Sahan's Blog

Nelson Mandela and Apartheid

2009-05-13T07:18:00.001-07:00

Apartheid was used in South Africa for many years and was a social policy or racial segregation involving political, economic and legal discrimination against people who are not white. The same thing was going on in America where all the colored people were separated from the white people. This went on in South Africa from 1948 to 1990. Nelson Mandela was a hero because Mandela along with 150 others were arrested on December 5 1956 and charged with treason for speaking out against Apartheid. He also fought many violent acts to gain freedom in South Africa. He spent many years in prison for committing treason. He is respected by many people because he stood up for what he believed in and did a lot to free his people. He took the pain mentally and physically by being in prison and by getting beat up by higher authorities of South Africa. He was a brave and courageous man.He was agains the system and against of the white having all the power. However his carrer in ANC was not for to long, he was sentenced to life to prison. Their was no reason for Nelson to be in jail, the white South Africa governemt just didnt want Nelson to get in the way. However even in jail he fought for his right still he didnt stop he continued to be a beacon. In 1990 after 27 years of prison Mandela was finally free. Then less than fiver years he had ended the aparheid and he wa awarded the NOble Peace Price, and was elected as president.

african independence

2009-05-13T06:54:00.000-07:00

In a 20 year time period, from 1955 to 1975, Africa had gained most of its independence from the colonies. Nkrumah organized strikes and boycotts and the Gold Coast took the name of Ghana. It was the first nation to be governed by Africans. Nkrumah wanted to create an Africa ruled by Africans and helped create the Pan-African Congress. Later on forming the OAU, Oranginzation of African Unity. The nationalist Jomo Kenyatta was an other strong leader of Kenya, and there was the rise of the Mau Mau.Another reason that they gained their Independence was because they slowly began to modernize and the people of Africa slowly began to become smarter. The African many learned many American cultures and went to schools and studied hard. Most Africans defended freedom for Europe in WWII and they demanded the same for them when they went back to their colonies!

The Cuban missle crisis

2009-05-12T07:10:00.000-07:00

The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the world ever came to nuclear war. The United States armed forces were at their highest state of readiness ever and Soviet field commanders in Cuba were prepared to use battlefield nuclear weapons to defend the island if it was invaded. Luckily, thanks to the bravery of two men, President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev, The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the world ever came to nuclear war. The United States armed forces were at their highest state of readiness ever and Soviet field commanders in Cuba were prepared to use battlefield nuclear weapons to defend the island if it was invaded.

NATO and the warsaw pact

2009-04-06T07:20:00.000-07:00

Nominally the Warsaw Pact was a response to a similar treaty made by the Western Allies in 1949 (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, or NATO) as well as the re-militarization of West Germany in 1954, both of which posed a potential threat to the Eastern countries. Although it was stressed by all that the Warsaw Treaty was based on total equality of each nation and mutual non-interference in one another's internal affairs, the Pact quickly became a powerful political tool for the Soviet Union to hold sway over its allies and harness the powers of their combined military. When Hungary tried to extricate themselves from the agreement in 1956, Soviet forces moved to crush the uprising; and, in 1968, Soviet troops invaded Czechoslovakia (with support from five other Pact members), after the Czech government began to exhibit 'Imperialistic' tendencies.

The Treaty Of Versailles (ended WWI)

2009-02-26T15:42:00.000-08:00

The Treaty of Versailles ended WW1. It was signed at the palace of Versailles in France. The winning side which included the French, British and Americans made this treaty to punish Germany and blame the Germans for everything. This treaty forced Germany to give up any thing it had. Its colonies were seized by the British and French. This treaty forced Germany into a recession. This led to Fascism and the rise of Adolf Hitler. Hitler provided the people of Russia the one thing that the needed, revenge. He started building the military, which was unauthorized by the treaty. Hitler provided the people of Germany with what they wanted, they wanted to hurt the people that made them lose everything. I believe what they did was fair because Germany had been very reckless with their military and other rights, and also abused their power to build up their military and start wars, so I believe to a certain point that the treaty was fair.

Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) and the Modernization of Turkey

2009-02-24T07:00:00.000-08:00

Secular refers to things that are worldly. Mustafa Kemal made Turkey more secular by letting individuals practice their own religion whenever. He made Turkey have secular institutions. He wanted freedom and equality for all of his people. Fezzes were replaced with European hats and European clothing was preferred which helped make Turkey look modern. Women stopped wearing their veils and they were able to vote. The Western calender was used instead of the Islamic calender.The Western code of laws were also used. People had surnames. The economy is built on the peasant. The peasant fuels the country. The Turkish alphabet, which was based on Latin, was adopted.Mustafa Kemal was President for fifteen years until his death in 1938. He introduced a wide range of reforms to Turkey and had a lot of achievements during his lifetime. He was an extraordinary leader of modern times.

Ghandi

2009-02-10T07:11:00.000-08:00

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was also known as Mohatma Gandhi, was born on October 2, 1869. He was called "Mohatma", which means great soul. He was commonly known as Mohatma because of all of his strides to help his people and make India an independant nation. In his life, Gandhi organized many movements and acts to show the British government that the people of India did not need them. Such acts consisted of the Salt March, the Civil Rights Movement in South Africa, and the Rowlatt Act Protests.
For example, in the Salt March, Gandhi lead his people on a 240 mile journey to the coast to collect their own salt to show that they did not need british products. This was inspired by the Salt Acts, which permitted India from acquiring salt from anyone else but British companies. In the civil rights movement in South Africa, Gandhi lead mine workers on strike.
Along side all of these movements, Gandhi stressed that the Indian people not fight back with the use of violence, but to receive the blow and not give the it. Gandhi's beleife behind this strategy was that if the Indian people do not fight back with force and violence, but with word of mouth and peace, that the Indian people could never lose while the British government takes into perspective the harm they have caused.
Even if Mohandis Gandhi was never born to this world, the nation of India would have eventually gained its independence. During World War I, the British government in India would gradually deplete due to the need of resourced and troops the war demanded. A short time after the end of WWI and the Treaty of Versailles, Britains colonial forces in India would decrease again to nothing or close to it due to the upcoming war. World War II.

The Russian Revolution

2009-01-09T06:38:00.000-08:00

The russian revolution is basically a chain of events that led up to a grand finale of violence and bloodshed, the marking of world one was a good spark and caused this bloody revolution. Soon enough people in russia were fed up of fighting wars and just gave up, however thier leader was ressiliant of it. So eventually the people became despret and rioted and did whatever they could to get the tzars attention. Which led to bloody sunday, which was basically a masscar of a bunch of russian citizens. this can be compared to the boston tea massacre in america in 1770.But eventually the russians couldnt take it anymore, this includes the people of law enforcement. Because even they became despret.

Causes of WW I

2009-01-07T06:38:00.000-08:00

The main cause of World war one is the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. His death and his wife led to a congress which led to a conflict which ultimately led to a war. Some reasons also had to do with economic problems and conflicts or more disputes in other countries. For example the crisis in Bosnia and Africa led to ultimately conflict and a war over land and money. Also some countries were more prepared for warfare since they have heightened their defenses and weapons. This could be called a "arms race". Then came people nationalistic beliefs, for example if their country were to be invaded they would not stand back and let them be taken over by the enemy. Also most countries had alliances and unions since either their military was not power full enough or the county was a colony of the mother country. Eventually all these little things add up and build upon each other and you have warefare and crisis in other countries. These are the causes of WW I

opium wars

2008-12-15T06:39:00.000-08:00

During the opium wars England, and other European countries wanted to get the Tea from the Chinese. The Chinese did not want to trade with them because they were isolated from the rest of the world.China was a self-sufficient country and the Chinese did not want or need anything from Great Britain or any other foreign countries.When the British couldn't find any other products to trade with China they decide to mix opium with tobbaco to promote opium smoking.The British were sucsesssul, and sold nearly 2 million pound of opium in to China each year.Because of Opium large amount of Chinese population weakened. Almost 10% of Chinese people were smoking opium.When the government discovered the opium trade they set laws and illegalized the sell of opium in terms of smoking. However, it can be used for treatments. The punishment for selling opium would be banishment, or execution. However that did not stop the British from selling the highly addictive drug, because the government addiction were corrupted, and accepted bribes from the British.The war was called the Opium war because the British wanted to keep selling opium to China.The Opium War was the very first drug war. The war was from 1839 to 1842. it was a very intense war leading to the humilating defeat of china. the was was mainly about Great Britan and China. it all started when china introduced Tea to Great britain. Great Britain wanted to trade china for tea. china didnt want to, but they wanted to

