Hi there.

Thanks for joining me today for a history lesson.

My name is Ms. Roberts.

I'm very excited because today we are going to be exploring all about ancient Greece.

This lesson is the first lesson in a unit about one very important ancient Greek person, and his name was Alexander the Great.

We are thinking about why he's called Alexander the Great.

Today's lesson is actually setting some historical background to help us to better understand Alexander the Great.

The historical background that we are exploring is the Persian Empire.

The Persians were another ancient group of people that were living around the same time as the ancient Greeks.

Today we'll find out some more about them, and by the end of this lesson today, you will be able to explain how the Persian Empire became so powerful.

So to begin the lesson today, I would like to show you some key words first.

These are important historical words that you may not have seen before, but you will be using them a lot in this lesson.

Listen carefully whilst I say each of the new words, and then you can try to repeat them.

The first word is Mesopotamia.

Can you say Mesopotamia? Good job.

Mesopotamia is the name of a place.

We'll find out more about that in a minute.

Sumer, can you say Sumer? Good job.

Sumer were another race of people, another ancient civilization.

You've heard the next key word already that's Persian empire.

Can you say Persian empire? Good job.

Our next key word is territory.

Can you say territory? Lovely.

And our final key word for today is another place name.

This place is the Indus Valley.

Can you say Indus Valley? Marvellous.

I'm going to give you a definition for each of these words now and then I will highlight the words when we come to again in the lesson.

So our first word is a place called Mesopotamia.

Now the word Mesopotamia actually means in between two rivers.

Mesopotamia is the name given to a large area of land between two important rivers called the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.

Our next key word was Sumer.

Now, the Sumer civilization are actually the earliest known ancient civilization, and that civilization existed in the southern part of the region called Mesopotamia.

Our next key words that you've heard several times now is the focus of this lesson, and this is the Persian Empire.

The Persians were another civilization, and they were rivals of the ancient Greeks.

They were located to the east of ancient Greece, and all of the lands that they ruled over was their empire, the Persian Empire.

Our next key word is territory and territories are areas of land that are ruled over by a country, but are not located within that country.

They are not part of the mainland.

They are sometimes very, very far away actually from the country that rules them.

Our last key word was another name of a place, the Indus Valley.

The Indus Valley is the area that surrounds the river Indus.

The river Indus is a very big and powerful river, and it flows today through the countries of India and Pakistan.

So let's get started on the lesson today.

Today there are two parts to the lesson.

We're going to start at the beginning by thinking about how and where the Persian empire began.

Later in the lesson, we will be looking at how the Persian empire grew over time.

Let's begin in the ancient place called Mesopotamia.

Ancient Mesopotamia was a region in the west of Asia.

Ancient Mesopotamia included all of the lands where the Sumer civilization had once lived.

The region that was known in ancient times as Mesopotamia, today, covers the modern day countries of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Kuwait.

So it's a very large area.

You can see ancient Mesopotamia in this map, and you can see the two powerful rivers running through the middle, the Euphrates River and the Tigris River.

The Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers flowed through Mesopotamia, which meant that the lands in ancient Mesopotamia were very highly valued.

So lots of ancient people wanted to take control of them.

They were very sought after.

This was mainly because the land surrounding a river is very fertile, that means it's very good for farming.

In this case, another important factor was the city called Babylon.

Now, Babylon is also marked on the map.

Can you see Babylon? Babylon was a very important city because so much trade happened there.

Boats that would travel up and down the River Euphrates would stop at Babylon to exchange their goods.

So because of the fertile land for farming and because of the trade in Babylon, many, many different civilizations had fought for years to try and gain control of Mesopotamia.

One of the ancient civilizations that really wanted control of this area was called the Persian Achaemenids.

Now we'll call them Persians from here on.

So don't worry about having to say very long or difficult words.

The Persians did eventually succeed in conquering Babylon.

They also conquered the Kingdom of Medes, and this all happened in around 539 BC.

