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The Opium Wars were named that because the British and the Chinese were fighting over the opium. Opium is a highly-addictive drug given to the Chinese. It is grown in the East Indies. The British would give the opium, which was used to make medicine, to the Chinese in exchange for some Chinese tea. In 1838, the Chinese government demanded not to give them any more opium due to people being highly addictive to it and dying. In 1840, the First Opium war began. The British won the war because they had advanced weapon technology and the Chinese doesn't.
In 1842, the Chinese were forced to sign the Treaty of Nanjing, which allows the British to trade in ports around China, including Hong Kong. In 1843, they signed the Treaty of the Bogue. It states that the Chinese were responsible for destroying quantities of opium in the sea during an anti-opium campaign. Unfourtunately, in 1856, the Second Opium War began due to an argument over the treaties. Once again, the British won and made the Chinese sign the Treaty of Tianjin, which opens up 11 additional ports in China.
For the last 2 days, our class and I had watched a movie named "Mountains of the Moon". It's about 2 European men who wanted to find the source of the Nile River. The Europeans had to face dangers as they explored Africa. They had to deal with hostile tribes, a lot of mosquitoes (in the movie, one of the Europeans got a bug in its ear and he ended up with a bleeding ear), robbers, malaria (a type of disease that resulted in death for some people), and starvation. They went to Africa with guns, so they had a better advantage of conquering Africa (it's because in the past, the Africans had spears and swords for weapons).
As for Lake Victoria, it's named after a British queen because the European men had "discovered" it, even though the Africans knew about the lake. (I mean, seriously people, the lake's in Africa!) Unfortunately, one of the European men (I think it was a guy named Speek) had committed suicide when they returned back to England to tell many people of their discovery.
In Global class, we did an Imperialism project. The project is supposed to show and teach us how Imperialism spread around the world. Imperialism occurs mostly because the main country needed to get objects that they don't have. So they had to trade with other people to get the things they need. Another reason for Imperialism is to get new lands. There were some lands (like Africa) that carry a disease so disastrous it can kill millions of people. There were other cases when people, like the British, brings an unknown disease to a new country (like the New World) and kill people in the new land with the disease.
Karl Marx is a German who developed Communism. His idea of Communism is people sharing the wealth with each other and overthrowing the government and the bourgeoisie (owners of factories). He thinks that the bourgeoisie are the "bad guys" and the workers are the "good guys". He believes that the Industrial Revolution brought evil to the world, and the bourgeoisie treated the workers like slaves. He believed that if Communism were to take over the world, there would be prosperity in the world and people don't need a government to tell the people what to do.
Karl Marx was a German who didn't like the way the landlords were treating the workers. He believed that with industrialization, the rich people got richer and the poor people got poorer. I don't think he liked the Industrial Revolution. Because of the Revolution, he decided to invent Communism. It's a type of society in which people can get equal pay and the government will own everything. He also believed that with all the people sharing everything, they will fell like they don't need a government anymore. Russia tried to use Communism in their country, but it didn't work for them. Only a few number of countries (actually, 3) still continue to use Communism today, but it's not like what Marx hoped it will be.
Nationalism is the fact that you love, support, and protect your country. I show that I'm nationalistic by using the American dollars and saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Before Italy was the Italy that we know of today, it was separated into small states, ruled by different countries. By 1848, Italians don't like being ruled by foreigners anymore. 2 leaders, Giuseppe Mazzini and Camillo di Cavour, decided to unify Italy, but Mazzini and other nationalist followers were exiled. Di Cavour, with the help of France and a man named Giuseppe Garibaldi, managed to unify Italy and drive the foreigners out of Italy.
Simon Bolivar was a political leader who led the Latin American Revolution. He contributed to fighting for independence for the other Latin countries. Bolivia is named after Bolivar because he is considered a hero. People called him el Libertador, or the Liberator in English. He helped the countries of Columbia, Venezuela, Panama, Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador fight for their independence. The fact that a French king, the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, is ruling over Spain and Latin America had influenced him in the quest for a revolution.
Jon Locke is the most famous Enlightment thinkers that has inspired Thomas Jefferson when he was writing the Constitution of the United States. In the second paragraph, Thomas Jefferson was talking about the people's rights- that is; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I thought it was life, liberty, and property. According to the Declaration of Independence, the government gets its power from the consent of the people. Should the government become too powerful, the people have the right to throw out the government and make a new one. They believed in a constitutional monarchy in which there is no king or queen whatsoever.
There are 2 theories of the solar system; the heliocentric theory and the geocentric theory. The geocentric theory, which was the first theory that people believed in, is the belief that the Earth is the center of the universe. The Christians believed in the geocentric theory. The reason why they believed in the theory is because they want to follow their religion. They believed that the other theories that scientists like Nicholas Copernicus made are pure nonsense.
The other theory is the heliocentric theory. This theory is the belief that the Sun is the center of the universe. It's the theory that came from the scientific method, and it's also the most accurate one. Scientists like Copernicus and Galileo believed in the theory. They also believed the fact that the geocentric theory is pure nonsense.
On April 12, 1633, Galileo went on trial and stood before 10 cardinals. He believed that the Earth revolves around the Sun. The Christians, however, believed that the Sun revolves around the Earth. According to Father Firenzuola, Galileo was not supposed to "neither hold, defend, nor teach [the Copernican] opinion in any way whatsoever." In the end, Galileo "claimed" his error, even though he knew that his facts are correct.
He only did that so they can lessen his sentence.
The scientific method is a method in which a person does multiple experiments to either prove or disprove a theory. It has been used by scientists from the past, like Galileo, and scientists today. It has also being used in science classes from schools all over the world. People like Galileo and Issac Newton proved many other people, like the ancient Greek scientist Aristotle, wrong by experimenting to disprove the theory. The scientific method is still used today.
One experiment that uses the scientific method is the theory that different weights fall at different speeds. Aristotle has this theory, along with other Greek scientists, that if you have an object that is heavier than the other object, it would fall at different speeds. Both Galileo and Newton proved him wrong by experimenting. Now, the theory that everyone believes is the fact that no matter how different the weight of the objects are, they will fall at the same time.
Evolution is the belief that the world was evolved over time and that all living things have an ancestor. Ancient Greek philosophers and a man named Charles Darwin had believed in that theory. They also believed that humans also came from an ancestor. There is this process called natural selection, in which animals who don't develop new traits that can help them survive will eventually die out. Christians don't believe in that theory.
Christians believed in creationism. Creationism is the belief that God made the world, especially the humans. In fact, they believed that their ancestors are the first humans, Adam and Eve. They also believed that He made the universe in 7 days, according to the readings of Genesis. Scientists don't believe in that theory, saying that there is no proof that God exists.
If I had to choose what theory I believe in, it would be the theory of evolution. For 1 reason, I'm not very religious. Another reason is that there is proof that we evolved from an animal ancestor. After all, Darwin did provide the proof that living things today came from a single ancestor in the past.
