Film Lesson - "Gandhi"

Gandhi was a very influential man. He led India to their independence. He used non violence and passive resistance. That means you can resist something without laying harm or violence to anyone or anything. He thought fighting would get you no where and did everything without violence. He would rather get beat, hit and bruised to prove his point instead of violence.

When his own people used violence he fasted. He did not eat anything until they stopped. All he did was sip water. I think India's independence was all about Gandhi. He was the one to act first. He did not like the way his people was being treated and he put a stop to that. All the other revolutions that were happening at the time may have influenced them to revolt. But Gandhi was still the first person to take the initiative.

The Treaty of Versailles (ended WW I)

World War One ended with the treaty of Versailles. The treaty of versailles was an unfair treaty. It really attacked germany. It hurt their economy badly. They even lost 12% of their Population. They also lost their land over seas. They had to pay compensation to the winning side of the war. The german economy was unable to recover itself.

The treaty of versailles led Germany into a recession and this led to Facism and the rise of hitler. They had no idea Hitler was as crazy as he was. They saw a man who could lead their country out of the situation they were in. I think that historians say that WW2 started because Germany wanted revenge. They were upset that they took out everything on them even though they didnt start the war.

Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) and the Modernization

The Ottoman Empire was a huge empire. But like all empires this one came to an end. It ended after world war 1 and their power was divided into many parts. One of these parts was turkey. Mustafa Kemal modernized turkey in a major way. 

He made them remove anything that didnt make them fit in. He made a law that they could not wear a "Fez" which was a tall hat with no brim. He made sure that everything was seperate. An example would be religion. He made sure religion strictly dealed with religion and didn't interfair with government things. 

The Russian Revolution

Everyone has had a revolution and now it is the Russians turn. The Russian revolution is really a series of Russian revolutions. Russia was a part of WWI but dropped out. They had a very low weapon supply so when the people with guns died, the people without guns would have to use theirs. The Russians had a revolution because they did not like their leader at the time. The Russians had many people but their army was not that great.

Some causes of the revolution was the huge defeat of Russian by Germany, the lost of their land, food shortages, fuel shortages and high prices. Vladamir Lenin led the revolution. He followed the Ideas of Karl Marx and communism. He was the leader of the Bolshevik party. The Bolshevik was a communist party. In the revolution, the Russian people Killed Czar (Their old king) and his whole entire family which means everyone from his blood line.

Causes of WW I

There were many causes for WWI. One major cause was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. A Siberian assassin shot him in the neck and his wife in the back. Austria Hungary declared war on them for doing this. This is how alliances started. Germany and Italy helped Austria Hungary in the war, while Britain, France and Russia helped Serbia. Italy and Russia dropped out of the war. America later joined the war to help Britain, France and Serbia because the Russian's were sinking American passenger ships.

Another cause of the war was Nationalism. Each country in the war believed that they were better than the rest. They all had a sense of pride and believed that they should be victorious. Even on that Christmas when they stopped fighting they thought they were better than each other. They played soccer against each other and cheered their country on.

Another cause of the war was Militarism. Every country thought that their country had a better military. They fought long and hard to prove that.

The Opium Wars

The opium war was an important war. It showed that the europeans got what they wanted when they wanted it. It was also the worlds first drug wars. The British would trade opium with the Chinese for tea. As you know, any drug can be addictive and opium sure was. At first opium used to be a drug used to cure diarihha but then they mixed it with tobacco so they could smoke it. Tea was in high demand and the chinese had it. The chinese were self sufficient and didnt want anything from the Europeans or Americans.

When the British ran out of things to trade, they started to trade opium mixed with tobacco so they could promote smoking. They would bring in nearly 2 million pounds of opium a year. This weakend the chinese population. It even weakend the economy because they were giving away pounds of silver to pay for opium. They tried to ban opium but it didnt work. All the government officials were corrupt and accepted bribes. the Chinese tried everything to stop the british from smuggling opium into the country but nothing worked. The chinese were fed up with this so the opiums wars began.

China was easily defeated because they lacked the technology. Europe was too advanced for them. They made the chinese sign a treaty that was "unequal" and it exploited the chinese resources. The Americans and Fench also made an "unequal" treaty.

Film Lesson "Mountains of the Moon"

This was a good movie. In this movie it showed two Europeans trying to find the source of the Nile river. They had many hardships trying to do this. Their first attempt was not very successful. They were attacked by a local African tribe. While John Speak was out hunting, he was being followed by some of the members. Richard Burton (another explorer) had a spear thrown through his mouth during the ambush. John Speak was captured and then escaped. He found Richard Burton and they escaped and returned to Europe. A couple years later they met back up and decided to go back to Africa again. In this trip there were even more hardships. a lot of there supplies were stolen and they were captured twice. John speaks had a bug go in his ear and killed it by shoving a blade in his ear. Richard Burton was almost killed by a Lion and he had obtained a disease in his leg that made him unable to walk.

They found the source of the Nile and Named it Lake Victoria. The problem was, that they didn't really discover it. The African tribes have been using it way before they came. The main technology advance that the Europeans had over the Africans were there guns. A simple handgun was a great advance. The Europeans were eventually able to capture Africa so easily because they had developed machine guns. They brought machine guns and even more Europeans to conquer Africa.