What is World History? - An Introductory Activity for Students

I asked AI to draw a globe with people, goods, and ideas flowing around it to show interconnectedness — and here’s what it gave me…Slightly odd, but I kind of like it!

Growing up, I lived in many different places because of my parents’ work. We moved every few years, and I had the privilege of experiencing life on multiple continents and within a variety of cultures. Through these experiences, I developed a love for world history.

World history has always been my favorite subject. I’ve been fascinated by the past for as long as I can remember (no pun intended!). But what draws me in isn’t just the events themselves — it’s the interconnectedness of everything. Living in different parts of the world helped me appreciate the bigger picture and see how events, ideas, and people connect across time and place. And that’s exactly what world history does: it helps us understand how different countries and cultures have influenced each other over time.

As a social studies teacher, I always try to teach history from a global perspective — in other words, I teach a lot of world history. But what exactly is world history?

World history is the study of how people, ideas, and events from different parts of the world have shaped the past and continue to influence the present. It’s not just about memorizing dates or famous leaders. It’s about understanding change and causality — why things happened and what effects they had on societies around the globe. World history looks for patterns and connections that show how regions have been linked through trade, migration, war, technology, and culture. By studying these global connections, we can see how ideas spread, how empires rose and fell, and how events in one part of the world often caused changes far away. In short, world history helps us understand the bigger picture of humanity’s shared story.

As I continue to develop lessons and materials, I’ve created a simple but effective activity that introduces students to the concept of world history — and I’d like to share it here.

In this activity, I give my students a list of events — some local, some national, and some global. Examples include “The history of your city,” “The Industrial Revolution,” “India’s independence movement,” “The invention of the wheel,” and “The Silk Road trade routes.” Their task is to sort each event into one of two categories: History or World History.

What makes this activity powerful is the discussion it sparks. Students quickly realize that world history isn’t just about major global events — it’s about connections, patterns, and global impact. They start asking important questions like:

• Why does this event belong in world history?

• How did it affect different parts of the world?

• Could it fit into both categories?

This simple exercise helps students see that while history often focuses on one place or group, world history challenges us to zoom out and recognize how people, ideas, and events have shaped our shared human story across borders and time.

In all my introductory world history classes, I start with this activity because it immediately gets students thinking about history from a macro-level perspective. I’ve created a detailed lesson plan for this — feel free to message me if you’d like it!