Biography

Queen Elizabeth, the first, proved to be a very good and loyal monarch to England. She brought about many changes, both good and bad. On September 7, 1533 a baby girl came into the world. Back then many parents would have been greatly disappointed to have had a baby girl, rather then a boy. However these parents were glad by the birth of their first child together. These proud parents were the king and queen of England, King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. The girl child was named Elizabeth. The only reason for the birth of Elizabeth had been that she would have been male so that he could have been the heir to King Henry the VIII.

It wasn’t until two years later that Henry realized he wasn’t going to get a healthy male heir from Anne Boleyn. She had miscarried twice before delivering a stillborn son. When Elizabeth was two her father had her mother beheaded for adultery and treason, this was just a way to rid himself of her rather then get a divorce. This was not Henry’s first wife; this was his second wife. His first wife had also born him a female child. He had divorced her in hopes that he would get an heir from Anne. With his first wife, Catherine, he had a daughter, which they named Mary.

Between the time of Elizabeth’s mothers death and 1537 Henry married yet again. The woman was named Jane Seymour and she cared greatly for Elizabeth. She forced Henry to take Elizabeth back into the house, as it was, Elizabeth had been sent away for schooling and whatnot. In 1537 Elizabeth’s new stepmother, Jane Seymour, gave birth to a son, the birth of this son however brought about the death of Jane from bed fever. The child was named Edward. Once Edward had been born Elizabeth faded into the background, everyday receiving less and less attention. From the time Edward was born Elizabeth spent a lot of time with him.

Growing up they were very close, they spent all of their spare time together. The only real time that the two of them were apart was when it came to schooling. She received her education under the famous scholar and humanist Roger Ascham. Under his guidance, Elizabeth studied Greek and Roman classics, read history and theology, and learned both classical and modern languages. She was considered extremely intelligent, and records say that, in her youth, she spoke six languages. In 1547 Henry VIII died. At the age of fourteen Edward became King Edward VI. He died only six short years later.

Elizabeth’s older half-sister, Mary Tudor came to the throne. Mary, who was Catholic, earned the nickname “Bloody Mary”. During the time that Bloody Mary was at the throne she married Philip of Spain, soon to be Philip the second. However Parliament blocked his accession to the English throne. She burned many Protestants at the stake. When rebels wanted to place Elizabeth on the throne Queen Mary had her arrested and sent to the Tower of London and later on to Woodstock. She remained imprisoned for five years until Mary, near death, named Elizabeth her successor. On March 17, 1558, the last Tudor monarch of England ascended the throne.

Elizabeth initially did not want to face the heated conflict between the Catholics and Protestants in England. However Mary Stuart forced her to. The Catholic Mary, queen of Scotland, was the grandniece of Henry VIII and the next in line to the throne. Accused of murdering her second husband, Henry Stuart Darnley, Mary fled to England to escape a rebellion in Scotland. Many European and English Catholics plotted to put her on the throne. To protect her crown, Elizabeth had her cousin Mary Placed under house arrest in 1567. Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s throne was threatened from the outside forces.

Philip II, who became ruler of Spain and its empire in 1556, sought to control the world. England and many other European countries were jealous of Spain’s riches, especially in the New World. Elizabeth allowed her seamen to raid Spanish ships on the high seas. Between 1557 and 1580, Francis Drake sailed around the world, becoming the first man, after Francis Magellan to do so. On his trip he ravaged Spanish settlements in South America, returning to England with 1,000,000 in treasure. Elizabeth knighted him aboard his ship, the Golden Hind, worsening already tense relations between Protestants England and catholic Spain.

During the 1580’s, Elizabeth began to harshly persecute Catholics in England. She sent hundreds to their deaths. Many felt the horrors of the wrack, the manacles, and the Scavenger’s daughter. The Scavenger’s Daughter was an iron hoop that brought a victim’s hands, head, and feet together into a tight ball until he or she was crushed. One of the reasons for the persecutions was a series of Catholic plots to murder Elizabeth and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. Finally, in 1586, Mary’s part in these plots were proven and she was beheaded the following February. Mary’s death was the final blow to the English- Spanish relations.

Philip II declared war. In July 1588, a huge navy fleet, the Spanish Armada, set sail for England. The English navy led by Francis Drake and Martin Frobisher, rose to meet the armada in a nine- day battle. The smaller, quicker English ships easily outmaneuvered the Spanish galleons, but could not move close enough to attack. The Spaniards, however, made the mistake one night of anchoring their entire fleet, and the English sent a squadron of flaming ships into the anchored vessels. Scared, the armada cut it’s lines and fled to open waters. Chased by the English the Spanish tried to sail north around the British Isles.

However storm after storm pounded the armada and about half the fleet was lost. Their war continued for fifteen years. The Spaniards could not overcome the English. Elizabeth’s reign after the defeat of the armada was beset by troubles. Her control over her country’s religious, political, and economic problem’s, as well as her presentation of herself, began to show severe strains. Bad harvests, inflation, and unemployment caused by the loss of public morale. Corruption and greed led to wide spread popular hatred for Elizabeth’s favorites, to whom she had given lucrative and much resented monopolies.

By the turn of the century, even her admirers, such as Sir Walter Raleigh, said she was “a lady surprised by time”. Queen Elizabeth had never married and had never born any children this brought about the nicknames such as Good Queen Bess, and The Virgin Queen. Oftentimes poets compared her to the Moon Goddess, to a Virgin and Fertility Goddess, the bringer of justice, and the cornerstone of the Empire. Painters portrayed her in impossible magnificence and with the symbols of peace, virtue, majesty, and truth.

During Elizabeth’s reign there was a boom of the arts that would be impossible for almost any other period of English history to match. Edmund Spencer, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and Ben Johnson are great names not only in English literature, but also in World literature. The English Renaissance was a highlight that appeared bloody, dark, and dreary. Elizabeth’s reign was and still is sometimes referred to as the Elizabethan Period. Shortly before Queen Elizabeth died on March 24, 1603, she designated James VI of Scotland as her successor.

Andres Segovia was born on February 21, 1893 in the Andalusian city of Linares, Spain. His father was a prosperous lawyer and hoped that one day that his son would join him in his work. Andres father, trying to build a wide cultural background for his son, began to provide Andres with musical instruction at an early age. He thought him how to play the piano and the violin, but Andres did not seem to be too enthusiastic about either instrument. When he heard the guitar at one of his friends home being played his interest in music it self had begun.

Even though his parents disapproved of him playing the guitar, Andres still continued to lay the instrument. Andres applied his previous acquired musical knowledge to his study of the guitar. Because of this Andres developed his own technique, he had discovered quite early that certain piano exercises were beneficial in strengthening the fingers for the guitar. He believed that the guitars rightful place was in a concert stage, but at this time the guitar was considered unsuitable in place like a concert stage (Cumpiano, William).

Andres Segovias Impact on The Guitar Because of Andres Segovia, the history of the guitar changed forever. Andres Segovias performances also helped make guitar makers like Manuel Ramirez, and Herman Hauser become famous themselves. His expertise also helped the Yamaha corporation, but his greatest impact was as a teacher. To study with the great Segovia was considered one of the finest honors of a classical guitarist. Segovia felt that he was the person to bring the guitar to an unseen level of fame.

He had an encounter with Jose del Hierro, who had heard him play at the shop of Manuel Ramirez and told Segovia to take up the violin instead, but Segovia told Del Hierro that it was too late for him to take up another instrument and that the guitar of tomorrow needed him. Segovias first concert quality guitar was from the shop of Manuel Ramirez built by Santos Hernandez in 1912. He got the guitar in preparation for his concert at the Ateneo, Andres needed a guitar that could be used in a concert. The guitar he had was made by a famous maker, but was only a student model which was made from cheap wood (Zondag, Curtis).

He went to the store to look for something to play on a rent to own basis. At that time nobody would ask for a guitar to be rented, it was mostly pianos that were rented. Segovia then tried out the guitar and Ramirez listened to Segovia. Ramirez was convinced that Segovia was a great muscian and gave him the guitar for free. As time went on Segovia needed a new guitar. In one of Segovias concerts, Segovia met Herman Hauser. Segovia discussed about what qualities he was looking for in a guitar. Twelve years later in 1937 Hauser presented the new guitar. The guitar was known as The Segovia model.

Today many makers have made their own versions of that guitar. Years later Segovia got involved with the Yamaha corporation. Yamaha talked to Segovia for the design of their highest grade guitar, it was called the GC71. The guitar included a reduced angle between the head and neck, which would produce a mild tone a new branching pattern to increase bass response. The finest woods were also used for this guitar, Rumanian spruce for the top and Brazilian rosewood for the back and sides. Because of the detail and the endorsement of Segovia, the guitar is on the market for about $10,000 in US funds.

Because of Segovia showcasing Ramirez, Hauser, and Yamaha guitars those brands have been ingrained in the history of the classical guitar (Zondag, Curtis). Segovia a Teacher Segovia spread his philosophies in teaching the guitar in many ways. He released any books of repertoire, which include some of his work and his arrangements of works that other have. One way that he thought was by television. He made teaching videos, and also made a thirteen episode series called The Segovia Master Class. His classes were held in Sienna, Italy, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and Berkeley, California.

Many of the students Segovia taught went on to become experts in the field. One of the most successful is Christopher Parkening. In Christophers early teens he would practice the guitar for about an hour and a half before school. At the age of fifteen he was invited to attend a Master Class with Segovia. His private lessons were taught after Segovia had told Chris that he great potential for a career in classical guitar (Lorimer, Michael). A regular class would begin with students arriving early an tuning their guitars, talking and exchanging music.

Their would be two chairs one for the teacher, Segovia and the other for the student. When Segovia arrived, the students would rise in respect as he entered the room. He would then tell them to sit down an call each student up so they could perform. The student would then play. Segovia might interrupt the student with comments such as, keep he tempo and dont pause at the end of each phrase, and be careful of your tone. Segovia would also lose his temper, especially when the students dont listen and when the students have chosen poor editions of music.

Segovia didnt try to create musicians like him, but did try to bring out the students own individuality in music (Lorimer, Michael). Segovias Fame At the age of fifteen, in 1909 Segovia made his first public debut in Granada. He then had later concerts in Madrid in 1912 here he played transcriptions for guitar by Francisco Tarrega and some songs by Johan Sebastian Bach which he had transcribed himself (Wikipedia). After receiving recognition outside his own country by 1919 Segovia was ready for a full-fledged tour. In that year Segovia performed in South America.

There he gained an enthusiastic reception. He did not go to Europe because of the shows he kept on giving but returned in 1923. At this time some people considered him as a curiosity. His most important early success occurred at his Paris debut in April 1924. This performance was arranged by Pablo Casals. The audience included a circle of musical celebrities like Paul Dukas, Manuel Dc Falla and Madam Debusy. They loved him immediately. His reputation became international. In January 1928 he appeared at Town Hall In New York City (Cumpiano, William).

Here is the article written by the New York Times : The fame of Andrs Segovia, the Spanish guitarists whose name has been a prominent one of late years in capitals of Europe, had preceded him. An audience including many Spaniards and many more of the musical connoisseurs of the city greeted him when he made his first appearance yesterday afternoon in Town Hall. But the appearance of Mr. Segovia is not that of the trumpeted virtuoso. He is rather the dreamer or scholar in bearing, long hair, eyeglasses, a black frock coat and neckwear of an earlier generation.

He seats himself, thoughtfully, places his left foot on its rest, strikes a soft chord, then bends over his guitar and proceeds to play like the poet and master he is of the instrument (Downes, Olin). Granting a knowledge far greater than this reviewer possesses of the technics of the matter, it would not avail to describe Mr. Segovias performance in technical terms. He belongs to the very small group of musicians who by transcendent power of execution, by imagination and intuition create an art of their own that sometimes seems to transform the very nature of their medium. Segovia could be if he chose the trick player of his generation.

He draws the tone colors of half a dozen instruments from the one that he plays. He has an extraordinary command of nuances, he seems to discover whole planes of sonority. Although his instrument cannot furnish a genuinely connected series of tones he produces upon it, very frequently, the illusion of sustained song. When he play a melody of Back or Haydn he phrases it, slurring certain notes, detaching the others, according to the directions of the composer. He has, of course, the vibrato and the portamento to help him in expression. He is remarkable, almost unique, for not abusing these effects.

His left hand is as amazing to watch as to hear, as it flies with an incredibly light, swift, geometrical precision over the keyboard [sic], or divides passages digitally in such a way that one or two fingers stop the strings while the others play various types of melody or figuration (Downes, Olin). We have said that all this command of tone, technique and special effects possible to the instrument are only the vehicles of musical intention on the part of the performer. Mr. Segovia played many pieces from Bach, principally movements from suites, and a Haydn minuet for the classic part of his program.

He played Bach like a consummate musician. Th relation between the guitar and the old lute, for which Bach wrote some of his musicprobably some of the music Mr. Segovia played yesterdayand the manner in which the instrument of plucked strings became the instrument of struck wires in the final form of the piano, was brought home with especial force of illustration. Nevertheless, the most remarkable of Mr. Segovias performances were not those of Back, interpreted with so much taste and musicianship, but the pieces, principally by Spanish masters, composed for the guitar (Downes, Olin).

The first two of these pieces were the compositions of Sor, who is given little attention by the dictionaries, but who, as stated by the program, lived from 1778 to 1839 an wrote music excellent in style and dignified in invention. There was a haunting simplicity and sentiment in the performance, which was of a jeweled finish and gracefulness of figuration. And the eighteenth century flavor was emphasized by the idiom of the instrument. More native in character, and of the Spanish genre, were the “Serenata” of Malats, the “Danza” and “Etude” of Tarrega.

Each of these compositions made different demands; each revealed another side of the performers equipment. It was here that he proved beyond contraction the right of his instrument and of himself as a performer and creator upon it, to the attention and the respect of all music lovers. For with certain instruments, as with much music, the appearance of the master, with his handicraft and his vision, is required, before that which is inherent can be brought to life and become articulate for the multitude (Downes, Olin).

Saying all this, it must be added that Mr. Segovia did not and cannot succeed in removing the limitations which will always surround his instrument. he has stretched these limitations to the utmost. He has far outdistanced in his knowledge and his musical conceptions the ordinary twanger of strings. Nevertheless, the guitar remains the guitar, with limits of sonority, color, dynamics. These limitations make Bach less impressive through its medium than on the piano or harpsichord.

They reach their utmost effect and their entire significance in music less sculpturesque and contrapuntal than Bach’s and with warmer harmony and more elementary rhythms. Hence Mr. Segovia’s audience was most enthusiastic when he played his own Spanish music in a way that revealed its essence of spirit and idiom. This was an unusually significant appearance, and the first of concerts that Mr. Segovia will give here. His reception should have gratified him. A New York audience has seldom been quicker or warmer with its approval (Downes, Olin).

Florence D. Griffith nicknamed Dee Dee, Was born on December 21 195. She grew up in a project in Watts, a poor section in Los Angeles California. Florence had 11 brothers and sisters. She would often ask why there were so poor? Her mother would tell her that they were rich as a family Florence was stubborn as a child. Sometimes she would go for days without speaking to anyone. She just read her books. She loved poems. Florence always wanted to stand out and be her own self. She had her own ideas about how to accomplish this.

In kindergarten she wore her hair in a single braid that stuck up in the air. In high school she had a Boa Constrictor Snake for a pet. Florence was also an exceptional student. These tree things were not enough for Young Florence. She proved that she was an exceptional athlete. At age of seven, she liked chasing jack rabbits. She won most if the little games she played with the rabbits. When she decided that she really liked running. She joined the Sugar Ray Robinson Youth Foundation. This time she ran against children her age.

She beat them all. But in high school she did set reacords in the sprint and the long jump. But there was one girl she just couldn’t beat. Her name was Valerie Brisco. Bobby Kersee became her coach. Later, Valerie Brisco joined them both at the University of southern Calirfoina. Bobby coached her throughout college. She was invited to the United States Olympic Trials in 1980. She came up just short of gaining a spot on the team in the 200 meter. It was her rival, Valerie Brisco, She took that spot away from her.

In 1982 she gained a little spotlight when she won the National Colligate Meter with the time of 22. 39 seconds. This caused people to look at her a little closer. In college, she still liked to stand out like she did in Kindergarten. During this time, she wore six inch nails with designs on them. Her running suits had lace and crazy designs too, They called her Fluorescent Flo. At the Olympic trials she earned a position as a member on the United States Olympic Team. At the Olympics she earned a position as a member on the United States Olympic Team.

At the Olympics she won the silver medal. The gold went to Valerie Brisco. In 1987, Florence won the gold medal In the World Championships in Rome. In the 1988 Olympics she set the world record of 10. 49, an incredible . 27 seconds faster than the existing world record. No one had ever beat the record by more than . 13 She finally her rival Valerie, She went on to win 3 gold medals and one silver. She was no longer called Dee Dee or Fluorescent Flo. She Was Flo Jo. I think Flo Jo was the best athlete in the world. She liked to stand out and be different and I like that about her.

Jesse Owens, a black man who contributation to the world will be know to everyone. A man who has broken all the boundaries. A man who has won many names and awards. A man of many talents. A man with a title fastest man ever. A MAN Jesse Owens, one of the eight children in his family, one of the best track and field athletes of all time. He was born 1913, on a farm in the city of Danville Alabama, under his real name, James Cleveland Owens.

He went to Fairmount Junior High School. Then he went on to high school where he was a track athlete and there his high points were the running broad jump (long jump), he one-hundred meter dash and the two-hundred meter dash. After graduating from high school he attended Ohio State University (OSU). Charles Riley taught him after he first saw him in junior high. He was a excellent track runner in high school, one of the best in the world.

Like mentioned above, he was excellent in the broad jump, the one-hundred meter dash, and the two-hundred meter dash. He loved running when he was young, he said … it would always get me where I was going… He would always run. He then went on to attend Ohio State University and there he set the new worlds record or the broad jump at the length of 26 feet and one forth inch. Going on to the next year he set another worlds record for the one-hundred meter dash at the time of 10. 2 seconds.

He then was so good he went on to the 1936 Olympics as a member of the U S Olympic team, the games were held in Berlin, Germany where blacks were not accepted as well as whites and because of that Reichfuekrer Adolf Hitler did not acknowledge the achievements that he did perform, despite his athletic ability. He won four Olympic gold medals in the 200 and 100 meter dash, the broad jump, and also the 400 meter relay with the other four people hat ran with him. He was one of the four Americans who have one three or more gold medals in one of the games.

The Chicago Defender wrote an article which came from Berlin which reads: Jesse Owens is the god of the sports fans here. He has effectively demonstrated his superiority in winning the finals in the 100 meter event which he equaled the worlds record and by blasting the Olympic mark of Eddie Tollan, another race star, set back in 1932 over the 200-meter route. He was the first Negro to hold such position on any Olympic team at this time. Jesse Owens was proud of his race and wasn’t afraid to show it to anyone. He ran for his race in all the Olympic games he attended.

He gave hope to all the blacks when he did what he did and they had more reason to be treated like the whites in the world. Alot of African Americans look up to him as a black man for all he did for the black race. He showed the world that the blacks are the same as everyone else and that we all have the same blood. Jesse Owens went on after his career and attended many foundations and programs to show that he cares for who he is. He eventually died at the age of 77 in 1980 and he finished off with many awards from his track seasons.

He will be looked up to and respected by all and will never be forgotten. I think Jesse Owens is a great role model for all ages and he should be looked up to. He stood up for what he believed and had respect for who he was. I look up to him because I think that the racism in the world has been reduced because of people like him. I think he has made a great contribution to everyone. “When I came back, after all those stories about Hitler and his snub, I came back to my native country, and I could not ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn’t live where I wanted.

The story of Eva Peron is a fascinating one . Evita, as she is known, enjoyed a rise to power like no other. The details of this ascension are often disputed, making Santa Evita’s tale all the more intriguing. . . Maria Eva Duarte was born on May 7, 1919,1 the fifth and youngest illegitimate child of Juan Duarte and his mistress, Juan Ibarguen. The week of her birth was known as Tragic Week, when the army massacred striking workers, perhaps a foreshadow of what was to come in her life. 2 Eva spent her childhood in an adobe farmhouse, with farm animals and earthen floors.

In the farming trade, Juan Duarte incurred many debts, eventually leaving him with nothing. Thus, early in her life, Eva learnt the humiliation of poverty. The Duartes were further put down by the stiff Argentine caste system, which divided the poor from the wealthy. Being a bastard child, Eva and her four sisters were seen as ‘brats,’ and were stopped from associating with the other village children. Rejection, thrown upon young Eva through no fault of her own, would not be forgotten nor forgiven. 3 At age fifteen, Eva Duarte set out to become a radio actress.

She knew she could be like the women in the movie magazines she either stole or borrowed from her friends. Eva met singer Agustin Magaldi, and, packed her bags and sneaked out of her mother’s boarding house to the city of Buenos Aires. Once Eva learned the rules of the ‘casting couch,’ she dropped Magaldi and began her ascent to stardom. For years she wandered the streets, auditioned, and did whatever she had to do, no matter how distasteful. Eva gained modeling work and small parts in radio plays, frequenting nightclubs, and began to find better work.

After several jobs in theatres, she was interviewed by the magazine Sintonia. After Eva started an affair with the magazine’s owner, he began to give her good exposure. This led to jobs in the film industry. Though she made several, she had no talent to be seen in any of her films. 4 Eva’s body was what sold her to the masses. She could have any man that she wanted, and soon set her sights on Colonel Juan Peron, who had political ruthlessness, a passion for younger women (especially good-looking actresses), and was a 48-year-old widower. On January 15, 1944, San Juan Argentina was hit by a terrible earthquake.

A gala benefit show was held to support the relief effort, where Eva and Colonel Peron first met. They were seen leaving the gala together. 6 Their attraction was not kept secret. Evita- what she liked to be called, now that she was a celebrity- and Peron became inseparable. Their attraction became a personal bond as well as a political alliance. She was active in formation of policy and penned plays about the Peronist ‘Revolution. ‘ By her account, Juan himself was responsible for the coup of 1943.

This and other similar events disturbed military officers greatly. The U. S. Ambassador to Argentina, Spruille Braden, openly criticized the Argentine government, and schemed to overthrow it. Peron labeled his opposition as foreign intervention, and made his own cause a national one. 7 This helped Peron become the most important man in the government, and thus a target of much criticism. Military officers hated him, and the President ordered him to resign his position. They decided to arrest Peron and place him under ‘protective custody. ‘ It was October 12, 1945.

Peron, while in prison, won the support of the labor unions. Strikes took place, and the workers took to the streets. The government had underestimated Peron’s popularity. On October 16, Peron’s release was successfully bargained for. On October 17, he was back in Buenos Aires. However, he would not make and appearance to the public. The ‘descamisados,’ or ‘shirtless ones,’ still filled the streets. The President needed Peron to speak to the people. Having little choice, he met Peron’s extreme demands. This included a new cabinet, and everyone in it would be a Peron supporter.

After terms were settled, Peron made his appearance, and was cheered like no Argentine before him. 8 When Peron ran for President in 1946, he won by the largest electoral vote in Argentine history. 9 Juan Peron and Eva were married on October 21, 1945. Evita was an active first lady. She campaigned for women’s suffrage, yet her view of feminism was different than that of today. Evita believed in a traditional woman’s responsibilities, a woman who directed her activism toward the cause of man. “For women, to be a Peronist means, above all, loyalty to Peron, subordination to Peron, and blind trust in Peron. 10

Speaking on Juan’s behalf to the ‘descamisados,’ Eva is quoted as saying He is God for us. . . we cannot conceive of heaven without Peron. He is our sun, our air, our water, our life. . . “11 Evita was a hero to ‘los descamidos,’ as she herself had been poor and knew what poverty meant. She had her own court for them. The poor would disclose their troubles to Evita. If money was their problem, they were handed at least a 100 peso note. Any problem would be dealt with. Jobs would be found for the unemployed. Evita’s strong men would seek a husband who had left his wife (he would rarely refuse to return).

She truly was a saint to them, Santa Evita. 12 Evita developed a strong following with women. She gave them the right to vote, set up homes for single working girls, and introduced the idea of a career woman. Santa Evita was now more popular than Peron himself. Evita attempted to use this popularity to run for Vice President. However, major army officers feared she would succeed the President, and stopped her nomination. The military still hated her, and could not stand for her to be thought of as commander-in-chief. 13 In January of 1951, surgeons noticed the beginnings of uterine cancer.

Eva rejected medical advice and refused to undergo a hysterectomy. Her health worsened rapidly, and finally had surgery. It was too late. Eva Duarte de Peron died on July 26, 1952 and Argentina wept. Hundreds of thousands lined the streets. Peron himself was shocked. “I did not know they loved her so much. “14 Newspapers could use all the paper they desired in reporting the life and death of Evita, despite a paper shortage. The news of her passing was rebroadcast at 15-minute intervals. The country came to a halt. 15 Evita’s tomb was planned. It would be lined with 16 statues of her.

A 40-foot tall statue of a ‘descamido’ would tower along the Buenos Aires skyline. While the tomb was being erected, Evita’s temporary resting place was the Labor Confederation Headquarters. In 1955, agents of the new President, Pedro Arambulu, stole the corpse, placed it into the army lorry, and drove away. The remains of Eva Peron could be used as a powerful symbol against any government, and the location of them became a primary concern of Argentines. Rumors stated that she had been incinerated, that her body was in Chile with her mother and sisters, that she was not in fact dead, but living in exile with

Peron. For years rumors circulated, until, in time, Evita became a memory, a lost symbol of hope to the poor of Argentina. * * * On September 2, 1971, Juan Peron was reunited with the body of his second wife, Evita. He openly wept. “She is not dead. She is sleeping. . . Only sleeping! ” Evita’s blonde hair had been cut off at the neck. Further examination showed that cuts were present all over her body, her nose was broker, both knees broken, and the chest was marked with six holes. Later repaired, the body was placed in a new coffin, upstairs in Peron’s cottage.

Evita had been missing seventeen years. The embalmed body was put on display in December of 1974, beside General Peron’s sealed coffin. Twenty-four years after Eva’s death, In October 1976, the body of Maria Eva Duarte de Peron was returned to the family, and now lies in an armored private vault fifteen feet underground, in Buenos Aires. Evita’s body should not be stolen again. It is not in the actual vault, but one underneath the family tomb. Beneath three steel plates, each locked with a different combination, in total silence and darkness, in another chamber lies the corpse of Eva Peron.

1.Early Childhood If you dont know about art, then you dont know about Michelangelo Buonarotti. He was have to been the greatest and certainly the most famous artist produced by western civilization, and universally viewed as the Supreme Renaissance Artist. Throughout his achievement he has the occupation of being a : Painter, Sculptor, Architect, and also a poet. With this kind of ability this man had to have had an impact on Western Europe.

As a member of the well-known Florentine family, Michelangelo was born near a small city Known as Arezzo, on March 6, 1475. His education ended in which we would think to have been to early for a child to finish school, at the age of 13. He received his tutelage in painting, not school work from the artist Domenico, and Bertoldo di Giovanni . He was in constantly in the presence of art. These experiences gave Michelangelo a clear sense on true art. His education was shown in one of his first paintings The Madonna of the Stairs, was painted when he was younger than 20 years of age.

2.Contribution to Renaissance Michelangelo contributed many of his greatest arts and statues to many of the great Kings and Queens of his time. One of his first and most famous statues was Bacchus, the God of wine. In this statue Michelangelo magnified the classical ideal of beauty. His statue of David was also a reflection of this idea. Michelangelo was given the most respect when he sculpted the monumental marble piece named Pieta, which was a piece that showed Athletic prowess and dynamic action. This colossal piece was carved in Florence which gave the people of Florence a symbol of the proud independence of the Florentine Republic. This is just ONE of the prime examples of why Michelangelo contributed to the Renaissance.

Dont think that Mike was done yet. His biggest contribution to the Renaissance was when he painted the Sistine Chapel. His organization of the Sistine ceiling frescoes represented the most complex piece ever created in Western Art. The painting itself contains a complex illusion in which it serves as a frame for sculpturelike forms. From the nine paintings on the ceiling, the most unique scene was the Creation of Adam, which showed Michelangelos new look at the human body. It took him 4 years to complete the ceiling, but if you see it you will understand why it was worth the wait. Sadly to say that Michelangelo died at the right bold age of 89 on February 18,1564.

3.Conclusion As you can see that this man wasnt the smartest of all people, but that wasnt he was known for. He was known for his beautiful paintings and marvelous statues. He was to have been said to be one of greatest artists ever produced, and his worked proved that and held true. So in conclusion I think that I am able and safe to say that Michelangelo Buonarotti was truly a Renaissance man.

Arnold Schoenberg was born on September 13, 1874, to a Jewish family in Vienna. He taught himself composition, with help in counterpoint from the Austrian composer Alexander Zemlinsky, and in 1899 produced his first major work, the tone poem Verklarte Nacht (Transfigured Night) for string sextet. In 1901 he married Zemlinsky’s sister Mathilde, with whom he had two children. The couple moved to Berlin, where for two years Schoenberg earned a living by orchestrating operettas and directing a cabaret orchestra. In 1903 Schoenberg returned to Vienna to teach.

There he met his most successful students, the Austrian composers Anton Webern and Alban Berg, who became his close friends. In his compositions, Schoenberg employed far-reaching harmonies, a trait that later developed into atonality. Because of this, riots erupted at both premieres of his first two string quartets in 1905 and 1908. Such experiences led him often to feel persecuted by a public that could not understand his music. Schoenberg also began painting during these years and exhibited his work with a group of artists in the circle of the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky.

This period was marked by tragedy when Mathilde had an affair with his painting teacher, who committed suicide after she returned to Schoenberg. In 1911, the year in which Schoenberg published his book Theory of Harmony, he accepted a teaching position in Berlin. There he composed one of his most influential works, Pierrot Lunaire (1912). He returned to Vienna in 1915. The interruptions occasioned by World War I, combined with Schoenberg’s search for a way to ensure logic and unity in atonal music, prevented him from producing many works between 1914 and 1923.

By 1923, however, he had completed the formulation of his twelve-tone method of composition. Mathilde’s death that same year was a serious blow to Schoenberg, but in 1924 he met and married Gertrud Kolisch, the sister of an Austrian violinist. With the invitation in 1925 to teach composition at the Academy of Arts in Berlin, Schoenberg finally obtained a prestigious position, financial security, and a stable family life. In 1932, the year the couple’s daughter was born, he completed the second act of his opera Moses und Aron (produced posthumously, 1957).

Schoenberg and his family fled Nazi Germany to Paris in 1933. In 1934 they immigrated to the United States, and he accepted a teaching position in Boston. The next year, because of his health, they moved to Los Angeles, where his two youngest sons were born. After a year as a lecturer at the University of Southern California (1935), he taught at the University of California at Los Angeles from 1936 to 1944. He became a U. S. citizen in 1941. Schoenberg fell seriously ill in 1946, and at one point his heart stopped beating; this experience is reflected in his String Trio (1946), written after his recovery.

In retirement he continued to teach and to compose. He died on July 13, 1951, in Los Angeles. Schoenberg’s musical style progressed from late 19th-century romanticism to the twelve-tone technique. His early tonal works are reminiscent of the music of the German composer Johannes Brahms, but before long he assimilated the chromaticism of the German composer Richard Wagner. In works such as Verklarte Nacht Schoenberg achieved intensity of feeling through rich harmonies and long soaring melodies supported by a dense contrapuntal texture of short, constantly varying motives.

