What I have learned this first semester!

This semester in World History has been a blast! I have learned a lot about things i didn't know at the beginning of the year. I like that we studied Afghanistan, because I am more into things that are actually happening then things that happened a long time ago. I was more interested in learning about infantality rates in Afghanistan. To be completely honest before this year, I wasnt really into the news and stuff like that. I could have cared less about what was going on in the wold. Afwul, I know. After this semester, I have acutally starting reading the news paper and have begun to be more aware of issues going on in other countries. I learned something about myself too. That I am blessed, to be living the life I am living, and being with the people I am with. There are people around the world who would kill to have the life I have. I am blessed to be able to go to school, and get an education, instead of being locked in a house all day ( like in afghanistan).Girls my age now, are already married in Afghanistan , most even pregnant. I couldn't even begin to imagine myself married right now, let alone even be pregnant! I am just very thankful that the things we have studied this semester have opened my eyes to these things. And have made me realize what I need to be thankful for. Thanks a million.:)

Nationalism!!!

Recap
Well first things first, What the heck is nationalism? Nationalism is a devotion to the interests, religion, and culture of one's nation. Nationalism emerged at the close of the middle ages. Between 1807 and 1812 Napolean made territorial changes in German speeking lands. He annexed lands along the Rhine River for France. He even dissolved the Holy Roman Empire and organized a number of German states into the Rhine Confederation.

Many of the German speeking people welcomed Napoleon, many didn't. He had many great modern policies such as freeing the serfs, making trade easier, and abolishing laws against jews. I know! Sounds like a great guy doesn't he? A lot of people didn't appreciate his changes though. They didn't like them so much that they started to demand a unified German state. Napolean's defeat didn't help the issue at all though. At the Congress of Vienna, Metternich pointed out that a united Germany would require dismantling the government of each German state. Instead the peacemakers created the German Confederation, which is a weak alliance headed by Austria.
Around the time of the 1830s Prussica created an economic union called the Zollverein. It broke apart terrif barriers between many German states. Although, Germany still was politically seperated. In 1848 liberals in the Frankfurt Assembly still demanded politcal German unity. They offered Frederick William IV of Prussia rule over a united german state but he rejected them and their offer.Basically to sum up the rest of all this history, there was the Franco- Prussian War. From there on out things got a little bit better. French princes from the southern and the northern German Confederation persuaded William I of Prussia to take the title of Kaiser which means emperor. 1871 the birth of the second Reich, or empire, took place. They called it Reich, because they considered it to be and heir to the Holy Roman Empire. Bismarck set up a two house legislature. The Bundesrat was the upperhouse, and the Reichstag was the lower house. The Bundesrat could veto any decisions made by the Reichstag, real power remained in the hands of the emperor and his chancellor.

Review

Well our in our group project, the current emperor of the Austrian Empire was dying and his son was next to take his place as emperor. The emperor told his son not to change anything he had done to the empire. not to change any laws or anything. he also said to make sure no one speeks of a constitution. also to limit the industrial development so that it will not threaten traditional ways of life. When nationalism is being thrown in the towns people's faces they realize that hey are missing out on a great life! They want to live in a nationalism way of life! Soon enough the emperor hears about the nationalist views being considered by the people and he isn'tn happy. The new emperor sends a spy to listen in on one of these speeches these nationalists are giving. The spy hears them calling the emperor stupid and to rebel against him and his laws. The spy goes back to the emperor and he is not pleased with this at all.Our group, i think communicated this party of nationalism pretty well. We made it kind of funny I guess, so that it would have been a little more memorable.

In chapter 10 in the book in section one "Building a German Nation", which is what I talked about earlier, Napoleon has made all of these great laws and he freed serfs and did things like that. These things you think someone would be happy with, and there were people that were happy with it. But there were also people who weren't happy with that. Those people tried to free their lands from French rule and they demanded a unified German state. This is similar to our group's story. In these two stories, people were striving for a unified state or country. Also there was someone leading it. in this story it was Otto van Bismarck. In the other story our group told it was a group of nationalists. In both stories they were having trouble making these changes becasue their countries leader wouldn't allow it. So in a way these stories are kind of similar but very different at the same time.

Reflect & Re-invent

What do I think of nationalism as an ideology? I think nationalism is pretty cool. You get to be yourself in a way. You get to speek whatever language you want under nationalism, like if I was somone who spoke spanish all of the time, and i lived in a place where they made me speek german, I wouldn't be happy, because I love speeking spanish! So nationalism gives you rights to live your life the way you want. It's pretty nice:)

Nationalism is already being used globally, today. Now, we mainly speek the language that is most common, like in America, its english. But there are also many hispanic people and other races. We all speek the language we want, but when necessary we speek english, because some people may not know spanish or other languages.

Resources:

My world history book in chapter 10.

Urbanization & Industrialization!!

Recap

Urbanization & Industrialization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...What a subject. This was the time when cities started to get over crowded. If you want a mental picture, picture New york City, with twice the population it has now. Crowded right? Well thats what it was like then. Most of the neighborhoods were slums were all of the poor people stayed. mosthad dieases. Which really wasn't good because all of these people were crammed into these little neighborhoods. Which made it ery easy for these diseases to spread and kill many of these people.That caused a decrease in poulation. Many of these poor children were forced to work in factories. Poor little children that were orphans, that was their everyday life. Once they were put into orphaneges they were taught to do things they were gonig to be doing in factories. I can't imagine working in a factory at four years old.

