History (World)

Epic resources

EPIC is a collection of reliable resources covering lots of different topics. It’s put together especially for New Zealand school students and helps to answer questions like this. To access EPIC, you may need a password from your school.

Britannica School

This is an online version of Encyclopedia Britannica and covers many history topics.

Use these steps to search for a topic.

• Choose Middle as your level.
• Enter your keyword into the search bar.
• To get more or less information change the Article Reading Level at the top of the article.

Use these steps to browse for a topic.

• Choose Middle as your level.
• Find the heading Explore Britannica and select Articles.
• Next select History.
• Browse through the articles or narrow the results by selecting different topics on the left-hand side.
• Choose an article eg history.

Tips: Search words, or keywords, are the most important words in our question. Usually it’s better to leave out small words like ‘the’, ‘a’ and ‘of’ and just choose the main ones, eg history. We can always change our keywords or add more if we need to.

Middle School (Gale in Context)

This is a general information resource that includes topics about world history. To find information:

• use the search box to enter your keyword
• or scroll down the page to Browse Topics and select World History,
• then choose a topic.

Tips: To get to the EPIC resources you will need a password from your school librarian first. Or you can chat with one of our AnyQuestions librarians between 1 and 6pm Monday to Friday and they will help you online. Some EPIC databases may also be available through your public library.

World History in Context

World History in context offers you information about 5,000 years of world history, from ancient times right up to modern history.

• Use the search box to enter your keyword.
• To browse information about people, places, and subjects select Browse Topics.
• Get less results by choosing a category from the Topics drop down menu.
• Select a topic eg Age of Exploration.

Tips: To get to the EPIC resources you will need a password from your school librarian first. Or you can chat with one of our AnyQuestions librarians between 1 and 6pm Monday to Friday and they will help you online. Some EPIC databases may also be available through your public library.

General Websites

Here is a collection of websites where you can find information about all aspects of world history.

Khan Academy

Khan Academy is a free to use site filled with information and educational videos on a range of topics in science, math, history, computers and more.

• At the top of the page, select Courses.
• Under the heading Arts & humanities choose World history.
• Scroll through different time periods to select a lesson eg Classical Greece.

Topic Explorer (National Library)

Topic Explorer is an online tool from the National Library of New Zealand. It contains a wide range of quality resources for students in a range of formats, (eg articles, books, images, videos, primary sources, sets, websites) on a variety of topics. These resources have been selected from reliable national and international sources.

• Select topics such as Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Slavery, Vikings, and more.

Tips: We like sites like this because they’re reliable. You can tell because of their web address – they have either .govt or .ac, meaning they are from government or educational organisations. They’re also New Zealand sites, so relevant for us.

Ancient History Encyclopedia

If you are interested in the history of ancient cultures, have a look at the Ancient History Encyclopedia. On this website you can find timelines, articles, videos and more. To find information:

• search with keywords in the search box at the top of the page,
• or select Maps to choose the part of the world you want to find out about.

Tips: Some websites have .au, .nz, .uk or other codes in their url. This can tell you which country this website comes from eg .nz is from New Zealand or .eu is from the European Union. You can check the ‘About Us’ link at the bottom of the website for more information about the company's mission and values.

Books

Here are some books with general information about world history. Talk to your local library to see what other books they have.

Absolutely everything! : a history of Earth, dinosaurs, rulers, robots and other things too numerous to mentionby Christopher Lloyd.

History year by year by Peter Chrisp, Joe Fullman, Susan Kennedy, and Philip Parker.

The history book edited by R G Grant.

Timelines of World History by Jane Chisholm.

SCIS no: 1960270