Beginning about 1907 these traits became even more pronounced in his expressionist works, in which tonality was abandoned and musical form became compressed. The prime example from this period is Pierrot Lunaire; in this setting of macabre verse, the accompanying chamber ensemble employs a different combination of instruments for each of the 21 poem-based songs of the cycle, and the vocal soloist uses the Sprechstimme (German for “speech voice”), or Sprechgesang (“speech song”), a blend of speech and song. About 1920 Schoenberg began to formulate his twelve-tone technique and to draw on classical musical forms to structure his compositions.

All his styles, however, are distilled in his most massive attainment, Moses und Aron. Schoenberg occasionally returned to tonal composition, but in the majority of his works of the 1930s and ’40s he attempted to synthesize the twelve-tone technique with the formal principles he had employed during his expressionist period. This synthesis can be heard in his one-movement Piano Concerto (1942) and in the monumental String Trio. Through Schoenberg and his students, the twelve-tone method became a dominating force in mid-20th century composition and exerted a profound influence on the course of Western music.

The purpose for writing on Booker T. Washington is to focus on his educational contributions, and the different speeches he gave during and after the 19th century for African American and for the institution. Booker was born into slavery on a small tobacco plantation on April 5 1856. While in grade school he did not have a last name. When he realized that all of the other children at the school had a second name, and the teacher asked him his, he invented the name Washington.

For the first nine years of his life until 1865 when the close of the Civil War emancipated the boy Booker and the remainder of his race, he like many other Americans of dark skin had been considered a piece of property on a Southern plantation. Any education extraneous to their enforced labor had been forbidden to most Negroes in the South. By 1895 however, in his historic Atlanta Exposition Address, Washington was to say:

Starting thirty years ago with ownership here and there in a few quilts and pumpkins and chickens (gathered from miscellaneous sources), remember the path that has led from these to the inventions and production of agricultural implements, buggies, steam engines, newspapers, books, statuary, carving, paintings, the management of drug-stores and banks, has not been trodden without contact with thorns and thistles. 1 This famous speech placed Washington in the national spotlight as the leader of his race. How did he rise to the top? What were the methods he used to raise his people, and how did he discover those ways?

In 1881 citizens in Tuskegee, Alabama, asked Hampton’s president to recommend a white man to head their new black college; he suggested Washington instead. The school had an annual legislative appropriation of $2,000 for salaries, but no campus, buildings, pupils, or staff. Washington had to recruit pupils and teachers and raise money for land, buildings, and equipment. Hostile rural whites that feared education would ruin black laborers accepted his demonstration that his students’ practical training would help improve their usefulness. He and his students built a kiln and made the bricks with which they erected campus buildings.

David Ricardo was born on April 19 1772 in London and was the third son of 17 children. His parents were very successful and his father was a wealthy merchant banker, making a fortune on the London Stock Exchange. When he was 14, Ricardo joined his father’s business and showed a good grasp of economic affairs. However, he was disinherited by his parents when in 1793, he married a Quaker, so he set up on his own career as a stockbroker. He continued as a member of the stock exchange, where his ability won him the support of an eminent banking house.

His success in this allowed him to retire at the age of 42. This enabled him to pursue his interests in literature and science, particularly in mathematics, chemistry, and geology. Along with Malthus, Ricardo was very concerned about the impact that rising populations would have on the economy. He argued that with more people, more land would have to be cultivated. However, the return from this land would not be constant as the amount of capital available would not grow at the same rate. In fact the land would suffer from diminishing returns.

Extra land that was brought into cultivation would become more and more marginal in terms of profitability, and eventually returns would not be enough to attract any further capital. At this point the maximum level of economic rent would have been earned. The knowledge of comparative advantage enables countries to trade with other countries more efficiently and knowing the opportunity cost than are forgone and making the correct choices. It improves diplomatic relations between the trading countries.

It also enables us to know which countries are relatively better at producing certain goods as compared to other countries. So,due to this theory,it allows trade between countries to improve their consumption of the goods in the market. This will raise production and provide more jobs. Indirectly,its solves the problem of unemployment due to increasing population. Because of his theory,it has opened up trade to other countries hence increasing options for decision making. It encourages specialization between countries by showing that specialization actually increases production.

When “bambino Rocco” was 18 months of age, he contracted pneumonia. Although the infection nearly killed him, his exceptionally strong constitution enabled him to survive without impairment. As a pre-teenager, Rocky relished his mother’s Italian cooking so much he bordered on being stocky. This was underscored by his relatively short but muscular arms and legs. However, even at this young age, his overall bearing suggested exceptional physical strength. Throughout his teenage years, Rocky took great advantage of living across the street from the James Edgar Playground, where he especially enjoyed playing baseball.

It was during this period that he began the habit of exercising to his limit. ” After spending countless hours hitting and chasing after baseballs, he would often go home and do chinups and lift homemade weights until he was totally fatigued. ” After supper, “Rocky and his pals often spent hours pummelling a stuffed mail sack that hung from an oak tree in the Marchegiano’s back yard…. In hot weather, they usually finished their workouts by racing over to Saxton’s Spring to get a cold drink of water. “

Unfortunately, Rocky’s experience of growing up in a multi-ethnic, working-class setting contributed to his involvement in a number of “altercations. ” Although most were territorial battles that took place at James Edgar Field, some occurred well beyond…. Even prior to his teenage years, Rocky’s reputation for being a “really tough Italian kid” extended all the way over to the Bush, Brockton’s Irish section. However, by the time he was 14, Rocky’s notoriety as a baseball slugger began to overtake his reputation as a slugger with his fists.

The legend of his athletic prowess began at age 15 when, as cleanup batter on the local American Legion team, he blasted a towering home run over the left field fence at James Edgar Playground. It landed on the front porch of a slightly irate neighbor. At age 15, Rocky entered Brockton High School – an institution with a nationally prestigious football tradition. Error! Bookmark not defined. Rocky’s favorite subjects were Italian and Manual Training. And, except for a rather erratic scholastic record, all went reasonably well for him – at first.

In the fall of his sophomore year he won the position of center on the varsity football team. Long after he became a great boxer, he liked to recall how one of the greatest thrills of his life was when – as a substitute linebacker – he intercepted a pass and ran 60 yards to score a touchdown against arch-rival New Bedford. The following spring, Rocky became the first string catcher on the BHS varsity baseball team. It is said that his throws were almost always on target, and few runners beat his “rocket-like” pegs to second base “until after that fateful day he threw his arm out.

An unusually slow runner, Rocky was now relegated to occasionally playing right field and pinch hitting. During this time, he was chastised on a number of occasions for consistently violating a long standing school policy that prohibited dual involvement in a local church league. Finally, he was cut from the team. This upset him so much, he began cutting classes. That summer, Rocky spent a good deal of time with older friends in downtown pool halls and ten cent movie theaters. He also enjoyed swimming and hiking in Brockton’s beautiful Field Park.

When fall rolled around, he decided not to return to Brockton High School. Realizing he had very few skills to offer an employer, he briefly considered a former teacher’s plea that he enroll at the “old” Brockton Vocational School. Ultimately, however, he decided that the obligation to immediately get a job and help out his struggling family was paramount. Traditionally, in Brockton – the former men’s shoe capitol of the world – this meant starting at the bottom rung in a local shoe factory as a floor sweeper.

William Lyon Mackenzie is remembered in history not only for the offices he held, but also for his belief in the natural rights of man as expressed in the 1837 Rebellion to reform the government of Upper Canada and dedication towards bringing responsible government. However, a closer look will reveal that Mackenzie’s role was insignificant in the introduction of responsible government in Upper Canada. (“Mackenzie” 1976: 406) Born on March 12 1795 at Springfield, Dundee, Scotland. Mackenzie is one of history’s most frequently misunderstood figures of all time.

Only if the man and the legend are separated can one understand his role in history. As a legend, Mackenzie has a role and importance that Mackenzie the man could never achieve. (“Mackenzie” 1976: 406) This becomes evident when looking at his irresponsible leadership, through examining his ignorant behavior, and a thorough analysis of responsible government and its origin in Upper Canada. (“Mackenzie” 1976: 406) In his early years, Mackenzie led a dissipated life of wondering among the streets and was reduced to booze and gambling.

At an age of 17 to 21, he claimed that he had given up on drinking and gambling. On July 17, 1814, his illegitimate son was born. What he had done to Isabel Reid, mother of his son, was a sinful deed. (“Mackenzie” 1976: 407) He did not assume responsibility for the child; he abandoned his son and his mother-Elizabeth. (“Mackenzie” 1976: 407) This exceptional horrid flaw in his character was carried on into his career later on as a mayor. Mackenzie was named Toronto’s first mayor by his fellow councillors, defeating John Rolph.

As mayor, Mackenzie was both head of council and chief magistrate for Toronto. (“Mackenzie” 1976: 500) However, despite his definite influence on the city, he could not gain the support of the public. (“Mackenzie” 1976: 500) The city was deeply in debt and due to his inadequate assessment, he failed to realize the city needed many factories. Mackenzie failed to apply himself to solving the city’s problems. Instead he spent his time on his own causes and concentrated on preparing for the next provincial election. (“Mackenzie” 1976: 500) These behavioral patterns can be seen through out his career.

Parallels can be drawn to many aspects of his role in history, which reveals that he can be labeled as irresponsible. Moreover, besides his irresponsible character flaw, Mackenzie did not have a thorough understanding of how the government worked. Although he is documented in the history books as a flawless heroic figure, this is an exaggerated and inaccurate viewpoint. In fact, Mackenzie never clearly understood the basic principles of responsible government by which the executive would carry out the wishes of the elected government that would only hold office as long as it retained the support of the people’s elected representatives.

Thus, when the government failed to address the long series of grievances that he listed, Mackenzie began to call for the independence of Upper Canada. (“Mackenzie” 1976: 504) The attempt to reform the government in Upper Canada was grim when considering the fact that the leader of the rebellion wasn’t sure what he wanted to change. (“Mackenzie” 1976: 503) One may think that, because of the rebellions in Upper Canada, he was accountable for the on set of responsible government, however his heroic image should be revoked since he did not bring upon or had any influential role in the introduction of responsible government. Mackenzie” 1976: 505)

He had no clue what aspect of the government to change; Mackenzie didn’t understand what responsible government was. Attempts to obtain responsible government by means of force were impossible because the Rebels did not have enough power; it required a higher power. The sovereign power to bring change to the governments in both Upper and Lower Canada resided with a sovereign state, the British Empire. The notion that Mackenzie had initiated responsible government is inadmissible.

Moderate reformers at the time, presented the issues to the Colonial Secretary, along with foregoing legislative procedures, to achieve responsible government. Through Mackenzie’s unnecessary efforts, such as the Rebellion in 1837, he actually set back the onset of responsible government. After Mackenzie’s rebellion, nothing resulted, until 12 years later. Lord Durham reviewed the problems in Upper Canada and wrote the infamous report in 1839. That was when it was suggested there should be a change in how the government in Upper Canada should be governed, by the people. Despite Durham’s Report, responsible government did not come until 1849.

Why the delay? The most common error people make, but condone to realize, are that they initially assume what they think is correct. The delay was no coincidence; there were specific reasons. The reason for the 10-year delay was not due to the process, but rather a change in a higher power, namely the governor-general. Even after Mackenzie’s rebellion, there had been no change. Instead, a higher authority, the Colonial Secretary in Britain, achieved responsible government for Upper Canada. Without the Colonial Secretary approving the notion for reform, Upper Canada would never get responsible government.

This was the case because the governor general in Upper Canada, or any other British colony for that matter, listens to the Colonial Secretary. The Colonial Secretary’s instructions are just as powerful as the King’s are. Thus, it is understandable that Mackenzie’s efforts, clearly displayed in his rebellion, were inadmissible. Therefore, one can see that only a higher authority had the ability to reform government; Mackenzie or not, it did not matter. After Durham, several other governor-generals were appointed to govern Upper Canada. The most common reason for an appointment of a new governor general was that they often died.

First, there was Sydenham. (Finn 1999) He felt that he was only responsible to the Colonial Secretary in Britain and not the people. He did not favor responsible government. After Sydenham’s death, Bagot took over and like Sydenham, he too did not favor responsible government but attempted to get along with the people. Bagot dies soon after. Metcalf assumes the position of governor general. (Finn 1999) He was instructed by Britain not to give the people responsible government. He did as he was told, but it was not long before he died too. (Finn 1999) In 1846, a new governor general was appointed for Canada after Metcalf’s death.

He was Lord Elgin, the son-in-law of Lord Durham. (Finn 1999) He shared many of Lord Durham’s ideas about how the colonies should be allowed to govern themselves. He believed in the idea of responsible government. (Finn 1999) Over in Britain, Lord Grey assumed the position of Colonial Secretary. He was the Colonial Secretary that controlled what the governor general in Canada was allowed to do or not do. (Finn 1999) Grey was reform minded. He came to power as a result of the Liberals winning 1845 election in England. Responsible government was Grey’s decision to allow the colonies to govern themselves.

Finn 1999) As a Colonial Secretary, he reserves the right to order Elgin to listen to the people. Moreover, in the election of 1848, more Reformers than Tories were elected to the Assembly. Therefore, Lord Elgin asked the Reform leaders, Robert Baldwin and Louis Lafontaine, to recommend which elected officials should advise him. It is obvious that they chose members of their Reform party in the Assembly. (Finn 1999) Lord Elgin promised that he would take their advice as long as the Reformers held a majority in the Assembly. Elgin did as he was told, by Grey.

Finn 1999) He listened to the people, and responsible government was achieved. This displays perfectly how reform was only eventually attained through a higher power, and not that of rebellions led by Mackenzie. Through an extensive analysis of Mackenzie’s role in Canadian history, one can see that Mackenzie is not what he seems to be portrayed as in documentations. A legend is one thing, but what really happened is what is important. Mackenzie, is generally considered an agitator that did not bring responsible government. Hence, as a concluding notion, it is understandable that: “Mackenzie was not a hero, by far! “

General Chuck Yeager Charles E. Yeager was born on February 13, 1923 in Myra, West Virginia and raised the nearby village of Hamlin for the first eighteen years of his life. His father drilled natural gas, and his mother was a housewife. At an early age, Chuck helped his father drill, and learned mechanics from his father. Chuck was always fixing the car engines or the drill engine if it broke. In high school Chuck played basketball and baseball, although he never really excelled in either. He also was not that smart in school.

He said the only thing that he was good at was typing and math, everything else, he got a D in. After high school, Chuck, being poorly educated and destitute decided to join the U. S. Army Air Corps. The funny thing about that is that Chuck never even saw an airplane on the ground until he was 16 years old, when it had an emergency and landed in a cornfield, and Chuck was not even impressed with it. He said the reason that he joined the Air Corps is because the recruiter made the Air Corps sound more interesting that the Navy recruiter. Anyway, Chuck joined the Air Corps as a mechanic.

After a year of being a mechanic, the Untied States was short pilots, so they put up a notice to see if anyone wanted to become a pilot. Chuck signed the form; however, it took another year for them to pick him. It was always hard for Chuck to fit in among the other pilots and mechanics. Because he was from West Virginia, he had a strong accent, and a poor education, so he was never given a chance at first. Then, when he first went in a plane, he almost quit the pilot school because there was turbulence and he was bumping all over the place. On the other hand, once he flew a plane by himself he was hooked.

He excelled in pilot school because he had excellent vision, 20/10, and learned how to dogfight, that is getting in position to shoot down another plane and avoiding getting shot down yourself. He left for the War in 1942. He was disappointed at first because after 6 missions, they hadnt seen one German. Yet, on his 7th mission the Americans encountered German planes while escorting a bomber. Yeager killed one and returned safely. Unluckily for Yeager, on his next mission in 1943, his plane gto shot down over enemy territory and he had to jump out (there were no ejection seats in those days).

For the next 3 weeks it was hell. After he jumped, all he had were 2 stale candy bars and a bottle of water. He saw a French woodcutter and jumped him for his axe. However, instead of getting mad, he got help for Chuck. Within a couple of hours, Chuck had the help of the French Maquis, a French resistance group. They led to the Pyrenees Mountains with one other shot down pilot, where they told them that they were on their own. They hike the mountains for days, thinking they go nowhere. One day, they found a cabin and rested. The other pilot put his socks over bushes to dry.

A German patrol did not even bother to look in the cabin, but just shot. The other pilot got his leg totally blown off. Chuck decided to carry him for three days before they finally got into neutral Spain. There, Chuck spent another 3 weeks in a luxury hotel, paid for by the army, while the government negotiated for his release. When he finally got back he received bad news. He was not going to be able to go back because if he got shot down again the Germans would torture them to find out where the Maquis were. He appealed to General Dwight Eisenhower and Eisenhower let him stay in. From there, Yeagers career took off.

He went back in the Corps and after a couple of missions we was back to dogfighting. One time there were 200 Germans attacking roughly 40 Americans. On that day, Yeager became and Ace shooting down 5 on his own, (the first 2 he did not fire a shot, a plane rammed into another). All German planes were shot down and only half of the American planes were shot down. He went on to shooting down 7 more during the war, and was promoted to Captain. After the war, he started working at a test pilot base in California. After a while Major Boyd asked if he wanted to become a test pilot being that he was such a good combat pilot.

He skipped right over the pilot school and got handed the greatest project one could ask for. He got picked to fly the jet propelled X-1 to break the sound barrier. After 3 months it was done, and Chucks name was in the record book. However, the interesting thing about it was that just days earlier he had broken ribs in a horseback riding accident. You can imagine the jealousy going around the test pilots. Here is Chuck Yeager a “hick” from West Virginia getting the best assignment. Well, someone was jealous and sent a letter saying the Chuck had not passed test pilot school.

He was forced to go back and take the course, in which he almost failed to written course because he felt the instructors were out to get him. After that, he tested more planes, like a captured Russian plane, and the X-1A which from 2. 5 Mach. With the X-1A he almost “bought the farm”(and expression used instead of crashing). At 80,000 feet and going 1650 mph, the X-1A took a nosedive, in a downward spiral. Chuck was thrown all over the place; his head even cracking the canopy. However, by some miracle, he took started to take control of the plane at 25,000 feet. He dropped 51,000 feet in 51 seconds!

Also another scare, while he was flying and experimental plane at Mach 2 was that he had to jump out of a plane wearing a compression suit. The suit caught on fire and tangled in his parachute. He survived the fall bad needed skin grafts for his burns. From there the book went downhill. He commanded a squadron an opened a school to train astronauts in 1956 even though he was passed up by NASA because of his lack of education. However after ten years, the school closed when NASA took over. About half of astronauts from the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions were from Yeagers school. Then Vietnam happened.

He did not go into action too much, just commanded his squadron. During Vietnam he became a General. In 1970, General Yeager served as U. S Defense Representative to Pakistan and supervised Pakistan’s air defense in its war with India. He retired from the Air Force in 1975, but continued to serve as a consulting test pilot for many years. He still is flies and speaks at lectures and school. Throughout his career he won over 20 medals and awards including the Collier Trophies, Congressional Medal of Honor, Purple Heart, Silver Star, among others. I chose this person because I saw the movie The Right Stuff and he interested me.

Also, my stepbrother also read the book and said that it was a good book. I agree with my stepbrother, although it had its slow moments. The war scenes were exciting, and so was the book, unlike most biographies. Chuck was courageous and determined all of which I want to be. I believe the book portrayed an accurate description of Chuck Yeager because I researched him on the Internet before I read the book and found most of the facts to be unbiased even though Chuck co-wrote the book. It also had other people commenting on the situations on hand. Overall, I enjoyed the book and recommend people to read the autobiography.

Shortly after Charles Lindbergh landed, he was swarmed by 25,000 Parisians who carried the wearied pilot on their shoulders. They were rejoicing that Charles Lindbergh, the American aviator who flew the first transatlantic flight, had just landed at Le Bourget field in France. Having just completed what some people called an impossible feat, he was instantly a well-known international hero. Despite his pro-German stance during World War II, Charles Lindbergh is also an American hero.

A record of his happiness and success exists n the material form of his plane hanging in the Smithsonian Institute; however, much of Lindbergh’s life was clouded by turmoil. The life of Charles Lindbergh though best remembered for his heroic flight across the Atlantic, was marred by the kidnapping of his baby and his fall from favor with the American public following his pro-German stance during the 1930’s. Charles Lindbergh, the famous American aviator, was born February 4, 1902 in Detroit, Michigan. As a boy he loved the outdoors and frequently hunted.

He maintained a good relationship ith his parents “who trusted him and viewed him as a very responsible child”. His father, for whom young Charles chauffeured as a child, served in the U. S. Congress from 1907 to 1917. Lindbergh’s love of machinery was evident by the age of 14; “He could take apart a automobile engine and repair it”. Attending the University of Wisconsin, Lindbergh studied engineering for two years. Although he was an excellent student, his real interest was in flying. As a result, in 1922 he switched to aviation school. Planes became a center of his life after is first flight.

His early flying career involved flying stunt planes at fair and air shows. Later, in 1925 he piloted the U. S. Mail route from St. Louis to Chicago. On one occasion while flying this route his engine failed and he did a nosedive towards the ground. Recovering from the nosedive he straightened the plane successfully and landed the plane unharmed. This skill would later be invaluable when he was forced to skim ten feet above the waves during his famous transatlantic flight.

As early as 1919 Lindbergh was aware of a prize being offered by the Franco-American philanthropist Raymond B. Orteig of New York City. Orteig offered 25, 000 dollars to the individual who completed the first non-stop transatlantic flight from New York to Paris. Ryan Air manufactured his single engine monoplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, so named because many of his investors were from that city. In preparation for the flight, Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis from Ryan Airfield in St. Louis, non-stop to Roosevelt Field outside New York City. After arriving he waited six days to begin his flight to Paris, due to inclement weather.

Although he was scheduled to attend the ballet on the evening of May 19, 1927, word came from the airfield that there was a large break in the weather coming across the Atlantic and that he was clear to fly first thing in the morning. As a precaution Lindbergh instructed one of his friends to stand guard outside the room where Lindbergh attempted to sleep that night. Unfortunately, with all the thoughts going through his head, sleep was an impossibility. Rising at 4:00 am, accompanied by a police escort, Lindbergh was driven to Roosevelt Field.

Dressed in a brown flight suit complete with headpiece and goggles, Lindbergh climbed into his single engine monoplane and began his destiny with history; the first non-stop transatlantic flight. During the flight of 33 hours and 32 minutes, Lindbergh ate five chicken sandwiches and consumed a one-liter bottle of water. It is not documented what Lindbergh did to occupy his time during the flight, but it is obvious based upon the length of the flight that staying awake must have been a major concern. In a famous film recounting this flight, speculation was that Lindbergh stayed wake by watching the activity of a housefly trapped in the cabin.

Later, based upon his excess fuel level, Lindbergh considered continuing his flight to Rome, despite the fact that he had already traveled 5,800 km. Fearing it was too dangerous, he opted to land in Paris as planned. When Lindbergh approached Le Bourget Airport near Paris he noticed the headlights of many cars. Amazed that so many Parisians had come out to the field to greet him, Lindbergh anxiously deplaned. In their excitement some of the crowd tore pieces of the plane’s outer shell off as souvenirs.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was truly one of our great geniuses even though he may have a short biography (Hodgins 212). But as Emerson once said himself, Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. Emerson was also a major leader of the philosophical movement of Transcendentalism. (Encarta 1) Transcendentalism was belief in a higher reality than that found everyday life that a human can achieve. Biographical Information Emerson was born on May 25, 1803 in Boston, Massachusetts. His father died when he was young and his mother was left with him and his four other siblings.

At the age of 18 he graduated from Harvard University and was a teacher for three years in Boston. Then in 1825 he entered Harvard Divinity School and preached for three years. At the age of 29 he resigned for ministry, partly because of the death of his wife after only 17 months of marriage. In 1835 he married Lydia Jackson and started to lecture. Then in 1836, he helped to start the Transcendental Club. The Transcendental Club was formed for authors that were part of this historical movement. Emerson was a big part of this and practically initiated the entire club.

As we know he was already a major part of the movement and know got himself involved more. Many people and ways of life throughout his career including Neoplatonism, the Hindu religion, Plato and even his wife influenced Emerson. He also inspired many Transcendentalists like Thoreau. Emerson didnt win any major awards, but he did win the love and appreciation of his readers. Literary Information Emerson wrote many genres of writing including poetry and sermons, but his best writing is found in his essays.

Even though he is noted for his essays, he was also a strong force in poetry. Emerson was known for presenting ideas in an expressive style. He wrote about numerous issues including nature, society, conspiracy and freedom. After returning to America after a visit to England, he wrote for the abolitionist cause, which was eliminating slavery. Emerson used these ideas in his 1837 lecture The American Scholar, which he presented before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard. In it he talked about Americans becoming more intelligently independent.

In a second address, commonly referred to as the Address at Divinity College, given in 1838 to the graduating class of Cambridge Divinity College, brought about a problem because it attacked religion and pushed independence. Some of Emersons famous titles are Essays, which was published in 1844, Poems, which was published in 1847, Nature: Addresses and Lectures, 1849, and Representative Men, 1850. In 1860, he published Conduct of Life, which was the first of his works to receive immediate popularity.

In these works you were able to see the influence Plato and Neoplatonism had of him. Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher. He developed the notion of a higher reality that exists beyond the powers of human comprehension. Plato explained that the idea of absolute goodness transcends human description. Neoplantonism was a collective designation for the philosophical and religious doctrines of a heterogeneous school of speculative thinkers who sought to develop and synthesize the metaphysical ideas of Plato (Encarta).

Ralph Waldo Emerson found motivation to write in anything he did, whether it was visiting England, the Transcendental Movement or if it was abolishing slavery. He didnt receive much fame during his lifetime, but after he passed away in1882, he was remembered for all of his writing, not just one good essay. Emerson was the most important figure during the Romantic Period (Myerson 3). He left his mark on writing, especially the Romantic Period.

James Dean, the acting rebel without a cause, was born in Marion, Indiana on February 9, 1931. His parents were Winton Dean and Mildred Dean. During his first six years of his life he and his family lived in Marion Indiana. Because of a military transfer between his father and the military he moved to California. His father was a dentist and performed his practices in the military. There his mother became ill and died when he was very young at the age of nine. He claimed to not have known why she died but he said it was probably the reason he got where he was because it changed his direction.

James led a talented life where he played the violin, tap danced, and played in concerts. He also loved art very much and wanted it to be a part of his life which is why he joined acting. He loved drama because it was a part of art. Many including his family criticized him for his ambitions but that did not stop him from being the successful. He always was doing things that involved some kind of art, sculpting and molting things with his hands and that was just the beginning of it. He always felt his life was devoted to art and dramatics. When he was still young e went to go live with his uncle back in Indiana.

He lost interest in the violin and dancing but not the art interest and ability. Outside of his aptitude, he was also doing other things while living on a farm. He was involved in farming, sports, science, geology, coaching ,and teaching music. He felt very open to things. He also loved the idea of being a mechanic with motorcycles. He worked on them a lot and rode them. He was a racer and owned a motorcycle and a bicycle. When he was not doing that he engaged in athletics which he thought were the heartbeat of every American boy. Dean also like to travel. By the time he was in High School he had been in every state west of Indiana.

While living in Indiana, Dean did not like much of his farm life. One thing he did like was the constant opportunity of getting recreation. He was always doing things everywhere. When starting to get in athletics, he would play basketball in a barn close to his farm where older guys would play with him. He would also play on a trapeze there when he was young. People around him involved his childhood always described him as a young man who could catch on to things quickly. His uncle said that you would teach him to do things and the next week he would do it better than you.

He was taught to use a revolver once by his father and surprised him when he was shooting better than him on the first day. One mistake they claimed to have made during his childhood was teaching him to use the trapeze where he lost his front teeth and had to wear false ones for the rest of his life. In High school Dean was a basketball star. He played for a school called Fairmont High school. He was their leading scorer. He had brought them to beat many teams. Dean was usually athletic with all of the sports he was involved in. He was popular in High school and many like him.

Though he was popular with many, he was unlike by the authority of his school. He in his High School days was a bit immature and pulled many pranks. One time, to aggravate some of the girls in his high school, he brought another girl to one of his proms. Although sometimes he struggled socially he was still successful in high school and was able to continue his dream of being an artist in some way. At first he decided to go to a school in California. It was a Junior College called Santa Monica Junior college. Then he started at the University of California Los Angeles in Los Angeles.

There he did what he always wanted to do and that was theater arts. After struggling with money, he dropped out and began working for a place called Ted Auto Park. Several of other young men worked there. Many UCLA drop-outs. There he made small wages and sometimes he had no place to sleep. He worked a lot and rarely had any fun unless he was driving his car wildly. This was the beginning of his career that wasnt very pleasant. Luckily he was ventually picked up by a man named Rogers Brackett He gave him acting opportunities and a place to sleep.

Still this was a small opportunity but he was an opportunist who took on anything. Brackett slowly got him started in radio acting and stage drama. During this time his family wasnt happy with him because they thought he was making stupid decisions. His farther always discouraged him from his acting ambitions and told him that the actors involved in movies were a bunch of pansies. He never really listened to them and continued his acting career. Together Brackett and Dean were in the James Whitmores acting shop. This appeared in occasional TV commercials, and played several roles in films and on stage.

James Whitmore the owner of the organization gave Dean the advice to move to New York to take up a serious acting career. the He appeared in seven television shows, in addition to earning his living as a busboy in the theater district, before he won a small part in a Broadway play entitled See the Jaguar. In a letter to his family in Fairmount in 1952, he wrote: “I have made great strides in my craft. After months of auditioning, I am very proud to announce that I am a member of the Actors Studio. The greatest school of the theater.

It houses great people like Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Arthur Kennedy, Mildred Dunnock… Very few get into it, and it is absolutely free. It is the best thing that can happen to an actor. I am one of the youngest to belong. If I can keep this up and nothing interferes with my progress, one of these days I might be able to contribute something to the world. ” [He worked with Arthur Kennedy in See the Jaguar; he would later star with Julie Harris in East of Eden and Mildred Dunnock in “Padlocks,” a 1954 episode of the CBS television program Danger. ] Dean ontinued his study at the Actors Studio, played short stints in TV dramas, and returned to Broadway in The Immoralist (1954).

This last appearance resulted in a screen test at Warner Bros. for the part of Cal Trask in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. He then returned to New York where he appeared in four more television dramas and completed the “Torn Sweater” series. After winning the role of Jim Stark in 1955’s Rebel Without A Cause, he moved to Hollywood. In February, he visited his family in Fairmount with Dennis Stock before returning to Los Angeles. In March, Jimmy celebrated his “Eden” success by urchasing his first Porsche and entered the Palm Springs Road Races.

He began shooting “Rebel” that same month and Eden opened nationwide in April. In May, he entered the Bakersfield Race and finished shooting Rebel. He entered one more race, in Santa Barbara, before he joined the cast and crew of Giant in Marfa, Texas. James Dean had one of the most spectacularly brief careers of any screen star. In just more than a year, and in only three films, Dean became a widely admired screen personality, a personification of the restless American youth of the mid-50’s, and an embodiment of the title of one of his films, Rebel

Without A Cause (1955). En route to compete in a race in Salinas, James Dean was killed in a tragic highway accident on September 30, 1955. James Dean was nominated for two Academy Awards, for his performances in East of Eden and Giant. Although he only made 3 films, they were made in just over one year’s time. Joe Hyams, in Little Boy Lost, sums up his career: Dean was an exciting person in his childhood and his adulthood. He was always active and meant a lot to millions around the nation. Obviously its people like this that we need to entertain our country.

On June 28, 1941 Henry the VIII of England was born. This young man will form his own church. He will succeed to the throne in 1509. He will also marry six women! Something good will happen when he is king, he will unite England and Wales and will also do some bad things like executing people who would not follow his rules. In 1539, the Act of Supremacy declared Henry to be the head of the Church of England. King Henry the VIII of England had a good side and a bad side. Though popular with the people of England and also very talented he had many bad times and many good times for himself.