"Mountains of the Moon"

2008-12-05T13:57:00.001-08:00

The movie the mountains of the moon is about the trials 2 European explorer's faced in Africa Nile. The discovery of it would be the next biggest thing than when Columbus found America. But unlike Columbus who had a map but just didn't go the right way, Speke & Burton. The Nile is an important river that stretches throughout major parts of Africa. The two faced horrible problems along they way based on the movie. Things such as tribe wars, Disease and bug problems, theft, drought & a lot of hardships on the way to the base concerning the terrain and weather. Gaining the faith and trust of the people they hired,was also a problem. Some people would run away and steal their goods, and some would betray Speak and Burton while in the middle of their expedition.Finally,after about six months, the Europeans had found the source of the Nile. It was the third largest lake in the world and they named it "Lake Victoria".The primary technological advantage that Europeans had over African people was guns and powerful weapons, where as Africans carried only spears. The Europeans also had tools such as microscopes and telescopes. The Europeans were civilized, the Africans lived in tribes and had no government. All of this allowed the Europeans to eventually conquer Africa so easily. As you can see this is how many countries found a way to exploit Africa through its rich resources but very poor defense.

The Meiji Restoration of Japan

2008-12-05T13:49:00.000-08:00

Mathew Perry went to the coasts of Japan to trick the Japanese, pretending that he was "negotiating". Japan did not desire to trade with any other nation/country as they were in isolation. Commodore Perry wasn't negotiating as much as bulling Japan. He brought a naval force to Japan that did not use sails. He did this to impress the Japanese, and it worked. The Japanese had never seen anything like them.During the Meiji Restoration Era, the Japanese economy began to build up it's industrial base. It revised by basing itself on the western model. The Japanese government sent out investigators to learn the ways of European and American industries. In 1889, the Japanese government adopted a constitution based on the British and German models of parliamentary democracy. During this same period, railroads were constructed, a banking system was started and the samurai system was disbanded. Japan had successfully made the transition to a western style industrialized state. When the Japanese Constitution was adopted in 1889, Japan, was able to make the transition to a world power through its expansion of colonial holdings. Eventually the Japanese even learned to adapt and learn how to make things better such as the regular bomb into a torpedo from the air, such as the ones they used in pearl harbor. This shows the technology in japan and how the Japanese advanced through the Meiji restoration of japan

Karl Marx and Communism

2008-11-06T06:38:00.001-08:00

Karl Marx is German born in Europe. He was born a jew but his family converted to christianity. He didnt believe in god, he thought religion was a drug for the people. When he worked he thought it was unfair, unsafe and very harsh how the landlordsand owners of jobs treated the workers. Soon after he was dismayed by the workers in Europe. From there on he urged workers to unite and fight back landlords and owners of the jobs. He felt workers rather than landlords should control the land and farms, all of his ideas wereknown as "Communism".He hated the way everything was before and after the Industrial Revolution. It was a battle of the rich verses the poor. If it wasnt for Karl Marx' strong dislike for the Industrial Revolution, there would be no communism. Communism in other words is basically a classless society.
Marx didnt like the way that the poor people were treated.Marx believed that workers would control government, but communist governments were strict and up tight. Workers were often forced to work on huge farms and factory workers often had to fulfill quotas. In most Communist nations, the press was censored. They were not allowed to print news stories that criticized the government. People who spoke out against the Soviet government were treated harshly. Marx died in 1883, but his ideas formed the basis of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Mongolia became the second communist nation in 1921 and by the end of World War II, many governments were overthrown by communists.

nationalism and the creation of italy

2008-10-16T06:40:00.000-07:00

nationalism is defined as a practice of taking pride in your own country, but many people in this country cant take part in that since everyone is here is very paranoid and pretenious. even people who live and had familes here for more than a generation are paranoid and very insecure, because many dont want to lose their traditions and values to other foriginers who come and settle down here. However in the austro-hungrian empire, that was not the case. The countries with in that huge empire wanted their own tradition's and values. To let them have their own sense of nationalism.
Nationalism its self very vauge and not really a practice, more like a way of life. Nationilist's in this country might define themselves through sports, foods or even religion. However, just as every country has forigners. they also come with their own tradtion's and values and when those two collide, you have cultural diffusion. In that sense, it is also twice to keep a natinalistic sense of pride in a country such as ours.
The case with itally and the other countries that wanted to succed from the ottoman empire is that they did not olny want to have their cultures, tradition's and values. But their own country. This created commotion and eventually they broke apart and each own group formed a country. This includes itally , germany, austria, prussia...etc. But eventually their plan did work and these countries did make their own values and tradition's. they also began to grew on their own like independent nation's.

