues from the past

How do we know about long ago? We use clues: old photos, letters, objects, and stories from people who were there. A timeline puts events in order from earliest to latest, so we can see what happened first.

born → started school → today   (earliest ➜ latest)
Lab · Make a tiny timeline
  1. Think of when you were born.
  2. Think of when you started school.
  3. Put them in order with today.

What you should see: Born comes first, then school, then today — that's a timeline, earliest to latest.

Knowledge Check

+10 XP / correct

1. Which is a clue that tells us about the past?

2. A timeline puts events in order from…