The Heart of Rome was the Palatine Hill, the Roman Forum, and the Colosseum. According to legend, Rome was founded on the Palatine Hill by Romulus after he killed his brother Remus. The Romans built up their empire through conquest or annexation between the 3rd century BC and the 3rd century AD. At its height, the Roman Empire stretched from north-western Europe to the Near East and encompassed all the lands of the Mediterranean.

Roman builders utilized naturally occurring materials, primarily stone, timber and marble. Manufactured materials consisted of brick and glass and composite materials consisted of concrete. The Colosseum, Rome – The most famous building of the Roman Empire. Renowned for its fascinating history, Rome is a city which is bursting with truly incredible, ancient structures, one of which is the magnificent Colosseum. It was the largest structure ever built by the ancient Romans. Also known as the the Roman Wall, Picts' Wall or Vallum Hadriani in Latin, Hadrian's Wall was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.

Religion was central to Mesopotamians as they believed the divine affected every aspect of human life. Mesopotamians were polytheistic; they worshipped several major gods and thousands of minor gods. Each Mesopotamian city, whether Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian or Assyrian, had its own patron god or goddess. In Sumerian religion, the most powerful and important deities in the pantheon were the "seven gods who decree": An, Enlil, Enki, Ninhursag, Nanna, Utu, and Inanna.

The first Mesopotamian tablets, were written around 3200 BCE. These contained picture-like signs and numbers. A tablet was made of clay. A scribe would wet clay and pat it into a size which could be comfortably held in one hand. The sharp end of a reed (cut obliquely) was used as a writing tool. Wedge-shaped (cuneiform) signs were pressed on the smooth surface of the tablet; while the tablet was still moist. After that, the tablet was dried in the sun. Hundreds of tablets have recovered from Mesopotamian sites. Writing was used not only for keeping records, but also for making dictionaries, giving legal validity to land transfers, narrating the deeds of kings, and announcing the changes in the customary laws of the land.

The System of Writing: The sound; represented by a cuneiform sign was not a single consonant or vowel, but syllables. So, a Mesopotamian scribe had to learn hundreds of sounds. Writing was a skilled craft. It was an enormous intellectual achievement.

Literacy: Because of the complexities involved in writing, very few people could read and write.

The division:
(i) The division of the year into 12 months according to the revolution of the moon around the earth, the division of the month into four weeks, the day into 24 hours, and the hour into 60 minutes - all that we take for granted in our daily lives has come to us from the Mesopotamians.
(ii) These time divisions were adopted by the successors of Alexander and from there transmitted to the Roman world, then to the world of Islam, and then to medieval Europe.

(iii) Whenever solar and lunar eclipses were observed, their occurrence was noted according to year, month and day. So too there were records about the observed positions of stars and constellations in the night sky.

Martin Luther is one of the most influential figures in Western history. His writings were responsible for fractionalizing the Catholic Church and sparking the Protestant Reformation. The renaissance and reformation had made a big change in Europe because of Martin Luther had made that change from his 95 Theses. People had followed him in what he was saying to the Church and the Church was getting mad so the Church had kicked Martin Luther because he was making a change the Church wasn't ready for.

Islam explains the drive of Muslims over the centuries to meet their economic needs through commerce, industry, agriculture and various forms of free enterprise. Profits are very much a part of such activities, provided they are lawfully obtained (halal). Islamic financial system helps by assisting financial inclusion.
The conventional banking system is based on interest payments at a rate pre-set on the deposits of money. Payment and receipt of interest is prohibited under Shariah Law, so Muslims abstain from banking.

Urbanisation represents the demographic transition or change from rural areas to urban areas. Urbanisation is defined as “the increasing proportion of people that live in towns and cities” and can be viewed at regional, national, continental and International scales. Urbanisation affects the physical environment through the impacts of the number of people, their activities and the increased demands on resources. Urbanisation has negative consequences on health due mainly to pollution and overcrowded living conditions.

Agriculture was the principal occupation of the settled populations in the newly conquered territories. ... The lands conquered by the Arabs that remained in the hands of the owners were subject to a tax (kharaj), which varied from half to a fifth of the produce, according to the conditions of cultivation. The three-crop rotation was the biggest and best change in farming during medieval times, where three strips of the field would be used in rotation to keep fecund soil. Vertical windmills and vastly improved water mills helped as well.

