"Now class," Cheerlee decided to begin her lesson, "today we will talk about the origins of Equestria.
"I'm sure you've all heard about the three tribes living in conflict and the first Hearts Warming. That was nearly 10 thousand years ago, making Equestria one of the oldest civilizations on the planet. However even after the three tribes came together their was still much conflict in Equestria.
"For the first 200 years the leaders of the three tribes ruled together on a Council until the appearance of the first officially recorded Alicorn, one Queen Platinum, formerly princess of the Unicorn tribe. She ruled Equestria with an Iron hoof and remained in power until she died of old age. She ascended into an Alicorn when she was around 300, so still a relatively young adult seeing with how ponies have an average lifespan of 540 years. While Alicorns have a life expectancy of 2500 years.
"I know it is common to think of Alicorns as gods but in fact they are just ponies who have reached a form of enlightenment, a superior level of self awareness, which greatly increases their magical power and gives them the traits of all three races (The strength and connection to nature of Earth Ponies, The flight and weather magic of Pegasus, and the versatile magical abilities of Unicorns).
"Queen Platinum was the first Alicorn who had ever been officially confirmed up until that point, although myths of them had existed throughout all recorded history. She is why so many ponies think of Alicorns as gods. She advertised herself as one and convinced the other ponies to worship her.
"After her passing a new Council was set up, representing the various city states in Equestria. They ruled as a democracy for the next 600 years until the arrival of the Alicorn Dynasty. Queen Justice Divine was just as cruel as her predecessor and demanded ponies worship her. However when a second Alicorn appeared Queen Justice Divine invited her into her empire, Declaring her Queen of one of the city states and continued the practice for each Alicorn that appeared.
"The Alicorn Dynasty had the largest population of Alicorns in recorded history. This was a result of Queen Justice Divine purposely teaching others how to become Alicorns. Her school was only accessible to nobles, which is why most noble families are descendants of Alicorns now.
"Unfortunately the Alicorn Dynasty was filled with greed and corruption with the nobles living in luxury and all others living as peasants. The Alicorn Dynasty stood long after Justice Divine passed and ruled cruelly for thousands of years.
"They were eventually defeated by one of our true gods, the Draconequus. In this case a Spirit of Chaos, Discord himself. Although Discord has proven himself a friend to pony kind in recent years, back then he was far from it.
"Discord destroyed the Alicorns for falsely declaring themselves gods and decided to show Equestria what a real god could do. He spent the next thousand years warping reality and making things very difficult for ponies. However he was overthrown by the Two Sisters, Celestia and Luna, with help of the Elements of Harmony. Once mere Pegasi peasants they achieved enlightenment on there own during the rule of Discord.
"After his defeat the two sisters assumed the role as rulers of Equestria as per tradition with Alicorns. However instead of calling themselves 'Queens' the two sisters, as I'm sure you all know, took the title 'Princess' and declared anyone descended from them was to be called 'Duchess' or 'Prince' well the current nobles retained their titles. They wanted to assure their subjects that they would not hold themselves so above them as their predecessors had done,"
"They even made it impossible for Alicorns to have absolute political power as tradition dictated. They gave each City State the ability to elect someone to represent them on a new Senate. The Senate was to keep the Alicorns in check and hold them accountable as well as have a say in policy. Although Alicorns have the final word in most cases if the Senate votes with a 70% majority, against, then the Alicorn's ruling is dismissed.
"It should be noted that the Senator also works as the Mayor of their city in between Senate meetings. They are meant to act as the voice of the ponies of their city. However not even they have absolute power even within their borders. Each city has a council of nobles who the mayor must listen to and respect. This makes our current government a mixture of a matriarchy and a democracy.
"Since then Celestia has made many social changes, including gender equality in Equestria. She did away with poverty and has turned Equestria into a near utopian society and now that Princess Luna has returned to us things are better then ever. Well Celestia looks at the whole Luna handles the individuals by visiting the dreams of many of her subjects and helping them through personal crises and... BUTTON!"
Button hurriedly tried to hide his game. Unfortunately it was too late and Cheerlee walked over and held her hoof out. Button groaned but reluctantly handed over his JoyBoy.
"See me during recess," She ordered before walking back to the front of the class and continuing the lecture.