Virtual Assignemnt #9

Over these last two weeks, there has been a massive change in the way that we accomplish school. We have been doing all of our school over this period on the computer through assignments that our teachers send us from school.  Over this time it has become more difficult for many students to resist the temptation of completing their work dishonorably, or they have become downright sloppy with the work that they turn in.  I have attempted to stray away from habits like this.  I have done all of my work without using materials that I have at home, like my notes or textbooks, unless it has been specified by my teachers.  Also, I have been trying to keep my life similar to where it was when I was in school.  I have attempted to keep my sleep schedule similar, and I still do the necessary work on the farm.  I am thankful for this blessing because it has helped me to continue working hard.  Also, it has helped me to stay in shape over the time that we are out of school.  On top of that, I have been using the Gym equipment that we have in my basement so that I do not lose much from my last wrestling season.  I believe that all of these ideas also apply to school.  You have to keep working hard, and doing your best work will keep you from the temptation of becoming sloppy or lazy. 

Virtual Assignment #8

During the time of the Peloponnesian war, the Greeks experienced a massive devastating plague.  At this point in history, this could be the big event in my life that I tell my grandchildren about, we are experiencing a  pandemic of the covid 19 virus.  While these diseases had several similarities in their effect devastation.  There was one main difference between these two diseases.  THe greek plague was far deadlier.  The greek population killed up to 1/3 of the Athenian population, while this new virus is deadly it is not nearly as deadly as the greek Plague.  They did share similarities as well.  Both of these plagues were brought to our homes from foreign places.  Also, the leaders of both our nation and Athens had to remain strong during the plagues.  Also, people in both cases would attempt to keep from getting the disease and shut themselves away.  Both of these diseases also cause devastation to the social and economical prospects of each place.

Virtual Assignment #7

Philip II- Philip II was the king of Macedonia from, 359 BC until he was assassinated in 336 bc.  He was also the father of Alexander the Great And Philip III.  During his time in Power, Philip the second raised Macedonia to one of the highest fighting powers by reviving the ancient Macedonian Army, and installing the Macedonian Phalanx which proved to be a successful tactic on the Battlefield, and allowed them to be victorious over many other powerful forces. With this newfound military strength, Philip took the Greek city-states of Athens and Thebes.  When he took over these states he pushed to make a greek league of city-states, called the League of Corinth. While he was in command of this league he was unfortunately assassinated by a royal bodyguard.  This left the invasion of the Persians to his successor, Alexander.

Alexander The Great - Alexander was born in 365 bc and succeeded his father at age 20.  He spent most of his years in an unprecedented military campaign across Asia and Africa. By the age of 30, he created one of the largest empires in the ancient world. During his youth, he was tutored by the great philosopher Aristotle.  After the assassination of his father, Alexander was given generalship of ancient Grece.  in 334 Bc he invaded the first Persian empire.  he then started a military campaign that lasted 10 years and he eventually overthrew the king of the empire, Darius III and took the empire.  He later died in Babalon in 323 Bc, the city that he planned to make his capital.  Alexander's legacy also includes many instances of cultural diffusion, rather than imposing his own culture. He also founded several cities that bore his name, most notably, Alexandria in Egypt.   He was responsible for the majority of greek cultural spreading.

Darius III - Darius was the last king of the Achaemenid empire.  He ruled from 336 BC to 330 BC. during his rule, his empire was very unstable and it was ruled mostly by jealous governors.  then in 334, Alexander took the empire's capital as well as the rest of the empire.  Then Alexander decided to pursue Darius, but he was killed by his cousin. 

Virtual Assignment # 5

The horse was originally presented to Philip II, Alexander's father.  It was a massive black horse, nearly twice the size of the average Macedonian horse, and it nearly cost 13 times as much as a normal horse. Although the was a very impressive horse, it was sent away for unruliness. While this occurred, Alexander watched this happen.  He stood up in the audience, calling the people spineless for sending away such a fine beast. Alexander then approached the horse from the crowd.  He then realized something that the others had not, the horse was afraid of its own shadow.    Once he realized this he turned the horse to the sun so its shadow could not be seen, and he road the horse without difficulty. 
 
     From that point on the horse and Alexander were inseparable. Only alexander could ride this horse.  Alexander rode this horse on all of his conquests and in all of his battles from the Grecian city-states to India. Then later, while Alexander was out on a conquest, the horse was stolen.  Due to their bond Alexander threatened to fell every tree, lay waste to the countryside, and kill every inhabitant until his horse was found.  The horse was then returned soon after with a plea for mercy.  Historians are unsure of the real cause of this horse's death, but some believe that it was due to battle wounds, while others believe it was from old age after the battle of Hydapses River. In mourning for his beloved horse, Alexander founded a city and named it after his horse. 