The original Turks were Mongoloid (East Asian) and closely related to other East Asians, including Mongolians. Most Turkic people are still predominantly Mongoloid: Recent genetic studies concluded that there is a “Turkic component” found in every modern Turkic speaking population. With the rise of the Turkish sultanates in the tenth and eleventh centuries, a third ethnic group was added to the Arabs and the Iranians. The Turks were nomadic tribes from the Central Asian steppes of Turkistan. The Turks gradually converted to Islam.

 From 9th century, the Abbasids state became weaker due to decline of Baghdad's control over distant provinces and continuous struggle between pro-Arab and pro- Iranian groups in the army and bureaucracy. After Rashid's death, the empire was split by a civil war between the caliph al-Amin and his brother al-Ma'mun, who had the support of Khorasan. This war ended with a two-year siege of Baghdad and the eventual death of al-Amin in 813.

The Abbasid caliphs established the city of Baghdad in 762 CE. It became a center of learning and the hub of what is known as the Golden Age of Islam. Across the Abbasid Empire, libraries and other scholarly places were established, such as the House of Wisdom. These brought great advancements in astronomy, scientific understanding, ancient philosophies, and Islamic theology. The event that really destroys the Abbasid Empire? The invasion of the Mongols, who sack Baghdad. So to sum it up, the Abbasid Empire fell down due to these reasons: Power struggles, and an unorganized method for succession.

Islam spread quickly because the Islamic state was initially able to expand very quickly. Later, like other religions, Islam spread quickly through trade along the Silk Road in Central Asia and the sea routes in the Indian Ocean and SE Asia. Islam spread quickly because the Koran has positive messages. Many people were willing to convert to Islam because of messages like people who do what is right will be rewarded, and human life and personal property were to be valued and respected.

Depending on where you live, religion may also make you feel better about yourself by making you feel part of your larger culture. People who are religious have higher self-esteem and better psychological adjustment than people who aren't. People are always on the quest of fulfilling the economic and material pursuits in today's world. It is the religion which plays a crucial role in establishing our connection to the divine and developing the belief that there is a supreme energy that acts as a regulator in our day to day lives. 

Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia included indigenous animistic-polytheistic beliefs, as well as Christianity, Judaism, Mandaeism, and Iranian religions of Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, and Manichaeism. Arabian polytheism, the dominant form of religion in pre-Islamic Arabia, was based on veneration of deities and spirits. Others concur that the pre-Islamic calendar was originally a lunar calendar, but suggest that about 200 years before the Hijra it was transformed into a lunisolar calendar, which had an intercalary month added from time to time to keep the pilgrimage within the season of the year when merchandise was most abundant.

Ziggurat, pyramidal stepped temple tower that is an architectural and religious structure characteristic of the major cities of Mesopotamia (now mainly in Iraq) from approximately 2200 until 500 bce. The ziggurat was always built with a core of mud brick and an exterior covered with baked brick. A ziggurat was believed to be the earthly home of the god or goddess for whom it was dedicated. ... The first ziggurats were simple structures; most were built on top of hills or large mounds, which were believed to symbolize a mountain with the top room being the actual abode of the god or goddess.

Mesopotamia housed historically important cities such as Uruk, Nippur, Nineveh, Assur and Babylon, as well as major territorial states such as the city of Eridu, the Akkadian kingdoms, the Third Dynasty of Ur, and the various Assyrian empires. Its history is marked by many important inventions that changed the world, including the concept of time, math, the wheel, sailboats, maps and writing. Mesopotamia is also defined by a changing succession of ruling bodies from different areas and cities that seized control over a period of thousands of years.

Features of Urbanization
The important features of urbanization are as follows:

1. Fast Growth in Urban Population: Between 1961-71 the growth rate of population in urban areas was over 38%. This was followed by a still higher growth of 46 per cent during the decade of 1971-81. Between 1981-91, the growth was, no doubt, somewhat less at over 36 per cent but it was not inconsiderable.

2. Large Increase in big owns: Another noteworthy feature of urbanization is that there has been a substantial increase in the population of big towns. A substantial increase in population has taken place since 1901 in the big towns, and that a major proportion of urban population resides in them.

 
3. Regional Disparities in Urbanization: The above description provides the all-India picture. However, the variations in the level of urbanization in various states are indeed large and rates of urbanization show surprises. Again, there are variations within the regions of each state. All this point to the diversity of conditions/causes that operate in this vast country, and is suggestive of different perceptions and policies in this field.