Pablo's Global Blog

The Collapse of Communism

2010-05-07T11:10:00.001-07:00

Between the years of 1989 and 1991 the warsaw pact began to negate communism. This led to communism beginning to collapse in almost all the communist countries in europe and the Soviet union. It was like a series of dominos one regime fell and the next one and so one because in june 1989 the wall of berlin collapsed and west germany and east germany were united after years of separation.

Then after that same year Czechoslovakia resigned to the communism regime and a bit later a revolution was occurred kicking out the ruler of Romania, followed by the bulgarians in 1990-91. Mikhail Gorbachev was a big influence on this collapse because he changed his policies that made the soviet union stronger while he really didn't care much about other and communism. So when this happened other countries just got "attacked" and were switched to democratic/ capitalist countries.

Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of Communism

2010-05-07T11:07:00.000-07:00

From the moment Mikhail Gorbachev this sparked the start of a second russian revolution. With Mikhail Gorbachev party’s new general secretary his ideas where not to follow stalin's ideas but his owns. Since before russia was a totalitarian place ideas and economic ideas did not flow so he decided to induct the Glasnost.

This policy allowed to open ideas to society so they can discuss and give ideas on how to make a better society. This man really wanted to help is country rise from a deficit that was unknown before because no one would tell the people and russians would be told they had the best life possible. Also that they were living so much better than the americans when in the end they were living worse, maybe ten times as worse.

This was a great success and helped the russians but still the people complained about waiting hours for a few rations of food and Mikhail Gorbachev blamed the Soviet Union for not be able to plan well so he inducted Peristrokia which allowed people to build their own factories and open small businesses.

Then he mad a third policy named democratization which was a spark for people to vote for their leaders and also he realized the arms race was to much for russia to handle and was a big part of their slump so the signed a Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with president Regan. Due to all these changes in policies the collapse of communism came to russia and soon to other parts of europe.

Nelson Mandela and Apartheid

2010-04-29T11:10:00.001-07:00

Apartheid is a form of Racial segregation in South Africa. Kind of like in america with the segregation of blacks and whites. Even thought the conquering of this helped for africa to gain more technology skills and make new products for their better life. This form negated the africans the right to act as citizens of their own land. They would be separated the non whites and whites into two parts for bathrooms, restaurants etc and anyone that opposed this way of life was killed.

One man who never stopped for the independence of his people and country was Nelson Mandela. Mandela started his strive to regain his territory as a African National Congress but was soon cut when he was caught by the whites and was sentenced to life sentence in prison. Many of his followers where inspired by what he tried to do to save his country that they kept fighting.

Finally after a rebellion started and africa was finally independent from rule, the africans rescued the influential leader of this rebellion after 27 years in prison. He was awarded the nobel peace prize in honor of how he never gave up to abolish Apartheid. Soon after he was named the first black president of africa and is still alive to host the fifa world cup 2010!

African Independence

2010-04-28T11:11:00.000-07:00

Between 1955 and 1975 Africa started gaining their independence from European Nations. The only countries liberated at this time were Libya, South Africa, Ethiopia and Egypt. This time period was also called the Scramble for Africa. African countries had no say in what the Europeans were doing because they were more dominant in weapons. Their purpose for being in this continent was for natural resources even though africans some africans had no problem in foreign countries taking over their homeland. By 1975 Africa broke through and gained their independence. A very important figure in Africa during this time period that impacted this independence was named Jomo Kenyatta. Jomo gained a good education while growing up and soon studied politics while he worked as a carpenter. He was put in prison for trying to prevent the British from turning the Government system in Africa into communism and after Africa had gained their independence and Jomo became the president of Kenya. Some other important leaders during this time period was Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes was a racist British leader who tried instill British control over Africa. The famous picture of him standing over Africa with puppet strings really shows his character during this harsh time. Two other important figures during this time were Nelson Mandela who soon became president of South Africa and Kwame Nkrumah who was the leader of Ghana.

Film lesson:"The right stuff"

2010-04-18T17:21:00.000-07:00

This movie was very entertaining due to the back and forth competition between the U.S. and Russia. The competition after WWII the americans and russians terminated their alliance and started competing against each other called the cold war. The movie starts off kind of confusing thinking it might be about airplanes but as it gets in the middle its starts to be about russia and USA and the space race. This was a race between the power house of communism and democracy to see who could get to space quicker.

