People often complain that in history lessons at school they were taught just a few topics ‎- the Romans‎,‎ the Tudors‎,‎ the Nazis ‎- and how they have no idea at all about what happened in between‎.‎ To remedy this‎,‎ World History‎:‎ 50 Key Milestones You Really Need to Know offers brief and stimulating outlines of key developments in the history of the world‎,‎ from the beginning of agriculture 10‎,‎000 years ago to the attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11‎.‎ Ian Crofton‎,‎ the author of several books of popular history including The Kings and Queens of England‎,‎ Traitors and Turncoats and History Without the Boring Bits‎,‎ brings his lively style to bear in a series of essays ranging from ancient Egypt to modern China‎,‎ from the Vikings and the Mongols to the French Revolution and the Cold War‎.‎ Each essay is accompanied by a detailed time line of dates and events‎,‎ and the flavour of the period concerned is brought to life by selected contemporary quotations from figures as diverse as Aristotle‎,‎ Ashoka‎,‎ Saladin‎,‎ Christopher Columbus‎,‎ Martin Luther‎,‎ Suleiman the Magnificent‎,‎ Galileo‎,‎ Voltaire‎,‎ Thomas Jefferson‎,‎ Mary Wollstonecraft‎,‎ Napoleon‎,‎ Lincoln‎,‎ Lenin and Winston Churchill‎.‎ In addition‎,‎ box features throw light on a range of related topics‎,‎ from the Nazca Lines to Renaissance man‎,‎ from Confucianism and the state to Alexander the Great‎'‎s horse‎,‎ from Islamic science and the Barbary corsairs to the Enigma code and the atomic bomb‎.‎