Henry was not only selfish but, also handsome and had a hearty personality, he was also a gifted scholar, linguist, composer, and a musician. He was talented at many sports and was also good with the ladies. Henry was the second son and the third child of his father. Henry the VIII died in 1509, the only reason Henry would become king is because of his brothers, Arthur, death in April of 1502. Soon after that, Henry would marry his first wife, his brother (Arthur’s) widow, Catherine of Aragon. Many wifes would follow after her.

During most of his early reign, Henry relied n Thomas Cardinal Wosley to do much of the political and religious activities. Henry soon got tired of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, so he decides that he doesn’t want to be married to her anymore, so he tells Thomas Wosley to talk to the pope so he can divorce Catherine. But, Cardinal Wosley wasn’t able to convince the pope, so in 1529 Henry took Wosley’s authority away from him. Henry then appointed Sir Thomas More. Henry then got that divorce through Thomas Cramner, that he wanted with Catherine of Aragon and then married Anne Boleyn.

Cramner now the Arch Bishop of Canterbury, made Henry’s arriage with Catherine void and his marriage with Anne valid. This made the Pope furious. So in 1534, King Henry had the parliament pass a law saying that the king, not the pope, would from now on be the supreme head of the Church of England. Since Henry was now in charge of the Church , he was going to make some changes. He had all the bibles translated into English. He then had all the people take an oath for this law. But Sir Thomas More and, then Cardinal, John Fisher wouldn’t accept the religious supremacy of the English monarch, so they were then executed.

These changes radually led to the formation of the Church of England. In 1536, Henry accused his second wife, Anne Boleyn of adultery, so Henry then executed her. A few days after that, he married a young woman by the name of Jane Seymour. Jane Seymour, Henry’s third wife, was the mother of Henry’s only legitimate son, Jane Seymour died after bearing this certain child. Edward the VI was Henry’s only legitimate son. A couple of years after Jane Seymour had died, Henry decided to marry once again. He married a german princess by the name of Anne of Cleaves. In 1540, Henry was told that Anne of Cleaves was a beautiful and pretty oung woman.

So then, when Henry finally saw her he thought she was really ugly. So he then divorced Anne of Cleaves and then beheaded Thomas Cromwell for having tricked him. Being unloyal to God as much as Henry possibly could, he made the decision to marry his fifth wife by the name of Catherine Howard. Catherine Howard was then summarily executed in 1542 for being unchaste prior to marriage with Henry the VIII and for committing adultery. Henry had only one more wife to go, in 1543 Henry married his sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr. Catherine then survived Henry and then lived n to marry fourth husband.

In 1536, during Henry the VIII’s reign, England and Wales were finally united as one country. During the 1280’s, after Edward the I had conquere Wales, the Welsh people had revolted several times against the English people, due to Edward’s conquer. But, the Welsh people finally accepted the idea of unity with the English people. In the acts of 1536 and 1543, Henry joined both Wales and England under one system of government. When Ireland was made a nation or kingdom in 1541, King Henry then became the king of Ireland. Henry now the king, had many wars ith Scotland and France, during 1542 King Henry’s troops defeated the Scots at Solway Moss.

In 1544, Henry’s troops also captured Boulogne-sun-Mer from the French, and then a peace treaty was made when Henry received an indemnity from France in 1546. Henry’s wars with Scotland remained indecisive in spite of some small victories. Though he opposed the Reformation, his very own creation of a national church started the real beginning of the English Reformation. On January 28 1547, Henry the VIII of England died in the city of London. Henry was buried in Saint Georges Chapel in the amous Windsor Castle. During the reign of Edward the VI, Henry the VIII’s only legitimate son, the parliament passed many more church reforms.

But, then in 1553, Edward’s half sister, Mary, the daughter of Catherine of Aragon was a Roman Catholic, she re established Catholicism as the state religion. Even though Henry altered the Church, he did not even wish to introduce Protestant doctrine. Those people who refused to accept the Church of England and its teachings were executed. The only important religious changes made during his reign were the licensing of n English translation of the Bible, the issuance of Cramner’s litany and the translation of English of certain parts of the traditional service.

In conclusion, Henry the VIII of England was not only a talented fellow and a rich one at that. But, he was also disloyal to God and made many mistakes at that. Making the Church of England was probably his greatest achievement as the King of England. Forcing people to follow a certain religion and do what he told them to do was one of his lowest achievements. Henry the VIII was not only selfish, wealthy man but a horrible ruler and a big sinner.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, as a philosopher, wrote several works that justified Christianity in a philosophical context, taking cue on Aristotle’s old writings. Naturally, Aquinas took up on the Church’s “ultra-conservative” views on sexuality and worked to rationalize them through his own theory of natural law. Aquinas argues against any form of sex where the intention to produce children is not involved. He explains this through his theory of natural law, where sex is purely for the purpose of reproduction to ensure the continuance of the human race, only in the context of a monogamous relationship, and not for simple physical pleasure.

There are many laws that Saint Thomas Aquinas speaks of, such as eternal law, human law, divine law, and natural law. All humans are part of “God’s plan” and therefore subject to eternal law, where we are guided to God’s “supernatural end in a higher way” (47). According to Aquinas, humans in particular follow God’s eternal law through a natural law, and inborn instinct to do good. Something is said to be part of natural law if “there is a natural inclination to it” and if “nature does not produce the contrary,” (51-52).

Natural law includes such ideas as self-preservation, union of the male and the female, and education of the young, which is easily found in nature. Humans also have a unique knowledge of God and were meant to live in a society. Aquinas explains that even though concepts such as slavery and personal possessions are not found alone in nature, they were created by human reason, and in such cases “the law of nature was not changed but added to” (52). Because we can do such things, we are separated from the rest of God’s creatures. After explaining his theory of natural law, Aquinas goes on to explain sexuality in the context of it.

According to him, “promiscuity is contrary to the nature of man” because “to bring up a child requires both the care of the mother who nourishes him and even more the care of the father to train and defend him and to develop him in internal and external endowments” (78). Therefore, he finds fornification to be a mortal sin because “it is contrary to the good of the upbringing of the offspring” (79). Curiously, though, he does not bring up the more likely scenario where fornification does not result in the impregnation of the woman. His reasoning makes much better sense in the case of adultery.

Not only does it upset one’s obligations to his family, but also because the Ten Commandments specifically condemn adultery as a great sin. The Ten Commandments are God’s laws and are not relative, so there is no disputing their validity. However, Aquinas’ argument that monogamy is “natural” for humans is not easily justified. If we look carefully at nature, most mammals have to be raised by their parents just as humans are, but only for a few years. Also, in many cases, the mother may raise her young with a different male, or on her own altogether.

Therefore, this makes it harder for Aquinas to appeal to natural law to prove his case for monogamy and life-long relationships. Also, Aquinas does not agree that a male should have the option of leaving a female who has had a child even if it is properly provided for, making an indirect case against divorce (79). Curiously, in Islam, the Koran allows divorce and remarriage, and it is based for the most part on the very same Bible that Aquinas defended. Aquinas makes clear that sex is right only when it is for the purpose of reproduction and it should only be between a male and female in a monogamous relationship; all other forms are sinful.

However, he brings up a very striking exception. The acts of fornification or adultery are not considered sins at all if they are performed under the command of God (52). This is simply a case of common sense, but it explains clearly any such indiscrepancies to natural law in the Bible. Aquinas goes on to define more serious mortal sins which he refers to as indecent sex. This includes homosexuality and bestiality. He quotes bestiality from the Bible: “‘[Joseph] accused his brothers of the worst sin they had relations with cattle'” (80).

Perhaps he is right, but homosexuality, on the other hand, was accepted in societies even before Aquinas’ time. For instance, the ancient Greeks accepted intercourse between a younger and older man as a higher form love. Even if Aquinas tried to invoke the “natural law” argument, he could’ve been shown evidence of homosexuality in nature, even though it is not very common. This is interesting in the sense that considering animals lack reason, they aren’t capable of sin because they have no real knowledge of distinguishing between moral right and wrong.

In that case, there seems to be a loophole in Aquinas’ theory, if natural law seems to prove homosexuality not to be a mortal sin. Thomas Aquinas takes his arguments concerning sexuality even further. He goes on to condemn situations even where no sexual intercourse is in involved, pointing out still more mortal sins. By his reasoning, lustful kisses and caresses are actually mortal sins, because of the mere purpose behind them, since they show consent to the idea of sex, in forms like fornification.

Drunkenness can also be a mortal sin in that way, if one drinks in order to purposely lose his sense of reason and put himself in danger of sinning (77). Aquinas turns to virginity as something worthy of praise because it frees the mind of unclean thoughts to focus on “contemplation of the divine. ” He quotes the Apostle Paul, saying “‘The unmarried woman who is a virgin thinks of the things of the Lord so that she may be holy in body and spirit. The woman who is married thinks of things of the world and how to please her husband'” (78). This “holy virginity” is the rationale behind the priests’ and nuns’ vows of celibacy.

As much as it did when Aquinas wrote his works, the views of the Church and Aquinas on sexuality are one and the same. The Church today officially does not allow pre-marital sex, homosexuality, and even artificial birth control, though it does not literally enforce its policies on Church followers. Still, it is interesting to consider the effects of such regression on a society. While lust is not considered part of natural law because it is deemed as unique to us as humans as punishment for Adam and Eve’s fall from grace, it seems to be a powerfully “natural” inclination for us all.

If we turn to Freud, we see that virtually everything we do has an underlying sexual purpose. By Freud’s logic, any contact we make with the opposite sex has some underlying sexual motive, no matter how sublime it is. The only way someone can put aside his or her sexual aggressions is by finding another outlet for such passions. Sports, music, art, and virtually any hobby that we can enjoy works as an outlet for sexual aggressions. For those who work for the Church, that passion is obviously channeled into worshiping the divine.

Obviously, there are times when people must “relieve” themselves. Fortunately Aquinas did classify the severity of such mortal sins; bestiality being the worst, and “uncleanliness” being the mildest (80). Therefore there are “levels” of transgression, so these require different levels of penance. Of course we are to believe that God will forgive us if we are truly sorry for committing such moral sins, or else we will burn in hell. Certainly we do not have to agree with all of Aquinas’ arguments, as many may seem unnecessarily harsh. We can follow him on many points but not all.

Surely we can agree that sex is something that should be treated with respect, and obscene acts like bestiality upset that. Adultery is also a sinful thing because it is specifically condemned in the Ten Commandments and it disrupts family life. One might also view homosexuality and say that it defeats the whole purpose of sex. Other things don’t seem quite as bad, and acts like lustful kisses and purposely getting drunk are much too trivial to be considered mortal sins. Another theme that clearly arises from sexuality in the perspective of the divine is our role on earth altogether.

Often there seem to be only two trains of thought, either the pursuit of happiness or strictly living a life of following God. In the Christian viewpoint, it seems that if we are to follow God, any happiness we come upon is more coincidental since it is not a goal for this lifetime. Theoretically, true happiness can only be found in the afterlife, and that’s only if one is received into heaven. In that sense, life is only one long test, one that we might not always enjoy taking, but one that we need to pass while taking the longest time possible in finishing it.

On April 15, 1983 Henry James Jr. was born into the prominent and eccentric James Family. His father, Henry James Senior was a noted philosopher and his considered one of the most brilliant thinkers of the age. His brother William was to become one of the most important figures in the field of psychology. The wealthy James family traveled frequently providing Henry with a haphazard education. His formal education however, was no where near as important as the education that he received from traveling trough Europe and living on the ‘continent, which proved to be the driving inspiration behind his work.

Although James’ life appeared to be idyllic James himself was troubled. Compared to his brother he was frail and slight in frame and statute and as a result was mocked by other boys his age. As a result James turned away from his peers and spent a lot of time with his family members, especially the women (Bell). Then I in 1860 while helping fight a stable fire James was horribly injured. Though the actual injury itself remains a mystery many speculate that it was the cause of his lifelong rejection of intimate relationships.

Combined with his already introverted personality, the injury contributed to the isolated environment that James surrounded himself in and forced him to find companionship in his writing. At age 19, Henry James gave up schooling for good, deciding instead to become a writer. He began to publish his works and the tone for his works were set. James was highly influenced by another American writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and his work echoed with the same concerns “restraints that society places on the individual, and an interest in the way the past shapes the present” (Tanner 89). However, unlike Hawthorne, James was drawn to write about Europe.

Frequent trips to Europe soon convinced him to move there permanently which is considered one of the most important decisions of his career (Dupee 106). The American in Europe became a major theme in his writing. Henry James was very prolific. His works include twenty novels, over one hundred tales, many plays, studies, criticisms, and travel impressions. He is considered a “writers writer,” and was highly regarded by those who could best appreciate his work. Although James moved in the social circles of the aristocratic nobility in Europe he was never actually a wealthy man.

He lived off of his earnings as a writer and loathed to accept charity from anyone. At the end of his life at the onset of the First World War he actively participated in the war relief effort until he suffered from severe health problems in 1916 (Tanner 95). When he dies his books were not very popular and it would take twenty years for his works to be rediscovered (Dupee 77). Henry James had a profound effect on the intellectual world. His writings influenced the next generation of American writers including Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Katherine Anne Porter, Edith Warton, and Virginia Woolf.

James’ most popular tale, Daisy Miller was the first to earn Henry James the acclaim he deserved. Of all his works only The Turn of the Screw was as well known. Daisy Miller is the story of a young girl, Daisy Miller who is touring Europe with her mother and younger brother. While in Vevey at a Swiss Resort Daisy meets a handsome young American man, Frederick Winterbourne, who is visiting his wealthy Aunt Mrs. Costello. Winterbourne and Daisy become aquatinted and Winterbourne is immediately taken with Daisy. He has never met someone like her – she is flirtatious which is quite unorthodox and impetuous.

Daisy does what she wants when she wants to without any regard for the customs that are strictly observed in European society. Daisy convinces Winterbourne to take her on an outing without a chaperone. This unheard of behavior doesn’t seem to bother Daisy’s mother, but completely shocks and outrages Mrs. Costello who refuses to meet Daisy – a low class American. The next day Winterbourne leaves for Geneva and Daisy is quite miffed that their time together came to an end so quickly. But, Winterbourne tells Daisy that he will meet with her again in Rome the next winter.

When Winterbourne finally arrives in Rome the next Winter he finds that Daisy has hardly been pinning away him, instead she has surrounded herself with a number of Italian gentlemen callers and seems to favor one, Mr. Giovanelli, in particular. Daisy’s behavior in Rome echoes her behavior in Vevey the previous spring. And Winterbourne no longer finds her flirting as charming as it was when it was directed at him. Daisy’s conduct in Rome under the scrupulous eyes of the society their draws her much attention. One American, Mrs.

Walker warns Winterbourne that Daisy is on the verge of ruining her reputation by traveling unchaperoned with Giovanelli. Winterbourne tries to warn Daisy but he is torn between seeing her behavior as oblivious innocence or outright immorality. When Daisy will not heed his advice he goes to her mother. But Mrs. Miller, who is engaged trying to watch her impertant younger son, sees Giovanelli as a nice gentleman and even speculates on a possible engagement. Winterbourne is shocked at this news and he ends up confronting Daisy about it. She confirms then denies his accusations. Obviously trying to make him jealous.

Her plan backfires and he makes his decision, Daisy is immoral. However, he can not let go of her that easily and while walking one night in Rome he comes across Daisy in the Colosseum with Giovanelli. Lingering concern prompts Winterbourne to warn Daisy that the Colosseum is a breeding ground for malaria and that Daisy should be careful. Giovanelli goes to fetch the carriage and Daisy and Winterbourne are alone. Daisy queries Winterbourne, wondering if he believed that she was engaged. He tells her that it doesn’t matter one way or another and that she should leave the Colosseum before she catches her death.

Heartbroken and defeated Daisy tells Winterbourne that she cares not whether of not she catches the Roman fever or not. The Americans in Europe quickly learn of Daisy’s nocturnal escapades and she is once again the topic of unsavory conversation. The American flirt has tumbled over the edge of respectability and firmly ruined her reputation. As gossip about Daisy rages around Rome more follows. It seems that Daisy did in fact catch the Roman fever, malaria and she is deathly ill. After hearing this news Winterbourne seeks to confirm the rumor and goes to see Daisy.

Her brother tells him that it was all her nighttime excursions that caused her to become so ill. Winterbourne encounters Daisy’s mother. She tells him that Daisy is very ill, but she does pass along a message. Daisy wants Winterbourne to know that she was not engaged to Giovanelli. While Daisy is on her deathbed, Giovanelli realizes that Daisy must have cared for him and his opinion to pass along such a message. Within a week Daisy is dead. At her funeral there are many people, including Giovanelli who had failed to visit her while she was sick. Winterbourne sees him and asks him why he took her to the Colosseum to begin with.

He says that Daisy wanted to go and was the “most innocent” girl he had ever known. It is then that Winterbourne sees how he wronged Daisy, and how her outward appearance was so different from her reality. He had misjudged her as much as everyone else had. In closing, Winterbourne observes that he had “spent too long in Europe to understand American ways. ” At a time when an education the Continent was the norm for the wealthy families of the United States Daisy was the epitome of the differences between Americans and Europeans, with the creation of Daisy Miller, Henry James created the American girl.

At the very beginning of the novel it is obvious that Daisy is very different from the Europeans in Vevey. When Daisy meets Winterbourne for the first time he is extremely embarrassed at being presented to her in such an offhanded manor, thorough her brother. It was simply not done. Daisy however, “not in the least embarrassed herself,” (James 8). Daisy at once proves herself to be very different from her European counterparts. Winterbourne was “amused, perplexed and decidedly charmedHe had never heard a young girl express herself in just [that] way” (James 13).

In Europe, the young ladies there would never had been so forward to speak to a gentleman which whom they were not acquainted. Daisy’s actions set her apart. Scholar Leslie Fieldler best expresses the unique quality that Daisy possess “Daisy isthe prototype of all those young American female tourists who continue to baffle their continental lovers with an innocence not at all impeached” (Springer 125). Daisy was uniquely American. Where Europeans were addicted to customs and rules, Daisy was independent in action and thought. She did what she wished without worrying who would or wouldn’t approve.

When first published Daisy was the source of great controversy. There was not one person who read Daisy Miller and did not declare themselves for or against her. As William Dean Howells commented to James Russell Lowll in 1878, “Societydivided itself into Daisy Millerites and anti-Daisy Millerites,” (Barnett 86). Like the fictional characters in James story society was at odds over how to perceive Daisy. Was she a just a flirt or was she something more? Was her death meant as a lesson to warn young girls away from such indiscrete pursuits or was it merely supposed to show her as the tragic heroine.

Even today the debate continues. Many believe that James started out with one intention and as he wrote his intentions changed. As Carol Ohmann observes in her essay “A Study of Changing Intention” Daisy Miller begins rather comical and ends tragically (Miller 34). This shift in tone is unconventional but mirror Winterbourne’s changing attitude toward her. It is difficult to present a clear-cut picture of Daisy if not even her creator is sure who she is. However, whether or not Daisy is well liked. She still continues to be the epitome of the American girl.

Her disregard for decorum when she visits the Colosseum at night with Giovanelli is another example of how extremely different she is from her European counterparts. When Daisy falls sick from her excursions many say it is deserving punishment for such a low class girl. However, it is only after her death that Winterbourne realizes how wrong he has been in judging her. Like everyone else he believed the worst about Daisy. When he says that he has lived too long among Europeans he characterizes them as judgmental and snobby. Daisy was exactly the opposite.

Her friendly attitude to her servant, a source of great displeasure to Mrs. Costello is an example of how unjudgemental she was. She didn’t ignore his presence, but treated him as a member of the family and with respect. This behavior is what Mrs. Costello calls “low class” (James 22). Throughout Daisy Miller Daisy displays the unconventional lack of respect for decorum that is unheard of in Europe. It is her typical independence and outspoken manner that earn her such a poor reputation, but make her so American. Daisy Miller is the typical American girl and has become one of the archetypal American characters.

Jim Morrisons life is full of twists and turns. Yet, despite this he still managed to keep control of himself to create well-organized works of music as well as his poems. His social life started out to be the safe variable and when he was on stage he let loose giving crazy shows for the audience. As his life went on his two lives began to blend into one big blunder where you could only see tiny specs of so-called order. As well as Jims life , the time he lived in behaved the same way. Order in the country was there, but its people and its government showed moments of chaos and even rejection of the government itself.

Major things were happening and people were reacting in sometimes extreme ways. The sixties were jam packed with events showing disorder. In this way we can relate it to one who lived the time. Jim Morrisons life was full of diversity, order and chaos, just like the times he lived in, the sixties. Jims life began as a story of order and chaos. His father was a career militarist, which brought the order of the military.

This job brought a lot of moving and relocation which through Jims childhood out of sync. Jim started his life in Clearwater, Florida. Then he moved to Washington D. C. nd then on to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jims family kept moving and moving Jim never had time to make any true friends in any one place (Jones 31). To deal with this Jim acted like; one could say the class clown, so he would be liked. This backfired and kids learned to watch themselves around him. With no true friends Jim found that he had no problem manipulating the ones around him. He was his own individual; he just looked out for himself. Morrison received high marks throughout school even though he didnt put too much effort into the books and spent a lot of time drunk (34).

His parents then enrolled him in St. Petersburg Junior College in Florida, but Jim transferred to Florida State University only to drop out and move to UCLA to study film. At the end of the year Jim turned in his film, but he received bad reactions to it and he dropped out of school (Manzarek 60). This made Jim a lot more eligible to be drafted so he moved to Venice just south of Santa Monica. This is when he began to use alcohol and drugs to expand his mind past the point the books had. After this summer 65 filled with drugs and alcohol he began to think he could become a rock singer (Jones 38). A little later he met Ray Manzarek and decided to form a band.

In 1965 Jim met eighteen year old Pamela Courson. This redhead gave Jim what he called his Cosmic Mate (37). This provided Jim a normal relationship where he read his poems and she benefited him in the category of clothing apparel. Yet, Jim enjoyed the life of Los Angeles where freaks, washouts, and the rich lived side by side. Nobody in L. A. would make his ambitions shallow either, Jim chose to be on the crazier side of the city so he could mask himself as he always did and because of the scene there nobody cared. Jims life though a little wild still kept the calm variable of his band.

They made many songs and passed them around to different record companies until Columbia gave them a small deal. They went around L. A. doing birthdays, weddings, and etc Manzerek was the prominent singer at this time because Morrison was still to shy at the time to use his own voice. The band was looking for a more stable way of playing so they sought a residency at a club. They were rejected around town because they had no bass guitar player, but then Manzerek discovered a way of getting around this by adopting a keyboard that imitated the sound the bass guitar (Jones 41).

Then as the Doors concerts numbered on Jim Morrison became more and more confident with his presence on stage, which resulted in the often singing of Morrison. The band started to attract small crowds for their performances who would show up over and over again just to see The Doors play. Along with this Jim became very comfortable on stage. Soon he became so comfortable that he began showing up drunken, high, or both. At the club the Whiskey-A-Go-Go a rep from Elektra records saw them (Manzerek 182). The company gave the Doors control of their output so the band quickly signed.

This was definitely a good thing because the Doors had just been fired because Jim just decided to yell *%$! You in concert and the management quickly fired them (Jones 43). The cause of this is the fact that the band had to fill the time slots by adlibbing songs and Jims relationship with LSD, a close one. A big part of order and preciseness in Jims life is his songs. They were written concise and compact. They are filled with all the knowledge he acquired while reading at the library. They also contained his fears and obsessions.

The songs are creative from Jims own mind and helped out by his mind on drugs such as LSD, peyote, amyl nitrate, grass, and alcohol (43). Jims life was heading down while the group remained at their respectable level. He had no where to live, while the others maintained their life and just used drugs. They didnt let it control and fuel them like Jim did. Jim now started to become a darker figure talking about death as a friend taking him away from his pain (44). This was the character Jim had ultimately wanted to be. He let his stage personality take over his whole life.

Though Jims appearance made him look like a druggy from a distance he still used his mind and body to show his control. Steve Harris, the Vice President of Elektra said of him, He had a way of moving, a way of looking at you, and a way of projecting himself: he was gorgeous magnetic. He knew he had the goods, and he knew how to use them (Jones 48). Steve went on to say how when Jim met a journalist or record company representative he would try to conquer the wife, he says Jim usually did (48). Jim did everything to keep what he now had with his image and everything.

An example is when before his first concert in New York his mother called and Jim talked to for a short period of time before he went off in a tantrum. His family members tried to reach him, but Jim would refuse to talk then go off in another tantrum followed by getting drunk. Jim also wanted to build on this image with a death hoax. The one fault in Jims image was people knew he wasnt the kind of guy you would want to be around. He used his manipulative mind to use you if you came close. Jim would test his friends, lovers, etcover and over till their relationship would break. As the Doors became bigger Jim became more and more unpredictable.

He was the first to crowd surf, but the worst things of all were his crude acts on stage and once even getting caught in a public shower room with a woman. The incident with the girl was in New Haven, CT where he met a girl back stage and took her to the shower-rooms and began having sex. A policeman caught them and told them to break up, but Jim protested and the cop reacted by spraying them both in the face with tear gas (Jones 128). The second embarrassing moment for the band was when Jim ran up on stage when Jimi Hendrix was up there and clutched Jimis legs as to perform oral sex.

The next crude act is a time when Jim actually took his partially erect penis and performed or started to perform masturbation. A security guard then pushed him offstage (Manzerek 338). Along with these sexual acts Jim liked to pick fights and he would get his drunk body beaten, but then get right back up and take the beating again. Jim also liked manipulating crowds into frenzies and causing riots. Again the band was unaware of his plan. Jims life as you can see was one of confusion, disorder, yet he was able to keep some, admittedly not much, but some stability in it. His death in Paris mirrored his life.

It was filled with uncertainty. It was most likely caused by an overdose of heroin or a heart attack. No one knows for sure knows what happened to him because after he died Pamela and the doctor were the only two to see his body. There was no autopsy done before Jim was buried. The sixties started off shaky. First the United States had to deal with the building of the Berlin wall. Next the government had to deal with the threat of nuclear war from Russia. Yet with stern discipline the United States won the cold war victory at Cuba. By this time Kennedy had sent troops to Vietnam unsuspecting what was to come next.

Kennedy did not do well with the Congress of the time, but all was well with the White House because he was so popular (Kronenwetter 16). Then with sudden tragedy Kennedy was shot and killed. Then even the man who shot him was shot. Johnson sent took over and then sent about 190,000 troops over to Vietnam as well as 20,000 he sent to the Dominican Republic to keep democracy and order in place (21). One huge part of American history is the Vietnam War. Chaos broke out in the country. The United States advisors said it would be a quick, easy victory , but as time and the war went on the United States didnt make a lot of headway.

Many bold students came out to protest the war. For this was the first war the American people had seen on film so many were appalled by the sights and the killing. The Tet Offensive put another spike in the United States side. Then when all couldnt be seen as getting worse after Martin Luther King JRs death Robert F. Kennedy just after winning was shot to death. Even the Democratic Nominating Convention in Chicago, 1968 couldnt escape violence (Emmens 29). Then Nixon came to office and promised to try to get our men out. The war became even more unpopular after the My Lai Massacre.

At four hundred and forty-one colleges and universities students protested and the National Guard was even called to Kent State. Finally on January 27, 1973 the war ended with the United States with 57,000 fewer men than before (20). Another great fight in the sixties was the fight for equality. Sit-in movements were very popular. Freedom rides were organized so blacks could ride the bus too. The still rode on even after in South Carolina a bus was beaten and then sent up in flames (51). Robert F. Kennedy went to the measure of sending federal Marshals to control the mobs.

Integration of schools was also pursued and James H. Meredith became the first black man at the University of Mississippi with the help of the military. The blacks also scored major victories with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Yet there were still a hand full of blacks that sought to riot and resorted to violence instead. Some of the people were into to the hippie type thing of drugs, poems, and doing nothing else. But most people worked and now with the television becoming more widespread events such as sports could be reported and there would be less need to go watch the game in person.

The people of the sixties saw a great diverse decade right in the comfort of there own living room. The age of the sixties was the perfect time of Jim Morrison to live in. James life was full of chaos, was in a time of chaos. Each also had their own type of order. Jim kept his order within his head. As mentioned before, when Jim was tanked he could still use his creative mind to manipulate others. While the order in the sixties is displayed in the way most of the people held together in the times told about. The biggest part of both the sixties and Jim Morrison was the amount of chaos each had in their situations.

Jim couldnt control himself or he would just go out on the limb on purpose for a reaction. His drugs ruled his life and he could never really think without these influences. He was totally unpredictable. He showed up at recordings drunk, high, etc and sometimes he would be so blitzed he couldnt do the recording or he just wouldnt show up at all leaving the rest of the band to record to themselves. People and situations of the sixties made this era full of chaos. The assassinations of the Kennedys and of Martin Luther King Jr. surrounded the decade.

The war, being the least successful in United States history is a surprise because advisors predicted an easy victory one of which the military leaders couldnt pull off. The people of the time rioted, fought and terrorized each other to get their point across while others used the more orderly way of sit-ins and so on (these would sometimes result in violence, too). Morrison identified himself with something called the Apollinian-Dionysion split (Manzerek 119). Order and chaos respectively. Morrison always identified with Dionysius and so does the sixties.

Short and rather bird-like behind thick glasses, Harry S. Truman was not intimidating in looks. He spoke in a Midwestern farmers tone. But he was a shrewd politician, and established a reputation for speaking the truth. Truman was born on May 8, 1884 in Lamar, Missouri. He was the oldest of three children of John Anderson Truman and Martha Ellen (Young) Truman(Steins 41). His birthplace is just south of the area into which his grandparents had moved from Kentucky four decades earlier(aol 2). The letter “S” in his name was not an abbreviation.

It showed the familys reluctance to choose between his grandfathers, Anderson Shippe Truman and Solomon Young. In 1887 Truman as an infant was moved to a 600 acre farm owned by his mothers family (Hargrove 19). Harry often recalled how his granddad drove him to the Grandview Fair as a child. Harry also played in the cornfield and mud holes with his Shetland pony and his brother, Vivian (Hargrove 19). Shortly after Harrys sister, Mary Jane, was born the family moved to the little town of Independence, Missouri. There, Harrys thick glasses prevented from joining in many boyhood activities (aol 2).

One of the friends that Harry met was a little, curly headed girl named Elizabeth “Bess” Wallace at the age of four years. Eventually they would marry (Hargrove 20). Harry started public school in 1892. Because of his poor eyesight his mother encouraged him to turn to piano and books (Steins 42). Harry began to read small sentences in the newspaper at the early age of five. This helped him stay away from the rough and tumble games that would break his glasses. He once said, “I was so cautioned about my glasses that I was afraid to join the boyish activities that I dearly so wanted to be a part of,” (Hargrove 22).

Despite some diphtheria in the second grade, Harry was an excellent student. He skipped the third grade entirely. Ironically, Harry had his first job while in the first grade at a drug store owned by William Clinton (Hargrove 22). Harry finished high school in 1901. He graduated with honors but was turned down an appointment to West Point due to poor eyesight (Steins 42). He took a job as a mailroom clerk at the Kansas City Star . Several years of work for a railroad and two banks added more to Trumans experience than to his finances (aol 3).

Then, at the age of 22, he returned to the rural work into which he had been born. He spent the next eleven years as a farmer helping his father manage the Young farm in Grandview (aol 3). Working on a farm in the golden age of American agriculture he experienced a personal change, becoming less withdrawn and much more confident in his relations with other people. He began to actively participate in Democratic Party politics that later helped him as a politician. In 1917 the world was at war. After the sinking of the Lusitania, the U. S. was enveloped by war and also Harry heard his calling.