Simon Bolivar and Latin American Revolutions

2008-10-10T06:38:00.000-07:00

Shortly after the the french revolution, many got the same idea that they could succeed with their motherlands. This gave ideas to many other nations such as what we did in the late 1700's with our own revolution. But before that Simon bolivar was a revolution as well in his country. since he wanted independence from pain, he thought he should set up something up and in time created a huge revolution that sill affect's Latin America till today.
Bolivar had traveled through Europe and the United States, while he traveled through the United States, he really liked the way how the US had fought for their freedom and gained it through the hardships, but in the end had become a good democratic country. Bolivar liked the idea so much that he planned on getting his country, Venezuela, its own freedom from Spain.
Simon Bolivar had not only helped his country achieve freedom but rather he had helped all of South America be their own independent country and gain them freedom from Spain. For that reason Bolivar is extremely respected in South America. He had helped many of the countries of South America today to gain their freedom from the country and or nation they were bound to.

Robespierre and The Reign of Terror

2008-09-23T06:37:00.000-07:00

The reign of terror takes shortly after the revolution between the The monarchy of France with the ordinary people of France. naturally the people won due to greater numbers. soon after they created a system where there is limited monarchy, where the people share the same power. but out of this grew new radical ideas. for example, since religion was believed to be old fashioned it was said that all the churches in Paris were closed and put away. however the biggest radical idea was the guillotine. This machine was a device that would slice a person's head off using blade falling at rapid speeds. many people would be killed this way based on accusations and thoughts that were against the new regime.
Out of this a new radical leader came to power, who was Maximillion Robespierre. This man was a person who was very dedicated to the new regime, in fact so dedicated he killed the widow and people that were related or the people that she knew. people began to worry that everyone was now a victim of his dictatorship. Even though he was a dictator, people also believed he was a scared man. during this time Austria had become a big problem to France, the legislative party urge to wage war against them. however, he did not. This was another one of the factors that led to his death and execution with the guillotine(irony). Out of his death came a new appointed leader, Napoleon Bonaparte.

French revolution

2008-09-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

1. The reasons why the people of the 3rd class didn't like the higher up's is that because they were highly unfair. They didn't have to pay much tax, they got what they wanted and got to also benifit off the 3rd class. so as for the 3rd class they realized they had it the worst and wanted to do something about it

2. He might have been angry about how his life was pretty much dull and misshapen, he would probably have to pay a tax so huge he wouldn't be able even to feed him self and much less his family(if he had one)

3. source A describes how the higher up's too advantage of the peasants and other people in the lower class's. so its pretty obvious the one all the way at the bottom is the 3rd class peasant.

4. they were bad since In that example that couple would have to pay 2 feudal lords and then came the taxes which took the bare leftover money they had after they would pay everything

5. Yes it does. It shows that the poor had a very hard life, and that they had to pay to support the rich. It shows why they would want to revolt against the rich and have a revolution to avoid the harsh times.

6.The french peasants would be most influenced by Rousseau because it was about how the french peasants were treated and how everyone should be equal.

7. Whoever wrote the pamphlet of source D, was a person who believed in natural human rights and that not man had the right to take that away from another man. so naturally it would be taken away from the people of the higher up positions due to the freedom expressed in this pamphlet

John Locke and "The Enlightenment"

2008-09-18T06:35:00.001-07:00

The age of enlightenment was a age of where people were given what they used to call "natural rights". These rights were based upon the words of John Locke. In fact they even used him in the declaration of independence. Through this, we were able to get the freedom's we do today in America. John Locke was of English decent, he was brought up in a family where much freedom wasn't given to him by his family or teachers, due to his Puritan upbringing. However many thought him as a hypocrite since he was an investor in slave trading. Needless to say he still manged to influence presidents, philosophers and scholar's.
The age of enlightenment was a age where people were more inclined to think in their own diverse way. Since it did start in England and manage to spread to certain parts of Europe. John Locke was pretty much in the middle of all of it. But he has also made other contributions besides the Declaration of independence. For example he made certain theories about the value of property and ownership which is also based up him. This is olny some of his achivements. After he died , people began to slowly forget what he did and what he stood for, but since he words are now placed in the declaration of independence he death is not much of waste.