When this happened, it marked the very beginning of the Persian Empire.

It was how the Persian Empire began.

The Persian Empire at that time was ruled over by a king called King Cyrus II.

You can see on the map, the green shaded area is all of the land that the Persians took control of after they succeeded in conquering Babylon and the Kingdom of Medes.

Let's have a brief stop there to check our understanding so far.

I'm going to give you the names of some locations, places that you have just heard about.

I would like you to talk to a learning partner to describe each location.

Mesopotamia, the Tigris, Babylon, and the Euphrates.

You can pause the video now while you complete the activity.

Finished? Great job.

Here's some examples that you may have said.

Mesopotamia was a region or a place in Western Asia.

The Tigris was a river in Mesopotamia, and Babylon was a city that was conquered by the Persians.

Finally, the Euphrates was also a river in Mesopotamia, you might have said that the Euphrates was the river where Babylon was located, or you may have said that Babylon was a city on the Euphrates River.

You might have said that Mesopotamia was a large region of Asia that contained the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

There are so many things we can say about these important historical places.

Let's continue our journey now and find out some more about how the Persian Empire began.

Look at the photograph.

The photograph shows a picture of the King of Persia at the time of the beginning of the Persian Empire.

It was this king that ruled over Persia when they conquered Babylon and the Kingdom of Medes.

This is King Cyrus ii.

King Cyrus had a son called Cambyses.

Now, Cambyses was going to become king of Persia in the future, and he learned much from his father.

Cambyses wanted the Persian Empire to grow even bigger than the lands that his father had conquered.

So in about 525 BCE, Cambyses took his army on a mission to conquer even more territory in the west.

Cambyses led his Persian army into ancient Egypt.

There they took control of the country and all of the people.

Even the great Egyptian pharaohs who ruled over ancient Egypt, had to obey the fierce Persians.

When he had conquered Egypt, Cambyses decided to crown himself the Pharaoh of Egypt.

Take another look now at the map of the Persian Empire, it has grown.

The area shaded in green still belongs to the Persian Empire, and now the areas in blue have been added.

The Persian Empire is growing and expanding.

Let's use this map to have a quick check on our understanding so far about the growth of the great Persian Empire.

What does the map tell us about how the Persian Empire grew? Talk to a learning partner and explain your thinking.

Challenge yourself to try to use some dates and some of our lesson keywords if you can.

Pause the video now while you complete the activity.

All done? Great.

Let's have a look at an example together.

Your answer may have sounded like this.

The map shows that the Persian Empire began by conquering Babylon and the Kingdom of Medes in 539 BCE.

Then the Empire added more territory by conquering Egypt in 525 BCE and I have highlighted the dates and the keywords there for you in purple.

Well done.

I think we can try an activity now about the Persian Empire.

So here we have some events that happened during the growth of the Persian Empire.

What I want you to do is to put the events in the correct order, and I have already identified the first event for you.

The first event is that the Persian Achaemenids wanted to conquer ancient Mesopotamia.

What happened next? Pause the video now whilst you read the remaining events and put them in the correct order.

Have you figured out the order? Well done.

Let's take a look at some answers together and you can double check your choices.

So the first event we know is that the Persian Achaemenids wanted to conquer ancient Mesopotamia.

Then King Cyrus II conquered Babylon and the Kingdom of Medes.

Thirdly, the Persian Empire ruled all the lands that were once part of Sumer.

Number four was that king Cambyses wanted to conquer new territory in the West and then finally, ancient Egypt was conquered by his army.

Did you get those in the correct order? Well done.

So we can see already that the Persian Empire is slowly and strategically expanding bigger and bigger.

Let's find out what happened next by moving into the second half of our lesson and looking some more at how the Persian Empire grew.

Take a look at this picture.

This picture shows another important Persian king.

This king ruled Persia much later than Cyrus and Cambyses did.

This is King Darius III of Persia, and he ruled the Persian Empire in around 490 BCE.

