"This Year in MWH I..."

learned a lot. I really enjoyed the blog and the new ways we were sort of learning. We sort of had to teach a lot of information and sort be able to explain it rather than just regurgitate it on tests. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this period of history, I guess it just felt more relevant to the world we live in now or something. I just had more fun learning and I was actually interested in what we were learning. I am really surprised at how quickly it went by. This class has definitely taught me how to make connections with history, how to use articles and facts to strengthen my arguments in my writing. I'm definitely gonna miss our class next year. Ms. Xia you should teach RUSH and APUSH next year!

The Killing of Dolphins and Whales Citations

Information Website about the Killing of Dolphins - Earth Island Institute. Save Japan's Dolphins. 2010. http://www.savejapandolphins.org/index.php (May 6th, 2010)

Information Website about the Killing of Whales - Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. WCDS North America. http://www.wdcs-na.org/ (May 6th, 2010)

Article by BBC News about Killing of Dolphins - Michael Nelson. BBC News. April 22, 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8599723.stm (May 6th, 2010)

Article by Times Online about Killing of Whales - The Sunday Times. Time Online. April 18, 2010. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article7100851.ece (May 6th, 2010)

A timeline of the history of whaling - Japan Whaling Association. Whaling Chronology. http://www.whaling.jp/english/history.html (May 6th, 2010)

Current Event: Slaughter of Dolphins In Taiji, Japan

For my Current Event I was hoping to do something about the slaughter of dolphins in Japan. I wanna look more into the history and see why we are unable to stop it. Here is a little background sort of article that may help you understand everything a little better. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/14/dolphin-slaughter-hunting-japan-taiji
This is a problem that needs to stop. Maybe I could approach this from a legal or UN point of view. I still need to find some way to connect it to other history. Unless I can just look deeper into this problem.

War Crimes

crime   [krahym] Show IPA
–noun
1.
an action or an instance of negligence that is deemed injurious to the public welfare or morals or to the interests of the state and that is legally prohibited.

Crimes are normally determined by laws. If a law is broken it is a crime. In order for there to be war crimes there have to be war laws. The world has not created a complete list of war laws so it is difficult for us to know what exactly is a war crime. The war laws are created based on past battles or fights where they believe sides have had unfair advantages or killed unnecessarily. So the laws are normally created afterwards. Once people realize that one side did something unfair they decide that they never want that to happen again so they create a rule. It is sort of like a late whistle in a sports game. Everyone is led to believe that the call wasn't going to be made and then after the fact they end up calling it. These possibly unknown laws might not have been intentionally broken. If the sides knew about the laws they were possibly going to break they might not have broken them. In order to correctly punish people for war crimes we need to get a set list of rules before the war has begun.

This probably doesn't make much sense.

The First Gas Attack, April 22, 1915

The document that I found talks about a first hand account of the first ever gas attack. It was written by Anthony R. Hossack who joined the Queen Victoria Rifles at the beginning of the War and served with them on the Western Front from early 1915 till after the Battle of Arras, where, in July 1917, he was wounded, returning to France at the end of February 1918, when he was attached to the M.G. Battalion of the 9th (Scottish) Division, and, after coming through the retreat from St. Quentin, was taken prisoner in the battle for Mt. Kemmel.

More curious than anything was a low cloud of yellow-grey smoke or vapour, and, underlying everything,a dull confused murmuring.Plainly something terrible was happening. What was it? Officers, and Staff officers too, stood gazing at the scene, awestruck and dumbfounded; for in the northerly breeze there came a pungent nauseating smell that tickled the throat and made our eyes smart. The horses and men were still pouring down the road. two or three men on a horse, I saw, while over the fields streamed mobs of infantry, the dusky warriors of French Africa; away went their rifles, equipment, even their tunics that they might run the faster.

One man came stumbling through our lines. An officer of ours held him up with levelled revolver, "What's the matter, you bloody lot of cowards?" says he. The Zouave was frothing at the mouth, his eyes started from their sockets, and he fell writhing at the officer's feet. "Fall in!" Ah! we expected that cry; and soon we moved across the fields in the direction of the line for about a mile. The battalion is formed into line, and we dig ourselves in."