Truman enrolled in Battery D, 129th Field Artillery, 35th Division, of the United States Army (Hargrove 25). He discovered that he had talents as a leader and gained the affection of a group of men who voted for him later. After the war, he joined Veterans organizations and the Army Reserve, rising to the rank of Colonel. After returning home in 1919, Truman married his childhood friend, Bess, and established a haberdashery in Kansas City. The marriage succeeded, but the store didnt. Founded during the post war boom, it collapsed in the post war Depression.

Left with heavy debts Truman was forced to think once again about his career (aol 3). Through an old army friend, Truman was appointed highway overseer of Jackson County, Missouri. While Truman avoided the corrupt side of the organization and handled his own offices honestly and efficiently, he remained loyal to the dirty Pendergast that got him elected. In 1926, Truman wanted a higher position. He became county judge of Jackson County. In the era where bad politics was popular politics Truman soon became known and applauded for being an honest guy (Steins 43, 44).

In 1934, eager to move higher in politics, Truman accepted Pendergasts request that he run for a seat in the U. S. Senate. He campaigned vigorously and with help from Pendergast the failed businessman was now a Senator. As a first term Senator, Truman supported the New Deal and worked hard on his committee assignments (Steins 44). As an active member of the Interstate Commerce Committee, he helped produce the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 and the Transportation Act of 1940 (aol 3). In spite of his record he came close to defeat in 1940, narrowly winning re-election.

Pendergast had been sent to prison for income tax evasion, and Truman was criticized for his ties with the discredited organization. Contrary to the negative events of the previous few years, he made a strong showing in his second term. As head of the special committee to investigate the National Defense Program, he promoted economy and efficiency among defense contractors, saving taxpayers billions of dollars (aol 4). “The Truman Committee,” as it was often called, was soon known for its success in debasing waste and stopping mis-management and negligence.

Trumans thinking was often influenced by his experiences and leadership capabilities in World War I (aol 4). During the War he worked for the creation of an international organization to preserve peace. He favored the use of American economic power in the Lend-Lease Program as another means of influencing international affairs (Hargrove 39). Trumans new prestige plus his ability to get along with all factions in his party made him a contender for the Democratic Vice-Presidential nomination in 1944 (aol 4). In the election year of 1944, there was little doubt that Franklin Roosevelt was the choice for President of a majority of Americans.

The question was who would be his running mate. Vice-President Henry Wallace, however, was a more controversial figure. There were rumors spreading that Roosevelt might prefer someone else as his Vice-President in the future. Among the names mentioned was that of Harry Truman, although he later wrote that he had little interest in the vice-presidency. “I was doing the job I wanted to do; it was the one I liked and I had no desire to interrupt my career in the Senate. ” (Hargrove 49). Shortly before he left for the Convention, Truman received a phone call from a man named James Byrnes (Hargrove 50).

Byrnes was a skillful public servant who had given up his job as Supreme Court Justice to be an aide to Roosevelt. Now Byrnes wanted Trumans nomination for Vice-President. Before long Maryland and Missouris Senators and Representatives said they would support Truman for vice-president. This left Truman in a “Harry” situation. Unaware that Roosevelt really wanted Truman, Truman turned down the nomination, but received it unknowingly the next day on July 20, 1944 (Hargrove 54). “Well, if thats the situation, I guess Ill have to say yes, but why the hell didnt he say so in the first place.

Truman was now Vice-President. With a very popular president in front of him, Truman became automatically popular along side Roosevelt. For a few months Truman performed the limited duties of Vice-President. He served as President of the Senate and at the President’s request, he attended the few cabinet meetings that were held in the early months of 1945 (Hargrove 55). On the afternoon of April 12, 1945, Trumans friend, Sam Rayburn, told Truman of a call from the White House. He sped out of the parking garage so fast that he didnt even get the message about the call was about.

Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now,” the new President told reporters on April 13, 1945. One of them shouted, “Good luck, Mr. President. ” “I wish you hadnt said that,” Truman answered sadly (Hargrove 1945). Roosevelt was dead and Harry Truman had to take responsibility in the midst of the largest war in the history of civilization. During the early weeks of his presidency, many people found it almost impossible to believe that FDR was dead. But from the beginning, “Give em hell, Harry,” let it be known that he was the new man in charge of the White House (aol 5).

The people who worked with President Harry Truman quickly realized that America had found a surprisingly and intelligent new leader (Hargrove 60). By 1946 fifteen million workers were on strike. Truman was sympathetic but didnt want this crisis to disrupt the normal functions of the county. Trumans next move was to seize all rail lines. Then, he made a domestic program called “Fair Deal,” structured after Roosevelts ” New Deal. ” He supported the use of unions and raised the minimum wage thus ending the strike. Then, his next big plan, acting on his beliefs, he desegregated the military (Steins 48).

But of the first things that Harry Truman did forming the United Nations was probably the greatest (Hargrove 61). Truman quickly orchestrated the babying and coaxing of Russia into the UN, this is what made the UN successful. When Japanese leaders refused to take the head of Trumans warnings, Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, informed Harry of the Manhattan Project (Hargrove 66). Harry demanded more information about the atomic bomb and when he saw the opportunity and had no other choice, he ordered the Enola Gay to drop “Fat Man” on Hiroshima (Hargrove 67).

Three days later Truman ordered another drop of “Little Boy” on Nagasaki. The war was over, and September 9, 1945 was declared Victory in Japan Day (Hargrove 67). Another area in which Truman made contributions was civil rights. Mentioned earlier, he desegregated the military. But he failed to obtain passage of law assuring equal job opportunities for blacks. Nearly all Southerners opposed him and the Southern Senators effectively filibustered against his legislative proposals (aol 6). This proved almost deadly for Truman in 1948.

The election of 1948 presented with Truman with one of his most spectacular challenges. He faced a confident Republican Party headed by its nominee, Governor Thomas Dewey of New York (aol 6). The pollsters predicted a deluge of votes for Dewey and Harrys “give em hell” tactics to fail. Though he was not given a fair shake Truman campaigned hard, and denounced the Republican Senate as a “do nothing” body. On the night of November 5th, The Chicago Tribune s headline read “Dewey Defeats Truman” (aol 7). Truman held it up the next at his victory speech.

Trumans second term was not filled with as many hard decisions as his first term, but he changed many domestic and foreign policies that were just as important. Korea was Trumans next area of crisis. He realized that America still had its limits. He ordered troops into South Korea and then authorized them to push Communist forces back into North Korea and China. Then, General Douglas McArthur gained a reputation for disobeying Truman. While McArthur did not force Truman to change his policy, the controversy did weaken his authority.

But in the end, the United States was successful in keeping Communist North Korea out of South Korea. Trumans last big crisis as President was a clash with Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy insisted that the U. S. was losing on every front and accused disloyal men, especially in the State Department. Truman argued that McCarthy was chipping away at Americans freedoms and soon McCarthy lost his credibility. Deciding not to run again, Truman saw power slip from his grasp and from the Democratic Party. The Republicans, led by a popular military hero, Dwight Eisenhower, returned to the White House.

Returning to Independence and benefiting from good health most of the time, Truman enjoyed his retirement. He traveled widely, spoke frequently, stayed active in politics, and seeked unsuccessfully to influence the Democratic candidate in 1956 and 1960. Reflecting his strong interest in history and a desire to present his own view of his years as President, he published his memoirs in 1955 and formed the Truman Presidential Library in Independence in 1957. After his death in Kansas City on December 26, 1972, he was buried on the grounds of his library (aol 9).

Anne Gray Harvey was born into an upper-middle class family in Newton, Massachusetts on November 9, 1928. She attended Rogers Preparatory School and a Boston finishing school known as The Garland School. In 1948, she eloped with Alfred Muller Sexton just a few months before her twentieth birthday. Anne Sexton received a scholarship from the Hart Agency in Boston, and worked there as a model for a brief time. Sexton later moved from Boston to Baltimore, back to Boston and then to San Francisco. In 1953, Sexton oved back to Massachusetts where her first daughter Linda Gray Sexton was born.

The following year, Sexton was hospitalized at Westwood Lodge for emotional disturbances. Several months later, Anna “Nana” Ladd Dingley, Sexton’s beloved great-aunt, died. In 1955, Sexton’s second daughter Joyce Ladd Sexton was born. Soon afterward Sexton was admitted to a mental hospital. Eight months later, Sexton attempted suicide. The following month she began writing poetry at the insistence of her psychiatrist, Sexton enrolled in John Holme’s poetry workshop at the Boston Center for Adult Education.

Based on the quality of her first work, Sexton received a scholarship in 1958 to Antioch Writers’ Conference and worked with W. D. Snodgrass. That same year, she was accepted into Robert Lowell’s graduate writing seminar at Boston University. It was while attending Boston University that she forged friendships with Sylvia Plath, Maxine In 1959, Sexton’s mother, Mary Gray Staples Harvey, died of cancer, and her father, Ralph Churchill Harvey, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. In August of that year, Sexton received the Robert Frost Fellowship to attend the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference.

She later was hospitalized that year for pneumonia, an appendectomy and an ovarectomy. By the end of 1959 she was back on her feet and delivered the Morris Gray Poetry In 1960, Sexton published TO BEDLAM AND PART WAY BACK. It was also in this year that she studied with Philip Rahv and Irving Howe at Brandeis University and forged a friendship with James Write. In 1961, Sexton and Maxine Kumin were appointed to be the first scholars in poetry at the Radcliff Institute for Independent Study. Sexton also taught poetry and writing at Harvard and Radcliffe that year.

In 1962, Sexton was hospitalized for depression at Westwood Lodge. In November, she was awarded the Levinson Prize from POETRY. In 1963, ALL MY PRETTY ONES was nominated for the National Book Award. She was awarded the Ford Foundation grant for residence with the Charles Playhouse in Boston. By the end of the year, she toured Europe on the first Traveling Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1964, SELECTED POEMS as published in England. She toured Europe with her husband, moved into a new home and started seeing a new psychiatrist.

In 1965, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and was given the first literary magazine travel award from the International Congress of Cultural Freedom. In 1966, Sexton attempted suicide after beginning a novel that she never finished. A month following this suicide attempt, she and her husband went on an African safari. On her thirty-eighth birthday, she was hospitalized for a broken hip. In 1967, Sexton won the Pulitzer Prize for LIVE OR DIE, and also received the Shelley Award from the Poetry Society of America.

In July of 1967, she read at the International Poetry Festival in London and toured England. Later that year, she taught at Wayland High School. Sexton received an honorary Phi Beta Kappa award from Harvard in 1968. She taught poetry in McLean’s Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. In 1969, she served as editorial consultant to the NEW YORK POETRY QUARTERLY, and was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in April of that year. She also began seeing a new Psychiatrist in 1969, and in June of that year received an honorary Phi Beta Kappa award from Radcliffe University.

She began teaching at Boston University, worked at the American Place Theatre in New York on 45 MERCY STREET and conducted workshops in her home for Oberlin College Independent Study students. In 1970, before another suicide attempt, Sexton served on the board of directors of AUDIENCE magazine and was made honorary Doctor of Letters at Tufts University. Sexton made full professor at Boston University in 1972 and was awarded the Crashaw Chair in Literature at Colgate University. Later that year, Fairfeild University awarded Sexton an honorary Doctor of Letters.

Few episodes in history are more painful to Americans than the Civil War, fought between the North and the South. This biography, Great American Generals – Robert E. Lee, by Ian Hogg, takes the reader through the life of one of the greatest heroes of that war, Robert E. Lee. It is a thorough, in depth record of the life of Lee and begins with a detailed account of his family history and his birth, through his college years, military experience and his work in later life to his death on October 12, 1870.

The first few pages set the scene by listing a substantial amount of facts about the names and backgrounds of his arents Harry and Ann and Lee’s wife, Mary Custis, with some reference to his father’s army career and political life. After Lee’s early years, the reader will learn of his schooling at the Military Academy, West Point, followed by his life in the Army before and after the Civil War. The biography ends in the latter pages with an account of his work after his military career came to an end, and finally, with his death after a prolonged period of ill-health, thought to be stress induced.

Author Ian Hogg is a prolific writer in the field of defense and military technology. He is a weapons expert, having written many books on all ypes of rifles, shotguns and small arms, such as Modern Rifles, Shotguns and Pistols, and Modern Small Arms. He is an acknowledged expert on infantry weapons and is thought to be the world’s leading expert on this and artillery strategies. He is a well known author of military history, and works as a weapons evaluator in addition to his writing. Robert E. Lee was born in Stratford, Virginia on January 19, 1807.

His father, Henry Lee, had achieved fame with Washington’s army as “Lighthorse Harry,”and it was a fame that rested not only on his cavalry exploits but upon sound strategic and tactical ability. A significant portion of his fame was redited to him for beating off a surprise British attack at Spread Eagle Tavern in January, 1778. Unfortunately Harry was egotistical and had a high opinion of his own abilities. Although he achieved the rank of lieutenant-colonel, he felt that he deserved more. When the war ended and he had not advanced in rank he resigned from the army to pursue a career in politics.

Henry decided to run for the position of governor. He was elected Governor of Virginia for three terms. Retiring, as was then customary in Virginia, on the expiration of his third term, Henry Lee was enough in the public eye to be considered as a possible successor o Washington. He was, however, a poor manager of his affairs, and was constantly dodging his creditors, providing very little of substance for his family. He was a waster, with no thought for their welfare. A man with no sense of responsibility to his affairs, Henry Lee eventually ended up in jail for a year for non-payment of his debts.

Upon his release, he spent every waking moment writing his memoirs, with no regard for his family at all. Lee’s mother was Ann Carter Lee, daughter of Charles Carter. She was an invalid, but possessed a strong and beautiful character, and Robert grew up with a keen sense of honor and responsibility. Robert was named after his mother’s brothers, Edward and Robert Carter. Lee’s father, Henry, was separated from the family when Robert was only four years old. Lee’s mother left Henry due to his lack of provision for them, and Lee assumed the responsibility of the household at a very early age.

Henry subsequently died when Lee was only eleven, but Lee’s struggle to maintain the household without the presence of a father, and with little money, taught him valuable lessons in self-discipline, lessons which supported him well in his military career. Since there was no money for college, Robert entered the U. S. Military Academy in 1825 to pursue a career in the military. He was fortunate in becoming a Cadet at the Institution at a time when the Superintendent was Major Sylvanus Thayer, the man who started West Point on its way to fame as a military training school. He was the second to graduate in a class of 46.

Upon graduation, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Engineering Corps, a division of the Army which at that time received only the best Cadets. Unfortunately his pleasure and success diminished when he returned home to Arlington to find his mother in the last stages of her illness, and he iligently nursed her there until she died in July of 1829. Soon after Lee received orders saying that he was to report to Cockspur Island to help with the construction of Fort Pulaski. While there he corresponded with Mary Custis, the daughter of Martha Washington’s grandson.

She was also daughter of the wealthy George Washington Parke Custus, who upon his death left her two beautiful Virginia estates, Arlington and Whitehouse. In 1831, although against Mr. Custis’s wishes, he married Mary Custus. The first place the Lees went after their marriage was Fort Monroe. Mary Custis despised Fort Monroe. During a Christmas visit back to Arlington, she made the decision to remain there. In the Spring, Robert rode back to ask her to return, which she did. By this time she was pregnant and gave birth to their first child, George Washington Parke Custis Lee.

The Lees had four daughters and three sons. All three of their sons served in the Confederate Army. Lee’s wife never adjusted to the rigors of army posts and she and the children lived at Arlington until the war between the states, when their home fell into the hands of federal forces. Arlington was taken by the U. S. Government and was never restored to the Lee family, although one time the amily had sued to get it back and was granted an indemnity. On the outbreak of the Mexican War, in 1846, Lee was appointed to General Winfield Scott’s personal staff.

He proceeded to Brazos on January 16, 1847. The General was deep in preparations for the battle at Vera Cruz. This was to be Lee’s first experience under actual fire. Because of his brilliant leadership and skill in strategy, he won the praise of General Scott. Scott called Lee “the greatest military genius in America”, and “the best soldier I ever saw in the field. ” Lee was there to see the surrender of the Mexicans on March 29th. He survived many more encounters with the enemy in the war with Mexico. He arrived back in Washington on June 29, 1848, having been away for one year and ten months.

When Lee entered the war, he was a captain. He emerged with the rank of Colonel. His next duty was in Baltimore where he supervised the construction of Fort Carroll. This was to be his last engineering project because his next stop, in August 1852, was The United States Military Academy. He became Superintendent at West Point in 1852. In his three years of service there, Lee established some highly successful procedures which contributed to the eputation of the Academy. On April 12, 1855, Lee was sent to Louisville, Kentucky to take command of the 2nd. Cavalry.

As Colonel of Cavalry, Lee spent most of the next six years in Texas. In 1859, while visiting Arlington, he received a note from Colonel Drinkard ordering him to report to the Secretary of War immediately. At Harper’s Ferry trains had been stopped; firing had been heard; rumor had it that many strangers had arrived and were inciting slaves to rioting. It was reported to Lee that the leader of the gang was called John Brown, a notorious antislavery fanatic from Kansas, who had been unable to rally the slaves to ebellion and was finally besieged in a fire-house.

Lee was to lead the United States Marines, to suppress John Brown’s Raid at Harper’s Ferry. He asked Brown for his surrender, anticipating that this would not happen. When Brown refused to surrender, Lee ordered the door of the firehouse, in which Brown’s band had taken refuge, to be battered down. The troops had strict orders to attack only with bayonets, not to fire a single shot, in case any of the hostages would be wounded. The whole operation was over in three minutes. In the beginning of the war between the states, Lee found himself facing the most difficult decision of his life.

He believed in the abolition of slavery, but not by force. He believed in a united nation, but not one that could be maintained only by swords and bayonets. When President Lincoln asked him to take command of the Federal troops in the field, Lee replied that he could not take part in an invasion of his native state. He offered his resignation and within a few days, he was commissioned to General in the Confederate Army. He served as military advisor to Jefferson Davis, as Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia and then as General-in-chief of all Confederate Armies.

The history of Lee’s conduct in the Confederate campaign is a story of a eroic struggle against overwhelming odds. In the first two years of the war, the South made considerable headway, successfully resisting General McClellan’s attempt to take Richmond. But there were never enough men, food, or guns. The transportation problem became progressively worse, and the Armies were continually at the mercy of political plunderers. Against the superior forces of the Union, Lee pitted all the strategy of a master soldier and he was able to deliver shattering blows at Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorville.

All of this was to come to an end with the arrival of the battle at Gettysburg. This was to be the turning point of the whole war. On July 1st, Lee rode towards Gettysburg, hearing the sound of gunfire in the distance. A few days later, having sustained tremendous casualties, Lee was planning his retreat. With the defeat of Lee’s army at Gettysburg, however, in July, 1863, the tide turned against the south. That was the last time Lee was able to gain an offensive position.

On April 9, 1865, realizing that further resistance was a waste of time, he surrendered his near starving, depleted army to General Ulysses S.Grant, the Union commander in chief, at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. He penned a farewell address to his men and set off the next day to Richmond, where his family had been living since they had abandoned Arlington. His home confiscated, his family impoverished, and his heart heavy, with the burden of defeated South, Lee turned to the task of reconciliation. He applied immediately for pardon and restoration to citizenship, feeling that this example might lead other Confederates to do the same. He tried every way to heal the breach between the North and the South.

Positions of great honor and remuneration were offered to Lee, both in his own country and abroad, but he had no desire to enter into politically ontroversial activities. In the Summer of 1865 he was offered the Presidency of Washington College (renamed Washington & Lee University after his death), in Lexington, VA. The college was virtually in ruins, but Lee accepted the position after he was ensured his connection with the college would not injure it in any way. Lee’s friends and relatives were shocked at the idea that Lee would accept a position at such a small school.

He had received offers from many bigger and wealthier places. Lee, on the other hand, saw far beyond the title and looked on this as an opportunity to help rebuild the South by educating it’s youth. Lee truly felt his great purpose in life was to help make a united country and to this end he set about to educate Southern youth into a renewed spirit of loyalty. Lee accepted the post and headed for the college campus in Lexington. Once there, Lee found that as well as being President of the college, he was also Dean, Bursar, Registrar, Head Gardener, and general factotum.

His salary was $125 per month, and he had one secretary to assist him. Nonetheless, Lee set to his task and began writing to other institutions begging for money. Once the President’s house was ready, Lee’s wife and daughters joined him there. Lee’s sons were busy attempting to salvage the family estates, although Arlington was gone forever, forfeited for nonpayment of taxes during the war, when Union authorities insisted that delinquent taxpayers had to make payment in person, and it was by this time surrounded by a military cemetery – as it still is (pg. 5). Under Lee’s guidance, Washington College prospered.

The student body increased to four-hundred. The curriculum was widened, new buildings were gradually added, and as the fame of the college spread, students came from all over the United States. As the months went by, Lee’s health began to fail. He was treated fro heumatism, lumbago, and other complaints, but the plain fact was his heart was wearing out. In the Spring of 1869, Lee visited Baltimore in an effort to raise money for a railroad project.

From there he went on to Washington, where he visited his old friend, General Grant, who was now President of the United States. When Lee returned from Washington, he began to doubt his ability to continue as President of the college. He stated that the job needed a fitter man than he. His talk of resignation was dismissed, and the faculty, early in 1870, suggested that he should go south for a vacation to help regain his health. In the Summer of 1870, it was unusually hot, and Lee tired easily. He was no longer able to ride horse.

On September 28, it rained and Lee had to attend a church vestryman’s meeting, where he sat in his wet clothes and listened to the minister complain about his wages. When Lee finally returned home, he entered his house, stood silent, and then collapsed in a chair. His wife promptly sent for a doctor. The doctors conferred and sent Lee to bed. For the next two days Lee slept most of the time. After that, he seemed to improve and began to eat. But when he was offered medicine, he refused saying “it was no use”. For the next wo weeks he stayed in bed.

On October 10, Lee’s pulse and breathing sped up and he suffered shivering spells. On the following day, Lee became delirious, and his mind wandered to the past. He occasionally called out some long forgotten names. “Tell Hill he must come up,” he cried. His wife sat holding his hand the whole night, until just after 9:00 am of October 12, 1870, Lee sat up, cried out “strike the tent”, fell back in bed and died. He was buried beneath the college chapel, and the entire nation mourned his passing. By his courage in war and dignity in defeat, he had won the admiration and esteem of Northerners and Southerners alike.

Jamaica has produced an artist who has touched all categories, classes, and creeds through innate modesty and profound wisdom. Bob Marley, the Natural Mystic who introduced reggae to European and American fans still may prove to be the most significant musical artist of the twentieth century. Bob Marley gave the world brilliant music and established reggae as major forces in music that is comparable with the blues and rock&rolls. His work stretched across nearly two decades and still remains timeless. Bob Marley & the Wailers worked their way into all of our lives.

He’s taken his place with James Brown and Sly Stone as pervasive influence on r&b”, said Timothy White, author of the Bob Marley biography “Catch A Fire”. It is important to think of the roots of this legend: the first superstar from the Third World, Bob Marley was one of the most charismatic and challenging performers of his time. His music reflects only one source: the street culture of Jamaica. Later, in 1930, Ras Tafari Makonnen was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia. Tafari claimed to be the 225th ruler in a line that went back to Menelik, the son of Solomon.

The Garvey followers in Jamaica, who consulted their New Testaments for a sign, believed that Haile Selassie was the black king that Garvey had said would deliver the black race. It was the start of a new religion called Rastafari, which Bob was into heavily. Fifteen years after, in Nine Miles deep within Jamaica Robert Nesta Marley was born. His mother Cedella Booker was an eighteen-year-old black girl while his father was Captain Norval Marley, a 50-year-old white man working for the Jamaican Forestry Commission. The couple married in 1944 and Norval left Cedella to legitimize their unborn child. Then Bob was born on February 6, 1945.

Norval’s family applied constant pressure to Bob and, although he provided financial support, Norval seldom saw his son who grew up in St. Ann to the north of the island. Bob Marley, barely into his teens, moved to Kingston (Trench Town) in the late Fifties. His friends Were other street youths, also not happy with their place in society. One friend Neville O’Riley Livingston was known as Bunny, Bob met Bunny when his mom took work taking rooms behind a rum bar owned by Toddy Livingston Bunnys father. Bob took his first musical steps with Bunny. They were fascinated by the music they could pick up from American radio stations.

Especially Ray Charles, Fats Domino, Curtis Mayfield, and Brook Benton. Bob and Bunny also paid close attention to vocal groups, such as the Drifters, who were popular in Jamaica. Bob quit school and seemed to have one ambition, music. He took a job in a welding shop, but spent all his free time with Bunny working on their vocal abilities, with the help of one of Trench Town’s famous residents, singer Joe Higgs. Higgs held informal lessons for aspiring vocalists. At one of those sessions Bob and Bunny met Peter McIntosh, who also had musical ambitions. In 1962 Bob Marley auditioned for Leslie Kong.

Impressed by the quality of Bob’s vocals, Kong took Bob into the studio to cut some tracks; the first was called “Judge Not” and was released on Beverley’s label. It was Bob’s first record. The other songs – including “Terror” and “One Cup of Coffee” – received no airplay and attracted little attention. However, they confirmed Bob’s ambition to be a singer. The following year Bob had decided to form a group. He joined Bunny and Pete to form The Wailing Wailers. The new group had a mentor, a Rastafarian hand drummer Alvin Patterson who introduced them to Clement Dodd, a record producer in Kingston.

In the summer of 1963 Dodd auditioned The Wailing Wailers and pleased with the results, agreed to record the group. The Wailing Wailers released their first single, “Simmer Down”, during the last weeks of 1963. The following January it was number one in the Jamaican charts, where it stayed for the next two months. The group – Bob, Bunny and Peter together with Junior Braithwaite and two back-up singers were big news. “Simmer Down” caused a sensation in Jamaica and The Wailing Wailers began recording regularly. The groups’ music identified with the Rude Boy street rebels in the Kingston slums.

Jamaican music had found a tough, urban stance. Despite their popularity the group broke apart and Bob’s mother remarried. She then moved to the U. S and wanted Bob to come to start a new life, but before they left Bob met a girl named Rita Anderson and they wed on February 10, 1966. Marley joined up with Bunny and Peter to re-form the group, now known as The Wailers. Rita, too, had started a singing career, having a big hit with “Pied Piper”, a cover of an English pop song. Jamaican music however, was changing.

The bouncy ska beat had been replaced by a slower, more sensual Rhythm called rock steady. The group formed their own record label, Wail ‘N’ Soul; however, the label folded in late 1967. The group however survived as songwriters for Johnny Nash who had an international hit with Marley’s “Stir it up”. The Wailers also met up with Lee Perry, whose genius transformed recording studio Techniques into an art form. In 1970 Barrett and his brother Carlton joined the Wailers. Working with the Wailers on those groundbreaking sessions they were unchallenged as Jamaica’s hardest rhythm section.

In the summer of 1971 Bob accepted an invitation from Johnny Nash to accompany him to Sweden. While in Europe Bob got a recording contract with CBS, which was also Nash’s company. In spring of 1972 the Wailers were in London promoting their single “Reggae on Broadway” when CBS dumped them. As a last attempt Bob Marley walked into the Studio of Island Records and asked to see its founder Chris Blackwell. The company had been the reason behind the rise of Jamaican music in Britain. Blackwell knew of Marley’s Jamaican reputation. The group was offered a deal unique in Jamaican terms.

The Wailers were advanced $4000 to make an album and for the first time a reggae band had access to the best recording studios and were treated in the same way as their contemporaries. Before this reggae sold only on singles and cheap compilation albums. The Wailers’ first album “Catch A Fire” broke all the rules. It was beautifully packaged and heavily promoted. Although “Catch A Fire” was not an immediate hit, it made a considerable impact on the media. Marley’s hard rhythms and his lyrical stance came in complete contrast to most of mainstream rock. Island decided The Wailers should tour both Britain and America.

During the American tour they supported the young Bruce Springsteen. With the demand for an autumn tour, one was arranged with seventeen dates as support to Sly & The Family Stone. Four shows into the tour, however, The Wailers were taken off the bill. It seems they had been too good because support bands should not detract from the main attraction. In 1973 The Wailers released their second Island album, “Burnin” that included new versions of some of the band’s older songs for instance, “Small Axe” and “Put It On” – together with such tracks as “Get Up Stand Up” and “I Shot The Sheriff”(which was a massive worldwide hit for Eric Clapton.

By the summer of 1975, the band was on the road again. The shows were recorded and the live album together with the single “No Woman No Cry” made the charts. Bob Marley & The Wailers were taking reggae into the mainstream. By November, when The Wailers returned to Jamaica to play a benefit concert with Stevie Wonder, they were obviously the country’s greatest superstars. Its international success helped Marley’s growing political importance in Jamaica, where his Rastafarian stance found a strong home with the youth.

To thank the people of Jamaica Marley decided on a free concert, to be held at Kingston’s National Heroes Park on December 5, 1976. The idea was to emphasize the need for peace in the slums of the city, where gang war had brought turmoil and murder. Just after the concert was announced, the government called an election for December 20. The campaign was a signal for renewed ghetto war and on the eve of the concert gunmen broke into Marley’s house and shot him. In the confusion the would-be assassins only wounded Marley. He was taken to a safe haven in the Hills surrounding Kingston.

For a day he decided on playing the concert and then, on December 5 he came on stage and played a brief set in defiance of the gunmen. It was to be Marley’s last appearance in Jamaica for nearly eighteen months. Immediately after the show he left the country and lived in London where he recorded his next album “Exodus. ” Released in the summer of that year, “Exodus” properly established the band’s international status. The album remained on the UK charts for 56 weeks straight and its three singles – “Exodus”, “Waiting in Vain” and “Jammin” – were all massive sellers.

The band also played a week of concerts at London’s Rainbow Theatre; their last dates in the city during the seventies. At the start of the following year – a new decade – Bob Marley & The Wailers flew to Gabon where they were to make their African debut. They heard they were playing in front of the country’s young elite. The group, nevertheless, was to make a quick return to Africa, this time at the official invitation of the government of liberated Zimbabwe to play at the country’s Independence Ceremony in April 1980.

It was the greatest honor ever for the band, and one, which underlined the Wailer’s importance in the Third World. At the end of the European tour Marley and the band went to America. Bob played two shows at Madison Square Garden but immediately afterwards was taken away seriously ill. Three years earlier, in London, Bob hurt a toe while playing football. The wound had become cancerous and was treated in Miami but not right away, yet it continued to fester. By 1980 the cancer, in its worst form, had begun to spread through Bob’s body.

He fought the disease for eight months, taking treatment at the clinic of Dr. Joseph Issels and for a time Bob’s condition seemed to stabilize. Eventually, however, the battle was too much and at the start of May Bob Marley left for his Jamaican home, a journey he did not complete. He died in a Miami hospital on Monday May 11, 1981. The previous month, Marley had been awarded Jamaica’s Order Of Merit, the nation’s third highest honor, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the country’s culture.

He was thought of as a prophet of hope by the downtrodden and oppressed by supporting populist political movements. On Thursday May 21, 1981,Robert Nesta Marley was given an official funeral by the people of Jamaica. Following the service – attended by both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition – Marley’s body was taken to his birthplace at Nine Mile, on the north of the island, where it now rests in a mausoleum. Bob Marley died when he was 36-years-old. But as Elton John would say “His candles burned out long before his legend ever would. “

The assignment to pick a well-deserved, outstanding individual of the century was more challenging than I expected. Someone that has influenced our society in a positive way and will be referred to in the future is my idea of an outstanding individual. One person that has always stuck out in my mind from the first day of this assignment is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. With the nickname, “Apostle of Peace,” he has taught all following generations what “peaceful fighting” can accomplish. Time and other cultures have produced great leaders that have continues Gandhi’s goals of peaceful resistance.