The carving is what we believe he may have looked like.

King Darius was just as hungry as kings before him had been to expand the great Persian Empire even further.

So Darius began by looking to the east of the Persian Empire.

He wondered what lands in the east he might be able to conquer next.

The Indus Valley was a place that was located to the east of the Persian Empire.

This new map shows you the area of the Indus Valley.

I've circled it for you.

Within the Indus Valley is the Great River Indus that we mentioned earlier.

So this land in the east, in the Indus Valley became part of the Persian Empire.

This was a very important and strategic place that Darius had conquered.

Look at the map.

You can see that the Persian Empire at this point now has control of four very important rivers.

They already had control of the Tigris and the Euphrates.

Then they gained control of the Nile when they conquered Egypt, and now they have control of the river Indus having conquered the Indus Valley.

These rivers were very, very helpful for strengthening and expanding the Persian Empire even further than it had ever expanded before.

The rivers helped the Persian empire to grow because they provided a lot of fertile lands that was very good for farming.

Rivers allowed for trading opportunities and rivers provided a transportation method because people could travel up and down the rivers easily on boats instead of making very long journeys over land.

So we've got a lot happening here, haven't we? King Darius is now looking even further to make the Persian Empire the biggest it had ever been.

Let's stop and have a quick check on our learning so far.

Here's a multiple choice question for you.

I'd like you to identify which of these rivers was not a part of the Persian Empire.

Was it A, the Indus, B, the Tigris, C, the Nile, or D, the Volga? Pause the video now while you make your choice.

Have you chosen? Let's take a look then.

The correct answer is the Volga.

That river was not part of the Persian Empire.

The Indus, the Tigris, and the Nile all were.

Hmm, at the point in history we reached the Persians had control of four rivers.

Three of them were the Indus, the Tigris, and the Nile.

Do you remember what the fourth one was? It was the Euphrates.

Well done.

Now, I have another multiple choice question for you about these rivers.

I would like to know why they were so helpful for the growth of the Persian Empire.

Was it A, because they provided water sports activities, B, because they provided fertile farmland.

C, because they provided trading opportunities or D, because they provided easier transport.

Now take care because there could be more than one correct answer.

And remember, you can talk to a learning partner for extra support if you want to.

Pause the video now whilst you side Have you chosen? Great.

Let's have a look at the answers together.

Now option A is about water sports.

I don't think that water sports were very popular at this point in history, so that's definitely not a correct choice.

The other three options all sound like very good choices to me.

The rivers did provide fertile farmland and trading opportunities, and they were easy transportation routes.

Did you find all three answers? Good work.

Now let's continue our journey and look some more about how King Darius grew the Persian Empire.

Remember we left off where he had just conquered the Indus Valley.

Here on the map, you can see the Indus Valley in the east.

It's shaded orange, and we are now going to think about the other orange areas on this map.

Darius was not happy you see, with having conquered just the Indus Valley, he wanted even more territory.

He began by conquering lands to the north of Mesopotamia first.

He chose some very specific strategic locations around the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea.

I have circled this area on the map for you.

After this, he also headed into the west of Egypt, conquering more land in the north of Africa.

Darius was still not happy.

So the Persian Empire then continued to grow further around the edges of the Black Sea heading west.

This gave the Persians a route that they could take heading straight towards Europe.

More importantly, this route was headed straight for the north of ancient Greece.

King Darius's ambition was that he wanted to conquer the city states of ancient Greece one by one.

He wanted to become ruler over all of them.

You can see I've circled the area of ancient Greece here, and you can see just how close the Persian Empire is now getting to the rest of ancient Greece.

That orange area is slowly spreading into the Greek territory.

So let's just pause at this point and have a quick activity together.

I would like you to pair up with a learning partner, and I would like you to ask the question, why do you think King Darius wanted so badly to conquer the city states of ancient Greece? Talk to a learning partner now and share your ideas.

All done? You've got some great thoughts there.

