Dating Historical Events

The historians usually divide time into several categories, namely

1. Day – is a duration of twenty-four hours (24 hrs)
2. A week – is a duration of seven days (7 days)
3. Month – is the duration of four weeks (4 weeks)
4. A year – is a duration of twelve months (12 months)
5. A decade – is a duration of ten years (10 yrs.)
6. A century – is the duration of one hundred years (100 yrs.)
7. A millennium – is the duration of thousand years (1000 yrs.)
8. A generation – is the average differences on ages between a child and his/her parent.
9. Age – is the period based on man's economic activities and type of tools used e.g. stone age, Iron Age, industrial age, science and technology age, etc.
10. A period – is determined by one continuous event lasting for number of years, e.g. Period of slave trade in East Africa Period of long-distance trade

Period of colonial rule in Africa

1. Some points have been chosen in order to divide time
2. Year zero – present the year when Jesus Christ was born
3. It is known as Anno Domino (A.D) meaning the year of the Lord
4. All years before zero are called (B.C) meaning (Before Christ)

How to determine dates

Dates

1. Are the durations of time in different ways.
2. The historians divided dates into four ways.

Recalling events

Here important events are recalled/remembered e.g. drought, farming, floods, birth, eruption of diseases etc.

By studying languages

Some names helps people to remember dates of some events. e.g. Word "Karafuu" started when Cloves were introduced in Zanzibar.

Carbon 14

It is a scientific method of determining dates. It used in the finding dates for remains of animals or plants, which died beyond 5000 years ago. Carbon 14 is a gas found in carbon dioxide, which exist in the atmosphere. It absorbed by plant and other living organisms. When died carbon 14 that starts to decay at a fixed rate from the time of death.

Orders of events

Ways showing order of events, period and ages, among them are: Time graph, Time chart, Time line and Family tree

Time chart

is a table that shows historical dates and events in the order they followed.

PERIOD	EVENT
1884 - 1885	The Berlin Conference
1905 - 1907	Maji Maji War
1919	The beginning of British rule in Tanganyika
1957	Formation of ASP (Afro-Shiraz Party)
1964	Zanzibar Revolution
1967	Arusha Declaration