Thank You

It was so awesome hearing about everyone's field trips/oral histories. The stories were fascinating to hear, and I have a lot more places to check out in the Bay Area now! This class has been a great learning experience and getting to know everyone has been equally as great. Looking forward to seeing some of you in the fall!

A Picture Speaks A Thousand Words

My last post about the Berlin Wall was an important and poignant point in history. It was also filmed and widely reported in the media. I think that the fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for recent media outlets reporting on anything and everything in world news. The massacre at Tiananmen Square was also another moment that was seen played out on TV.

At 2:00am on June 4th 1989, People's Liberation Army tanks and 300,000 soldiers moved into TiananmenSquare in Beijing to crush a large pro-democracy demonstration that had been going on for seven weeks. The tanks rolled over people that got in their way and soldiers opened fire on groups of protesters.

Hundreds of students and supporters were killed. Nobody but the Chinese authorities knows how many people really died, partly because the bodies were carried off the night of the massacre and buried in secret graves.

The massacre at Tiananmen Square didn't take place in Tiananmen Square but rather in the streets around it. Most of violence occurred on the Avenue of Eternal Peace on the southern side of the square. Reports that the square was washed in blood were unfounded and it appears no one actually died within Tiananmen Square itself. Crackdowns also occurred in more than 200 cities all over China.

The Chinese government death figure is 300. Other estimates range from 2,700 and up. Most of the dead were not university students but ordinary people. Among them were many bystanders, including a 17-year-old high school student, a 27-year-old chemistry teacher, and a 30-year-old computer company employee who had been married for only a month.

Never before had the People's Liberation Army turned its weapons on the Chinese people with the intention of murdering so many of them. Demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1976 and 1987 had been broken up with batons and tear gas not guns and tanks.

Berlin Wall

Chapter 22 talked about Communism in Russia and China. I admit that I am a bit ignorant when it comes to understanding Communism especially when it came to other countries. Chapter 22 was especially insightful for me and I found myself remembering a neighbor who had traveled to Europe when I was about 8 years old. He came back with gifts for my sisters and I and he brought us each a piece of the Berlin Wall. I was way too young at the time to understand the significance. I am not sure if I still have the piece of the wall; a part of me hopes that it is tucked away in some box in my attic somewhere.

The fall of the Berlin Wall had begun with the building of the Wall in 1961. However it took about three decades until the Wall was torn down. Several times people in the Communist countries rose up against the Communist system but failed.

In 1989 the first free labor union was founded in the communist Poland. The end of the communist system had begun.The Soviet Union could control their satellites yet but with the new leader Gorbatshov their politics changed in 1984. The reforms in the Soviet Union also had its effects on the other communist countries, especially in Poland and Hungary.

On August 23, 1989 Hungary opened the iron curtain to Austria. Months before East German tourists used their chance to escape to Austria and Hungary. In September 1989, more than 13,000 East German escaped via Hungary in 3 days. It was the first mass exodus of East Germans after the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961.

Mass demonstrations against the government and the system in East Germany begun at the end of September and took until November 1989. The new government prepared a new law to lift the travel restrictions for East German citizen. At 06:53 pm on November 9, 1989 a member of the new East German government was asked at a press conference when the new East German travel law comes into force. He answered: "Well, as far as I can see, ... straightaway, immediately."

Thousands of East Berliners went to the border crossings. At 10:30 pm the border opened. Other border crossing points soon opened to the West and by December of 1989, the majority of the Berlin Wall had been destroyed.

Chapter 21

Chapter 21 proved to be an excellent reiteration of what I have learned in every single history course I've ever taken. I studied the Great Depression in depth after reading The Grapes of Wrath. I discovered how awful trench warfare is in All's Quiet on the Western Front. And I learned that war really is hell, after watching Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, and The Pacific.

That being said, I still found chapter 21 very interesting and informative. It is always good to look at history from different perspectives to really gain a better understanding of the whole.