Very soon once the Americans felt confident about their progress the Russians launch the first satellite and were intimidated at that time by the Russians. To be superior once again the start building spaceships. This is where the movie gets funny because the americans started testing the space ships and the would fly like 3 feet and den crash. Or make a u turn and then crash that was hilarious to me, but anyways finally the americans succeeded and send to space a monkey and we were the center of it all until russia made us look like and sent the first man to space called Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin.

After this event is when america invested tons of dollars on the space program to launch finally the first man to land on the moon. His name was Neil Alden Armstrong. This was the last of this space race but to me it seems like russia won but on history and books USA is the hero and the victorious.

NATO and the Warsaw Pact

2010-04-12T10:35:00.000-07:00

NATO stood for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The countries within this organization were mainly the United States, Canada, and several Western European Countries. This organization was made after World War II and it was to provide aid for countries in need and defense.

Due to the NATO alliance the communist nations in Eastern Europe formed the Warsaw Pact, having the Soviet Union like the powerhouse of Communism. As the dominant force in that allied side the Soviet's kept supplied the communist countries with weapons to protect themselves from the democratic countries. Due to this also USA and the Soviet union started the cold war. It is called the cold war because these two countries never used violence to settle this war. Although the Pact was formed 6 years after NATO it started to lose its power as countries went away like Eastern Germany formed back with Western Germany.

Film Lesson: "Schindler's List"

2010-03-23T11:12:00.001-07:00

In the film of schindler's list hollywood uses its ways to show the horror on the era of the holocaust.The holocaust was an evil event that had claimed the lives of so many innocent people and they were murdered and killed. Some of the things you will see in a film like this are very disturbing as well such as see people killed on the spot. Its sick how the officers don't even care as long as they are gone. One part of this movie that was like sad and touching was when they showed the kids, while the young adults and adults were in the selection stage the kids were being taken away. This was also touching because the kids didn't have a clue what was going on.

When they were on the big truck like vehicles being driven away they just waved bye and smiled. Shows you how innocence kills. Some of the kids did figure it out and tried to hide anywhere they could. I do have to say some kids were clever to hide under floorboards but the place is still a death camp. That was very sad to me because even if they did survive what would does kids do with their families probably dead and with no one to go to for refuge.

Oskar Schindler though being a German business man he saved the lives of thousands of Jews by employing them in his factories. The ending got sad because at the end he tells how he appreciated their help and that he had to leave because the americans would be looking for him. Also how at the end people went around his grave leaving rocks in gratitude of saving their lives. In my opinion this movie was better because it had more feeling and more emotions to it, it made the holocaust seems so realistic even though its a old movie.

Film Lesson: "Night and Fog"

2010-03-23T11:10:00.000-07:00

"Night and Fog" is a documentary about the holocaust. It shows disturbing footage of what went on in concentration camps and Nazi's sick and inhumane behavior towards Jews. Also watching how the Jews were being treated in captivity under the Nazi control was just sick. After seeing all the dead bodies just pains me how so many people were killed. It also showed us actual photos of what had happened in the concentration camps.

This documentary was very much powerful because it was very real and showed me how the holocaust really was. I would just hear and read stories but never really watched anything , it was depressing to see the photos that were being shown. "Night and Fog" can very much compare to "Schindler's List" because they both showed very well how the holocaust was and it wasn't anything easy to watch. These two movies were very touching but I think schindler's list was more emotional with more facts to absorb from the movie.

The Treaty of Versailles (ended WW I)

2010-02-25T11:11:00.000-08:00

The treaty of Versailles was a treaty the affected Germany completely. At the end of WW1 Germany was blamed for the start of the whole world and not Austria-Hungary. Due to this treaty Germany was responsible of paying the damages of Great Britain and France and automatically lost ten percent of their land in Asia and Africa.

As their land went down their army went down because their men went away with the land. Germany also started having problems economically and I think many would have thought this was the end of Germany, but as many people believe the cause of the Treaty of Versailles led to the rise of Adolph Hitler.

This man at first came as a man that would save his country regain their power, army and economy. The people wanted to get revenge. Although Hitler became insane he helped Germany regain their power.

Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) and the Modernization of Turkey

2010-02-25T11:08:00.000-08:00

Mustafa was a very famous young man who led his people to victory and independence . It was him who founded the Turkish Republic and became its first president. Many of his people were surprised with how much he was able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. He was a military hero when he came back from the Dardanelles in 1915. It was then that he decided to lead his nation to liberation. A powerful leader, he crushed all those who opposed them. He put an end to the power of the Ottoman empire. He was president of his nation for an impressive 15 years.
Mustafa's main goal for Turkey was to modernize his nation. He didn't want his people to follow the same old ways of the surrounding lands. He wanted to give his nation a new sense of dignity, equality and happiness. One of the most important things he did was make religion an individual conscience. Christians and Jewish people were free to practice their faith as much as they pleased. He also gave his people modern equality. Even peasants, who were greatly ignored in the Ottoman Empire, were considered important. Even the sense of style became different.

They wore European hats instead of the Fez.(which was now prohibited) Citizens even got their own surnames. They even produced their own Western Calendar. Mustafa created a secular civilization. Secularism is when Religion is separated from all public affairs because they are so apart from the other country because they don't share same religion beliefs.

Film lesson:"Ghandi"

2010-02-11T11:09:00.000-08:00

Gandhi was a very important for history, he became one of the most important person to the Indian nation from the harsh rule of Great Britain. Some of the ways things Ghandi did to oppose british rule were always acts of non-violence. Gandhi would lead a march to some near factory of some sort. There, he would protest in a peaceful way, with his followers right behind him. Another thing Gandhi did was produce his own supplies. In India, both salt and clothes were costing the people a whole bunch. To save themselves from this, Gandhi declared that all the Indian people would make their own clothes.

He also led the salt march and he did this by going to the ocean with people and taking out the salt from the ocean and this saved them money. The british did not like this because they were losing money so the sent troops to where Ghandi was and the people went up to the troops and let them beat them and this made britain look bad. Ghandi was someone people looked up to also because if a follower of him would commit violence he would fast until the violence would completely stop.

Finally India got its independence because britain was at another war so they had to start worrying about their country so they gave up on India, but Ghandi was shot by people who didn't like his ideas because Ghandi wanted everyone to live together.

The Russian Revolution

2010-01-14T20:49:00.000-08:00

The Russian Revolution was a bunch of revolutions in Russia during the year 1917. The Russians demanded a revolution because Czar Nicholas II was preventing any change and stopped anyone who tried to take his throne. When Czar was finally removed a temporary government was created. Russia still continued to fight in WWI and refused to leave the war, the new temporary government created was a democratic government, but the peasants revolted against the landowners and factory owners.

In the revolution there was a clash between the democratic government and the Bolshevik party. The Bolshevik party then signed a treaty with Germany and left the WWI because they were no match for a country with so many power and weapons russians had never seen. The Bolsheviks used Karl Marx's idea of communism and formed their own government and this led to the first country using carl marx communism. The land part was for communism, the Bolshevik party led by Lenin who wanted all russians to revolt against landlords and factory owners and then take their land.

The Causes Of WWI

2010-01-14T20:36:00.000-08:00

One of the main reasons of World War I was because of nationalism which means respect for ones country. Militarism also played its role in this war because it was a country who was always ready for war. The biggest cause of the war was on June 28th, 1914. It was the assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand. The killing was done by a Serbian nationalist who killed the Archduke on his trip to Sarajevo.

This led to Austria blaming the Serbians for this incident and pulled this into the brink of war. One after another countries started to defend one another. Germany considered Austria to be on the same side as them so they would be able to help them out in war. Soon other countries decided to join saying if they declare war on Serbia then they declare war on the opposing country. One after another led to the beginning of World War One. Once this happened Austria allied with germany and with that power had total control over the serbians and then two alliances formed the triple alliance which consisted of Germany,Austria-Hungary,Italy and there was also the triple Entente which had the United Kingdom,France and Russia.

The Opium War

2010-01-14T20:20:00.000-08:00

The Opium Trade in China between the British and the Chinese was the very first drug war of the 19th century and provoked a great war. It was called the Opium War Opium is a preparation made from the juice of poppy seedpods and used to produce heroin.The drug was mainly produced in and shipped from the East Indies to China by British merchants. This addictive drug had gotten many Chinese badly hooked by the early 1800s, this highly addictive drug led china to fall money wise and its army began to collapse.

