1. Southwest Asia & North Africa

2. Mesopotamia “The Fertile Crescent”
3000 BCE Sumerians built first known cities in S. Mesopotamia.
Over the years - civilizations repeatedly developed, collapsed & were replaced.
550 BCE Persians established an empire here where Iran is today.
WG 1A
Photo is of “Zuggurat” the Step Pyramid in the center of the city. Built by the Sumerians. Believed to be a dwelling place for the gods. NOT a place of wordship. Only Priests were allowed in to tend to the gods, as a result Priests were very powerful in Sumerian society.
Illustration is what it might have looked like when built.
3:09 video clip over Mesopotamia Good visuals, info.
Persia was one of the wealthiest, most powerful empires in world history.
Greeks & Romans also controlled this region.

3. Jerusalem – The Holy City
Jerusalem - ancient city that has been fought over for thousands of years.
This is partly because it is a place of religious importance for Christians, Muslims & Jews.

4. Arab/Israeli Conflict
After WWII Jewish people were escaping from Germany.
Many owned nothing and had stepped straight out from Hitler’s death camps.
They sought refuge in Israel, Holy Land for Jews as well as Muslims & Christians.
Both Jews and Arabs wanted control of this land. Both had claims and the have been fighting for control of this land since.

5. Iran Revolution: 1979 Shah (King): brutal & corrupt.
1979 People were protesting for the Shahs removal. He fled the country.
Today Iran has a Constitutional Theocracy (Islamic religious law).
Shaw = king
Ayatollah = name for Islamic holy man, Shi’ite
TOP & MIDDLE: Protestors in the street 1979.
BOTTOM: Ayatollah Khomeini
Viewed as a “puppet” for the western world.
Several events in the 1970s set the stage for the 1979 revolution which replaced the Shaw with religious law & an Ayatollah:
The 1971 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire at Persepolis, organized by the Shah's regime, was attacked for its extravagance. "As the foreigners reveled on drink forbidden by Islam, Iranians were not only excluded from the festivities, some were starving."[68] Five years later the Shah angered pious Iranian Muslims by changing the first year of the Iranian solar calendar from the Islamic hijri to the ascension to the throne by Cyrus the Great. "Iran jumped overnight from the Muslim year 1355 to the royalist year 2535
The Western-backed Shah rapidly became unpopular and the Ayatollah Khomeini, who was an outspoken critic, was exiled. The nation became an increasingly centralized royal power structure state.

6. 9/11 & The War in Afghanistan 2001
On the morning of September 11, 2001 four US airplanes were hijacked by terrorists.
2 planes were flown in to the World Trade Center buildings in NYC, 1 plane was flown into the Pentagon and the other was taken back over by the passengers & crash landed in a field killing all passengers onboard, but preventing the plane from flying into another building.
The attacks resulted in the deaths of 2,996 people (19 of which were the hijackers)
The attacks resulted in the deaths of 2,996 people, including the 19 hijackers and 2,977 victims. The victims included 246 on the four planes (from which there were no survivors), 2,606 in New York City in the towers and on the ground, and 125 at the Pentagon. Nearly all of the victims were civilians; 55 military personnel were among those killed at the Pentagon.

7. World Trade Center Buildings

8. 9/11 Attacks on the US Pentagon

9. The Afghanistan War after 9/11
The US invaded Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 to remove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan.
The US demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden, the man behind the 9/11 attacks but the Taliban refused.
On May 2, 2011, US Navy Seals found & killed Osama bin Laden at his home in Pakistan.

10. US Invasion of Iraq 2003
2003: US invaded Iraq "to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's (their leader) support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.” 
Iraq had agreed to disarm and to no-fly zones after the Gulf War
With the election of George W. Bush as president in 2000, the U.S. moved towards a more aggressive policy toward Iraq. The Republican Party's campaign platform in the 2000 election called for "full implementation" of the Iraq Liberation Act and removal of Hussein. Key Bush advisors, had long desired to invade Iraq.[39]  George W. Bush administration,Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said that an attack on Iraq had been planned since Bush's inauguration, and that the first United States National Security Council meeting involved discussion of an invasion.
On 13 December 2003, Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. forces at a farmhouse in ad-Dawr near Tikrit in a hole in Operation Red Dawn. Following his capture on 13 December Saddam was transported to a U.S. base near Tikrit, and later taken to the U.S. base near Baghdad.

11. US Invasion of Iraq 2003
2005: CIA report - no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq.
Nov 2006: Hussein found guilty by an Iraqi court of torture & murder crimes & sentenced to death by hanging.
Dec 2011: The last of the American troops out of Iraq – established a parliamentary democracy gov’t

12. Economy
Middle East economies range from being very poor (Gaza, Yemen) to extremely wealthy (Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia).
Israel is the most technologically advanced of the Middle Eastern countries.
WG 11C (oil)
TOP PHOTO: Saudi Arabia
THE TERM “Middle East” has been criticized by some for being “Eurocentric”,
The UN has designated this region as “Western Asia” instead of the Middle East
Prior to the discovery of oil, the region had been a hotbed for religious conflict and wars over other rich resources and land. The declining Ottoman Empire paved way for the rising European imperial and colonial powers interested in securing various territories and controlling access to Asia. In more recent times, interest in the region has been due to the energy resources there.

13. Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE)
Former British protectorate
Oil rich
Palm Islands & The “World”: Artificial peninsulas constructed of sand dredged from the Persian Gulf.
WG8A
Oil discovered her in the 1960’s
Made up of 7 emirates (principalities) each governed by a hereditary “emir”, together under one UAE president.
Private islands in the shape of the continents. Each is a small privately owned island.
Palm Islands:
Don’t post links online, terrible awful language in the “comments” section. Can show the kids the video however.

14. Purpose: to control the floodwaters, & harness hydroelectric power.
Aswan High Dam
Purpose: to control the floodwaters, & harness hydroelectric power.
Before: The Nile flooded annually. The flooding provided nutrients that enriched the soil making the Nile floodplain ideal for farming.
After: flooding was controlled, however, the farmers lost natural fertilizer brought by the flooding Nile.
WG8A
High dam in southern Egypt, low dam (built in 1902).