12/18/2025
HISTORY-MAKERS: every week until the release of the 25th Anniversary Expanded Edition of "The Story of the World," we will be spotlighting two of the brand-new biographies of "History-Makers," fascinating men and women whose stories have been added to this new edition. This week we have Zhang Heng, and Draco & Solon.
Zhang Heng was a Han-dynasty poet, scientist, and inventor who (among other things) invented a device for telling where in the country an earthquake had occurred. We reproduce it in an illustration in the book; it's a fascinating piece of technology!
Draco was asked by the citizens of Athens to make new laws for their city. He made a very simple law code: pretty much every crime was punished by death (today's word "draconian," referring to overly harsh/strict penalties, comes from his name). So the people of Athens chased him out, and asked Solon to make better laws. Solon believed that people needed to know the laws in detail, so he put them up on four-sided, rotating wooden billboards around the city. We have reproduced one in a picture in our book. You'll notice that the Greek is written in a style called "boustrophedon," where the lines are read from left to right and then back from right to left. The ancient Greeks sometimes used this as a way to help the eye follow the text more easily. Can you read what's on the billboard?
You'll meet Zhang Heng, Draco & Solon, and many other fascinating people, in the pages of the 25th Anniversary Expanded Edition of "The Story of the World, Volume 1" by Susan Wise Bauer The book is now available on PDF and MP3 audio; physical editions coming in a month!