In an interview, Mel Brooks once said, "I was never crazy about Hitler...If you stand on a soapbox and trade rhetoric with a dictator you never win...That's what they do so well: they seduce people. But if you ridicule them, bring them down with laughter, they can't win. You show how crazy they are."

Below are some clips while in ridiculously bad taste, fit perfectly with what Brooks was trying to convey.

Happy 5th of July!

On the day after celebrating America's birthday, stuffed with bbq and beer and smelling like sparklers, it's time to get back to business.

A couple of weeks back, I was speaking with my best friend on the phone. She is a grad student at Humbolt State working on her MA in Sociology. We vented to each other our frustrations with the amount of work we had, how much we hated our jobs and everything else bff's discuss. I was telling her I was currently reading chapter 22 in my history book, and the topic of communism reminded me of our favorite teacher in high school and his fabulous sayings such as "that's not an elephant, its a mouse with a thyroid problem". This teacher taught history electives our senior year, and one of the classes was American history from 1945 to the present. I was telling her how I had no topic for a research paper, yet found the topic of communism interesting. I wanted a good angle for the paper however. She told me about a book she had read for one of her classes, and it included the story of the Wheatland hop riots of 1913. After I got off the phone, I decided to research it a bit more, and I really found myself drawn to the topic. I decided that for my research paper, I would discuss the 1913 Wheatland hop riots.

What happened in 1913 was not only important in California and American history, but served as a lesson for countries and labor unions all over the world. It showed the direct impact the "fear of communism" had on American society and other cultures.

Here is a link for a brief history of the riot. I cannot wait to share it with you though in class.

http://libcom.org/history/1913-wheatland-hop-riot

Since our last class discussed briefly the Massachusetts colony, I thought I'd post some pictures I took from my Boston trip last month. I loved Boston and the people there. Everywhere you walk there is some part of American history smacking you in the face. I walked along the Freedom Trail (until it took me to the marketplace and I got distracted by shopping), and I tripped several times on the cobblestone streets (flip flops and stone streets don't mix).

I tend to geek out on early American colonial history, and I only had a short time there so I didn't even come close to seeing all the historical buildings, statues and tours Boston had to offer (friends, Boston beer and the Red Sox had a hand in this). I loved Boston and can't wait to visit again.

Faneuil Hall has been a marketplace and meeting hall since 1742. Samuel Adams, James Otis and others gave speeches here encouraging independence from Britain. It was a well known stop on the Freedom Trail and is sometimes referred to as "the Cradle of Liberty."

This stature of Samuel Adams is outside Faneuil Hall. He was a statesman, political philosopher, and one of the founding fathers of the United States. As a politician in colonial Massachusetts, Adams was a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution, and was one of the architects of the principles of American republicanism that shaped the political culture of the United States.

The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Stanford White, was built in his memory on Beacon and Park streets in Boston in 1897. Robert Gould Shaw was the colonel in command of the all-black 54th Regiment, which entered the American Civil War in 1863. He was killed in a failed attempt to capture Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina.

The Massachusetts State House, also called Massachusetts Statehouse or the “New” State House, is the state capitol and seat of government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is located in Boston in the Beacon Hill neighborhood. It was built on land once owned by John Hancock in 1798.

Of course my favorite part of my Boston trip was going to Fenway Park! The park is the oldest Major League Baseball stadium still in use and the oldest venue for a professional sports team in the United States. My tour guide informed my group that the team has put in a petition to Congress to make Fenway Park a historical landmark. In 2011, Fenway will turn 100 years old.

Ch 11

Wow. Chapter 11 contained a lot of information, but extremely interesting information. I will be the first to admit that I am totally confused by how Islam came to be. It has such a rich cultural tradition and history that it was helpful to read about how it came to be.

