Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Some of the hardships the Europeans had to endure were extreme heat and disease. The exploration took a few months in total. One of the diseases that struck the workers during the exploration was malaria. The explorers thought they had found the source but it turned out to be just a large lake not the source of the Nile River. That lake was also tainted with malaria. The explorers (Jon Speke and Richard Burton) had to deal with bugs as well. Jon Speke was writing one night in his tent and he fell asleep with the lantern on and he didn't put the mosquito net around him and a bug crawled into his ear and was burrowing into his head. the African people tried to help by pouring hot wax into his ear but that didn't work so Jon proceeded to stab himself in the ear thus killing the bug but also deafening him. It is strange that the source of the Nile River is called Lake Victoria (named after the British Queen, Queen Victoria) because the lake is in Africa and the lake is named after somebody far away and the name is not African. The Europeans had a huge advatage over the Africans because they had guns and the Africans had spears. That also contributed to the Europeans being able to conquer Africa after a few years.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Karl Marx and Communism

Karl Marx's idea of communism was for everybody to be equal. He wanted everyone to make the same amount of money and he wanted the people to govern themselves. Marx wanted Communism to take over the world because he thought the way everything in the world was going wrong. He thought that the people were being controlled by work and religion. Karl Marx thought of the workers like they were the "good guys" and the owners of the factories and other places of work as the "bad guys".

Monday, November 3, 2008

Karl Marx and the Industrial Revolution

Karl Marx felt that the Industrial Revolution was controlling the people that worked. He did not like the Industrial Revolution. He didn't like it because it was what people felt like they must have he related it to opium which is a drug. Marx said the Industrial Revolution was not right. He also felt that religion controlled the people as well he related religion to opium which is a drug. He said "religion is the opiate of the people". The Industrial Revolution helped Marx develop his communist ideas because during the Revolution many of the workers were not united and they were controlled by the owner of the factory. He wanted the workers to unite and form their own part in society to "rebel against the man".

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Nationalism and The Creation Of Italy

Nationalism is having pride and being loyal to your country. I am nationalistic for my fathers fathers' country Puerto Rico and my moms moms' country Italy. I have many flags and a few shirts to represent my love and loyalty to those countries.

Italy was created by empires crumbling and was united by Cavour. Italy was ruled before it became its own state. Italy was formed by many other countries uniting and forming their own country.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Robespierre and The Reign of Terror

The Reign of Terror happened after 15 months after The French Revolution on September 5, 1793 and ended on July 28, 1724. It started due to differences between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of the revolution." Many people were killed estimates were made from anywhere between 16,000 and 41,000.

Maximilien Robespierre took over France and ruled it like a dictator. Many feared him others tried to gain more power than him and take back the government. He beheaded the kings and queens. He removed Kings, Queens, and Jacks from playing cards and put the faces of Revolutionaries on them instead. He had sunday removed from the calendar since the new radicals thought religion was old-fashioned. His rule did end though ironically the same way the Kings and Queens ended.

Monday, September 22, 2008

The French Revolution

1)Reasons why people in France during the 1780's were critical of nobility because the Nobles had complete control over the peasants along with the fact that the Noble's were exempt from most taxes , they didn't have to do any military work, they collected tolls from peasants using roads and markets, and many Noble's lived in great luxury.

2)A French peasant may have grumbled about the taxes and the military service in 1780's.

3)I think the point the cartoonist was trying to make is that the peasants had to carry the work load and bare all of the clergy and noble's wrong doings and anger. The man underneath the two men is a peasant and the two men represent a clergy and a noble. The caption is describing the wishes and hopes of a peasant in 1780 France.

4)The authors describes the life of a French peasant as bad because of the heavy taxes they had to pay and what kinds of taxes they had 2 pay to multiple kings.

5)Yes the sources do explain why the peasans resented the Upper class society. It explains this because in each source it explains how bad the peasants had it and how good the higher class people had it easy.

6)Peasants were most influences by his words. He said man was born free the peasants were not free they had to pay heavy taxes.

7)I think it was banned because it influenced the peasants to rebel. The upper class would want this banned because it went against them.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

John Locke and "The Enlightenment"

The "Rights" that Jefferson was talking about were Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. According to the Declaration of Independance the government gets its power from the people. If the government got to out of control the people had the right to change it or get rid of it and make a new Government. These ideas were first thought of by John Locke. He wanted a government ran by the people, he wanted a complete democracy. John Locke was very important in The Enlightenment. He came up with all of the different ideas the U.S. Constitution has even though John Locke wasn't part of the U.S. Constitution his ideas were in the thanks to Thomas Jefferson.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Copernicus and the trial of Galileo

The theory of Geocentrism came first and was gradually replaced by Heliocentrism. Heliocentrism came out of the Scientific Revolution. They both were pretty much the same thing they just have some minor differences. The both say that Earth is the center of the universe.

The trial of Glalileo was about the theories Galileo had. The church and the court opposed the thoughts Galileo had so they brought him to court and forced him to either admit his theories and Copernicus' theories wer e wrong and the church was right or they would excommunicate him and kill him. Galileo of course feared for his life and said his and Copernicus' were wrong. Even though he said that he still went on doing what he knew was right and continued doing experiments that went against the church

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Scientific Revolution: Scientific Method

The Scientific Method is something that helps people conduct more reliable experiments with more information. It is composed of 4 steps. The first step is observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena. The second step is formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation. The third step is use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations. Finally the last step is performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.The Scientific Method is something scientists created to prove that things were either wrong or right. Galileo proved Aristole wrong by dropping two rocks at the same height to prove that Aristole's theory that if you drop two things at the same height the heavier object will fall faster.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Evolution vs. Creation

Darwin's theory of evolution is basically a more complex version of Anaximander's theory. He brought up the "natural selection" idea which is that ages of minor genetic mutations that gave an animal an advantage like an animal that grew wings and was able to learn to fly would pass that on to its offspring and that generation of birds would pass it on to their offspring. The other kind of that animal that didn't have wings would die out. He believed that mankind and other animals descended from a common ancestor.

The theory of Creationism is the human religious belief that God created everything on Earth and Earth itself. They completely omit the theory of evolution in schools in the early 1920's. They didn't allow Darwin's theory in textbooks until the 1960's. Nobody really knows whether its correct or not.

I think Darwin's theory is correct because there is so much evidence that humans evolved from apes and other species evolved from other species before them. Humans look so much like monkeys and other apes that its foolish to completely reject the theory of evolution. There is little to no solid proof that the theory of Creation is right.