Gandhi, who was born to a Gujarati family on October 2, 1869, was the youngest of five children. Although a mischievous child, he was very shy and often too scared to even talk to other children. A victim of peer pressure, he tried such things as smoking tobacco, which he stole out of the butts of his uncle’s cigarettes, and eating meat, which was totally against his religion. The reasoning behind this was the misconception that the British are so powerful and able to control the Indians because they eat meat. To do this, Gandhi stole money from his family to buy it, and lied to them about why he couldn’t eat dinner at home.

This was one of the turning points in his life, the point where he promised to himself to never indulge in such acts. As was accustomed in his culture, Gandhi was married at the age of 13. His bride, the daughter of the Major of Porbandar, was Kastur. She also played a huge role in the molding of who Gandhi became. She was also 13 years old, and she taught Mohan his first lesson in non-violence. Mohan had no idea what the role of a husband should be, so he bought some pamphlets, which were written by male chauvinists and suggested that an Indian husband must lay down the rules for the wife to follow.

With the ridiculous rules that he gave her, she did not argue. She broke them and calmly questioned his authority and reasoning. He understood not to do that anymore. “When we face such situations we retort and react angrily making the situation worse and sometimes leading to the breaking of the relationship. But calmly, with common sense, one can achieve the same results” (Gandhi) Gandhi’s father was a very generous person, and his income was spent on helping the poor and the needy. The family lived reasonably well, but there were no savings. When his father died, the family found itself in financial difficulties.

In India, a son usually took over when their father retired or died. But the British wanted people who were “qualified” for the job, so none of the sons could become Dewan of Porbandar after Gandhi’s father, Karamchand, died. None of Gandhi’s brothers had jobs, and there was no hope of any of them inheriting their father’s title. The older brothers learned to write legal briefs and earned a little to help out the family. None of them were educated beyond elementary school, so the spotlight was on Gandhi to earn for the family. With the British entrenched in India, they were going to demand academic qualifications for all jobs.

This led him to travel abroad and study law in London. He not only studied law but came in close touch with many eminent philosophers and thinkers and spent many hours a day in discussions. He was ashamed that he had never read the scripture himself and did not know Sanskrit to be able to read the original. Instead, he read with them Edwin Arnold’s English translation of the Gita-The Song Celestial-which revealed to him the richness of Hindu scriptures.

Gandhi’s motto in life, “A friendly study of all scriptures is the sacred duty of every individual. merged in England during this educational tour. He studied all the religions of the world and found there was a great deal in each one of them for all of us to absorb in our own lives. His respect for different religions and willingness to study them with an open mind is what broadened his perspective and enriched his mind. He returned from England in 1891 and tried to introduce his western habits in his traditional home in Porbandar and, indeed, spent so much time and energy in this pursuit that he forgot that he had to set up a legal practice and start earning to support the family.

Again it was Kastur who opened his eyes to his responsibilities. For someone as shy and timid as Gandhi, setting up a legal practice was not easy. He was not successful in Porbandar, so he went to Bombay and had no success there either. He tried to get a job as a schoolteacher to teach English but did not have the qualifications to teach English, only to practice law in English. After struggling for several months, he decided to go back to Porbandar and do what his brothers were doing; write legal briefs. His family was sad because they had spent so much money on his tuition and traveling.

They ended up being in debt. Dada Abdullah who had a legal case with another Muslim trader which had been going on for a long time without resolution, heard about Gandhi through his brother and invited him to come to South Africa on a one-year contract to work as an interpreter for him. He once again left India in 1893 to go to South Africa. Consequently, a week after his arrival, when it was time to go to Pretoria to attend the case in the Supreme Court, so he decided that he must travel by first class and he ordered his ticket by mail.

There were many things that happened in Gandhi’s life that influenced his drastic transformation, his trip to London, his exposure to the intellectuals there, his law studies, his failure in India and school teaching, and his acceptance to go to South Africa. In South Africa the Indians were not welcome by the white settlers. There he encountered a white co-passenger who boarded the train in Pietermaritzburg, who seeing a “black” Gandhi sitting in a first class compartment, reacted with a total lack of dignity. He was picked up and thrown off the train for refusing to vacate the first class compartment.

This embarrassment initially cause him to get angry, and his next thought was to leave South Africa and go back to India where he felt he could live in greater dignity and honor but rejected that also because he felt that it was not appropriate to run away from a problem. His final idea was to seek justice through non-violent action. This is the point at which “satyagraha” was born. It was then that decided never to be pushed down again and to fight for the rights of minorities. He started to lead the Indian workers in South Africa and fought for their rights.

He made a very important rule for himself which he used his whole life; never to use violence in his fights, even if others would use violence against him. He started a project (ashram) where people from different religions lived together in peace and freedom. He never made no secrets of anything and was a nice and friendly person throughout his whole life. When he came back to India crowds were already waiting and cheering for him at the harbor and people celebrated his arrival. But that did not make him happy. He wanted to live like most of the people in India: out in the countryside and poor.

He wanted to be one of them, one from the country he was born in but was away from for so long. So he started traveling through the country by train in the third class wagons. There he saw a lot of India and a lot of the ways how people lived and worked there. He became the leader of the Indian Campaign for Home-Rule. The Indians loved him because he was so close to them. He had the opinion that a lot of poverty in India was the result of all the clothes that were produced in and imported from Great Britain to India.

Since spinning used to be a common job for people in the Indian villages, Gandhi believed that these imported goods destroyed great parts of India’s economy and thus many people lost their work. Gandhi encouraged the people to start spinning again if they do not have anything better to do because so they could make some money and would produce something. One day – as a symbolic event – he asked his followers on a big meeting to throw all their British clothes on a big fire. He encouraged them not to buy any more British clothes but to produce and buy their own Indian clothes. After that many people started to boycott British goods.

People in the British factories got unemployed but more people in India had something to do. That was only one step to India’s independence from the British. On the 15-day voyage from London to Cape Town, Gandhi wrote his first book titled “Hind Swaraj. ” This was focused on making India an independent nation. “The book was completed before he reached Cape Town and became distinguished for its anti-western civilization message. He asked India to reject western civilization completely because it had nothing worthwhile to offer. He entered a period of exclusivism. ” Gandhi knew that he wouldn’t gain anything for Indians outside of India.

He knew that they must be liberated first for Indians to gain any respect or equality anywhere. He decided to move to India and find ways in which he could participate in the freedom struggle to liberate his people. Gandhi and Kasturba arrived in India and were given a welcome they had not anticipated. Gandhi was not aware that his reputation had preceded him. He became a national leader on arrival. Gopalkrishna Gokhale, Gandhi’s political mentor in India, advised Gandhi to spend a year traveling around India learning about the problems and making contact with the people.

This made him even more popular among the average day peasants, and because he came from a higher cast family, he was popular among the wealth. Another major step towards the Independence of the Indians, was when the whole nation to strike for one day. There was virtually no traffic, mail was not delivered, factories were not working and – for the British a very important thing – the telegraph lines did not work and the British in India were cut off their mother country. It was then that they first realized Gandhi’s power in India.

Most of Gandhi’s actions were a great success. The reason was that the British did not know how to act against an enemy who does not use violence. But it was very important as well that the media all over the world talked about Gandhi and his actions because otherwise there would not have been enough public pressure upon the British officials. More and more people everywhere in the world agreed with Gandhi when they saw the British violence against the non-violent people. And they loved him because he was so close to the people in his country.

To work together with the press and to have no secrets was one of the important things of his work. Gandhi went to jail very often in his life. He was arrested several times in South Africa as well as in India. He used the time in jail to think and plan other actions. He also used the time to think about how he could help the Untouchables. These were the lowest class of Indians that most wealthy and middle class wouldn’t even acknowledge. He was a religious man and believed in casts but he did not think that God wanted Untouchables to have no rights.

He went for long walks through India to collect money for the Untouchables and he fought for their rights his whole life. He also fought for the peaceful understanding of different religions. When fights broke out between Hindus and Moslems he tried to talk to them and when that did not help he started to fast which he did a lot of times in his life. Once he nearly fasted to death when Hindus and Moslems fought against each other. Then the fights stopped and the two religions started to live together in peace again. He also fasted when he heard of violence against the British or against soldiers or policemen.

Violence made him very sad and he had more than once the feeling that all he had done was useless when people fought each other again. On April 13, 1919, more than ten thousand men, women and children assembled in the Jallianwala bagh in the heart of the city of Amritsar to non-violently protest against the martial law. General Dyer was unwilling to tolerate such an act of defiance. He brought in his troops, blocked off the only exit from the walled ground and ordered the troops to shoot into the crowd. Within an hour 386 men, women and children lay dead and 1605 were critically injured.

These were the British figures of casualties while the India figures are very different. The Indians place the number of dead beyond 1,000. Britain followed these outbursts with laws like commanding all Indians to crawl on their bellies when passing the street where the English schoolteacher was assaulted. Anyone who refused would be flogged to death. He also ordered that the injured in the firing should not be attended to by anyone for the next 72 hours, even if they died. This is crazy because all it did was cause violence in return. Gandhi had to step in to calm the people.

He said we couldn’t be to the British as they have been to us. It will not make us any different from them. The civilized thing to do is not to ever stoop down to the level of the oppressor, but to try at all times to raise the oppressors to new heights of awareness. This is the point at which Gandhi reverted back to inclusively. ” He urged Indians to remember that they must not only liberate themselves politically, but also liberate themselves spiritually. “Swaraj, he said, is not just external freedom; it is also internal freedom. “

Air section of southern California. On Saturday, August ninth, nineteen sixty-nine, all hell broke loose with more than six dozen plunges of a carving fork and knife, and the peaceful dyll was shattered. Out of the chaos caused by the senseless, horrific murderers, Charles Manson emerged as one of the most feared notorious criminals of all time. In the twenty-nine years since the so-called “Tate-La Bianca” murders, many people have speculated about what caused Charles Manson to become the monster he turned to be.

To be able to fully comprehend what could cause an innocent child to evolve into a ruthless calculating cold- looded killer, one must completely examine the events of his Charles Manson was born Charles Milles Maddox, the son of an unwed mother, in Cincinnati Ohio on November twelfth, nineteen thirty-four. His father, he stated in his autobiography, was a “young drugstore cowboy”, a transient laborer who abandoned Charles’ mother when he learned that she was pregnant. Shortly after Charles’ birth, Kathleen Maddox lived with a man named William Manson, and they eventually got married.

William Manson gave his new stepson his name, although the marriage dissolved shortly thereafter. Raised in a strict, religious home, Kathleen Maddox- Manson rebelled after the breakup of her marriage. She reveled in her newfound freedom by drinking a lot and loving freely. Like many young mothers, Kathleen was not yet ready for the responsibilities that go along with the raising of a child. She had fled a stifling home life and rushed into marriage, and she had a lot of living to do before she settled down.

Charles was passed from relative to relative to baby-sitter, and was soon sold to a waitress in a restaurant in exchange for a pitcher of beer. An uncle tracked him down and took him home several days later. When Charles was five years old, his mother and a man ere convicted of robbing a service station in Charlestown, West Virginia. They’d used a Coke bottle to knock the Caught and sentenced to five years in Moundsville Prison, her work assignment was near death row. West Virginia was a hanging state at that time, and part of Kathleen’s job was to clean the area that included the scaffold.

One day as she was cleaning, she saw a man being escorted to the scaffold. Normally on hanging days, nobody except the person to be executed and the prison officials were allowed near the hanging area, but on that day, by accident or oversight, the rison officials neglected to inform Kathleen of the day’s plans. Afraid she might be in trouble for being in the vicinity, she hid in a nearby broom closet. When the trap sprung, the inmate’s weight and sheer velocity caused the rope to sever his head, and as Kathleen opened the door to get a glimpse of the hanging, it promptly rolled to kathleen’s hiding place.

She told Charles years later that mans eyes were still wide open and death literally stared her in the Twenty-seven years after that incident, Charles Milles Manson was placed on Death Row. In his autobiography, “Manson: In His Own Words”, he explained a sobering oment. “I looked at the gas chamber. The rooms two viewing windows looked like two huge eyes of death. Instantly my mind flashed to my mother, and I had a vision of her looking into the eyes of death. During that moment, I understood more about my mom than any other time in my life”.

Charles’ mother was released from prison when he was eight years old, and again he was either being passed from relative to relative, or they moved around a lot. Eventually, when Charles was twelve years old, his mother found a steady boyfriend. He soon tired of having Charles around and gave Kathleen an ultimatum: him or Charles. Charles was placed in the Gibault Home for Boys in Tierre Haute, Indiana. It was a strict Catholic religious-oriented school, and the punishment for even the tiniest infraction was either a Eventually, living at Gibault got to be too much for Charles, and he ran away.

He slept in the woods, under bridges, and wherever else he could find a place. He finally reached Indianapolis where he burglarized a grocery store for something to eat. He found the cash register change in a cigar box under the counter. It was slightly over a hundred dollars, and the first thing he did was rent a room in Skid Row, and eat as much as he could possibly handle. A few days later he was broke and tired so he’d steal whatever he could to accumulate a little extra money. One day he stole a bicycle and was eventually arrested, the police realized he was a runaway and located his mother.

Unable to provide a stable home life, Charles was placed in Father Flanagan’s Boy’s Town. Four days later, he and another boy ran away. They stole a car and wrecked it, followed by committing a few robberies resulted in their arrest, and they were placed in a juvenile home. Charles’ stay there was a repeat of his stay in the previous homes, nd he was placed in a bonafied reform school. It was at the Indiana School for Boys at Plainfield that Charles Manson was beaten and raped repeatedly for over three years. He finally escaped successfully when he was sixteen years old.

Headed towards California, he and a friend stole cars and robbed stores along the way. Again he was arrested, and during the next thirty-eight months he spent time in four different institutions. In May of nineteen fifty-four, at the age of nineteen, he was finally paroled. Shortly thereafter he was married. Working at a race track at the time, he stopped by a card room and played few hands of poker. He racked up quite a pile of winnings and was surrounded by a group of girls. Paying them no attention, he caught the eye of a girl across the room. She was with her father, a coal-miner.

Later, Charles managed to speak a few words to her. They started dating, and married shortly thereafter, in January of nineteen fifty-five. She became pregnant almost immediately. Desiring to head to California but needed a car to take him there, Charles stole a ’51 Mercury. Predictably, he was caught. He was sent to the Federal Penitentiary at Terminal Island, San Pedro. He was, by then, twenty-one ears old. Those first few months in prison, Charles had a positive outlook on life, with thoughts of leading a straight, crime-free life when he was paroled.

Before the baby-little Charlie-was a year old, Charles’ wife stopped visiting. He heard from his mother that his wife had left the state with her new boyfriend, a trucked. Devastated, he wrote her several letters begging her to return, but to no ovail. In his autobiography, Charles Manson states, “when I gave up on her, my attitude of wanting to be Mr. Straight left me. I went back to being bitter and hating Shuffled from home to home as a child, knowing his rostitute mother never wanted him, being in and out of juvenile homes and adult jails, Charles Manson was becoming the Charles Manson we’ve all heard about and feared.

He was released from Terminal Island and served several years. Paroled in nineteen sixty-seven at age thirty-two, he asked if he could stay. “You know what, man, I don’t wanna leave! I don’t have a home out there! Why don’t you just take me back inside? I’m serious man! I mean it! I don’t He did, however, leave Terminal Island that day. It was March twenty-first, nineteen sixty-seven, and the last time he’d pass through those doors. Charles Manson headed o San Francisco. Once there, he liked to hang out at the University of California-Berkeley campus and play his guitar.

One day, while doing so, he was sitting on the grass when a dog started sniffing his feet. He raised his foot as if to kick it, and it’s owner appeared. Her name was Mary Theresa Brunner, and she would become the first member of his “Family”. She was tall and thin, a straight-laced redhead. Charles convinced her to let him stay with her, but there was to be no sex involved. Eventually, however, the Charles somewhat changed Mary’s personality. She let her guard down and became more open-minded. She quit her job as the University of California-Berkeley librarian and she and Charles stole a car and traveled.

They slept at waysides and such and they’d go to beaches where occasionally they would find a homeless girl. The girl would then join the group. Thus began the Manson family. The family soon grew to more than thirty people. They moved into Spahn’s Movie Ranch, just outside of Chatsworth California. Few of the Family members actually held jobs, so they had to scrounge for food in the dumpsters at local supermarkets. Their only other needs or desires were sex and drugs, both of which were readily available in the ineteen sixties.

Charles Manson and the Family lived at the ranch until the arrests and convictions of those hideous crimes in August of nineteen sixty-nine. Los Angeles Police Department officers were called to 10050 Cielo Drive in Bel Air. They were met with a crime scene so horrible and bloody that it might well have come from a Hollywood movie. There were five victims, all viciously slain. They were Abigail Folger, Voytek Frykowski, Jay Sebring, Steven Parent, and Sharon Tate-Polanski. On the door to the home where they lost their lives, a word was written on the door: PIG. It was ater established to be written in the blood of Sharon Tate.

The Family members physically involved in the killings were Charles “Tex” Watson, Patricia “Katie” Krenwinkle, Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Hueten, and Linda Kasabian. As the five about-to-be killers started to walk up the driveway, they saw headlights. A car appeared and the killers crouched down in the shrubbery. When the car stopped, Tex Wattson approached the driver, Steven Parent. Watson pulled out his twenty-two caliber Buntline revolver and shot Parent. They then pushed the car back off the driveway. Assured that the shots fired hadn’t alerted neighbors or uthorities, they entered the house.

A man, Voytek Frykowski, had fallen asleep with the lights on. Shouting “wake up”, Tex Watson approached him and shot. Susan Atkins, meanwhile, had been exploring the rest of the home. Tex ordered her to bring the rest of the occupants of the house to the living room. Folger, Sebring, And Tate herded into the room. Tex ordered Susan Atkins to tie a rope around the prisoners’ necks, and the Sebring lunged at Watson, Tex stabbed her and she fell to the floor. Susan was adding more bonds to Frykowski when she was ordered by Tex, “kill him” she stabbed away, while he truggled.

Somehow he escaped and Watson chased him into the yard, delivering the fatal thrusts. Reentering the house, he hit Folger on the head with his revolver. Dead she fell to the floor. Sharon Tate was still frozen with fear and stupefaction. Remembering her, Tex Watson and Susan Atkins ignored her pleas for her unborn child’s life and stabbed her to death. The killers then scribbled messages such as “HELTER SKELTER” and “PIG” everywhere, using their victims blood. The next night, the grisly horror was repeated at the home of Leno and Rosemary La Bianca. Leno La Bianca was ead as a result of twenty-six stab wounds.

A fork protruded from his stomach, and a knife from his throat. When his body was discovered, Rosemary La Bianca had been Again messages were scrawled on the walls in the victims blood: “DEATH TO PIGS”, “RISE”, and “HELTER SKELTER” A couple of months later, all of the hands-on killer’s, plus Charles Manson were arrested. Ultimately tried and convicted, all spent many years in prison, with the exception of Linda Kasabian. She became the prosecutions star witness and was given immunity in exchange for her testimony. The rest of the killers were sentenced to death.

Shortly hereafter, however, the state of California revoked the death penalty and their sentences were communed to life. To date, one of the women has been released, the remaining two are still in prison, and of course , so is Charles Manson. Even now, twenty-nine years after the terrible tragedies, people still speculate as to why Charles Manson turned into such an inhumane monster. His past speaks for itself but all I have to say is, parents: take care of your children. Stand up for them, lead them, teach them, and don’t turn away from them, maybe that way, you won’t be responsible for what might happen to them.

Knowing the future has always been a dream of man but for Nostradamus it was reality. Nostradamus has successfully predicted over 900 historical events, and even more have yet to be fulfilled. He has predicted such things as the defeat of Napoleon, the rise of Nazi power in Germany, and even the end of the world. Nostradamus was born Michael de Nostradame on December 14, 1503 in St. Remy France. He lived in a small poor family which did not have enough money to provide for him and his 4 brothers. Trying the best to give their son a decent life, his parents were forced to send him to live with his grandfather.

At the young age of seven Nostradamus intellect began to show. With his grandfathers influence, he learned the basics of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Mathematics, and astrology (Cheetham, a, 62). After his grandfathers death he was sent to Avignon to study. Soon after, he was forced to leave because of his radical ideas, such as the world circled the sun, and his parents had no other choice but to send him to the University of Montpelier. There he studied medicines for three years and through a grueling three hour oral exam, he received his bachelors degree (Byers, 433).

After graduating, he found a cure for the bubonic plague. He cured entire towns at a time with his herbal remedies. By 1525, at the age of 22, he was a celebrated figure throughout Europe. His book Le Tratie Des Fardemers which contained all of his prescriptions, was used as standard for doctors all over Europe (Cheetham, b, 192). After 4 years of traveling he returned to the University Of Montpelier to receive his doctorate. 5 years of studying and 3 months of exams later he graduated, and began a job at the university.

But had to resign because of a dispute with his co-workers. (Cheetham, b, 194) With no where to go he began to wander through Europe, again. Two years ater he found himself in Toulouse, curing more plague victims, when he received a letter from Julius Caesar Scaliger, one of the greatest philosophers of his time. The letter asked Nostradamus to come stay with him at his house in Agen. Two months later, while still living in Agen, he married a young women of high estate, whos name is unknown. Together they had two children, whos names are also unknown.

Nostradamus life seemed completed, but nothing could have prepared him for what had came next. (Cheetham, 66) The excessive rainfall had caused floods throughout France, which spread the plague to Agen. Nostradamus tried everything he could do, but he could not save his wife and children. From there his life slowly began to fall apart, he fought with Scaliger which cost him a friendship and even more importantly a house. His in-laws tried to sue him for the death of his wife. The church authorities were after him for making inappropriate comments towards a statue of Mary.

Probably the worst of it all was that the people look upon him with scorn, they figured if he could not save his own family how could he save them. Now a fugitive from the church, Nostradamus began to wander, yet again (Cheetham, a, 68). During his wanderings his prophetic powers began to show. He was stopped by a man on the street who had heard of him, the man asked Nostradamus to put his powers to the test. Nostradamus pointed to the mans pigs, he said that the white one would be eaten by a wolf and the black would be served for dinner.

Immediately the man had the white one ordered to be cooked for dinner, but as the cook was preparing it, a tame wolf, belonging to one of the servants wandered in and stole the prepared white pig from the table. The frantic cook hurriedly killed the black pig and served it. Half way through the meal the cook confessed to the man what ad happen, proving Nostradamus was right. (Cheetham, 69) Nostradamus hid from the church authorities for six years until the plague began to spread again, and with all the doctors fleeing, towns were left to die with no one to help.

Seeing this Nostradamus sprung into action first appearing in Marseilles, were he developed a vaccine made from rose petals, that would keep the disease from spreading. In less than a month he had single handily cured the plague from France. He was once again a celebrated figure throughout Europe (Cheetham, a, 73). With the plague beginning to disappear he settled down in the little town of Salon, there he married a rich widow, and began to write his prophecies.

For the remainder of his life he would spend most of his time staring at a bowl of water, supposedly seeing the future. With this method he has predicted over 1,000 historical events, some have already happened, some have yet to come, and even some we hope never happen. (Cheetham, b, 201). Nostradamus was many things, an astrologer, a doctor, and a scholar. But one of the few things that he wasnt, was immortal, and in 1655, at the age of 52, Nostradamus died in Salon. But his prophecies have lived on for hundreds of years, where we still read and enjoy them today.

Orson Welles was an actor, producer, director, writer, and columnist who revolutionized the film industry by directing movies that depicted men and woman as real human beings. Throughout his writing career, Welles characters reflected his own personality and inspired others to write about human struggles, both good and bad. An innovative, dynamic individual, Welles spent his entire life experimenting with different mediums and bringing to the world his vision of mans never ending struggle to conquer his own inner demons.

Welles was a man whose life was one of paradox. His films reflected his inner conflicts and his attempt to assuage the two extremes of his own existence. “For thirty years people have been asking me how I reconcile X with Y! The truthful answer is that I don’t. Everything about me is a contradiction and so is everything about everybody else. We are made out of oppositions; we live between two poles. There is a philistine and an aesthete in all of us, and a murderer and a saint. You don’t reconcile the poles.

You just recognize them. ” [To Kennety Tynan, 1967] Orson Welles is often referred to as a “Renaissance man”, an individual whos ambitious and concerned with revolutionizing multiple aspects of life. He was a prolific writer and talented actor who often appeared in his own productions. A gifted artist, Welles, coupled his abundant energy with an enthusiasm for life. He tried everything and was not afraid to take risks and to suffer the consequences of failures as well as the acclaims of success.

While, some critics say that Welles could never top “Citizen Kane”, such movies as “The Trial”, “Touch of Evil”, and “The Lady from Shanghai” are considered classics and monumental feats in cinema production. However, movies like “The Stranger”, “Chimes at Midnights”, and “Mr. Arkadin” were criticized as being “One-Man Band” shows where Welles glorified and engrandized himself. Welles films reflect his ambivalent vision of life. He organized the Mercury Theater as the result of a feud with the Federal Theater Project after its attempt to sensor his work.

Welles refused to bow to their demands to make his pro-labor play, The Cradle Will Rock, less political. Throughout the rest of his life, he preferred ostracism to compromise and often endured ridicule and condemnation rather than give in to the demands of those in authority. Welles utilizes very distinctive images that are extravagant and dynamic to convey his unique prospective. In his anti-fascist play, Julius Caesar, he dressed his characters in modern attire and portrayed Brutus as an arrogant but reasonable human being.

Camera shots are traditionally deep focused with long takes and sweeping movements. One of his most famous shots takes place in the movie The Lady From Shanghai. In this movie, there is a famous hall-of-mirrors shoot-out where the villain and the hero exchange gun fire and the audience is unsure of what is going on. The scene is famous because Welles utilizes new camera techniques that bewilder the viewer with extravagant movements. Throughout his career, Welles employs clever editing that shifts from one character to another and uses light and darkness to extenuate the action.

His movies, like The Third Man and Compulsion, deal with characters who are flawed and have lost their innocence. He also uses bold music, and distinctive lighting to highlight the presentation of characters and plots. Bad guys….. are usually presented with dark lighting and good guys are typically depicted with brighter lighting. Villains are introduced with heavy music and heroes are represented with lighter music. Examining how characters overcome or do not overcome the challenges and crisis of their lives is the major theme of most of his dramatic presentations.

Many characters are taken from his own experience and are unable to surmount the difficulties of day to day living. Such characters often ruin the lives of others in their attempt to fix their own. Welles dramas are never clear cut and because of this, they are controversial as well as realistic. Released in 1941, Citizen Kane was the most controversial film of his career and probably the most successful. It was critically acclaimed but did not receive financial rewards until much later.

It depicted the life of William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper tycoon who controlled the press by manufacturing news. Hearst used hyperbole to sell papers and printed his version of the trust. He was a single-minded publishing legend who built an empire by selling newspapers filled with entertaining and often more exaggerated than factual. An egotistical, self-serving man, Hearst continually sought to expand his empire at the expense of others. Welles resented Hearsts power and prestige and took on Hearst in a crusade to destroy his reputation.

Hearst did everything possible to stop the release of the movie and to discredit the producer/director. The campaign of disparaging remarks and smears was very hostile and impacted each mans reputation. After Citizen Kane, Welles was recognized for his genius as well as for his gifted and self destructive drive. During the course of his life, he was involved in the production of more than 46 movies. Many of his movies dealt with the theme of the “little guy against the big guy”.

Sometimes, the little guy won, but most of the time, the big guy was the victor. However, the storyline conveyed empathy for both victim and victor. The hero in Welles movies spent most of his time trying to overcome his situation and deal with circumstances that were beyond his control. In his film, Touch of Evil, Welles character posses a self-destructive tendency that causes problems and eventually his down fall. Welles often attributes his characters to his own experience declaring, “I began at the top and have been making my way down ever since. ”

After Citizen Kane, Welles movies continued to depict the classic conflict of man versus man and man versus himself. Every charactor posses a rational element that is somehow lost in the course of living. Losing rationality results in conflict and self destruction. “Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. ” [Excerpt from the book: The Portable Curmudgeon Redux by: Jon Winokur] For Welles, the climax of every story revolved around accepting fate and not tampering with the will of Gods.

Any character who refused to accept his or her fate was systematically destroyed. This dark side of Welles personality was often masked by a lighter side that enjoyed the company of others and the good life of drinking, women, and food. In the end, Welles died a highly recognized man who reached his pinnacle too early and spent the rest of his life trying to repeat the act. However, other people believe that Welles later films were just as good as his early ones. That decision is left to the discretion of the viewer but his unique vision of life remains his legacy.

“I just paint things I always thought were beautiful, things you use every day and never think about I just do it because I like it. (Beckris 110) I just do it because I like it is Andys philosophy on life. Andy might just be the most interesting and and at the same time the most confusing individual you will ever read about. Andys work is like none others. His art brought common day people together and showed the impact of contemporary society and the idea of mass media on values. Andys father Ondrej Wharhola is best described as a bald, burly man with a bulging belly and massive upper arms, pudgy nose and bristling sideburns.

Ondrej was born in 1889 in Minkova. (Bekris, 6) He was married and living with Julia Warhola, mother of Andy, for three years in Mikova. In order to avoid being drafted into the Balkan conflict in 1912 he immigrated to Pittsburgh without her at the age of seventeen to work in a coal field in the industrial district of Philadelphia. (Bekris, 7) Julia Warhola was born in a small village in the Capathian mountains outside of Czechoslovakia. Julia was the oldest and prettiest of her fifteen other siblings. She was also said to be the artistic one of the bunch. (Bekris, 7) In 1914 Julia gave birth to a baby girl.

Because of the conditions due to the war the infant contracted influenza six months later and died. Julias mother was so depressed about the news of the infants death that she died one month later. (Bekris, 8-9) Julia was now reliable for her only two surviving sisters of ages six and nine. For the next four years Julia fled from the soldiers, hiding in woods and barns. She was supposed to be receiving money from Ondrej but because she was always on the run she never saw the money. From 1918-1921 she raised 160 dollars to go to the united states to find Ondrej.

Andy Warhol was born on September 28, 1930 in Forest City, Pennsylvania. Or so we think. This is what the original birth certificate read but Andy wanted people to believe he was born in Mc Keesport, or even Hawaii. He also stays true to believe the certificate is a forgery. Most books and other reportable sources confirm that he was indeed born in 1930 but the dates do range from 1925-1931 (Bekris, 10). Andy was raised in a coal mining town in Philadelphia. It was a dark musty town were the sky stayed black. The town was overrun with poverty and crime.

Bekris, 10) Being raised in an environment as such would greatly affect a persons personality in their later years. This might explain Andys later fascination with death related topics. In 1930 Andys father got a steady job laying roads and moving houses. This was a high paying job at the time because of the mass rate of growth in the cities. Ondrej saved his money and one-year later moved his family into a larger house on Beelan Street. Shortly after moving into the house Ondrej lost his job and was forced to move into a two-bedroom apartment.

The rent was six dollars a week and Andys father had to work odd jobs to just barley pay the rent. It was not just Andy and his parents. Andy had two other brothers, one older and one younger. All three of the children were said to be afraid of their father. “Dad didnt like us to start commotion because he was so exhausted and he would get emotionally upset. Usually all he had to do was look at you. ” (Beckris 12) Andy always had a problem with grammar school. He was not a social child and preferred to keep to himself. As most children do, they saw this in Andy and picked on him frequently.