I admit I have a short attention span, and I do much better with videos (don't we all?) I took a religion class last semester, and watched this PBS documentary that I found insightful, interesting and informative. (You can't go wrong with the 3 I's!)
*I only posted the first 3 parts-the rest can be found on Youtube.

Ch 10

What I found most interesting about the Crusades was the amazing art and architecture that came out of the time. The book did not go into detail about it, so I did a little research on my own and came up with some key points. From the Crusades, two essential art periods came about in Europe.

The Romanesque Period:

Romanesque architecture was a combination of features from Roman and Byzantine structures. The Romanesque churches had thick walls, close set columns and small windows.

In the West, there was a revival of monumental stone sculptures. Romanesque sculpture was commonly carved in relief and it was an integral part of the architecture to the church it belonged to. (Remember the Crusades were a "holy war" to spread Christianity throughout Europe, so some magnificent churches were constructed).

The Gothic Period:

The Gothic period was characterized by religion, philosophy and art. Most representative of the Gothic period was the soaring cathedrals. A typical Gothic cathedral would consist of flying buttresses, stone beams extending from the walls. These beams helped take the weight off the walls, thus the walls could be thinner allowing space for stained-glass windows that were adored with religious images. Narrow pointed stone arches extended from tall pillars allowed higher ceilings to be built, unlike the rounded arches of the Romanesque period.

And in keeping with the theme of blogging, here are a couple of blogs I found about Romanesque and Gothic art. Check em out, it's pretty interesting.

http://www.romanesqueart.net

http://www.arthistoryspot.com/2010/02/gothic-sculpture

Chocolate Anyone?

I found this cool article from the Field Museum in Chicago that gives a brief history of chocolate. Thought it would be interesting to share with everyone! I bet the Mayans and Aztecs never could have predicted that their "sacred brew" favored by royals would become a confection that people of all ages and cultures enjoy.

http://www.fieldmuseum.org/chocolate/history.html

Chapter 5, Part II

Middle East:
In the Middle East, Zoroastrianism and Judaism were founded which later became the basis for Christianity and Islam.

Zoroastrianism:
-Founded in the Persian Empire; it arose to challenge the polytheism of earlier times.
-The Persian prophet, Zarathustra, recast Persian polytheism into one single god. The faith achieved widespread support within Persia and in parts of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia. It was not a missionary religion, so it never spread beyond these areas.
-The arrival of Islam in the Arab empire that brought the final decline of Zoroastrianism.

Judaism:
-The Hebrew tradition, recorded in the Old Testament, tells of the early migration from Mesopotamia to Palestine under the leadership of Abraham.
-Fled to Egypt where they were enslaved and then escaped back to Palestine. Established a small state that split into two parts, Israel and Judah.
-“Yahweh” was a powerful and jealous deity who demanded the exclusive loyalty from the Jews, and in time, the Jews saw him as a covenant and in return, Yahweh considered the Jews the chosen people favoring them in battle, and bringing prosperity and blessing.
-The set of ideas of Judaism sustained a separate Jewish identity in ancient and modern times. This understanding of God provided the foundation of Christianity and Islam.

Greece:
With the ever growing artistic, literary and theatrical traditions of Greece, the significance of Greek thinking lay in the way of asking questions. It placed great emphasis on argument, logic and reasoning without much reference to the gods.

Socrates:
-Athenian philosopher; taught mostly via lecture and questioned the logic of his students; thinking.
-Challenged conventional ideas about wealth and power; critical of Athenian democracy.
-This thinking conflicted with city authorities and was sentenced to death.

Plato:
-Sketched out a design for a good society in The Republic.
-Argued that only highly educated “guardians” led by a “philosopher-king” should rule.

Aristotle:
-Student of Plato; taught Alexander the Great; wrote and commented on everything.
-Emphasis on empirical observation; reflected on ethics and urged a mixed system of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy for government.

