What in the World Happened?
What in the World Happened? Perspectives on Man’s Historic Accomplishments Bob Ring July 2018 1 Contents Introduction 3 What in the World Happened? Perspectives on Man’s Historic Accomplishments 1 Art 4 2 Conquerors 8 3 Engineering Feats 15 4 Inventions 36 5 Literature 40 6 Mathematics 42 7 Medicine 45 8 Music 47 9 Philosophy 53 10 Religion 57 11 Science 60 12 Women 64 2 Introduction In 2010 I wrote a paper, “What in the World Happened? - Perspectives on the History of Man,” that reviewed the history of the world, particularly mankind’s history, with the objective of understanding what was happening in various parts of the world in different civilizations during the same time periods. I printed a few spiral-bound copies of this paper for my family and a few friends and posted an electronic version on my website, ringbrothershistory.com, to share with whoever else might be interested. I found the project to be fascinating and very educational. Eight years later, I’m following the same path with this paper, “What in the World Happened? - Perspectives on Man’s Accomplishments.” This paper builds on the foundation of “History of Man” to focus on “Man’s Accomplishments,” trying to identify the absolute best, most important, influential, and enduring of Man’s accomplishments in several categories, discussed in alphabetical order: “art,” “conquerors,” “engineering feats,” “inventions,” “literature,” “mathematics,” “medicine,” “music,” “philosophy,” “religion,” and “science,” with a special category of “women’s accomplishments”. My selection criteria for these categories included: independence, scope, and distribution over a long span of history - dominated by author (me) interest.
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