Andys brother Paul stated, “At age four Andy cried a lot at school and one day a little black girl slapped him” (Beckris 15) He was very traumatized by this incident and asked his mother if she could keep him home from school. As the loving mother she was, she took Andy out of school and kept him home for two years. Over this time he became very close to his mother. When it was time for him to return to school he threw a temper tantrum. It took his mother, brother and neighbor to drag Andy back to school. Because of this incident he developed a nervous tick.

Fortunately, Ondrej got his old job back and earned enough money to move back into a larger house in Oak Land. This town was much more suitable for raising a child and had better school systems. In this town Andy made new friends, which were particularly girls. This would later explain Andys homosexual tendencies. Margie Girman was one of his closest friends. She was said to be bright and stimulating which would encourage Andy to do better in school. Andy began to have a fascination with the cinema. Every weekend he and Margie would go to the movies.

At the end of every show the ushers would hand out autographed photos of the actors and actresses. Andy would end up using these same images in his prints. Andy started to distance himself from boys and became closer to girls and his new found talent of drawing. Andys brother John said, ” When Andy was out in the field by the time you hit the ball he wasnt there. ” (Bekris, 16-17) He would go back to the house and draw in his notebook. Andy soon got the reputation as a “mamas boy”. If he was not with his girlfriends or sketching in his notebook, he was out with his mother helping her pick out hats and skirts.

At age six Andy had entered the second grade. His teacher Catharine Meta said that Andy would walk through the halls with his head down wishing he was invisible. This made him a prime suspect for abuse by his fellow classmates. From early on in Andys life he had been a sickly child. Because Andy was known to be a mamma’s boy and a crybaby his parents paid little to no attention to him when he whined about being hurt or sick. At age two Andys eyes swelled shut due to an infection and his mother had to use daily doses of boric acid to get rid of the mucus.

At age four he was playing on the train tracks and broke his arm. The wound went unnoticed for several weeks until someone saw an unnatural bend to his arm. The bone had to be re-broken and set. At age six Andy contracted scarlet fever, which would later effect his overall development. His illness went unnoticed until Andy began not being able to control his limbs or speech. He had trouble holding his own arm and completing a sentence. This part of Andys life greatly contributed to his mistrust in people and his art. (Bekris, 19)

Andys art talent in high school was amazing. He drew everything he laid his eyes on. Even though he had such a great talent he was still singled out. Lee Karageores says “But sorely he was sort of left out. He wasnt even in the art club because his talent was so superior. ” Andy attended Scheley High School. During his senior year he applied to both the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Institute of Technology. Andy was accepted to both but chose to attend Carnegie Tech. Carnegie Tec’s academic standards were high and the courses extremely competitive.

This was because his graduating class consisted of about only one hundred students. The school motto best describes its standards “Laborare est Orare” to labor is to pray is what it means in Latin. Andys freshman courses consisted of drawing, pictorial and decorative design, color, hygiene, and thought and expression. Andy had a great struggle with all of his courses but thought and expression was his worst. This was probably so because of Andys phobia of expressing himself orally. Andy was a man of few words; also another reason was because he had such poor grammar.

Fortunately, Andy made two friends in this class who tried to get Andy a passing grade. Even with their combined effort he failed out of the course. At the time Andy was attending school, there was an economic depression, and the war was ending. (Bekris, 37) Because of the war veterans that were returning, jobs became scarce and Carnegie Tech was forced to drop students in order to make room. Andy was one of them. Because Andy showed such passion to his work his teachers fought to have Andy attend summer school and go for re-admissions the following year.

While Andy was attending summer school he got a job delivering fruit with his brother. As he worked he carried a sketchbook drawing whatever appealed to him. An eyewitness recalled “He drew what he saw, you could see the nude bodies of the women through their battered clothes, babies hanging on mothers necks. He really got the essence of this depressing side of life. ” When Andy returned for readmitions he presented the sketchbook. They allowed Andy back in. Along with being able to come back to Carnegie Tech, his sketches were put on display and Andy received forty dollars.

This was the first time Andy had ever received money for his work. At the time of Andys graduation he was skeptical about leaving his mother. He was debating whether to pursue his talent or become a schoolteacher and live with his mother. Fortunate for us he became an artist and created some of the worlds most interesting paintings. Andy decided he wanted to move to New York City. His mother was very disappointed. She told Andy that he would end up in a gutter, penniless. A good friend of Andys, Philip Pearlstine convinced Andy to move to Manhattan with him.

He did and ended up spending eight years there. In June 1949, Andy and Pearlstine moved into a small apartment on Saint Marks Street. (Bekris, 51) Later on Andy would move out of this apartment and get his own studio in an abandoned hook-and-ladder firehouse only a few blocks away from Pearlstiens. The only minor set back was that the floor was littered with hole and the ceiling leaked, sometimes destroying entire paintings. Over the next few years Andy would move around from rat hole to rat hole. Over this time Andys mother came to live with him and he also began to get noticed.

Between moves Andy held many different jobs. In 1951 Andy got a job as a major assistant to illustrate a Complete Book of Etiquette by Amy Vanderbits. (Bekris, 53) For the next two to three years Andy did illustration work for magazines and store windows. He devoted all his time to work and was making a decent amount of money. He also got the reputation as a workaholic. Pearlstine said that Andy was “a workaholic who sat at a table and worked all day and often late at night. He would do several versions of each assignment, showing all art dealers loved him for that. Bekris, 53)

These were the golden years for art designers and magazine publishers, which attracted some of the most desirable graphic designers. In 1963 Andy moved into a flat at 231 East 47th street. (Bekris, 141) This location would later be known as the “Factory”. Andy did most of his recognized art here. He was said to be like a machine. A quote from the artist. “The reason Im painting this very way is because I want to be a machine. ” (Cameo, 8) The Factory had a large freight elevator that took you to the loft.

The doors opened up to a 140-sq. t room with a couple of toilets in the back and a payphone buy the door. The Factory soon became the “in crowd hang out”. Its tripy lighting and tin foil walls attracted every type of person. The Factory was now a cultural Mecca, part film studio, and part Salvation Army for the struggling artists. The majority of the crowd was called the “amphetamine rapture group” but better known as the “mole people” because they lived in the underworld of the city and only came out at night. (Cameo, 8) Andy continued to make money and turning out electric chair prints as part of the death-and-disaster series.

As you the viewer can tell from a variety of Andys paintings, he had an erotic side to him. Andy has never come entirely out with the truth but some interesting facts have been found. Andy first discovered he had a homosexual taste when he was a student at Carnegie Tech. Andy also had an off and on relationship with a friend whom he met in the autumn of 1945. (Shanes, 11) Most of Andys Advertisements and window displays incorporated shoes. The majority of the time he was asked to redo them because they came across as being too sexual. He was also known to have a slight foot fetish.

Boyfriends of Andy have admitted that Andy enjoyed licking their shoes while making love. He also published a quite graphic series called “Drawings for a boy book” (Shanes, 11) Although Andy never “came out” he was known to be a part of the “lavender” social world, which was an underground social world with gays and transvestites. Andy wanted to bring avant grade artists and the public together. The common people are the ones intended for Andys art. In 1958 Andy made the transition to this idea from commercial artist to “Fine Artist”. (Shanes, 15) This was after a similar artists movement of John Rauschenburg.

After his work with I Miller Shoes in the 1960s, which was a large shoe manufacturer, his subjects started to move to common day objects. In 1961 Andy started to play with the idea of mass production. (Cameo, 8) He chose common day items such as Campbell soup cans, money, Coca-Cola, and newspaper headlines. He also did work on famous people such as Marilyn Manroe and Jackie Onasis. In starting pop art Andy called upon everything he had learned from advertising. Also from TV where the dollar sign and the gun were predominate symbols, where the subliminal message was sexual desire without gratification, and were the immediate aim was to shock.

Andy chose to paint a series of big black-and-white pictures of what artists were supposed to hate most. The look from the backs of cheep magazines. The simplest crummiest ads for jobs, TV, wigs, and canned food, Andy made into art. Andys transition is only best explained visually. In his early works with portraits such as “Ladies and Gentleman” 1917 (1) and “Truman Capote”1979 (2) they show how Andy uses vibrant colors to emphasize specific features. In his “Untitled” (Hernia) 1960-62 (3) painting it shows his work with common day ads and simplicity.

This print almost looks like it came from a textbook. “Front and Back of Dollar bills” (4) experiments with the use of silk screen and mass production. This painting is quite striking because when you think about it money might just be the most mass-produced object in the world. Andy also had a tendency to paint unordinary things like his “cow” (5) painting. He stayed within his style of color but the cow is neither a famous portrait nor a mass-produced object. After the tragic suicide of Marilyn Monroe in 1962 Andy became somewhat obsessed with her beauty.

He would use pictures of her lips and produce them hundreds of times using bright sexy colors. He always focused on her most sexual features such as he hair, eyes, and lips. “Marilyn Monroe Lips” 1962 (6) and “Marilyn”. Andy had another artistic style to him, it was one that came from his childhood. Being raised in poverty and being exposed to such horrific sights contributed to his next “Movement” of work. Andy was curious in the acts of God whether it is from Mother Nature to killings or atomic bombs. Andy would make reproductions of all these incidents.

It wasnt until Henry Geldchler shoed Andy a more productive direction. In June of 1962 Geldchler suggested that Andy start looking at the “dark side of American culture” in a more artistic way. (Bekris 126) Andy new he had to come up with a new idea that would shock his audience as much as the soup cans and dollar bills had. Andy began doing paintings such as “car crash” 1963 (7) and “electric chair” (8). These images were extremely powerful. You were not just looking at an image in the newsprint you were looking at an image that was twice as large as you were and repeated ten times.

Also he always chose a color to tint these images in. The color gives a mysterious side to it, which makes you want to know the rest of the story. The “Death-and-disaster” series became recognized as some of his best works, but at the same time many of his supporters found the images unacceptable. None of his supporters wanted to hang a picture of a man mangled in his car over their fireplace. The prints did do extremely well but only over seas in Europe and Germany. Some other famous prints are, “Sixteen Jacques” 1964 “Lavender Disaster” 1963(9) and “Sucide”1963 (10).

Oxidation Painting” 1978 (11) is in the death-and-disaster series but has a different twist to it. It is two large sheets of copper that had been treated with patina. While wet they were urinated on showing the given effect. Along with his artistic style his physical appearance began to change. He began wearing a silver blond wig that fit on his head haphazardly. (Bekris, 99) He even went as far as to change his speech and mannerisms. For the next several years Andy continued with his death and disaster series. He was now a world-renowned artist and had private shows throughout the world.

In 1986, Andy flew to Milan for the opening of his last show. During the last two days in Milan Andy did not leave the hotel. “He was in much pain” recalled Daniel Morear. “He was in bed” which was quite unusual for Andy to be in bed let alone for two days. At the end of 1986 his gallstones had become so enlarged that they had become life threatening. Andy refused to go to a hospital because of his great fear of them. In the first week of February his illness stopped him dead in his tracks. For the first time in his life Andy abandoned his friends in the middle of a night out on the town to go home and spend the evening in his bed.

A sonogram taken by Dr. Cox showed the gallbladder to be severely infected, inflamed, and filled with fluid. The next day Andy was scheduled to be admitted into New York Hospital. The operation was supposed to take place on Saturday and have Andy home by late Sunday. Saturday morning Andy locked all his valuables in his safe and headed to the hospital. He had also made it very clear that no one, not even his mother should know he was going to the hospital. When he was admitted they put him under the name of Bob Roberts. A report from the New York Times Magazine by M. A Farba and Lawrence Altman stated:

After fifteen hours of preparation, Warhols surgery was preformed between 8:45 am and 12:10 p. m. on Saturday February 21, 1987. There were no complications at the time – and none were found during the autopsy or by any of the doctors who had received the case. Warhol spent three hours in recovery after the surgery, and at 3:45pm was taken to his private room on the twelfth floor of Baker Pavilion. For comfort precaution and on the recommendation of Dr. Cox, his regular physician, Warhol was placed in the hands of a private duty nurse, rather than the normal complement of staff nurses.

He was examined during the afternoon and early evening by the senior attending physicians, who noted nothing unusual. Alert and seemingly in good spirits, Warhol watched television and around 9:30 p. m. spoke to the house keeper at his east side home, a few blocks away. Min Chou was the private nurse attending to Andy. It was not known whether she kept her post but it was clear that she did not record his vital signs and neglected to give him medicine. At 10pm and at 4am on Sunday February 22, Min Chou, the private nurse who had been selected by the hospital from a registry, took Andys blood pressure and found it stable.

She gave a progress report to the chief surgical resident by telephone at 11pm; presumably while the patient slept. At 5:45am Ms. Chou noticed that Warhol had turned blue and his pulse had weakened. Unable to waken him she summoned the floor nurse who in the words of a colleague, “almost had a stroke” A cardiac arrest team began resuscitation efforts but according to hospital sources, had difficulty putting a tube in Warhols windpipe because rigor mortis had started to set in. At 6:31am the artist was pronounced dead.

The art world suffered a great lose with the death of Andy Warhol. His personal style will always move forward touching and changing peoples lives every day. Andy was a one of a kind and will never be recreated. To understand his art is a feeling many people over look. It is an every day reminder that we dont take the time to look at what goes on around us. Now when I walk I wont just look down but all around me. At the trees, clouds, bricks under my feet, and the entire world moving around me.

Plotinus was born in Upper Egypt, more specifically in Lycopolis in 204 CE. When he was twenty-eight he moved to Alexandria to study philosophy. While in Alexandria, he was tremendously influenced by Plato and Aristotle and therefore studied their works immensely. Subsequent to working under Ammonius for approximately ten years, he joined the Emperor Gordians campaign against the Parthians (Persians) in 243 AD. He joined the campaign, partly because he was somewhat intrigued by the Persians philosophies, but mainly because he was reatly interested in the philosophers of India and Persia.

Plotinuss plan failed: the emperor was assassinated in Mesopotamia and he was coerced to escape to Antioch in order to save his life. In 244 AD, he made his way to Rome and started his own school of philosophy. He was such a distinguished teacher, that he received rave reviews from highly eminent people, including the Emperor Gallienus and his wife Salonina. Not long after the school was founded, he thought up the idea for a model city, Platonopolis, in a city called Campania in Southern Italy.

His idea was for the city to live according to the laws of Plato. Even though Gallienus was completely supportive of this plan, the other “imperial counselors” were not; therefore, the idea did not go any further. He continued to teach at his school in Rome until 268 AD. From that point, he retired to a rural estate of one of his disciples in Campania. During the last few years of his life, he began to put down in writing, his responses to the most common questions that were raised during his seminars.

These responses were written in essays, primarily because the extent of most of the answers could not fully be answered in depth in the seminars. It was there where he died, in 270, of what was thought to be leprosy. Although Plotinus wrote several of these essays, he did not publish them. Porphyry, one of his students, fifty four of these essays in six “Enneades. ” He put them in “logical order” and “chronological sequence. ” Marsilio Ficino in Florence printed the “Enneades” in Latin in 1492.

For four centuries Nostradamus’s prophecies have inspired fear and controversy. His followers say he predicted the French Revolution, the birth and rise of Hitler, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Did he, as his believers claim, predict some of history’s most monumental events – from the Great Fire of London to the launch disaster of the space shuttle Challenger? Nostradamus was typical of the Renaissance time period. He made many prophecies and was a major contributor to not only the Renaissance but the ‘Spirit of the Renaissance’.

Michel de Nostrodame (or his more used Latin name of Nostradamus) was born a Jew in the small town of St. Remy de Province in southern France on the 14th of December 1503. Little is known about Nostradamus’s family apart from Jean his youngest brother became Procurer of the Parliament of Province. As a small boy Nostradamus underwent significant changes in his life. While Nostradamus was a child his family was forced to convert to Roman Catholicism. Around this time he was sent to live with his grandfather who taught him the basics of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Mathematics and Astrology.

A few years later Nostradamus’s grandfather died and he went to Avignon to finish his schooling. Whilst at Avignon he also believed as did Galileo that the Earth was round and circled the sun. Nostradamus used his ability to help people through harsh times and did not even fear for his own life. In 1525 he received his Bachelor’s degree for Medicine and went to help the fight against the ‘Black Death’ that was feared throughout the Renaissance period. After traveling for almost four years helping the sufferers of the Plague, e returned to Avignon and won fame for his eagerness for learning which ties in with the spirit of the Renaissance.

In 1532 he earned his Doctorate and became a Professor at the Montipellier University but resigned within the same year. He then moved to Agen, married and had a son and daughter. His life now seemed complete until an outbreak of the Plague in Agen that killed his wife and children. In 1538, he was accused of heresy because of a remark about a statue of the Virgin Mary being like a devil that he had made years before. The Inquisitors sent him to Toulouse to stand trial. Leoni, Edgar stated that in 1554 Nostradamus settled in Marseilles after wandering for six years keeping well clear of the church authorities.

During these time legends started to appear about his foreseeing powers. It was not until later however that he received his fame with his prophetic visions of the future – 942 cryptic poems called The Centuries – that have preoccupied generation after generation of readers. The Centauries (ten in total) were written in poem like form and contained hard-to-break codes that were use to stop attention being drawn to him self s the church authorities could not arrest him for writing in gibberish, because in that time prophecies were considered as witch craft or devil work.

The Centauries were written by night as not to be seen in 1555. He eventually settled down in the town of Salon, France in 1554 where he Married his second wife, Anne Ponsart Gemelle, with whom he rose six Children – three boys and three girls. Do these writings actually predict the death of popes, rise of tyrants, and natural disasters to come? The code in which the prophecies were written ould be comprehended to mean many things, but if the people who claim to be able to crack the code of Nostradamus’ work are right then World War Three will reach its climax in the year 1999.

Bio-warfare will be used – which will virtually wipe out most of humanity with minimal survivors with the human race living until the year 3797. Nostradamus travelled to Paris and booked in at a hotel on the 15th of August 1556 and the queen at the time sent a message to Nostradamus asking him to see her. The queen talked to Nostradamus privately for two hours, othing is know about what they talked about. Two weeks later Nostradamus was again summoned to speak with the queen.

This time she asked him to give horoscopes on all her children – all turned out correct except one horoscope, her youngest child who died before taking the throne. In 1564 Nostradamus was appointed Royal Physician to King Charles IX. On the 1st of July 1566 he sent for the local priest to give him this message, “I will not be seen alive again”. That night Nostradamus died. It was rumoured that Nostradamus’ coffin contained the a document that ould decode his long cryptic writings and give the answers.

This proved to be untrue because in 1700 Nostradamus’ body was moved to a different place in the church, and while it was being moved a priest looked inside the coffin to reveal an amulet on his skeleton with the year 1700 on it. In 1791, during the French Revolution, soldiers broke into the church in search for money. While in the church the soldiers found food and alcohol that they ate and drank. Claims that a soldier drank wine out of Nostradamus’s skull, and the next day the soldier was shot.

Andrew Warhola was born August Sixth, 1928, in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. He was the youngest son of Julie and Andrej Warhola, both immigrants from Czechoslovakia. After a quiet childhood spent alternately alone and in art classes, Andrew went to college. He then got a job doing commercial art, largely advertisements for large companies. Over time his name was shortened and Andy Warhol changed the face of modern art. Through his silver lined Factory and the many people who frequented it a revolution was born. This paper will discuss some of these people and examine the impact they all made on modern art.

Ruska Dolina was a small Ruthenian suburb of Pittsburgh. It was populated with, of course, eastern European immigrants. Andy Warhol was born into this very close-knit neighborhood speaking his parent’s native tongue. Julia Warhola was herself a bit of an artist, in later years she would collaborate with her youngest son. Andrej Warhola worked in the great steel mills of Pittsburgh. The Warhola household was very typical of the times. Julia would stay home, cook, and read to her boys while Mr. Warhola worked in a steel mill sweatshop with hundreds of other immigrants. The family was strictly Eastern Orthodox Catholics.

On Sunday, the day of rest, no one was allowed to move. These days were passed indoors with Mrs. Warhola telling stories to the boys. Like most children, Andrew collected the pictures and posters of various celebrities that would define such a body of his work in later years. Andrew was a rather small boy. In interviews Andy Warhol said that he was pale and scrawny and that he was thusly bullied on several occasions by his classmates. When he was fourteen Andrew’s father died of tuberculosis, a common malady of the times, especially for the profession. This had a profound affect on young Andrew.

As was the Orthodox tradition, the body was laid out in the house for three days of mourning and visitation. During this span Andrew hid under his bed refusing to look at his father’s body. Despite the poorly paying job, Andrej managed to set aside money for college. However, he saved only enough to send one child, and the general consensus was that this would be Andrew. In Fifth grade Andrew started attending the free Saturday classes that the Carnegie Institute taught. It is noted that even then young Andrew excelled at his art. Due to the bullying by his classmates he stayed inside a great deal, working on his art.

Due to his aptitude in school, Andrew skipped two grades and was admitted into the Carnegie Institute of Technology at the young age of 16. Once in the school Andrew was admitted to the Department of Painting and Design. He studied various aspects of commercial graphic design and after his graduation he moved to New York to seek his fortune. Page 2 Once out of college Andrew of course had very little money and for a brief while he shared a basement apartment with seventeen other individuals. Finding employment demanded a never-ending series of portfolio submissions.

In an interview Andrew said that his name was accidentally changed to Warhol. He says that it was never a conscious decision, it rather happened over time. Regardless, the name change stuck, the first name was shortened, and the world-renowned artist was forming. The basement with seventeen roommates did not last long; Andy was rather fast at finding steady employment. In 1951, two years out of school, Andy Warhol bought a nice apartment for himself. Shortly thereafter his mother and her three cats showed up one evening. Julia Warhola was to live with the son she adored so greatly for her remaining twenty years.

During these two decades Andy kept his home life strikingly separate from his public persona. His time with his mother was cherished. Julia was in fact his first collaborator in art. Andy helped her make a book about cats and *censored* heaven, where all cats went. This book was an interesting mixture of his mother’s folk art background and his unique styling. Over this time Andy Warhol had his world famous silver covered Factory and his constantly revolving entourage and hangers-on. One of the so-called crazy people that Andy let hang around was Valerie Solanas.

She surprised him one day in the Factory and shot him twice with a thirty-two. The bullets ripped through his stomach, spleen, liver, esophagus, and both lungs. At one point Andy Warhol was pronounced dead, but it was not yet his time. The more reputable denizens of the Factory, the people who both influenced and were influenced by Andy Warhol, each in their own way made a contribution to art. Everyone who frequented the Factory had his or her own futures and pasts, be it the guy sweeping the floors or the Beat poets who dropped by. Celebrities and United States Presidents, even foreign royalty knew Andy Warhol.

This man’s workshop was both a breeding ground of art and a place for gathering and partying. In a cool and withdrawn manner Andy Warhol governed an empire of art that stretched in every conceivable direction. Curiously, the other prominent artists of the time, such as Jasper Johns, avoided contact with Andy Warhol. This has been largely attributed to his open stance on his homosexuality. At the time it was considered more appropriate for the male painters to be macho. This can be seen in Jasper Johns’ cigarettes hanging out of his mouth as he paints his canvases, and his macho stance in other aspects.

All the while these prominent artists were privately gay, but were rather scared of Warhol’s stance on his public life. This is rather inconsequential, however, as Warhol Page 3 much preferred the fringe of society. He practically collected the outcasts; occasionally promoting artists, such as he did with Jean-Michel Basquait. Yet the promotion and friendship did not stop at painting. Andy Warhol had an association with the Velvet Underground, and was friends with the Rolling Stones. Andy Warhol’s commercial art background was still put to use after he became the new art sensation.

Perhaps the only reason he put these skills to use was because of his involvement with his friends in the music industry, the Velvet Underground and to some extent the Rolling Stones. Andy actively participated in the rise of the Velvet Underground. In the early Seventies they were quite stylish, in large part due to their interaction with Warhol and his various associates. Andy Warhol even designed the cover for their albums. One cover specifically evokes Pop Art. One might say the large, plain banana with the dotted pattern more resembles Liechtenstein than Warhol. Regardless, this was not the only album cover Andy Warhol did.

He also did the original work for the Rolling Stones album, Sticky Fingers. It featured an actual canvas depiction of blue jeans complete with a working zipper. This was more in line with Warhol, keeping with his shock value ideas. The Sticky Fingers album cover was not the only interaction Andy Warhol had with the Rolling Stones. Warhol did a number of unique portraits for his friends and colleagues, largely as favors and gifts. The list perhaps reads like a virtual who’s who of the day. Truman Capote, Mick Jagger, Princess Caroline and Michael Jackson were in the number of the sitters for Andy Warhol.

As self-restrained and quiet Andy Warhol was, he still somehow managed to interact with an amazing number of artists of the day. The list of Andy Warhol’s friends and colleagues is perhaps best started with Jed Johnson. Jed was a very young man when he was adopted into the Factory. He was admitted on the condition that he swept the floors daily. This he gratefully agreed to do. Over time he and Andy Warhol grew very close, eventually he moved in with Andy and his mother. Some say that they became lovers, but this is rather inconsequential. It was discovered at some point that Jed Johnson was a great interior decorator.

Jed beautifully decorated the interior of Warhol’s spacious seventeen bedroom flat in New York. In later years Jed Johnson became quite sought after, decorating for Mick Jagger, Barbra Striesand, and Richard Gere. Jed’s life, however, was cut short when he was traveling in the TWA flight that wrecked off of New York in 1996. The next to be talked about, perhaps the next adoption of the factory, was Jean-Michel Basquait. A high school dropout at the age of seventeen, Basquait developed his unique style in Page 4 the subway system of New York. Jean-Michel was absorbed in the newest wave of fashion, graffiti.

His style blended an eye catching grouping of short poetic messages and odd symbols. Eventually he and Warhol met, Basquait had a show, and moved onto marking on a variety of different surfaces. The prevalent, reoccurring object in his work is an African-like mask. His work was largely schematic and filled with interesting color patterns. The colors and variety of lines and symbols gave his work an amazing vibration. The work also meshed classical influences with an almost childlike primitivism. Keith Haring was the other main graffiti artist on the scene at the time.

He also frequented the Factory, but was much less a fixture than Basquait. Keith Haring’s main schooling came in the subway system, as did Basquait. Haring, however, also had formal teachings. This and his insatiable appetite for tagging everything around him earned him the title of the Dean of Graffiti. Eventually he got out of the subways and started showing his work. Also like Basquait, there are certain things that remain prevalent in all of his work. For example, the radiant baby and barking dog are repeated and perfected. Keith Haring’s style, like so many others from the Pop era, has been copied over and over.

The most recent duplication was perhaps by the automobile conglomerate Honda for a commercial promoting one of their vehicles. Regardless, Keith Haring had a uniqueness and productivity that eventually became planted in the world psyche. Another artist that frequented the Factory was Kenny Scharf. Kenny Scharf was also briefly a graffiti artist. He, however, grew tired of this and moved on to create whole environments. These environments were largely influenced by popular culture television; they were filled with modified electronic gear and other appliances.

Everything in these environments was influenced by television science fiction, in that they closely resembled the quasi-futuristic backdrops of shows such as Buck Rogers and The Jetsons. At first Kenny Scharf worked in closet sized spaces, but he moved on to do whole installations in galleries. One of his more famous involved these mechanical and electronic objects painted uniformly with kitsch items glued to them. For example, Kenny Scharf would glue plastic dinosaur toys and robots and so on to the tops of the televisions and so on.

While Kenny Scharf was a rather regular visitor at the Factory, he and Warhol did not have entirely too much in common with each other. Perhaps the artist most similar in appearance to Andy Warhol was David Hockney. Much like Warhol, Hockney’s appearance brought him a great deal of notoriety and press coverage. David Hockney also emerged at the same time as the Beatles and rode, perhaps, on Page 5 their shock value. The early nineteen sixty’s was a time of artists coming into their own, the beginning of the explosion of the artistic counterculture, with which Andy Warhol fit right in.

Hockney wore granny glasses, gold lame, and peroxided his hair. He was perhaps destined for stardom; he in fact already had notoriety before even emerging from college. This was mostly due to his amazing productivity. His work had a unique photographic quality, due, of course, mostly to the fact the he worked largely from photos. He and Warhol were not exactly close friends but nonetheless they had a bond, as can be seen in their personal style. The next few artists had little really in common with Andy Warhol both stylistically and personally. They did however frequent the Factory, which makes them worthwhile to mention.

It is not beyond speculation that the mere socializing at Warhol’s personal studio influenced them in some form or another. Richard Serra had a very simple and very unique form of sculpture. He would balance large sheets of lead or steal. These sheets were very rough both texturally and visually. Richard Serra purposely left them this way; he did not feel that they needed to be molested in any way. Rather, the beauty in his pieces was that he would balance them in various ways. In one piece, entitled One ton Prop, he balanced four five hundred-pound sheets of lead on each other. The idea here was that they resembled a stack of cards.

They completely belied their weight; they appeared to be very light and easy to balance. Part of what made his pieces so interesting is that they easily could have killed a man if they were to be somehow knocked over. Bizarre as it is, this is apparently a great appeal in art. Another strange idea for art belonged to Christo. This Bulgarian-born artist escaped the Iron Curtain, went to Paris, and started wrapping things in cloth. These wrapped objects varied greatly from a woman to a chair, to nothing. In due time, his ideas expanded, and Christo moved on to wrapping whole buildings.

This couldn’t last forever, as Christo’s attention again wavered, this time to nature. In southern California Christo and his wife got permission to string together an amazingly long fence made of billowy fabric. This fence stretched across flowing, rolling hilltops and valleys and eventually terminated in the Pacific Ocean. But it doesn’t end there, for Christo’s ambitious undertakings continue today. Another artist in this vein is Marisol. The full name is Marisol Escobar, but this is not really of any consequence. Marisol is a Paris-born Venezuelan artist who worked out of New York.

This rather amazing worldliness gave her a unique perspective. Her art mostly consisted of making mixed media assemblages. These assemblages were usually portraits of famous people, for instance Andy Warhol. Others she immortalized include Linden Johnson and John Page 6 Wayne. Her work usually consisted of wood, plaster, paint and whatever objects she happened to find and like. The last artist of the type discussed above is Julian Schnabel. Julian is Brooklyn born and yet raised in Texas. She in a way ignited the Nineteen-Eighties. When she burst onto the scene art was rather static, rather boring.

She started showing with her epically scaled works. The sheer size and the iconographic imagery shocked artist of the time, as did her cultural archetypes. She came along at the end of Warhol’s career; he didn’t really have time to be influenced by her. But her electric style certainly influenced the people she would have seen when being around Andy Warhol and the people he saw at the time. The last visual artist to be talked about is Roy Lichtenstein. Roy Lichtenstein is easily the artist most like Andy Warhol stylistically. They basically broke onto the art scene at the same time. They each had an amazing simplistic approach.

The difference between the two was perhaps Lichtenstein’s more detailed approach. While Andy Warhol loved the silk screen and the repeatedly printed picture, Lichtenstein preferred to majestically blow up single pictures. He grossly enlarged comic strip panels from the time, including detail down to the dots used by newspaper printing presses. This approach of the colored dots is called Ben Day, named after the pioneer of the process. Roy Lichtenstein’s most famous example is Whaam. This amazing work of art is approximately fourteen feet across. The scale and skill of this work is what set it apart.

Also the use of limited, flat colors helped to perfect the theme. It could be said also that Lichtenstein mildly parodied these images so familiar to the American pop culture. In addition to these painting, Roy Lichtenstein made both large adaptations of Pablo Picasso paintings and sculpture. His sculpture echoed his love of the pure, solid line. One could say that his sculptures were far more graphically oriented than three-dimensionally oriented. These two amazing artists were no doubt friends, if for nothing more than the common bond they shared in their bold artistic statements, their establishment of a movement.

