how when and where

 HOW IMPORTANT ARE DATES

there was a time when historians were fascinated with dates . there wre heated debates about the dates on which rulers were croned or battles were fought in the common -sense notinhistory was synonymous with dates you may have heard people say i find history boring because it is all about memorising dates is such aconception true 

hitory is certainly adout changes that occur over time it is about finding out how things were in the past and how  things were  have changed as soon as we compare the past with the present we refer to time we talk of before and after living in the world we do not always ask historical questions about what we as if what we see around us we take things for granted as if what we see has always been in the world we inhabit but most of us have our moments of wonder when we are curious and we ask question that actually are historical wathching someone sip a cup of  tea at a roadside tea stall you may wonder  when did people beging to drink tea or coffee  looking out of the window of  a train you may ask yourself when where railways built and how did people travel long  distances before the age of railways reading  the newspaper  in the morning you may be curious to know how people got to hear about things before newspaper began to printed all such historical question refer us back to notions of  time but  time  does not have  to be always preccisely  dated in terms of a particular year or a month sometimes it  is  acually incorrect to fix precise  dates to processes  that happen over a period of time  people  in  india did not beging drinking  tea one fine day  they developed a taste for it over time there can be no one clear date  for a process such as this similarly we canont fix one single date on which british rule was established or the national movement started or changes took place whithin the economy and society all these things happened  over  a stretch of time we can only refer to a span of time an approximate period  over  which particular changes become visible .

why then do we continue  to associate history with a string of dates  this association has a reason there was a time when history was an account of battle and big events it was about rulers and their policies  historainswrote about thr year aking was crowned  the year he married the year he had a child  the year  he  fought a particular war the year he died and the year  the nexst  ruler succeded to the throne for events such as  these  specific dates can  be determined and in  histories such as these debates about dates continue to be important  as you have seen in thr histiry texbooks of the past two  yesrs historains  now write about a host of other  issues and other question they look at how people earned their livelihood what they produced  and ate how cities  developed  and markets came  up how kingdoms were formed and new  idieas spread and how cultures and society changed