This made tax collectors charge more and more to local villages and made the people poorer and poorer. These drugs used got the chinese mad and they stopped trading for opium, this raged the british and they declared war on the chinese. The british used their industrialized weapons to fight the chinese, these battles went on for three years. Finally the chinese people were defeated easily because of the more advanced technology that the British hold due to their industrialization of the industrial revolution.They made china sign a treaty that enabled china to give the British trade and obligated china to open trading ports.

Film Lesson: "Mountains of the Moon"

2009-12-10T18:45:00.002-08:00

In class we watched a movie called "Mountains of The Moon". The movie started very intresting when Burton lived after a spear cut right through his face. This movie implied imperialism because Richard Burton and John Speke were on a mission to find the source of the Nile river. One of the fnniest parts of this movie is when the english people present the tribe with advanced technology equipment and burton gives the leader a gun, and the leader decided to shoot somone and as he did the whole tribe became terrified at the object.

On the road to find the source on of the nasties parts was when Speke was sleepin and forgot to put up his bug net and a beetle climbed up his ear. When Speke claims that he had found the Nile river problems evolve between the two explorers and Burton questions him how is Speke sure that what he has found is the source, and this leads to a trial. In the end Speke couldn't take much more and ends up killing himself.

Burton then decides not to continue saying anything after hearing that his companion has died and finalli it is proven that Speke indeed was right Lake Victoria was the source of the nile. A question that was encountered by the global class after the video was why was the lake called after the English queen when the lake was located in Africa and in the class concluded that this was due to that during that period imperialsm was occurring and since the Europeans had more better technologies they could capture and rename whatever they wanted and pleased.

Imperialism Project

2009-12-10T18:45:00.001-08:00

Over the days we worked on a project on imperialism. What I learned was that imperialism is when one country tries to take over another country to gain control over their economic, social, and political lives. For the completion of this project we had to attach labels such as tea,cotton etc to different countries.

We also had to draw trade route to show where the products were imported from and exported from. Many of the products were transported from one place to another by ship, the main point of this project was to demonstrate which countries from Europe went to which part of the world to get thier raw materials for thier industrial revolution. Many countries went down to africa and conquered them for thier materials, others like britain n spain went to india and china south america.

When we started coloring the countries and the territory they conquered I was shocked to see so many countires from eurpoe spread all over the world to south america,north america,africa,asia. All in less than 20 years and for the purpose only to obtain slaves to do thier work and raw materials for their huge industrialization. What also outstanded me is that great countries would take advantage of their superior weapons and force people to give them the products they desierd and also trick them to give them what they want for example when british gave Chinese opium for tea, this was a trick to get the material they needed and end up leading to the opium wars.

Karl Marx and Communism

2009-11-19T07:58:00.000-08:00

Karl Marx had an idea on starting a new idea for the working people. That idea was called communism. Communism is about the workers getting paid the same even when they all work different jobs. This also involved people not being able to own their own land or property. This was Karl Marx idea of communism and he wanted it to be spreaded all over. Karl wanted all workers to be on the same level not have different ways.

This also supported people who wanted to get the money they deserved and weren't getting. Everyone was working the same job and had to under one major owner. This is why Karl Marx wanted The "good guys" were the factory workers who didn't like the way they were being treated and workedlong hours for low wages and less time breaks. The "Bad Guys" are the Factory owners who controlled everything that happens in the factory because they controlled the workers.

Karl Marx and the industrial revolution

2009-11-19T07:55:00.000-08:00

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. 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 were known as communism.

Communism was the term to define the communist workers of the jobs. He fought for the rights of the worker men. The ideas of Marx were not used in the communist countries. 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

2009-10-27T09:39:00.000-07:00

Nationalism is a word used to express ones feelings for his country. Nationalism can mean many things that help supprot ones love or liking for the country. Living in the country paying government taxes voting, join military forces, getting jobs, using the countries currency, speaking the native language are many ways of nationalism. It also means that the the countrys loyalty should be represented by kings or government but by the people of the nation who live there.

Nationalism was used to create the nation of italy. Italy before it was a whole country, was separated. Each part had its own rulers, they figure this was the best way to keep democarcy alive, but the people of italy didnt approve.Giuseppe Mazzini was a ruler who supported nation states. He believed italy should be united not separated with different rulers and country laws. His goal was to unite italy, However many wars broke out because of disagreements between Giuseppe Garibaldi. Piedmont Sardinia was the largest, most powerful state in Italy. Camillo Di Cavour worked hard to expand Piedmont Sardinia's power. Giuseppe Garibaldi achieved his goal and united Italy. Now Italy was finally whole.

