Thursday, April 29, 2010

Nelson Mandela

Apartheid was a system of legal racial segregation enforced by the South African Bureau for Racial Affairs. Nelson Mandela was a hero because he was the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe and he organized sabotage campaigns against the government and the military. He tried to introduce a system of racial integration.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Film Lesson: "The Right Stuff"

The US and the USSR were competing in this because they were trying to have the strongest kind of nuclear war, have more nuclear bombs than each other, they wanted to get to space first. The USSR was winning because its discoveries were more advanced than than the US. The cold war was fought with propaganda, economic war, diplomatic haggling and occasional military clashes between these two nations. The scenes that will remind me of the events in the Cold War were the US's rocket launching failures.

Monday, April 12, 2010

NATO and The Warsaw Pact

NATO is an organization formed April 4 of 1949. It includes countries in Europe and North America. The main reason for this organization to form was that the countries involved wanted a mutual defense alliance so that if one of these countries were attacked all other nations in NATO would come to their aide.NATO was formed by these countries: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The Warsaw pact was created in response to NATO and was formed May 14, 1955. It was consisted mainly by the Soviet Union and it's satellite countries. It was controlled by the Soviet Union, all nations in the Warsaw pact were communist. It was formed by the Soviet Union and seven of satellite nations. It was formed for mutual defense that put the Soviets in command of the armed forces of the member states.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Film Lesson: "Night and Fog"

I actually had no reactions while watching this movie/documentary. I didn't really find any powerful images or scenes. Even though I know what most of the people at these concentration went through I did not find this film as a powerful as the movie "Schindler's List" since this film illustrates the Holocaust more effectively because it shows more detail on what actually happened to the people that lived and died in these Extermination and Concentration camps.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) and the Modernization of Turkey

Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) wanted to modernize Turkish life in order to give it a better sense of dignity and happiness. He introduced many reforms like fez hats being replaced by normal European hats, the people that lived in Turkey had surnames and the Western calendar was being used instead of the Islamic one. He made Turkey more secular since he was separating his people from Islamic culture.

Secular - of or pertaining to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred; temporal: secular interests.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Film Lesson: "Gandhi"

Gandhi helped India gain its independence by introducing non violent methods of revolution. Gandhi used non violent civil disobedience to challenge Great Britain's power. He encouraged Indians to boycott British goods and make their own like clothes and salt.