Christianity:
The message of early Christianity spread quickly throughout the Roman Empire. Roman rulers used Christianity as glue to hold together a diverse population and a weakening imperial state. Emperor Theodosius enforced a ban against all polytheistic religions and proclaimed Christianity as the official state religion. The Roman Empire, and soon all of Europe became mostly Christian. It also found a home in parts of Africa, Middle East, and Asia.

Chapter 5, Part I

I broke up my Chapter 5 outline into 2 posts so you don't get information overload!

Chapter 5 was about Eurasian Cultural Traditions, mostly talking about great philosophers and thinkers of the time. Religion is a tricky subject; for some, the religious traditions they take part in are sacred and divine. Various tensions and misunderstandings have arisen throughout time between people who partake in different religions.

From about 500 BCE, cultural traditions began to emerge from China, the Middle East, Greece and India. It is these traditions that have successfully carried over, albeit in different forms into the 21st century. The chapter does a good job of breaking down the religions/philosophers of the time. Here is my outline of the chapter (bear with me!)

China:

As one of the First Civilizations, China had a tradition of state building. After centuries of disrupt (approx 403-221 BCE) Chinese thinkers began to consider how order could be restored and from this, classical Chinese cultural traditions emerged.

Confucianism:

-Confucius spent his adult life seeking a political position in which he could put his ideas into action.

-The Confucian answer to a warring China was moral examples of superiors to restore social harmony. Human society consisted of unequal relationships: father is superior to son, husband to wife, older brother to younger brother and ruler to subject. If the superior party in the relationships behaved with sincerity and concern for others, the inferior party would be motivated to respond with deference and obedience and harmony would prevail.

-He emphasized education as the key to moral betterment.

-His ideas left a deep imprint on Chinese culture.

-Confucianism became the central element of the educational system; it also placed a great deal on history.
-Confucianism marked Chinese elite culture by its secular, or nonreligious, character. It did not deny the reality of gods and spirits.

Daoism:
-Laozi, a 6^th century archivist and thinker.
-Daoist thinking ran counter to Confucianism; ridiculed Confucianism efforts as artificial and useless
-Central concept of Daoist thinking is dao the notion that refers to the way of nature. The dao moves around and around, but does not on this account suffer. All life comes from it. It wraps everything with its love as in a garmet and yet it claims no honor for it does not demand to be lord.
-Daoism invited people to withdraw from the world of political and social activism and to disengage in public life so important to Confucius and to align themselves with the way of nature. It meant living simply, and simple communities with limited government and abandoning education and active efforts of self improvement.
-Chinese elite saw Daoism as a compliment to Confucianism; this outlook was facilitated by the ancient Chinese concept of yin and yang which expressed a belief in the unity of opposites.

India:
Indian elite culture embraced the divine and all things spiritual. The Indian religious tradition, Hinduism, differed from other world religions. It had no historical founder, and it grew from many centuries.
-Hinduism was never a single tradition-it was given its name from outsiders who wanted to keep the various Indian cultural patterns into a recognizable system.
-Hinduism has a vast diversity of gods, spirits, beliefs, practices, rituals and philosophies.
-The sacred texts write of many rituals and sacrifices one needed to perform in order to acquire power and wealth.

Buddhism:
-Emerged around the same time as Hinduism.
-Founded by Siddhartha, a prince from a small north Indian state, he left his wealth in search of “enlightenment”.
-A small growing community came to see him as Buddha, the Enlightened One, based on his travels and teachings.
-The Buddha’s teachings reflected the Hindu traditions, most notably, Karma and rebirth.
-The teachings also challenged Hindu thinking, rejecting rituals and sacrifices.
-Buddhism spread across India and beyond, a distinct different religion from Hinduism.

Hey everyone! So I realized that after I created my blog I forgot to put the "summer world history" part in the address. This is an indication of my personality. I can be a bit spacey at times! I think it's a Taurus thing (or so I'm told!). I'm excited for the class to be over already...wait, what? Kidding. Looking forward to getting to know all of you and learning a lot about my history as well.