There was a ton of new technology coming out at this time also!

1.)Like good old Henry Bessemer, he develope a process to purify iron ore and produce a new iron, steel! 2.)Swedish Chemist Alfred Nobel invented dynamite! So you can say thanks to him we get fireworks on the 4th of July! 3.) Electricity replaced steam in the late 1800s thanks to old Benjamin Franklin!4.) Alessandro Volta invented the battery (hint the volta)

5.)Thomas Edison made the first light bulb.6.) In the 1900s, manufacturers made a new method of production, the assembly line.7.) Nikolaus Otto invented a gasoline powered combustion engine. 8.) Karl Benz invented the first automobile. 9.) Henry Ford created a mobile that reached 25 miles per hour! Holy cow! Thats so fast!

10) Everyone knows the Wright brothers for the first airplane.

11.)Guglielmo Marconi invented the radio! I love that guy!

Revisit & Reflect

The most interesting city to live in would be New York City. Why? I don't need research to tell you. New York is just the coolest place ever. Especially on new years eve. Why else? It's the city that never sleeps, things are always happening there. People are discovered there like celebrities. Plus that city is full of fashion designers:D. I think I would meet a lot of interesting people there. Do interesting things. The only negative thing about this place is the crime rate there. People are always dying there. It's scary. Or someone is getting robbed. Thats why I will be carrying pepper spray with me when I visit:).

Resources:

http://newyork.areaconnect.com/crime1.htm

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/04/25/2009-04-25_city_crime_still_falling.html

Guns, Germs, & Steel!!

Recap
What i have learned on our earth's geography is that there are many people around the world in countries that are going through poverty. There counrty is so poor and they don't have the resources for food or anything. The europeans have much more that the countries in africa. Another little fact I learned from the movie is 168 Spanish conquistadors defeated an Imperial Inca army of 80,000 in 1532, and set a pattern of European conquest which would continue right up to the present day.

Revisit
Burundi

It is a small landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa. Burundi is governed as a presidential representative democratic republic. Burundi has a low gross domestic product largely due to civil wars, corruption, poor access to education, and the effects of HIV/AIDS. Burundi is densely populated. Cobalt and copper are among Burundi's natural resources. Some of Burundi's main exports include coffee and sugar. On October 20, 1924, Burundi officially became a part of the Belgian colonial empire and was known as Ruanda-Urundi, and consisted of Rwanda and Burundi. On October 4, 1943, powers were split in the legislative division of Burundi's government between chiefdoms and lower chiefdoms. Chiefdoms were in charge of land, and lower sub-chiefdoms were established. Native authorities also had powers. In 1948, Belgium allowed the region to form political parties. These factions would be one of the main influences for Burundi's independence from Belgium.

Resources:

http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ad25

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107374.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1068873.stm

http://www.who.int/countries/bdi/en/

Reflect

I hate the geographic situtaions that most countries have. I hate how some countries have more than enough resources and stuff like that. When other countries have squat. I wish the world had an equal ammount of resources all over. Or atleast enough to support the size of each country. Although, it does kind of depend on the population size of the country. Like if you have enough resources for the size of about 3 million people, and you have about 9 million, then your gonna have a problem, becasue how are you supposed to suppport all of those people when you don't even have half the ammount of resources you need? Well, yeah it has some what to do with the population sisze, thats my opinion.

Resources:

http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/show/episode1.html

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_2122.html

Afghanistan!

Recap

I researched different things of Afghanistan. A lot of the info that i found was good info but it didn't interest me that much. I didn't want to sit and learn about abunch of stuff that didn't interest me at all so i kept looking. Then i found stuff about birth issues in Afghanistan. I had no idea how bad the birth problem was there. Like, so many babies and mothers are dieing. Mostly the mothers though. The reason is because like the mothers aren't allowed to go to hospitals, because they aren't allowed to be shown in public. So they give birth at home. Well, some families can afford a nurse to help them through the labor and the birth. But most families can't afford a nurse. So they are going through the birth alone. There is no one there walking them through it and helping them. So when the baby came, they weren't ready. And soon the baby became very unhealthy because they had no way of taking care of it. Then it died. A lot of babies die directly at birth, mothers too. The pain is too difficult for them and it kills them. Many mothers are too young because they marry the women off so young.

Revisit
In an article that i read on (http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79236) Irin news.org the Afghanistan high birth fertility rate hasn't changed at all since i last researched and read up on this topic. It has all stayed the same. Which is very disappointing. I hope something changes because their poultation is having am major decrease becasue of this.

Other Source:( http://southasia.oneworld.net/todaysheadlines/high-birth-rate-puts-afghan-women-at-risk)

Reflect

The situation in Afghanistan is bugging me. It annoys me how the Talabans think they can just take over Afghanistan and take over all of these people. Who the heck gave them the idea that they can do that?! Nobody thats who! And we sent our troops over there to help these Afghans and the Talabans just go off and hide like woosies! What is that!? If your gonna do something like take over afghanistan, you need to be ready to fight! The only thing they can do is throw bombs at us and be mischeveous! Well were gonna get them!