The Beatniks were also seen frequently around The Factory in the early days. The Factory must have been the absolute best place to se and be seen, as can be judged from the scope of people present there. The most important and popular Beatniks, Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, and Ken Kesey all frequented the Factory. These men quite possibly influenced each other through their individual sense of freedom. Each, however, had their own desires. Kerouac, for instance, did not really know how to deal with celebrity, he simply wanted to be and do. Page 7 When he wrote On the Road he simply wanted to chronicle the adventures that he had travelling.

He did not exactly want to shock anyone, as Andy Warhol and Allen Ginsburg did. The fame that came with On the Road was never very comfortable for Jack Kerouac. Allen Ginsburg, on the other hand, had not problem with his celebrity. When he first publicly read Howl he got exactly the response he was after. His book was banned in several places, which gave him immediate notoriety. In this way he and Andy Warhol were alike. They were both thoroughly open and frank in public; in fact it could be said that both men enjoyed shocking the general public. Both led exceedingly abnormal lives, enjoying the shock value of it all.

The main difference was that Ginsburg communicated with writing, while Warhol stuck mainly to his art. Ken Kesey was also a Beatnik regular. Perhaps crazier than the rest, he still managed to write arguably the most sensible book. When chronicled in On the Road, Ken Kesey was the insane Dean Moriarty. Given this character, he most likely would have fit right in at the hectic, hedonistic scene of the Factory in the early Nineteen-Sixties. Each of the artists mentioned here met Andy Warhol at different phases of his career. While the majority of them were seen at the infamous Factory, some came both before and after.

Regardless of where they met and knew Warhol, they each had their own individual lessons and impacts. Jean-Michel Basquait was perhaps the last artist to come around and really know Andy Warhol. Julia Warhol was certainly the first. In between were very many amazing artists, almost too many artists to talk about. The most important, of course, have been mentioned in this paper. Andy Warhol is a man still impacting art long after his death. His visionary style changed forever the face of both commercial art and gallery art. Hopefully this paper communicated a bit of that genius.

Selena was born in Lake Jackson, Texas on April 6th, 1971 to Abraham and Marcella Quintanilla. Abraham was a shipping clerk for a chemical company Abraham being a well respected Mexican musician, who only sang English songs, and had his career ruined because of that. American people didnt respect him because he was Mexican, and the Mexican people did not respect them because they sang English songs. By the time Selena reached age 10, it became very obvious that Selena was a natural born performer and that she had a great amount of singing talent.

Abraham decided to start a band, he was afraid that the same thing would appen to her, so he decided to teach her some Spanish songs, but one problem, Selena only knew how to speak English, so Selena went on with most of her life not even knowing what the words meant that she was singing. Well in order to start the band they would need more then Selena so Abraham made Abraham III (nicknamed A. B. ) her older brother, and Suzette, her older sister.

A. B. lready knowing the drums, Suzette already knowing the drum, and Selena having an awesome voice started their band, Selena Y Los Dinos. They started practicing together and performer a little. In 1980, Abraham and Marcella opened up a Mexican restaurant. At first business was booming, Abraham even had to quit his shipping clerk job to devote his full time and attention to the restaurant. Unfortunatly after the Texas Oil Bust of 1981, the restaurant went bankrupt and had to be shut down.

So Abraham bought a bus and Selena Y Los Dinos began to tour the Texas countryside. At age 13 Selena had to leave 8th grade and start taking high school Selena sang almost exclusively Spanish. She sang a Tex-Mex pop called Tejano. They made there first recording in 1984, slowly people started to notice nd love Selena, but by her being a female Tejano performer, no one thought she would actually last, because the Tejano industry of music was ruled over by men, and although many women had tried, they rarely made it to stardom.

Little did they know that Selena Y Los Dinos would climb the charts and end up being It was in 1987, that they really started to make it to the top. All the recording and touring throughout the 80s finally paid off, because in 1987 Selena y Los Dinos came to national attention, when Selena won a Tejano Music Award for Female Vocalist and Performer of the Year. It was a great accomplishment for a 15 year old girl. Until then the two categories didnt even exist.

Her fame was definitely being brought to the Latino communities, but In 1989, Selena and her band were signed to EMI, also known as Capitol Records, releasing there album a year later. Over the next few years Selena became one of the most popular Tejano Performers. In 1992, Selena and her lead guitarist Chris Perez eloped, after her father had forbid for them to see each other. Her family later welcomed him into the In 1994, Selenas first mainstream exposure came in, she played a singer n the 1993 film Don Juan DeMarco.

Also in 1994 she won a Grammy for Best Mexican/American Album for her album Selena: Live. It was her first time ever being nominated for a Grammy. Also, later that year she opened Selena Ect. Two fashion boutiques located in Texas. Her outstanding success, concerts, and now boutiques attracted many fans, including Yolanda Salvidar, who would have a big effect on Selenas life later on. Toward the very end of 1994 Selena signed a major world wide English- language crossover album recording contract. Dreaming of You was released in February 1995.

With sales booming and Selena holding a record breaking concert at the Houston Astrodome where over 61,000 fans attended, there was no thought in anyones head that anything could stop Selena. And then tragedy After the record-breaking concert, Selena and her father came to realize that Yolanda Salvidar, who was now her fan club president, had been embezzling funds from the boutiques. On March 5th, 1995 Selena went to a hotel to meet up with Yolanda to recover the missing paperwork. It was said that the women argued loudly and then Yolanda pulled out a handgun and shot Selena as she was leaving.

Kurt Donald Cobain was born in Aberdeen, Washington ( about 60 miles southwest of Seattle). He grew up in a mid-class society and was hyperactive as child, so his doctor put him on Ritalin ( a morphine based drug to help him concentrate in school). The drug often kept him up until 4am. So he was given sedatives to get to sleep. Kurt had a happy childhood, until his parents got divorced when he was seven. It was an ordinary divorce, but Kurt got very upset about it. He said he never felt loved or secure again. He became shy and very difficult to cope with. For years after the divorce he moved back and forth ith his parents.

In the end his parents wanted nothing to do with him, so he moved in with some relatives at this time. Kurt didnt like school, he felt lost and lonely. He liked to paint and sing, but the other boys were more into football and stuff like that he put it. Most of the girls liked Kurt and he spent much of his time with them. The boys wanted to hang out with him to get closer to the girls, but Kurt hated the guts of those macho boys. Until Kurt was nine years-old he only listened to The Beatles and The Monkees, but in -79 his father joined a record-club and started listening to band like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and KISS.

He also stared listening to British alternative rock like Sex Pistols and The Clash. On February 2, 1981 Kurt bought his first guitar on his 14th birthday. In the years to follow he tried to develop his own style of music, and started to hang out in the Seattle underground, where he was a roadie for a band called the Melvins. In school Kurts attitude didnt win him many friends, he often got beatings from jocks, Kurt got even by spraypainting QUEER on their trucks. In May 1985 a few weeks before graduation Kurt dropped out of high-school to work.

He had a few jobs, but never any success. He never held onto a job for that long. For Kurt Amberdeen was dead and moved on to Olympia. He formed and reformed a series of bands before Nirvana came to be in 1986 of Kurt Cobain and Krist Novaselic. Kurt played the guitar and sang while Krist played the bass-guitar. They went through many drummers, two while recording their first record Bleach. This album only cost $606. 17, and has since then gone platinum. They later started to tour the US and later the same year had their first European concert in Newcastle, England.

The following year they released a single without much success. By now Nirvana thought that they had got an unfair advantage in the industry, they decided to change record companies form Sub-Pop records to Geffen records. It was at this time they finally had a drummer that would stay, Dave Grohl. On September 24th the same year Nevermind was released and debuts as number 144 on the Billboard lists, but after an interview on MTVs Headbangers Ball and an appearance on NBCs Saturday Night Live the album went straight to the top spot with their hit song Smells like teen spirit.

Kurt had never expected the band to be so popular and didnt even like the idea of being a mainstream rocker. He had hated the commercial part of Nirvana and had several times encouraged the audience to stop buying their records and stop coming to their concerts. Kurt thought most fans were false fans and only liked their hit single Smells like teen spirit. During this time Kurt stared using heroin, he said he used it as a shield from the rigorous demands of touring and to stop the pain of stomach ulcers. Cobain was distressed to find out that what he wrote and how it was being nterpreted could quite often be miles apart.

He was appalled when he found out that Polly , a heavily ironic anti-rape song, had been used as background music in a real gang-rape. He later appealed to fans on the Incesticide liner notes If any of you dont like gays or women or blacks, please leave us the f*** alone. Kurt found that as an overnight musician control was something he had very little of. He also worried that his band had sold-out, that it was attracting the wrong type of fans (i. e. the type that used to beat him up. ) On January 24, 1992, Kurt got married to former stripper Courtney Love in Wakiki, Hawaii.

She is now known for her band Hole. Six months after their marriage Courtney gave birth to their child, Frances Bean. In the press there were allegations that while pregnant Courtney was using heroin, Courtney denied this. In the beginning of 1993 they record what was to be their last studio album, In Utero. This album was recorded in two weeks, but wasnt released for another six months, due to the work-title I Hate Myself And I Want To Die. This title reflects the fact of Kurt being suicidal. When on a seminar in July -93 he overdosed on heroin. Courtney injected him with an illegal drug to save him.

Later that day he went onstage and played a concert, no one noticed anything. From that point Kurts drug abuse got out of control. Courtney threatened to leave him if he didnt get treatment for his abuse. He agreed, but didnt last long at the rehab center. He escaped form the center although it was voluntary. He said it was a place for retards or something. In the beginning of 1993 Nirvana played an MTV Unplugged concert, they played songs that as Kurt said were his influence growing up. Rumors circulated that he MTV Unplugged compilation would be Nirvanas last album and the band was splitting up.

Then in the winter of 1993-94 Nirvana embarked on an extensive European tour. Twenty concerts into the tour Cobain developed throat problems and their schedule was interrupted while he recovered. While recovering Kurt flew to Rome to join his wife who was also preparing to tour with her own band. On March 4th Kurt was rushed to the hospital in a coma after an unsuccessful suicide in which he washed sown about 50 Rophynol (strong prescription sedative) with champagne. He had also left a note that said You dont love me anymore. Id rather die than divorce you.

The suicide was officially called an accident and was not even made known to close friends and associates. When Kurt came out of his coma Courtney was there and said Id never divorce you. Youre crazy. She also said Id follow you through hell. , she was about to. Several days later he returned to Seattle. Things only got worse, Kurt had started doing speed and had stopped bathing. He dressed in hunting gear and roamed the house with a shotgun. On March 18th Courtney called the police, Kurt had locked himself in the bathroom with a unch of guns.

When the police got there they confiscated four guns, 25 boxes of ammo, and a bottle of pills. Later Courtney called Exodus Recovery Center, they had agreed to come and pick up Kurt. When they arrived Kurt refused to go, the tenants wrestled him outside. He was spitting in the face of anyone who came near screaming F–K YOU!!! They said that they couldnt force him to go, if you love him you will go and he will follow they told her. She checked into the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel, she had Frances and her nanny, Jackie, with her.

Kurt would call, he would nod off on the phone. He also told her that he would check in, but wandered Seattle instead. March 30th Kurt and Dylan Carson, Kurts old friend, went to Stans Gun Shop and Kurt bought a Remmington Model 11 20-gauge shotgun, Dylan said he didnt know Kurt was suicidal and believed him when he said he wanted it for protection. Kurt went home and stashed his prize, then went and checked into the rehab center in Las Angeles. Courtney was forbidden to visit him for three days. On April 1st Jackie, the nanny, brought Frances to visit her father.

He played with her and called Courtney and said Just remember, no atter what, I love you. A few hours later he climbed the walls at the rear of the hospital. When Courtney found out she went to rock stars and got drug dealers numbers and went to see them to make sure Kurt wasnt there. Kurt had gone to LAX and flew to Seattle. When he arrived Kurt went straight home. On April 2nd Kurt took a cab downtown and purchased 25 shotgun shells at Seattle Guns. He then tried to call Courtney, but he was blocked by the hotels switchboard eventhough Courtney said to hold all calls except those from her husband.

On April 5th he took Chim-Chim, a reasured plastic monkey he had shown a decal of to Courtney when they first met, and put it in a secret place where Courtney would find it days later. He left the TV on and retrieved his shotgun, climbed the stairs to the greenhouse. He locked one set of French doors and wedged a stool beneath the others handles. Looking out over dreary Lake Washington Kurt smoked six cigarettes and drank some root beer. He then scratched a note to Buddha, an invisible childhood friend, then Kurt injected a triple-dose of heroin. Before it could kill him he put the shotguns barrel into his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

Martin Luther was born in Eisieben, Germany, on November 10,1483, St. Martin’s Day. He was the son of Has Luther, a coal miner, and Margarethe. Martin’s parents were of the middle class and were unbending in their disciplinary acts. He attended the best schools in his region but all of them held to the barbaric discipline system of the times. This had a big impact on Martin’s personality. But he did receive some positive influence from his home environment. His parents were very pious people and brought him up to be one too. His parents also gave him a strong sense of superstition.

At the age of 14 Luther went to grammar school at Magdeburg. There he got attracted to the Church and particularly the Lollards. Then in 1498 he moved to Eisenach and came in contact with a warmer church life than he was use too. He also made some important friends here including Fran Ursula Cotta. He really started going into the Church works when he attended the University at Erfurt. He was a very diligent student and quickly rose through the academic ranks. Meanwhile his father upon hearing of his son’s achievements had great hopes for him.

Luther was preparing to be a lawyer to some prince or town after he received his degree in philosophy. But halfway through his training he decided to quit and take up life permanently in an Augustine monastery. Historians speculate on why such a successful young man would want to join the monastery. Historians believe a string of events led Luther to choose the path of the Church. Being superstitious, Luther might have thought that this was god trying to get him to join the monastery. Luther made hid decision to go into the monastery during a thunderstorm. A bolt of lightening hit just a few feet away from him and threw him up into the air.

He saw this as an act of god and joined the monastery. Later he and his father would look back and wonder whether it was God or the devil. His methods of teaching were a bit unorthodox but had a natural talent for speaking to the masses that listen to him. He often used vulgar language in his classes and had liberal ideas that he preached. His vulgarity came from a few things. First of all he was constipated and often talked about it in class. He related dirt to sin and obsessive about being clean. He like many other people of his time was driven by worries of being saved.

He always felt that he did not do enough to receive salvation. He felt unworthy of receiving salvation and this left him unsure of his afterlife. He looked for ways to prove his worthiness to the Lord. He thought that no mere mortal could approach the majesty and holiness of God. There for he thought one couldn’t obtain salvation from doing many good works, but rather through faith in the almighty. This revelation of Luther’s gave him great relief. It told him that the God freely gives people his grace if only one has faith. So Luther stopped worrying about doing penance for his sins.

He came to an understanding of salvation called “justification by faith”. As he meditated on his new philosophy he thought of all the ideas that would later pit him against the Catholic Church. Luther was one of the greatest contributors of the Reformation. He posted his 95 theses on the Church door for the world to see. He was not afraid of the Church and openly spoke out against its evils. He didn’t take back his word when it was certain he could die during his appearance before the emperor at the Diet of Worms. He started Lutheranism and inspired others to speak out against the Church.

Gaileo Galilei’s father, Vincenzo Galilei (1520-1591), who described himself as a nobleman of Florence, was a professional musician. He carried out experiments on strings to support his musical theories. Galileo studied medicine at the university of Pisa, but his real interests were always in mathematics and natural philosophy. He is chiefly remembered for his work on free fall, his use of the telescope and his employment of experimentation.

After a spell teaching mathematics, first privately in Florence and then at the university of Pisa, in 1592 Galileo was appointed professor of mathematics at the niversity of Padua (the university of the Republic of Venice). There his duties were mainly to teach Euclids geometry in order to make use of astrology in their medical practice. However, Galileo apparently discussed more unconventional forms of astronomy and natural philosophy in a public lecture he gave in connection with the appearance of a New Star (now known as “Kepler’s supernova”) in 1604.

In a personal letter written to Kepler (1571 – 1630) in 1598, Galileo had stated that he was a Copernican (believer in the Theories of Copernicus). No public sign of this belief was to appear until many years later. In the summer of 1609, Galileo heard about a spyglass that a Dutchman had shown -1- in Venice. From these reports, and using his own technical skills as a mathematicians and a workman, Galileo made a series of telescopes whose optical performance was much better than that of the Dutch instrument.

The astronomical discoveries he made with his telescopes were described in a short book called Message from the Stars published in Venice in May 1610. It caused a sensation. Galileo claimed to have seen four small odies orbiting Jupiter. These last, with an eye on getting a job in Florence, he promptly named the “the Medicean stars. ” It worked, Soon afterwards, Galileo became “mathematician and Natural philosopher,” to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. In Florence he continued his work on mation and on mechanics, and began to get in disputes about Copernicanism..

In 1613 he discovered that when seen in a telescope that Venus that Venus showed phases like those of the moon, and therefore must orbit the Sun and not the Earth. This did not enable one person to ecided between Copernician system, in which everything goes around the sun, the Tychonic the one in which everything but the Earth and Moon goes around the sun which in turn goes around the Earth. Most astronomers of the time in fact favored the Tychonic System.

However Galileo showed a marked tendency to use all of his discoveries as evidence for Copernicanism, and to do with great verbal as well as mathematical skill. He seemed to make a lot of by making his opponents look like fools. Moreover not all of them were fools. -2- These eventually followed some expressions of interest by the Inquisition. Prima facie, Copernicanism was in contradiction with Scripture, and in 1616 Galileo was given some kind of secret, but official, warning that he was not to defend Copernicanism.

Just what was said on this occasion was to become a subject for dispute when Galileo was accused of departing from this undertaking in his Dialogue concerning the two greatest world systems, published in Florence in 1632. Galileo, who was not in the best of health, was summoned to Rome, found to be vehemently suspected of heresy, and eventually condemned to house arrest, for life, at his villa at Arcetri. He was also forbidden to ublish books. By the standards of the time he had got off rather lightly.

Galileo’s sight was failing, but he had devoted pupils, and he found it possible to write up his studies on motion and the strength of his evidence. The book Discourses on two new sciences, was smuggled out of Italy and published in Leiden in the Netherlands in 1638. Galileo wrote most of his later works in vernacular, probably to distance himself from the conventional learning of university teachers. However, his books were translated into Latin for the international market, and they proved to be immensely influential.

John Marshall was born in Fauquier County, Virginia on September 4, 1755. He was the first son of Thomas Marshall and Mary Randolph Keith. His role in American history is undoubtedly a very important one. As a boy, Marshall was educated by his father. He learned to read and write, along with some lessons in history and poetry. At the age of fourteen, he was sent away to school, and a year later he returned home to be tutored by a Scottish pastor who lived with the Marshall family. As a young college student, John Marshall was particularly impressed by the lectures of professor George Wythe.

Wythe was a lawyer, judge, and a signer of the constitution. Other students of professor Wythe were Thomas Jefferson, John Breckinridge, and Henry Clay. Marshall became a lawyer at the age of twenty five. As Brian McGinty says about Marshall in the article, “His first cases were not important, but he handled them well and made a favorable impression on his neighbors; so favorable that they sent him to Richmond in 1782 as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates. ” He became a prominent lawyer and was on his way to a successful future. Mr. Marshall worked under the administration of John Adams starting in 798.

He was offered the position of attorney general under George Washington’s administration, but declined because he wanted to stay with his family and practice law in his home town of Richmond, Virginia. He was one of three delegates sent to France by John Adams in 1798. His reasoning for taking the job in France was partly because it was only a temporary mission and also because he wanted to be of service to his country, aiding in peaceful relations with France. When he found out that France expected to be paid, he was outraged and believed they were soliciting bribery.

Although the mission to France was a failure, he returned to the US a hero. Marshall was appointed to the position of secretary of state by John Adams in 1800. He was put in charge of foreign affairs and was often left in charge of the government when Adams was gone. Then, later that year, he was appointed to be chief justice of the US by Adams before Thomas Jefferson took over the presidency. Thomas Jefferson soon took office and John Marshall was now chief justice. Although the two were distant cousins, they held very different positions and belonged to opposing political parties.

Jefferson believed that the constitution should be interpreted strictly to keep the government’s power relatively low. In the article, Mr. McGinty sums up Marshall’s views of what government should be: “Marshall believed in a strong central government, in the Constitution as the key to the laws of the land, and in courts as the supreme custodians of those lawsviews that would influence his shaping of the Supreme Court. ” Marshall believed that the Constitution should not be interpreted as strict, allowing the government to become more powerful.

Possibly the most important case of its time was Marbury vs. Madison in 1803. In this case, John Marshall’s ruling set an extremely important precident. His ruling declared that a law was unconstitutional, therefore setting a precident giving the Supreme Court the power to declare laws unconstitutional. Because of this ruling alone, John Marshall is a very prominent figure in American history and American law, but his acheivements do not end at that. During John Marshall’s life, and particularly during his reign as chief justice, the power of the judicial branch became equally powerful to the other branches of the US government.

“We could describe (Heinrich) Schliemann’s excavations on the hill of Hissarlik and consider their results without speaking of Troy or even alluding to it,” Georges Perrot wrote in 1891 in his Journal des Savants. “Even then, they would have added a whole new chapter to the history of civilization, the history of art” (qtd. in Duchene 87). Heinrich Schliemann’s life is the stuff fairy tales are made of. A poor, uneducated, and motherless boy rises through his hard work and parsimonious lifestyle to the heights of wealth (Burg 1,2).

He travels the world and learns its languages (“Heinrich Schliemann”), takes a beautiful Greek bride, and together they unearth the treasures of Troy and the citadel of Agamemnon, thereby fulfilling the dream he has chased since childhood (Calder 18,19; Burg 8). Indeed, by presenting his life in romantic autobiographies as a series of adventures, starring Heinrich Schliemann as the epic hero (Duchene 14), he ensured his status as a lasting folk hero and perennial bestseller (Calder 19).

The reality was that Heinrich Schliemann was an incredible con man, a generally unlikable braggart who succeeded only because of his queer mix of genius and fraudulence. He had a shylock’s conscience when it came to business dealings, and his shady methods pervaded both his life and his archaeology (Burg, 15-31). Schliemann had a habit of rewriting his past in order to paint a more dramatic picture of himself.

Among the events he reported that have been found to be grossly untrue are his tales of being entertained by the American president Millard Fillmore and his wife in 1851, and his narrow escape from the San Francisco fire of that same year (Traill 9-13). More disturbing is when he applies these tactics to his archaeology. In December of 1981 Professor David Traill, a Latinist, concluded that the “Treasure of Priam”, Schliemann’s ost impressive find at Troy, was actually a composite of several small finds uncovered from beyond the walls of the city.

Schliemann had collected the pieces from 1871 to 1873 in order to produce a single find large enough to earn him the respect of fellow archaeologists, and also permission from the British to excavate at Mycenae (Calder 33). Twenty years of research led the Traill to the belief that, “the question is no longer whether but rather to what extent we should distrust Schliemann’s archaeological reports” (Traill 6).

However, the modern scholars’ assessment of Schliemann as a fraud and a psychopath (Calder 36-37) unfairly detracts from the importance of what he discovered and innovated as an amateur archaeologist (“Heinrich Schliemann: An Objective View of a Flawed Man of Genius”). Schliemann himself once wrote, “If my memoirs now and then contain contradictions, I hope that these may be pardoned when it is considered that I have revealed a new world of archaeology. The objects which I brought to light by thousands are of a kind hitherto never or but rarely found.

It was an entirely new world for me; I had to learn everything by myself and only by and by could I attain the insight” (qtd. in Duchene 45). Even Traill comes to the defense of Schliemann’s contributions; “The greatness of his achievements and their enduring significance are beyond dispute” (Traill 97). Schliemann rediscovered an important site occupied from the Early Bronze Age until Roman times that whose levels of strata most likely contain the Homeric city of Troy (“Homeric Questions Part III -Archaeology- 9/06/98”).

He put the science of stratigraphy to practice and innovated archaeology by building off of the processes of his predecessors. His digs at Mycenae led to Sir Arthur Evans’s discovery of the city of Knossos and the lost civilization of the Minoans, precursors to the Myceneans (“The Minoan Costume”). Neither the Minoans nor the Myceneans had existed in anything other than ancient papyri before Heinrich Schliemann; he is considered the father of both Aegean archaeology and Greek studies (Duchene 81).

Heinrich was born on January 6th, 1822 to Ernst and Luise Schliemann in Neu Buckow, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Germany (“Heinrich Schliemann: Heros and Mythos”). Luise would die in childbirth in1831 at the age of forty, humiliated by her husband’s affair with the family’s servant girl. The liaison, combined with allegations of stolen church funds, would cost Ernst his job as the Lutheran minister of the hamlet of Ankershagen in 1832 (“Heinrich Schliemann: Heros and Mythos”). The church’s authorities allowed him to keep his undeserved government pension, which he would use for nights of heavy drinking and lavish gifts for his lover (Burg 2-7).

Though Schliemann wrote autobiographically that his first archaeological interests in the ancient city of Troy were piqued at the knee of his learned and doting father (Burg 4), this could hardly have been the case. Schliemann would later write of his father, “Just the thought of being such a man’s son fills me with fury” (qtd. in Duchene 27). His filial relationship affected him deeply; most of his quirks resulted from the trauma of his childhood; indeed, his drive to succeed can be attributed to his resolve to be a better man than his father (Burg 10).

Schliemann was sent at eleven to his uncle’s home in order to be educated at Karolinaeum Gymnasium. It was there that he came under the tutelage of the brilliant philologist Karl Andress, who first recognized Schliemann’s remarkable ability to quickly learn foreign languages (Burg 7). After three years his uncle could unfortunately no longer afford Heinrich’s education, and the boy was forced to go back to his father’s home at the age of fourteen (“Heinrich Schliemann: An Objective View of a Flawed Man of Genius”).

Almost immediately after his wife’s death, Ernst had married another servant girl, Sophie, and the two made an unfortunate couple (Duchene 17). They could live neither with nor without one another, and often quarreled terribly. Schliemann soon left the house again, and apprenticed himself to a grocer in nearby Rostock (Burg 12). One day after work he ran into Herman Niederhoffer, a schoolmate who had been expelled from the Gymnasium for misconduct. Herman recited Homeric stanzas to Heinrich in return for shots of vodka.

Though he could not understand a word, the melody of the language intrigued him, and Schliemann decided then that he must learn Greek (Burg 10). During this time Ernst was brought to court after his young wife locked herself in a neighbor’s barn to avoid a beating, and he was ordered to either treat her more civilly or face a hefty fine. Heinrich often wrote to his sisters of the deplorable conditions that the duo lived in, and he took commercial courses in double bookkeeping and English so that he would be able to leave the area altogether and find work in commerce (Burg 10, 11).

In September of 1841, he set out for the bustling port of Hamburg. Hamburg drained the youngster of both his funds and his physical well-being. He was prone to coughing fits and regularly spat up blood. No company in Hamburg wanted to hire the weak youth. Schliemann’s life took a dramatic turn when he met a friend of his late mother’s, who offered him a job in Venezuela. Schliemann jumped at the chance, and set out on the voyage that would alter the course of his unhappy life (Burg 15-16). After three weeks of rough sailing, the ship was ripped in two in a violent storm.

The crew and passengers washed ashore on the Dutch island of Texel, and Schliemann used this opportunity to receive charity money from both the Consul of Texel and his benefactor (Burg 17). He used those funds to live and work in Amsterdam until a position at a bulk commodities exporter had been established for him in Hamburg. Realizing that this would give him an edge in that country over his other business associates, he set about learning Russian, and soon he was sent to St. Petersburg to open an agency for his company there (Duchene 20).

Schliemann did remarkably well there because of his business strategies; he purchased everything cheaply in bulk and had no middle men , so he was completely in charge of all aspects of each trade. As Schliemann’s wealth began to grow, so did his ego. His accomplishments in business fed his arrogance, which gave him the courage to do things that others would not have attempted (“Heinrich Schliemann: An Objective View of a Flawed Man of Genius”). He began to become boastful and sharp in his business dealings with his parent company as he became internationally known in the business world.

A letter to the company’s manager illustrates his unconcern with the effects of his brashness; “First and foremost, I would like to congratulate you and your lady upon the engagement of your daughter to Mr. Hermann Schroeder. But where in Heaven’s name is the 50 tons of sugar I ordered under promise of immediate delivery by steamer? ” (qtd. in Burg 28). Soon the young member of the nouveau riche branched out on his own. In 1852 he married a Russian woman, and from the beginning their marriage went poorly.

Katerina Schliemann was frustrated with her husband’s miserly preoccupation with his business, and Heinrich’s wanderlust was frustrated by his wife’s refusal to travel beyond Russia. Within three years they had decided to keep separate bedrooms. His disillusionment with her was passionate and obvious; “How utterly reality, that grim specter, has destroyed my joyful hopes of yesteryear! You do not love me, and that is why you refuse to join in my happiness and remain indifferent to both my joys and my sorrows. You oppose me at every step, at every turn; worse, you accuse me of crimes that exist only in your imagination!

Even thinking of it sets my hair on end and makes me shudder” (qtd. in Duchene 26). They had several children together, however, and Schliemann doted on them as he ignored his wife (“Heinrich Schliemann: An Objective View of a Flawed Man of Genius”). Meanwhile, Heinrich’s fortune had more than doubled. In his leisure time he studied both modern and ancient Greek. He took lessons from a Greek theological student, Theokletos Vimpos, who would later introduce his niece, later Schliemann’s bride, to his friend (Duchene 30).

His passion for the ancient world soon replaced his passion for business. “I believe a man can live without business activities,” Schliemann wrote to his father in 1857, “and before settling down I would like to see the countries of southern Europe, particularly my beloved Homer’s homeland, where I will speak the new Greek language the way I speak German” (Duchene 30). That year found Schliemann in Sweden, Denmark, and Constantinople, sailing the Danube from St. Petersburg, crossing the Dardanelles into the Middle East, and then journeying up the Nile to Cairo.

As he was starting for the island of Ithaca, he received word that he must return immediately to Russia to face charges of fraud brought against him by a bankrupt debtor. Two years later, the lawsuit was won on appeal, and Schliemann found himself in the possession of more money than he had ever dreamed of. “At last I was in a position to fulfill the dream of a whole lifetime-to visit at my leisure the theater of events that had so powerfully interested me. I accordingly left and visited one by one the sites where the poetic memories of Antiquity are still so fresh” (qtd. Duchene 33).

Schliemann began his travels in Asia, and began the habit of keeping a wanderer’s journal. He wrote an account of his journey, China and Japan Today, for a St. Peterburg newspaper. The odyssey ended six months later in San Francisco, which he had visited ten years earlier following the death of his brother in California (Duchene 36). In 1866 Schliemann took up residence in Paris and began to study archaeology at Sorbonne. He also took courses in Asian languages, Egyptology, and Sanskrit.

In the beginning of 1868 he began attending the meetings of scientific societies, and in May took a pleasure trip to Italy in order to closely study the work of other archaeologists (Duchene 38). He traveled to the Troad after meeting fellow German Ernst Ziller, who told him of the excavations there and the differing theories related to where Troy actually sat. Schliemann first surveyed the site of Bunarbashi. With a translation of Homer’s works in his hand, he decided that Bunarbashi did not fit the description of the ancient city of Troy.