Copernicus and the trial of Gallileo

2008-09-13T06:43:00.000-07:00

During the scientific revolution Europe came across two scientists that would be held against their own words, even though it was the complete truth. In the beginning there was Copernicus who had a theory that it was the earth that was the center of the universe, but rather the sun. He created a new model for his discovery called the heliocentric model. However since he had no actual proof, just assumptions and hypothesis what the difference were to be if the sun was to be the center and if earth were the center. He did publish a book, however very few bought it, since most saw him as a crackpot, but to the public astonishment the pope Paul II took an interest of the book and actually finished it. however nothing major happened till Galileo created the telescope.Galileo is know today as the father of astrology, this is all due to his creation of the refracting telescope and the theory he formulated with. But, this is not what made him famous, it was actually his infamous record of going against the pope and the bible. Unlike Copernicus, the pope during Galileo's time was much more stricter and took this as a huge offense. This all started because he presented his ideas to a local university, until someone told about his lecture about actual proof of the sun being the center of the universe. due to this he was under arrest and placed in a jail cell for about 2-3 months and then house arrest for 4 years. during this time he was able out to even out certain parts of his theory. But since he was afraid no one would be able to hear about his theories. He one day took several copies and just started to throw them out the window and the locals and peasants, hoping they might enlighten mankind. However this got out and he was placed under arrest again.It can be said that Galileo was able to prove Copernicus right and the catholic church was proven wrong. But even scientists later on were able to further able to prove Copernicus right. Newton came up with another theory involving the sun's center holding the rest of the universe at balance. eventually more bigger and powerfull telescopes came later on and were finally able to put out the the public that the sun was indeed the center of the universe. Eventually the Church was able to put their mistake in past and just accept the fact they made a huge mistake.

Scientific Revolution: The Scientific Method

2008-09-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

The scientific method in general is a series of step to evaluate a problem and try to solve it. It was used in a lot of theories, gravity is a good example. With out these evaluations people would have made errors that they made back then, such as the universe theory into modern problems. The scientific method has always been used in science from anywhere from children science projects to modern day discoveries, such as the Large Hadron Collider. which was actually a mistake in their own scientific method. so like most scientists who had been proved wrong, were willing to give their experiment another shot by the scientific method.
The scientific method is begun by first stating a general problems. for example "why do things fall". Then is followed by a hypothesis which might not be a correct answer later. the hardest part is trying to create an experiment to either prove your point or just to solve the general problem. After that can come a step of procedures to conduct the experiment. which is finally followed by the conclusion. At this point your hypothesis can either be proven wrong or right. another possibility is finding out that your procedure does not relate to your problem and the entire thing was a waste of time.

Evolution vs Creationism

2008-09-05T06:41:00.000-07:00

Evolution states that things began as the most simplest life forms, such as bacteria or parasites, then gradually made its way to humans and greater life forms after a long while (a million years or two). But darwin aslo had some back up as to why not all forms of life could not live. this was through "natural selection". survival of the fittest. For example, a life form that had advantages in a certain habitat or area, could surely survive than one that did not have that advantage
Creationism is more like a step of processes that eventually created human life. For example, one day there was light and so forth. But the ultimate argument is that can it be proved this life form exsists and did all of this within 7 days. There was also a belif that the 2 first humans were called "adam and eve" and through those two, created a human population and made us the way we are today.
I belive in evolution rather than creationism, because unlike creationism it has a strong foundation. but like many therories it does have flaws and problems. For example, even before evolution, how did the first life start and how was it created?. even though it is hazy, it does make more sense than creationism ( at least in my opinion ). because creationism says that one supposedly great created everything in 7 days like a recipe or somesort. Im buddhist, so they tought me to belive in other things rather than one indivual idea or statement. But, the person who created this theory was human after all and could have made a huge mistake into thinking we started as simple life forms.

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2008-09-04T07:16:00.001-07:00

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