This document shows one of the bad sides of advancement in war technology. The side that no one likes to see. The side where the new weapon is seen as a murderer. The side thats covered in blood. This was the first time that the horrible weapon known as poison gas was ever used. Imagine having something that you have never seen before attacking you, making your eyes water, making it impossible to breath, and then finally killing you. Its scary. Its like playing a friend of yours in a video game you have never played and them using tricks that you don't know against you. Its unexpected and you don't understand what happened or how they did them. Its almost unfair, sort of cheating. One side has technology that the other doesn't. It wasn't even until September of the same year that Britain got the technology.

MustacheLand

National Anthem:  

 

What is your National Identity?

Our great country of Mustacheland is well known across the world as a country of happiness and good people. We welcome all and love all. We do not have one distinct faith. We believe in everyone having his or her own beliefs. We speak Mustache a mix of Pig Latin and Spanish. We are a mix of ethnicities being that we allow anyone to come live in our humble country. We have a wonderful president named Mr. Must Ardinstache. He is our leader and we would have nothing without him. He makes us strong and holds us together. Our main Industry is hair coats. These are coats woven from our countrymen’s great Mustaches. Every year on the fifth of May all men and women shave their mustaches for the first time that year. The hair is then used for the rest of the year to produce widely known hair coats that are warmer than fur coats. If you were to compare us to one other glorious nation it would be America. Even though America is not known as the United States of America yet we would best be described as that wonderful nation of the future.

Mustacheland- The Creation of the Nation; "A Fable"

The humble nation of Mustacheland was brought to this earth during the 1600s. The people of northeastern Cuba experienced a time of great depression, struggling through a deprivation of necessary items. One of these items happened to be shaving cream and razors. This led to the rapid growth of vast valleys of upper lip hair. The use of mustaches began being used for all common necessities, such as coats, blankets, clothing, hats, etc. When the discovery of great usefulness their upper lip hair was to them, it became the secure provider of warm clothing. This in turn led to the people of the land to shave their mustaches once every few months and make coats/warm clothing out of them. This nation became a strong community and gained much wealth through the vending of their newly discovered clothing. Since then, they have industrialized and created mass production industries, causing a great boom in their economy and coat sales. To this day, coats have kept their value and has made Mustacheland a valuable and dependent trade partner.

All hail Mustacheland!

Connections and Alliances

One country we would relate to is Japan, post Meiji Restoration. Mustacheland is know for its warm mustache hair coats, so since Japan is westernized we would partner up with them. At first we would trade with them, since their ports are open to western trade. We would trade our coats to them in return smelted iron, silk. Although it is a long distance to travel in order to trade, Japan had built steam ships by then, and would have no problem crossing the seas.

Eventually we would like to have Japan's help in mass producing the coats because they built many factories which specialize in mass production, and have large fleets of ship in order to trade with the rest of the world, so this could lead to a strong alliance. Their skill in production and trade, and our valuable and high quality coats.

The Cove

This is sort of random. But I just wanted to tell everyone about a movie I just saw. It is extremely interesting and I think it is something everyone should try to see. It is a very true documentary on the slaughtering of dolphins in Japan. It talks about a small town called Taiji with a big secret. Taiji has hidden coves where they lure dolphins everyday. They then kill those dolphins or sell them to aquariums or Seaworlds across the world. It changed my view on animals and fishing. It is mind boggling that they kill so many dolphins everyday. People are not allowed to take pictures or even enter these secret coves. They are kept completely secret. The only people that know about this problem are the fisherman, the government, and the police. The fisherman don't even understand what they are doing. They have been told that they need to kill the dolphins because the dolphins are eating all the fish. Japan's ruthless killing used to be a problem with whales and people were able to stop that. If we spread word of this we can stop the slaughter of dolphins forever. Please try to watch the movie or atleast look at the website. This is a big problem that needs to stopped.

This is the link to its website. Here

You can also go here to help stop the killing. Here

Bomb Vessels

In the early expeditions to Antarctica, explorers were required to use Bomb Vessels to break through the ice. They were the only ships with hulls strong enough to withstand the great force.

James Clark Ross

James Clark Ross was an explorer. He led an expedition around Antarctica where he charted much of the coastline.

Antarctica

John Davis (pictured above) was the first person to step foot on Antarctica on Febuary 7, 1821.

Tells of Atrocity in Belgian Congo

In the reading (599-600) it talks about the outrages being widely publicized in Europe. So I thought I would look for one of those articles, and I found one. It is from the New York Times in 1909. It talks about a little 2 year old boy from Congo, and how important he was and how everyone on the ship wanted to shake his hand. It also sort of shows how long it took people to hear about what was happening around the world because we now know that by 1908 Leopold's reign of terror was already over.