Virtural Assignment #4

As this week comes to an end I have begun to become more accustomed to the virtual work that we have been assigned throughout this week.  Overall I believe that the work has not been too terribly difficult.  Overall some teachers just need to get into the swing of the virtual work, but many teachers have.  Overall I believe that the reading and videos, then writing a blog about them has worked well for this class, but other teachers take other approaches to this online school such as having us work on week-long assignments or other work that they post on veracross.  I do not like this virtual school as much as regular school because it involves more self-teaching than having a teacher teach it to you and help you to understand it, but this is a good method to make sure that we do not miss too much school over the period that we are out for the coronavirus.

Virtual Assignment #3

At this point in history people, all became immoral and became subject to mob rule.  this is where people all started to listen solely to the politicians, and the politicians could control the masses.  This eventually led to the generals of the war being imprisoned, unfairly tried, and condemned to death for not retrieving their soldiers who fell overboard in the stormy weather.  In this trial, Socrates knew the truth of the matter, but the people still agreed with the politicians in that the generals should be imprisoned instead of regarded as heroes.  Socrates knew that they should not be tried because all of these people were caught up in the mob mentality.  Socrates, however, did not get caught up in this mentality because he was an independent thinker.  He could control his fate, and he knew the truth.  He began to question the world because as the people got more and more caught up in this mob mentality, they became more immoral, and Socrates believed that there were standards for justice and he often challenged the greeks to go further and examine their moral characteristics.

Virtual assignment number 2

In the time that the Athenians were fighting the Spartan, the Spartans surrounded the city and burned all of the crops in the surrounding fields.  These crops were the lifeline for Athens, but they still had one other method of survival, their navy.  Pericles thought that they could use their naval strength to ship in all of the good and grain that they needed in order to ensure the survival of their civilization.  Although this plan would work in theory there was one unforeseen consequence to this plan.  This unforeseen consequence was a disease.  This was one of the worst plagues in history. With all of the people of Athens walled up in the city, it spread like wildfire.  This plague would eventually kill 1/3 of the Athenian people and leave the great state in shambles. People had no desire to do good if the good and the bad were going to die the same.  Then the disease struck Pericles, killing him after 6 months of disease.   This truly broke Athens.  After this with no central leader, the Athenian democracy showed that it was susceptible to mob rule and many people, doing whatever the masses wanted attempted to take power leading to a long line of chaos. overall one small unforeseen consequence led to the downfall of Athens. 

Virtural school Assignment 1

In the time of the golden age of Athens, a time where art and science excelled wise able statesmen led Athens.  His name was Pericles. He held popular support for 32 years and was very intelligent and capable leader.  over his time in power, he set three main goals.  The first of these was to strengthen Athenian democracy.  In order to achieve this, he increased the number of paid public officials.  this helped to allow even the poorest citizens to serve if they were elected so that way they did not lose money by neglecting their job while working with the government. The next of his goals was to hold and strengthen the empire.  He accomplished this through Alowinbg Athens to take control of the Delian league.  He then used the money from the league's treasury to strengthen the Athenian navy.  His third goal was to glorify Athens. He also did this with money from the league which he used to beautify Athens.  Large sums of money went to purchasing gold, ivory, and marble, and more of it went to pay artists.
Direct democracy is a form of government in which people vote directly on an idea, not through representatives.  Athen's found great pride in their democracy.
When the greeks won the Peloponnesian war they decided to unify slightly more than they had before in order to form the Delian League.  This league was formed to allow the city-states to be able to work together to become stronger.  Although they were all supposed to work together Athens eventually began to assume control of the league.  Eventually, Athens's strong military made some members of the league more like part of the Athenian empire.  Even though the league was supposed to work together, Athens dominated all other states. 

Preparing for virtual school

Today in western civ we talked about what we would do when school closes.  In mr Schicks class we will not have any Quizes or tests.  This is due to the fact that it is difficult to grade them, as well as the endless list of possible ways to cheat on a test or quiz, wether it be text your friend or simply google the answer, it is easy to cheat on these tests. Also on this class we will not have any conference calls to do in this class.  This is difficult because if it hard to tell who is not part of the class wether it be for laziness or the fact that they have very important plans.  For mr  schicks class  we will be given pages of the textbook to read, we took pictures of these pages, then we will answer questions on these pages based on wat is in the pages.  We will post the answers to our blogs and that will count for our blog that day

THE CORONA VIRUS!!!!!!

Today in western civ we talked about the coronavirus.  Mr. Schick is well prepared and attempts to prepare us for the coronavirus as well.  He taught us how to wash out hands for one thing.  He told us that first, you should let the water begin to run, then you should get your hands.  After you wet your hands you should lather your hands with soap for 20-40 seconds.  After this time period, you can then rinse the soap off of your hands.  when you are done rinsing the soap off of your hands you can dry them with a paper towel, then grab another paper towel to grab the door handle and then you can get rid of the towel that you used to open the door ith as to not reinfect yourself.  Mr. Schick also told us to make good use of the hand sanitizer dispensers at the doors to all of the classrooms.  he told us to take some and put some on our phones to disinfect them.