Simon Bolivar and Latin American Revolutions

2009-10-22T09:28:00.000-07:00

Simon Bolivar was the main person who liberated most of the upper part of south america. With his military forces of more than 10,000 people liberated the upper part of south america. He got his ideas after making his trip to spain there he learned the ideas of the enlightenment such as Locke, Rousseau and Voltaire. Then he visited france and saw their independence. Lastly he went to United states where they had just won their independence and finally was convinced that bolivia should fight for their independence.

He lost many battles and had to retreat to many countries such as Colombia, Jamaica and Haiti, but with these defeats he gained reputation that he wanted independence. Later he made his army bigger by joining with English and Irish veterans of napoleonic wars and funds of haiti to capture bogota. By 1825 bolivar had vanished all the control of the spanish in the north of south america. Bolivar won the independence for Bolivia, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. Bolivar was the george washington of south america.

Bolivia made named their country after Bolivar in honor of his success for defeating the Spanish army in Peru. After defeating the Spanish, Peru decided to name that territory Bolivia in honor of Simon Bolivar.

John Locke and "The Enlightenment"

2009-09-28T17:05:00.000-07:00

The enlightenment thinkers were the first people who gathered together and decided to think of a better way of government instead of a monarchy. John locke was the one who influenced most thomas jefferson. The rights that Thomas Jefferson talks about is Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Which mean people have the right to do what without someone judging them. The power of the government comes from the people. This was made because people only were ruled by a king and only passes their crown down to their sons, and sometimes their sons weren't the best ones and failed to control a country. So thomas took the enlightenment thinkers ideas and changed them a little to form a democracy. So this way people would vote for their governments and if they saw the government was doing a bad job the people had the power to overthrow the government and replace them.

Copernicus and the trial of Galileo

2009-09-20T10:07:00.000-07:00

There was two theories the first one was the theory of geocentrism. This theory was believed that the earth was the center of the universe and not the sun. The people just believed the word the priest said and the people also believed this theory because when they looked up to space they saw the sky going in circles(rotating).

The second theory was heliocentrism. This theory was invented in the time of the scientific revolution. This theory says that the universe revolves around the sun. Scientist saw this when they observed that different shapes were formed from the moon and planets.

Galileo believed in heliocentrism. He wanted could prove this because he invented items such as the telescope and he could see outer space from his house. The pope was believed in geocentrism so he was said to be guilty and was placed on house arrest. The time when the people found out that Galileo was right was too late. Galileo was dead.

Scientific Revolution: The Scientific Method

2009-09-17T09:36:00.000-07:00

During the 1500's people mostly thought what Greeks believed was true. They thought the earth was the center of the universe and it revolved around us; but to the scientific proved that wrong. Scientist did experiments to prove their point such as Galileo who proved that all stones of different weights fell down at the same speed. The scientific method is based on looking at something, then you make a prediction of what could happen and then experiment on that idea a few times to prove the answer.

When these theories did not explain why something happened they had to make new theories, but this did not mean they were wrong but it could not explain all the data of the certain time. But when experiments are proven then later there is some incompletion with the theory. For example when Newton's theory of gravity the experiments showed he was right. Then after more technology was made and Einstein proved those experiments with some errors.

Evolution Vs. Creation

2009-09-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

Evolution

Charles Darwin thought that creatures of all kind had come from the same ancestors. He believed that we had evolved for survival of the fittest and through mutation. Also what Charles thought was that natural selection had to be involved with evolution. What Charles Darwin thought about this was that natural selection was when the animal/plant etc, had a offspring, it gave all of it's character traits to it's offspring and that would wipe out the creatures who could not survive to the environment.

Creation

This is a religious belief that the whole world, universe was made by a super natural person; but people decreased in believing in creation as scientific methods have proven much. A lot of people believe in this jewish, muslims, Islam's and christians.

In my opinion I don't believe in any theory because they all give evidence that we come from one supernatural man or we come from one ancestor. But they both have errors in their statements. For example the people who believe in creation say that we come from adam and eve but they said they had two boys. So did people expand? For creation they say keep announcing we come from one thing but where did the first thing come from?