There are two principal past tenses used to make general statements about the past: The past simple and the past continuous. The two tenses are quite different.Use the past simple to talk about an event which happened at some point in time in the past.
Tom flew to Chicago last week.
Peter visited his friends in Florida two months ago.
Past Continuous:
The past continuous is usually used to refer to events happening at the same time that something important happened in the past.
They were doing their homework when she arrived.
Jack was studying while Dave was cooking dinner.
The past continuous is also used to express what was happening at a precise moment in the past.
I was attending a lecture at 2.30 yesterday afternoon.
Alice was reading a book at six yesterday evening.