Greece the crucible of civilization episode 1 part two

After Pisistratus began to help people pay off their farms, the people of Athens began to increase the wealth of their state through agrarian society.  They began to grow olives.  these olives were the lifeline of the Athenian economy.  people all around the Mediterranian sea.  the Athenians, therefore, gained a large amount of wealth through these products. The Athenians could, therefore, trade the olive-based goods for many of the other necessary items that they needed to become great due to their location in proximity to the sea.  They also began to use a new style of painting on their pottery that they use to transport these goods.  they developed a new style of more natural painting.  these potters were one of the lowest classes in all of ancient Greece.  Unfortunately, Pisistratus died in 527 thereby ending his rule of Athens.  then came his son  Hippias.  Hippias originally followed his fathers example of the fair ruling, but after the murder fo his brother he became vengeful and  twisted and aimed to keep all of the power to himself.

Greece, the crucible of civilization

Today in western civ we watched a video about early Greece before the first revolt in human history when the people, tired of being oppressed for centuries revolted in order to gain their freedom.  We know most of this information because of Herodotus, he was one of the first historians in the world that recorded the events that happened.  

Clisthenes was born in Athens into a remarkably rich family that helped to bring him to hate to the common people.  His family was part of the aristocracy meaning that they lived in a palace of the time.  At the time Athens was not the empire ruling city-state that it was at the point when it ruled an empire.  It was a poor agricultural city-state in which there was not much power, on the other hand, Sparta and Corinth were powerhouses.  These city-states could have ruled empires, but anthens could not but because of the eventual change to democracy brought them wealth and power.

Aristotle

Aristotle was the student of Plato in the study of philosophy and many other things, he attended the academy.  After his time as one of Plato's students, he helped to make Athens an intellectual location for anyone who was looking to gain knowledge.  Eventually, he created his own school, the lyceum, where he focused on cooperative research and being able to gather knowledge from all of the world.  With his school, he dreamt of having all of man kinds knowledge accessible at one place, the internet 2500 years later, At his school, he wrote extensively on logic, physics, biology, ethics, politics, rhetoric, motion, poetry, theatre, metaphysics, psychology, and the analysis of dreams.  This was the end of the first PowerPoint for Greece.  we also had a pop quiz today in which I scored a 100.  I hope that I can do that well on the second test from this powerpoint as soon as we know when it is

Philosophers

Today we went over the three main philosophers of the ancient Grecian world.   these three men were Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.  Socrates came first.  He had an open mind in the ideas of mythology and believed the world could be figured through science and logic. he also came up with the Socratic method which fostered critical thinking in all of his students by asking leading questions to figure out what each person truly believes. He said the unexamined life is not worth living.  He was eventually tried for the corruption of the youth of Athens and impiety.  he was found guilty as he admitted that he indeed did all of the teachings that he said he did, and rather he said that he should be rewarded for his service.  he was eventually put to death even after being given the chance to escape he drank the poison hemlock.  After Socrates' death Plato, his student carried on his teachings through writings such as the Apology.  he then later wrote the republinc which was what he thought would be the perfect life and society.  it included the allegory of the cave.

the military of ancient greece

today in  honors western civ we went over the military part of ancient Greece.  The Greeks were a very war like people.  No other people exemplified this more  the Spartans.  they were known for their rough and ruthless infantry, or soldiers that fight on the ground.  these soldiers were trained from the time that they were 7.  The Athenians had a fairly powerful infantry, but their true military power came with their navy.  they had a new type of ship called the triumvirate.  this type of ship had three level of oars they were the fastest ship that had ever been made.  they were the peak of naval engineering for the time. they also developed a ground fighting style called the phalanx,  this s where 15x15 soldiers stood with interlocking shields and long spears and punch slowly through the enemy ranks.

gods and goddesses

today in honors western civ we went over the greek goddesses.  All of these gods and goddesses are related in one way of another.  they were made most interesting because of their interactions with humans.  one of these gods was Poseidon god of the sea.  he messed with Odysseus return home attempting to reveal his flaws.  another was aphrodite, she was the goddess of love and had lovers and relationships with humans.  Dionysus was the god of wine and merriment.  Zeus was the king of all of the gods.  He was the god of the sky, thunder, weather, law, order, and justice.  he also had a bad temper.  Athena was his daughter and she was the goddess of war and peace as well as battle strategy and handicraft.  She was born from Zeus's head and became his favorite child. Apollo was the god of sun and light, music, arts, and knowledge.  he was the son of  Zeus.  and his sister was Artemis.