Here is the Link.

Opium War/Anglo-Chinese War

In the 1830's the British had a huge drug cartel, one bigger than any drug cartels today. They were growing Opium/Poppies in India and having it shipped out to them by the East India Trade Company. The company shipped lots of opium which were then traded for Chinese goods and other things like that. This massive amount of opium being distributed created a country filled of drug addicts. In 1836 trafficking became illegal but the British would just bride the officials. The amount of opium in China was getting smaller and smaller. The addicts were getting sadder and sadder. This period of time was called the Great Tragedy and to help ease the pain of not having the drugs, the emperor made opium illegal. The English were still sending ships trying to get the drugs into the country. China decided that they would just go out and force the ships to turn around and not bring the drugs into their country. Well, this idea worked but gave the English another idea, they could just bring warships with them on their trafficking trips. Now the Chinese warships were nothing compared to the English, with their gunships. The British would go back and forth on the coast firing at forts and fighting on land. Finally the Chinese were forced to agree to the Treaty of Nanking, which made it so that all British people on Chinese soil committing a crime would be subjected to British law. No restrictions were placed on the British trade into China, so the drug trafficking doubled, and the opium levels grew once again.

I learned everything off of this site. Here!

Moving to Manchester.

Hello, My name is William Peyton and I have been asked to describe to you my life. I'd like to start with my family if that's alright with you. My first son, the oldest, he be called Jimmy he be 17 years old next month. Now my next son, Lucas, he be 14 years old in about three months. The only woman in my life be my wife Loretta. We've been married probably 18 years now. She be the love of my life, and I am glad I chose such a wonderful person. Now, my family and I have recently moved from a smaller town named Chelsea to join the rest of our friends in Manchester. Chelsea was one heck of town if I'd ever seen one. We lived on a nice farm, we would farm all day and most of all morning trying to make a living. My sons and I would go outside and do lots of hard work while my wife churned butter and prepared meals ready for us when we got home. We all have decided to move to the city because we are no longer needed. Machines are taking over our farms. People are being replaced by things with minds of there owns, and I don't like it one bit. You see, once we gotta a nice really expensive machine we don't need to do no hard work on the farm. And if we ain't doing no hard work on the farm then we got nothing else to do. The city is new, the city is interesting and by golly jee the city is different. Something I needed and my sons and wife needed. I can't wait to see how my life gone change once we in the city. What else can we do but sell our house and move to Manchester? I'm ready for some change.

The Steam Engine

Steam engines are heat engines that do mechanical work using steam as fuel. They use boiling water to produce mechanical motion. Steam engines were used for a wide range of manufacturing machinery. Steam engines eliminated the necessity for water wheels and windmills. Now a days we use steam engines for steam tractors and some trains.

The Power Loom

The power loom was designed by Edmund Cartwright. Looms were used to weave yarn. They normally would weave any excess yarn they had. Cartwrights Loom was the main idea of Kenworthy and Bullough who took his idea and turned it into an automatic machine. Once the machine was automatic it made everything easier. Workers could have multiple looms in one room running by themselves.

The Spinning Jenny

The Spinning Jenny is a multi spool spinning wheel which was invented by James Hargreaves in the Northwest of England. The device was used for creating yarn and it dramatically reduced the amount of people and work needed to produce yarn.

Age of the Empires...

I think that I would call the period from the 1500's to the 1600's the Age of the Empires. I would call the beginning of that age Exploration and the end Change of Empires. At the beginning all the newly created empires traveled from their usual places and found new empires to conquer or become a part of. At the end they all had either strengthened or changed their old home or ways of life.

Junk Ships

 What I found interesting in the reading were the ships. I decided to look deeper into how they were designed and made and pretty much just the history behind them:
So basically, a Junk ship is a type of Chinese sailing vessel. Its name means ship or vessel. The ships were originally designed during the Han Dynasty and turned out to be some of the most well designed ships in history. These ships were used both for military use and for trade and were good for traveling long distances in rough seas. Junks were before there time in sail design. The sails were able to direct wind into each other so that the Chinese could sail directly into the wind. Even in the early stages they had the technology that most cruise ships use today; Multiple compartments were built in the hull, accessed by separate hatches and ladders, these could be made watertight to slow flooding, but the front compartments often had “limber holes” that allowed water to enter and leave the compartment.

Blog #2

I couldn't get it to go on youtube. Hopefully this will work just as well.

Video Blog!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjRfxSuwhI0