Welcome to Bedtime History.
Hello, this is Breck.
I'm super excited to announce Bedtime History's very first novel.
It's a fast-paced time travel adventure about two teen agents who work for a secret organization that protects history.
Their mission is to stop a mysterious enemy from changing the past and messing up the future.
Along the way they visit iconic locations, meet famous adventurers and learn why these moments in history matter.
It's packed with action, curiosity and imagination, perfect for kids who love adventure and discovering how the world was shaped.
The book is now available on Amazon as both an e-book and print book.
Just search Explorer Society, World's Fair Conspiracy or check the show notes of my latest episodes for a direct link.
I'd love for you to check it out, and all proceeds go to supporting Bedtime History.
Did you know?
The first writing system wasn't made with pencils or pens, but with a stick pressed into clay.
Thousands of years ago, people in ancient Mesopotamia created a way to write down numbers, names and even stories using wedge-shaped marks.
This early form of writing is called cuneiform, and it helped shape the way we read and write today.
Cuneiform was first developed over 5000 years ago in a place called Mesopotamia in what is now Iraq.
The name cuneiform comes from Latin and means wedge-shaped.
That's because the marks made in the clay looked like tiny wedges.
Writers used a tool called a stylus, usually made from a reed, to press into the clay.
The people who first invented cuneiform were the Sumerians.
Around 3200 BCE, they began using symbols to record numbers and goods.
At first the symbols were simple pictures, like a drawing of a fish to mean fish.
But over time, these pictures changed into signs made of wedges.
The symbols became quicker to write and more abstract.
This made it easier to record more ideas. cuneiform writing began as a way to keep records.
Sumerian merchants and temple workers used it to count grain, animals, or trade goods.
Later, it was used for much more—laws, letters, stories, and prayers.
It was a major step in human history, allowing people to record information, send messages and share ideas across time and distance.
Cuneiform wasn't just used by the Sumerians.
Later cultures adopted it too, including the Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Persians.
Each group added their own language to the system.
The symbols stayed mostly the same, but how they were read changed depending on the language.
Cuneiform had hundreds of different signs.
Some stood for whole words.
Others stood for sounds, like letters in our alphabet.
This meant that cuneiform could be used to write many different words, and even entire sentences.
But it wasn't easy to learn.
Students had to memorize hundreds of signs.
They trained in special schools to become scribes, professional writers who worked for temples, kings and merchants.
One of the most famous cuneiform texts is the Epic of Gilgamesh.
It is one of the oldest known stories in the world.
It tells the adventures of a powerful king named Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu.
They fight monsters, search for eternal life, and learn deep lessons about being human.
The story was written in cuneiform on clay tablets and has been found in many copies across Mesopotamia.
Another important cuneiform text is the Code of Hammurabi.
Hammurabi was a Babylonian king who ruled around 1750 BCE.
He created one of the world's earliest law codes.
The laws were carved in cuneiform on a tall stone pillar.
They told people what was right and wrong and what punishments they could expect.
For example, if a builder builds a house that falls down and kills someone, the builder must be punished.
Cuneiform was written on clay tablets, which were easy to make.
People would shape a tablet out of wet clay and write on it while it was soft.
Some tablets were left to dry in the sun, Others were baked in ovens to make them hard and durable.
Many tablets have survived for thousands of years because clay is strong when it dries.
Eventually cuneiform writing disappeared.
Around the first century CE.
People stopped using it as new writing systems like the alphabet became more common.
The last known cuneiform text was written about 2,000 years ago.
For a long time, no one could read cuneiform.
The tablets were found, but the meaning was lost.
In the 1800s, scholars began to study the writing closely.
One key discovery was the Behistun inscription, a giant carving in Iran, with the same message written in three scripts, one of them cuneiform.
A man named Henry Rawlinson helped figure out how to read it.
After many years of hard work, Scholars were able to unlock the secrets of cuneiform.
Today, cuneiform tablets can be seen in museums around the world.
They help us learn about ancient life, what people bought and sold, what they believed and how they told stories.
Cuneiform shows us that even thousands of years ago, people had complex thoughts, made laws, wrote poems and wanted to be remembered.
Cuneiform may be old, but it was the beginning of something huge writing.
And writing, once begun, changed human history forever.