Some of the Oak Academy children are going to share their ideas with us now.

Laura says that she thinks ancient Greece had lots of territory that Darius wanted to add to his empire.

And that's very true, ancient Greece was not only the mainland of ancient Greece, but lots and lots of other smaller islands and some colonies in other places too.

Alex says that yes, that he agrees with Laura and the ancient Greece bordered the Persian Empire.

So they were actually blocking the Persian Empire from growing any further in a Western direction.

So that's why Darius needed to conquer ancient Greece.

So let's continue now this journey.

Darius and the Persian Empire have their sights firmly set on conquering ancient Greece.

The ancient Greek civilization, however, was not just going to let Darius in.

The ancient Greeks were prepared to defend themselves and they were ready to fight for their territories.

The ancient Greeks had some very highly skilled and well-trained armies, as well as many soldiers called hop lights who were very good at fighting on both the land and at sea.

When the Persians began to enter ancient Greek territory, this marked the start of a major war between Greece and Persia.

Two great empires began a war that would last for another 50 years.

The war between Greece and Persia lasted from 499 BCE through to 449 BCE.

We have evidence in the form of artefacts that show us about the Greek and Persian war, like the pottery you can see here, which has a picture on it of a Greek and a Persian soldier fighting.

So at this point, let's stop and review the journey so far about the growth of the Persian Empire that led to the beginning of this great war.

Here's the map again of the territories that belonged to the Persian Empire.

You can see how it grew from the green area, then adding the blue and then adding the orange.

I would like you to pair up with a learning partner and talk about the map.

What does it tell you about the further growth of the Persian Empire? You can challenge yourself this time by trying to use as many place names as you can.

Pause the activity now whilst you and a learning partner look at the map together.

Have you finished? You have some great ideas and you are remembering so many facts.

Well done.

Let's look at an example together.

Your ideas may have sounded similar to this.

The example here says that the map shows that the Persian Empire grew first in the East when they conquered the Indus Valley, in the North, when they conquered the land around the Black Sea and in the West when they conquered land near Egypt.

The map really does help us to see the expansion of the empire as it conquered one land to the next, to the next.

Time for an activity now to bring all of today's learning together, what I want you to do is to finish a paragraph that has already been started and this paragraph will explain how the rivers in the Persian empire helped the empire to become so very powerful.

You could include, examples of the names of the rivers in the Persian Empire.

You could include examples of some of the territories that the Persians conquered.

So place names.

And you could include keywords like fertile or trading or travel.

The paragraph begins, the Persian Empire became powerful by conquering more territory.

The different territories each had major rivers, for example.

Pause the video now whilst you complete the paragraph.

All done? Great job.

I've got an example here to share with you from one of the Oak Academy children.

The Persian Empire became powerful by conquering more territory.

The different territories each had major rivers.

For example, the River Nile in Egypt and the Indus River in the Indus Valley.

The rivers helped the Persians grow more food as the water made the land fertile.

The rivers also provided trading opportunities and a fast way to travel around the empire.

All these benefits helped the Persian Empire grow more powerful and conquer even more territories.

Did your paragraph have similar ideas? Well done.

So that brings us to the end of today's lesson.

Let's review what we now know about the Persian Empire.

We know that lots of rulers wanted to control ancient Mesopotamia.

That's the place where the Sumer civilization had once lived.

King Cyrus of Persia was able to conquer Mesopotamia, and in doing so, he created the Persian Empire.

After King Cyrus, other Persian rulers continue to expand the territory of the Persian empire.

Ancient Egypt was conquered, and then later the Indus Valley was conquered as well.

And it was the rivers in those strategic areas that really helped the Persian Empire to grow and expand even further.

King Darius of Persia wanted to rule over the city states of ancient Greece, but the ancient Greeks were very prepared and ready to defend themselves, and this was the start of a long war between the two great empires of ancient Greece and the Persians.

I hope you can join me again for another history lesson to find out what happened next in this great story.

Bye for now.