French Revolution 420 1800 A.D. Napoleon 428 1861 A.D. Civil War 447 1914 A.D. } 1918 A.D. } The Great War 460 A CHILD’S HISTORY OF THE WORLD BEGINS HERE 1 How Things Started Once upon a time there was a boy-- Just like me. He had to stay in bed in the morning until seven o’clock until his father and mother were ready to get up; So did I. As he was always awake long before this time, he used to lie there and think about all sorts of curious things; So did I. One thing he used to wonder was this: What would the world be like if there were-- No fathers and mothers, No uncles and aunts, No cousins or other children to play with, _No people at all, except himself_ in the whole world! Perhaps you have wondered the same thing; So did I. At last he used to get so lonely, just from thinking how dreadful such a world would be, that he could stand it no longer and would run to his mother’s room and jump into bed by her side just to get this terrible thought out of his mind; So did I--for _I was the boy_. Well, there _was_ a time long, long, long ago when there were no men or women or children, _NO PEOPLE_ of any kind in the whole world. Of course there were no houses, for there was no one to build them or to live in them, no towns or cities--nothing that people make. There were just wild animals--bears and wolves, birds and butterflies, frogs and snakes, turtles and fish. Can you think of such a world as that? Then, long, long, long before that, there was a time when there were _NO PEOPLE_ and _NO ANIMALS_ of any sort in the whole world; there were just growing plants, trees and bushes, grass and flowers. Can you think of such a world as that? Then, long, long, long, long, long, long before that, there was a time when there were _NO PEOPLE, NO ANIMALS, NO PLANTS_, in the whole world; there was just bare rock and water everywhere. Can you think of such a world as that? Then, long, long, long long, long, long--you might keep on saying-- “long, long, long,” all day, and to-morrow, and all next week, and next month, and next year, and it would not be long enough-- before this, there was a time when there was _NO WORLD AT ALL!_ There were only the Stars Nothing else! Now, real Stars are not things with points like those in the corner of a flag or the gold ones you put on a Christmas tree. The real stars in the sky have no points. They are huge burning coals of fire--coals of fire. Each star, however, is so huge that there is nothing in the world now anywhere nearly as big. One little bit, one little scrap of a star is bigger than our whole world--than our whole world.