Bunarbashi was fourteen kilometers from the sea, and according to Homer the city could not have been separated from the port of Hellespont by more than an hour’s walk (Burg 68). Also, two springs were to have existed just outside the city, one frigid and one steaming. Schliemann found over forty springs there (Duchene 43, Burg 69). Most important to Schliemann’s theory was information brought to him by Frank Calvert, the son of the American vice-counsel in the Dardanelles.

Calvert had been digging trenches in another area on the Troad, Hissarlik, for several years, and had discovered that it was a tell, or artificial hill, that had been built up over centuries of occupation and rebuilding (Duchene 42, “Homeric Questions Part III – Archaeology – 9/06/98”). Schliemann returned to France jubilant, convinced he knew the location of the lost city. In Paris that September, Schliemann finished work on Ithaca, the Peloponnese, Troy, a sort of guide to the area and its history.

In it, he celebrated the archaeological genius of his friend Calvert, but saved the lion’s role for himself. It was the last time that Calvert would receive anything but a few poor words in Schliemann’s report. He would become the unsung hero of the digs at Hissarlik; Schliemann’s work would later earn him a doctorate from the University of Rostock in Germany (Burg 73). Schliemann had returned to America earlier that year, and committed a fabulously untrue series of frauds in order to obtain a divorce from his wife there (Burg 74). Schliemann arrived in New York City on March 27, 1869.

Within two days he had bribed a man to record that Schliemann had been in residence in the United States for well over five years, and had lived in New York for a little more than a year. Thusly, Schliemann was able to attain U. S. citizenship only two days after he set foot on its shore for only the fourth time in his life (“Heinrich Schliemann: An Objective View of a Flawed Man of Genius”). He quickly traveled to Indiana, knowing that the state had lax divorce laws. In June he bought a home in Indiana for $1 125 and invested $12 000 in a local factory as proof of his settlement in the country.

But Schliemann had been planning to marry his friend and tutor Theokletos Vimpos’s niece in Greece since April, and had already sent word to her father announcing his intentions (Duchene 48). “I believe that a woman whose character agreed wholly with mine, and imbued with my own love for the sciences, could respect me. And since she would remain my disciple her whole life long, I dare to hope that she would love me firstly because I shall endeavor to be a good teacher and shall devote all my free time to helping her in her quest for philological and archaeological knowledge,” Schliemann wrote to Vimpos (qtd. Duchene 48-49).

Heinrich and Sophia Kastromenos were soon married, honeymooned in Paris, and then returned to Athens to begin preparing for the upcoming dig at Hissarlik. When they arrived in Greece, however, they were disappointed to find that the Turkish government had not yet granted them permission to dig (Duchene 49). Schliemann left his bride in Greece and illegally began digging two trenches at Hissarlik. There he uncovered coins, pottery, and other artifacts, as well as the remains of a wall, and evidence that the city was razed and rebuilt several times (“Troy”).

The digs were stopped after a month as the owners of the hill objected to Schliemann’s practices (Duchene 51). The first legal digs began on the eleventh of October, 1871. Torrential rains ended the work in November. Eager to reach the oldest layer and pressed for time, Schliemann had his workers sink a shaft thirty feet into the ground, and in the process of doing so they destroyed all strata earlier than 2000 B. C. Schliemann was quick to realize his mistake of not recognizing the importance of the “accumulated rubble”, which was evidence of human occupation from the prehistoric to Roman era (Duchene 55).

For his digs in 1872, Schliemann hired a French engineer and over 150 workers, and employed the process of stratification, which had never before been used for a major site. It involved careful horizontal digs of each layer of occupation, which helped to establish the chronology of the site (Duchene 55). Schliemann dispensed quinine to his workers every day, and acted as the doctor of the site, prescribing German folk remedies for the ailments of his men (Burg 96). Unfortunately, malaria struck the camp in mid-August.

But just as the digging was to come to a halt, Sophie Schliemann uncovered a skeleton decorated with three silver armbands and several earrings of gold, silver and electrum. This find boosted the morale of the camp and the zeal of its archaeologist. Unfortunately, continued digs in the area produced nothing else (Burg 97). Schliemann spent the next few months in Athens, dejected. But he was determined to continue his search soon, for several of the items that had been uncovered seemed important enough to justify further digs (Duchene 57).

A section of wall that was found was identified by Schliemann as the fortification built by Lysimachus, lieutenant of Alexander the Great. Digging past that wall, the crew found fortifications that dated back to the 13th century B. C. (Duchene 56). Some anthropomorphic vases were found, whose necks were decorated with what Schliemann interpreted to be the face of an owl whose forehead supported a simple crown. These pieces were linked to the Ilian Miverna, whose symbol was the owl (“Western Anatolia and the Eastern Aegean”).

Also found was pottery decorated with unusual motifs that Schliemann felt could have been from the Trojan alphabet. But Schliemann’s desire to prove that the Homeric poems were historic truths led him astray; the pieces in question were recently carbon dated to 2600 B. C. (Duchene 57). The most spectacular find of his 1872 dig was the Sun Metope, which had belonged to the famous Doric structure of the Temple of Athena. The temple had dominated the Ilium during the Hellenistic period at the level dubbed Troy IX (Duchene 62,105).

The sculpted marble panel was found on land owned by Frank Calvert, who asked that he be recompensed for it. Schleimann gave Calvert about two hundred dollars for the piece, and was quoted a month later giving its worth at one hundred and fifty times that price (Duchene 63). Relations between the two men had never been close; the metope fiasco set the two men responsible for the discovery of Troy against each other (Burg 98). The third digging campaign began in 1873. At this time, the archaeological world was still not convinced that the site was Troy. In fact, Schliemann was a sort of joke to the archaeological community.

He was receiving no support, financial or otherwise, from his peers. Instead, hundreds of letters poured in accusing him of being a dimwit, madman, and fraud (Burg 103). Schliemann was unfazed. Ever the self-promoter, he published Trojan Antiquities in Europe and then continued with his field work (Burg 113). Schliemann decided to concentrate on the layer of strata known as Troy VI. He had found the remains of a fortress measuring 325 feet in diameter there, and within a few weeks of a digging he had uncovered a gate and a portion of the defensive walls of the second settlement (Duchene 63).

Schliemann believed that this was the Scaean Gate, the famous entranceway to Troy where, according to Homer, Paris had killed Achilles (“Troy: 4000 year old Ancient City”). Three major phases of development were found at this level. The first wall was built entirely of mud brick, the second was a thin stone wall, and the third and latest wall was made of tightly-fitted ashlar blocks. The walls seemed to have been a continuous public works project, probably ordered by the king (“Troy VI”).

Schliemann was particularly impressed with the pottery of that time. Ninety-eight different shapes of vessels were found, and only eight of these shapes had been in use in any earlier time. Most of the Trojan pottery was matte-glazed gray ware, similar to gray ware later found on mainland Greece from the Late Bronze Age. Schliemann carefully sketched each vessel in his working notebook, making detailed notes about the major cultural break between the Troy V level and the much more advanced Troy VI civilization (Duchene 55).

Schliemann would find that the late pottery of Troy VI echoed the tan ware he would find years later at Mycenae (“Troy VI”). In the large central fortress, Schliemann found an inner royal citadel, the site of the king’s palace, the foundations of what were the city’s chief temples, and the residences of the king’s officials (“Troy VI”). Littered within the eight-roomed citadel, Schliemann reportedly found over 250 gold pieces that he dubbed “the Treasures of Priam” (Duchene 63), and reported that they were from the collection of the legendary king.

It is now believed that these pieces were actually a sort of grab-bag of finds from all over the site, used by Schliemann to make a splash in the papers and gain respect from the archaeological world (Calder 33). The collection, however it was found, remains outstanding. The pieces modeled by Sophie Schliemann in her famous photograph are particularly amazing; the gold necklace she wore consisted of over 8 700 separate pieces (Duchene 67). They were displayed in London in 1877, and Schliemann and his wife then became honorary members of the elitist Society of the Antiquaries in Burlington House (Duchene 66).

Following their museum tour, the pieces found a permanent home in Berlin, from where they were stolen by the Russians following World War II. They resurfaced in the Pushkin Museum in the 90’s, and have since been dated to 2250 B. C. , which makes it impossible for them to have been in King Priam’s treasures (“Lost Treasures of Troy”). Schliemann was convinced that the secrets of Troy could be fully revealed after the citadel at Mycenae was excavated (Duchene 72). Mycenae was the seat for the king of mainland Greece, Agamemnon, who was the brother to the husband of the beautiful Helen.

After Helen ran away with Paris, son of King Priam of Troy, Agamemnon gathered his best fighters, including Achilles and Odysseus, and sent them overseas to destroy the Trojans (“Troy: 4 000 year old Ancient City”). Schliemann hired a young German architect and archaeologist, Wilhelm Dorpfield, to assist him at Mycenae. Dorpfield had in 1876 illustrated the royal necropolis of Mycenae for a colleague of Schliemann’s (Duchene 68). Schliemann had once criticized Dorpfield’s painstaking level-by-level approach to archaeology as he felt that the archaeologist should immediately plunge to the level he was most interested in.

Now he relied on Dorpfield’s rigorous methods for his upcoming Mycenae project instead of his own gold-digging ways (Duchene 69; “DIE FORSCHUNGSPLANUNG VON HEINRICH SCHLIEMANN IN HISARLIK-TROIA UND DIE ROLLE WILHELM DORPFELDS”). Schliemann’s excavations had begun at the legendary palace-fortress of Agamemnon in February of 1874 (Burg 124), and he was once again using Homer as his guide. He also used the work of the 2nd century Greek geographer Pausanias, which led him inside the Mycenaean acropolis to find the royal tombs of Agamemnon (Duchene 72). Once again, scholars were skeptical of Schliemann’s method.

The Times of London reported, “no one will find tombs within citadel walls, unless the man who destroyed Troy dug graves there under the cover of night” (qtd. in Duchene 72-73). Under pressure, the Greek government had called off Schliemann’s excavations (Burg 122). After two years of bickering and bargaining, Schliemann was able to secure a permit to excavate (Duchene 73). Since the excavation was carried out under the auspices of the Greek Archaeological Society, Schliemann was forced to suffer under the direction of a young Greek archaeologist named Panagiotis Stamakis.

Schliemann did everything he could to annoy his superior; he even went so far as to write his excavation reports in English to prevent Stamakis from deciphering them (Duchene 74). Schliemann sank several shafts near the compound’s Lion Gate, and found a grave circle within the citadel. Overjoyed, he quickly had the five shaft graves uncovered, and within the first lay a golden mask. Schliemann believed that he held in his hands the burial mask of King Agamemnon (Duchene 74).

Later that month, the remaining death masks would be uncovered, along with golden chalices, seals, vessels, and daggers. I have the greatest joy,” he cabled to the King of Greece, “to announce to your majesty that I have discovered the tombs of Agamemnon, Cassandra, Eurymedon, and their companions In the sepulchers I have found immense treasure in archaic objects and pure gold. By themselves alone these treasures are enough to fill a great museum, which will be the world’s most wonderful and which for centuries to come will draw thousands of foreigners from all countries to Greece” (qtd. n Duchene 75).

Early in 1878, Mycenae was published, and it detailed in a blend of fact and romantic fiction Schliemann’s excavations and finds. The book impacted Greek studies greatly, and opened up the new field of Mycenaean studies (Duchene 80). But Schliemann did not stop there. He and Dorpfield moved on to Tiryns, where he believed he would find the palace of Diomedes (Burg 178). After six years of digs, they published the hastily thrown together Tiryns, but both realized that they had only touched on the importance of the site.

Excavations in the early 1900’s by Sir Arthur Evans would reveal at Knossos Tiryns’ sister palace, the seat of King Minos. From these digs it would be proven that a civilization known as the Minoans, the predecessors of the Myceneans, had existed in splendor for several centuries (Duchene 96-97, “The Minoan Costume”). Schliemann would die in December 1890 while negotiating the right to dig at Knossos (Duchene 108). Schliemann’s work continues to be carried on at the Troy site, funded by several German automakers.

His assistant, Dorpfield, would later prove that Troy VI was too early to have been Homer’s Troy; the debate over which layer holds the fabled city, if any indeed do, continues to rage on today (Duchene 108-109). At the 100th anniversary of Schliemann’s death, a conference was held by Calder and Traill, which sparked the debate over Schliemann’s embellishments of the truth, and the integrity of his finds (Calder 17-18). Unfortunately, the controversies can not be satisfactorily resolved at this time. Thus, Heinrich Schliemann remains as legendary and enigmatic as any of the Homeric heroes that he idolized.

Frederic Francois Chopin was born in Zelazowa-Wola, near Warsaw, Poland. No one is exactly sure about his birth date; he was born on February 22 or March 1, 1810. He was very gifted when it came to music and was playing the piano in public by the time he was eight years old. Soon after that he was composing music! When he was about sixteen, he studied at the Warsaw Conservatory and went to school there from 1826 to 1829. He left Poland in 1830 and settled in Paris in 1831. He lived in Paris for the rest of his life, except for some traveling.

There he became well known in the fashionable salons, even though he barely ever performed in public. The first person that Chopin fell in love with was Maria Wodzinski. He had known her family since his childhood and fell in love with Maria in 1835 when she was sixteen. He proposed to Maria, but her family did not want them to get married, probably because of his chronic illness. In 1836, the composer Franz Liszt introduced Chopin to Mrs. Aurore Dudevant, a French novelist whose writing name was George Sand. After meeting her, he said, “I have met a great celebrity, Madame Dudevant, known as George Sand…

Her appearance is not to my liking. Indeed there is something about her which positively repels me… What an unattractive person La Sand is… Is she really a woman? I am inclined to doubt it. ” His first impression of her must not have lasted, because he had a famous love affair with her, starting in 1837. Their relationship was very tragic and was the most influential and devastating development in his life. They went to the Mediterranean Island of Majorca for the winter of 1838 to 1839. The bad weather he experienced at Majorca weakened his already failing health.

The most intense of his piano pieces were composed during the nine years that he lived with George Sand. During this time he was seriously ill with tuberculosis so she nursed him and for a short time he regained his health. Their affair ended in 1846 when they had a big disagreement, one of the last of the many quarrels they had over the years. It is strange that Chopin did not dedicate any of his published works to either of the two known loves of his life, Maria Wodzinski and George Sand. During his courtship with Maria he dedicated a manuscript of the Waltz, Op. 69, No. 1 to her, but this work was not published until after his lifetime.

Of course, he never hesitated to dedicate the exact same work to other women in later years. When Chopin lived with Sand, it was common knowledge among members of high society in Paris. Chopin probably felt that a public dedication to Sand would not be acceptable to Parisian society. Chopin is one of the masters of piano composition. Not many people now understand what types of music he played by just reading about it, because they dont know what the words mean. For his solo piano works he wrote three sonatas, four ballades, four large-scale sherzos, about forty mazurkas, and about fifteen polonaises.

Sonatas are composed having three or four movements in different forms. A ballade does not have a strict formal design like most instrumental compositions. Chopins mazurkas are music for a lively Polish folk dance written in time and his polonaises are also in time. A polonaise is a slow and stately dance where there is a promenade march of couples. For his other solo works there are more names of music that many people in the present may have never heard of. He wrote over twenty-five etudes, eighteen waltzes, a barcarole, a berceuse, a bolero, a fantasie, a tarantella, and several rondos.

An etude is a piece of music that is intended to develop skill in technique, like a practice piece; Chopin composed his etudes with artistic imagination so that it could be performed in public concerts showing good taste or artistic value. The barcarole is very interesting because it imitates a boat song with a lively and cheerful rhythm, sung by the gondoliers or boaters in Venice. A berceuse is composed with the qualities of a lullaby. A bolero is for a lively Spanish dance in triple time and seems like a lot of fun. A fantasie had no strict form so Chopin must have composed it however he liked.

The tarantella is the music for a rapid Italian folk dance which was originally in 4/4 time, now usually in 6/8 time. The dance was performed by a couple twirling rapidly and was once thought to be a cure for tarantism, a nervous disorder characterized by a large impulse to dance. The rondo has one main theme and after the introduction of each sub-theme, returns back to the main theme. Chopin was a very creative musician because of the wide variety of music that he made. The Slavic folk harmonies and rhythms show his connections with Poland.

He has a lot of Polish nationalism but his music has just as much French or other international styles as Polish. Since he was a nineteenth century composer and in the Romantic era, his music had more emotion. He loved soaring melodies and the how his right hand played like it was singing. He had a great ability to take traditional forms of music and infuse them together in an intimate and intensely emotional way. Chopin also taught piano from 1832 to 1849, after he had settled in Paris. He divided his time equally between teaching and composing, swapping from summer to winter for each.

For six months out of the year, Chopin would have five students a day on average. He would teach from early morning to half of the afternoon, spending about forty-five minutes to an hour with each student. Sometimes the lessons would last for several hours straight to instruct gifted students that he really liked. Some people would have one class a week, and a lot of times two or three, depending whether Chopin was available or how much they could afford to pay. Chopins lessons were in great demand and expensive, but sometimes he would offer them nearly free or he would offer a lot of extra lessons.

He had about 150 students, but many people that claimed to have been taught by Chopin may have only received advice or claim that to look good, so the real amount was most likely a lot smaller. The students he taught came from all over Europe: France, Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Bohemia, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, Sweden, and Norway. Chopin only gave about thirty public performances in his lifetime and all of his other performances were for small private audiences. The money from teaching was his main income, for only six or seven of his public concerts in Paris or Scotland made a good enough profit.

His fame comes almost entirely from more than two hundred of his solo piano compositions. He not only did piano, but also wrote several for the orchestra and chamber music for small groups of instruments. One of Chopins works that everyone has heard at least once is Funeral March. It was written for pianoforte in B flat minor in piano Sonata Op. 35, No. 2. It was composed in 1837 and is a very depressing but good song and it has the perfect title. It has been used for many movies in scenes where a character is about to be executed. Two years before Chopins death, his relationship with George Sand had completely fallen apart.

After this, his only musical activity was giving concerts in 1848 in France, Scotland, and England. He was so heartbroken at the loss of her that she was said to be the cause of his death. Even though he continued to compose, he became increasingly ill and was eventually too sick to work. He died suddenly on October 17, 1849 at the age of thirty-nine. He was buried in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris. It is sad that Chopins career was cut short and no one will ever know what masterpieces he may have created if he had lived longer. Many of the people in Paris that supported him during that time felt this way too.

Dmitri Mendeleev was one of the most famous modern-day scientists of all time who contributed greatly to the worlds fields of science, technology, and politics. He helped modernize the world and set it farther ahead into the future. Mendeleev also made studying chemistry easier, by creating a table with the elements and the atomic weights of them put in order by their properties. Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev was born in Tobolsk, Siberia, on February 7, 1834. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy was the son of Maria Dmitrievna Korniliev and Ivan Pavlovitch Mendeleev and the youngest of 14 children.

Dmitris father, Ivan died when Dmitri was still very young and Dmitris mother, Maria was left to support her large family. Maria needed money to support all her children, so she took over managing her familys glass factory in Aremziansk. The family had to pack up and move there. Maria favored Dmitri because he was the youngest child and started saving money to put him through college when he had still been quite young. As a child, Dmitri spent many hours in his mothers factory talking to the workers.

The chemist there taught him about the concepts behind glass making and the glass blower taught him about the art of glass making. Another large influence in Dmitris life had been his sister, Olgas, husband, Bessargin. Bessargin had been banished to Siberia because of his political beliefs as a Russian Decembrist, (Decembrists, or Dekabrists as they were known in Russia, were a group of literary men who led a revolution in Russia in 1825. ), so he spent most of his time teaching Dmitri the science of the day.

From these people, Dmitri grew up with three key thoughts: Everything in the world is science, from Bessargin. Everything in the world is art, from Timofei the glass blower. Everything in the world is love, from Maria his mother. (Dictionary of Scientific Biography. p. 291. ) As Dmitri grew older, it became apparent to everyone that Dmitri understood complex topics better than others did. When Dmitri turned 14 and entered school in Tobolsk, a second major family tragedy occurred-his mothers glass factory burned down to the ground.

The family had no money to rebuild the factory, except for the money that Dmitris mother had saved for him to attend a university. Maria wasnt about to give up her dreams that she had for her son and she knew that Dmitris only hope to go on to school was to win a scholarship. Maria constantly pushed Dmitri to improve his grades and prepare for his entrance exams. At a very young age, Dmitri had already known that he wanted to study science and decided to pay very little attention in classes such as Latin and history.

He believed that these topics were a waste of time and he wouldnt need him in his career as a scientist. After much pleading from his mother and Bessargin, Dmitri passed his exams and prepared to enter the university. In 1849, Maria packed up her life and family and moved to Moscow, because there was nothing left for them in Aremziansk anymore. They settled in a city with a considerable amount of political unrest, which meant that the universities there were very reluctant to accept anyone from outside of Moscow. Dmitri was rejected.

Maria still had hope for him, so she then took her family and moved to St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg was in the same state as Moscow, but the family found an old friend of Dmitris father working at the Pedagogical Institute, his fathers old school. After a little persuasion, Dmitri was allowed to take the exams and passed with grades that landed him a full scholarship. Dmitri entered the universitys science teacher training program in the fall of 1850. Maria died very soon after Dmitri was accepted to the university and so did his sister, Elizabeth. Both died due to tuberculosis.

Dmitri was left alone to face his work at the university and he immersed himself in it. His studies progressed rapidly for three years, until he became ill and was bedridden for one year. During this year, Dmitri continued his studies by having professors and fellow students visit him and give him assignments, etc. Dmitri managed to graduate on time and was awarded the medal of excellence for being the first in his class. Dmitris illness did not improve and the doctors told him that he would have a maximum of two years left to live if he moved to a warmer climate.

Dmitri had many goals for his future, so trying to extend his life as long as possible, he moved to Simferopol in the Crimean Peninsula near the Black Sea in 1855. At 21 years of age, Dmitri became the chief science master at the local school. This move to the south highly improved his condition and began regaining health to the point where doctors could no longer find any signs of disease in his body. In 1856, Dmitri returned to St. Petersburg to defend his masters thesis: Research and Theories on Expansion of Substances Due to Heat.

After this, Dmitri focused his career on teaching and research. Dmitri was devoted to two things: First, his work and his students. Second, his country and his fellow men. His first love led him to write many books and to organize the periodic table, while the other gave rise to the studies of chemical technology and the organization of Russias industries, agriculture, transport, meteorology, and metrology. (Makers of Chemistry. p. 267. ) In 1859, the Minister of Public Instruction assigned him to travel to study and develop scientific and technological innovations.

Between 1859 and 1861, Dmitri studied the densities of gases with Regnault in Paris and then he studied the workings of the spectroscope with Kirchoff in Heidelberg. Later, Dmitri went on to study capillarity and surface tension. This led to his theory of an absolute boiling point, which we know now as critical temperature. While studying in Heidelberg, Dmitri made an acquaintance with A. P. Borodin, a chemist who achieved greater fame as a composer. In 1860, at the Chemical Congress in Karlsruhe, Dmitri got the opportunity to hear Cannizzaro discuss his work on atomic weights.

All these people had great influence on Dmitris work, which he would pursue for the rest of his life. After traveling around Europe, Dmitri returned to Russia and settled down to devote his life to teaching and research in St. Petersburg. In 1863, he was made Professor of Chemistry at the Technological Institute and, in 1866, he became Professor of Chemistry at the University and was also made Doctor of Science there for his lectures on The Combinations of Water and Alcohol. Dmitris research findings were expansive and very beneficial to the Russian people.

Much of his lab work was done outside the classroom, on his own time and he truly enjoyed educating people and himself. Dmitri not only taught in classrooms, but he also gave lectures to whoever would listen on his journeys. When travelling by train, Dmitri would sit with the peasants (also known as the mouzhiks) and share his findings about agriculture over a cup of tea. Peasants and university students alike adored him and gathered around and filled lecture halls to hear him talk about chemistry. Throughout Dmitris whole life, he believed that science was always the most important subject.

In the fragile state of Russia during that time, though, science also touched upon the subjects of politics and social inequality, in which Dmitri openly expressed his views on these topics. The thoughts that he came up with over these topics led Dmitri to discover the periodic law, but it also led to his resignation from the University on August 17, 1890. Up until this point, Dmitri continuously witnessed his country be repressed and suffer and he decided to use his newfound prestige and power to speak out against repression. To resign from the university, Dmitri had to carry a student petition to the Minister of Education.

The Minister refused to allow Dmitri to leave because he believed that he would be better at teaching than involving himself with students and politics. Dmitri was finally allowed to resign after delivering his final lecture at the University of St. Petersburg, where police broke it up because they feared that it might lead the students in an uprising. Dmitris personal life was very turbulent as well. In 1863, due to his sister, Olga, greatly influencing him, Dmitri married Feozva Nikitchna Lascheva. Together they had two children, a boy named, Volodya, and a girl named, Olga.

Dmitri had never really loved Feozva and spent little time with her. Theres a story that suggests that at one point in their marriage, Feozva asked Dmitri if he was married to her or to his science. In return, he responded that he was married to both, unless that was considered bigamy, in which case, he was married to science. In January 1882, Dmitri divorced Feozva so that he could marry his nieces best friend, Anna Ivanova Popova. The Orthodox Church considered Dmitri a bigamist, but he had become so famous in Russia that the Czar said, Mendeleev has two wives, yes, but I have only one Mendeleev.

Czar Alexander II, Discovery of the Elements, The. p. 111). Anna was much younger than Dmitri was but they loved each other very much and were together until death. They had four children in total together, Liubov, Ivan, and twins, Vassili and Maria. Anna also influenced Dmitris views on art considerably and he was elected to the Academy of Arts because he was thought to have insightful criticism and for his painting. As Dmitri grew older, he cared less and less about his personal appearance. In his later years, Dmitri would only cut his hair and beard once a year. He wouldnt even cut it at the Czars request.

It was apparent that Dmitris work was his first and only priority. Dmitri also believed that education was of the utmost importance, so he published many books. In 1854, he published his first book, Chemical Analysis of a Sample from Finland. His published his last books in 1906, A Project for a School for Teachers and Toward Knowledge of Russia. The first edition of Principles of Chemistry was printed in 1868 and in 1861, at 27 years old, he published his most famous book, Organic Chemistry. This book won him the Domidov Prize and put him about of other Russian chemists.

Both these books were used as classroom texts. All in all, all of Dmitris transcripts that involved his research findings and beliefs totaled well over 250 ideas. Other than working on general chemical concepts, Dmitri also spent much of his time trying to improve Russia technological advances. Many of his research findings dealt with agricultural chemistry, oil refining, and mineral recovery. Dmitri was also one of the founding members of the Russian Chemical Society in 1868 and he helped open the lines of communication between scientists in Europe and the United States.

Dmitri also did studies on the properties and behaviors of gases at high and low pressures, which led to him developing a very accurate barometer and further studying in meteorology. Dmitri was also interested in balloons. His greatest and most well known accomplishment was the stating of the Periodic Law and the development of the Periodic Table. From the beginning of his career in science, Dmitri believed that there was some sort of order to the elements and spent more than thirteen years of his life collecting data and assembling the concept.

He wanted to do this in order to clear up some of the confusion about the elements for his students. Dmitri was considered one of the first modern-day scientists because he did not use only his own work and discoveries, but communicated with other scientists around the world to receive the data that they had collected. He then used all the data that he had and gathered to arrange the elements according to their properties. He believed that: No law of nature, however general, has been established all at once; its recognition has always been preceded by many presentiments.

The establishment of a low, moreover, does not take place when the first thought of it takes form, or even when its significance is recognized, but only when it has been confirmed by the results of the experiment. The man of science must consider these results as the only proof of the correctness of his conjectures and opinions. (Mendeleev, Eminent Chemists of Our Time. p. 28. ) In 1866, Newlands published a book filled with the relationships of the elements called, Law of Octaves. Dmitris ideas were similar to Newlands, but Dmitri had more collected data and went father along in his research than Newlands had done.

By 1869, Dmitri had assembled detailed descriptions of more than 60 elements and on March 6, 1869, a formal presentation was made to the Russian Chemical Society called, The Dependence Between the Properties and the Atomic Weights of the Elements. Dmitri could not deliver this presentation due to an illness and his colleague Professor Menshutken had to do it for him. There were eight key points to the presentation: 1. The elements, if arranged according to their atomic weights, exhibit an apparent periodicity of properties. 2.

Elements which are similar as regards their chemical properties have atomic weights which are either of nearly the same value (e. g. Pt, Ir, Os) or which increase regularly (e. g. K, Ru, Cs). 3. The arrangement of the elements, or of groups of elements in the order of their atomic weights, corresponds to their so-called valences, as well as, to some extent, to their distinctive chemical properties; as is apparent among other series in that of Li, Be, Ba, C, N, O, and Sn. 4. The elements which are the most widely diffused have small atomic weights. 5.

The magnitude of the atomic weight determines the character of a compound body. 6. We must expect the discovery of many as yet unknown elements-for example, elements analogous to aluminum and silicon-whose atomic weight would be between 65 and 75. 7. The atomic weight of an element may sometimes be amended by a knowledge of those of its contiguous elements. Thus the atomic weight of tellurium must lie between 123 and 126, and cannot be 128. 8. Certain characteristic properties of elements can be foretold from their atomic weights. (Mendeleev, Asimovs Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. 408. )

On November 29, 1870, Dmitri took his concepts even further by realizing that it was possible to predict the properties of undiscovered elements. He made predictions for three new elements (eka-aluminum, eka-borno, and eka-silicon) and stated their properties of density, radii, and combining ratios among oxygen, just to name a few. Scientists were puzzled by these predications and many shunned them. Dmitris ideas were finally taken seriously when in November, 1875, a Frenchman, Lecoq de Boisbaudran discovered Dmitris predicted element, eka-aluminum, which he decided to name Gallium.

Later on, the two other elements were discovered and their properties were found to be very close to when Dmitri had predicted. This justified his periodic law and his predictions. At 35 years old, Dmitri Mendeleev was at the top of the science world. Throughout the rest of his life, Dmitri received numerous awards from different organizations, including the Davy Medal from the Royal Society of England in 1882, the Copley Medal, the Societys highest award in 1905, and honorary degrees from different universities around the world.

After Dmitri had resigned from the University of St. Petersburg, the Russian government had appointed him the Director of Bureau of Weights and Measures in 1893. This had been done to keep public disapproval of the government down. Until his death, Dmitri had been considered a popular social figure. In his last lecture at the University of St. Petersburg, Dmitri said: I have achieved an inner freedom. There is nothing in this world that I fear to say. No one nor anything can silence me. This is a good feeling. This is the feeling of a man.

I want you to have this feeling too it is my moral responsibility to help you achieve this inner freedom. I am an evolutionist of a peaceable type. Proceed and a logical and systematic manner. (Mendeleev, Encyclopedia of Chemistry, The. p. 711. ) Dmitri was a man who rose out of the crowd to lead his people and followers into the future. The motto of Dmitri Mendeleevs life was work, which he stated as: Work, look for peace and calm in work: you will find it nowhere else. Pleasures flit by they are only for yourself; work leaves a mark of long-lasting joy, work is for others.

Mendeleev, Short History of Chemistry, A. p. 195) On January 20 1907, at the age of 73, while listening to a reading of Jules Vernes Journey to the North Pole, Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev floated away, peacefully, for the last time. He was a genius of his time and made a significant amount of contributions to his people and the entire world. He helped modernize and set a faster pace for education in science, technology, and politics. He also taught others the benefits of hard work and to always believe in yourself and to stand behind and voice your opinions no matter how radical they may seem.

Dylan Thomas was born on October 14, 1914, in Upland, Swansea. His father, David John Thomas, received a degree at University College Aberystwyth and was valedictorian in English, he taught English at Swansea Grammar School. His father, quick tempered and intimidating had a beautiful, sonorous voice for reading aloud (which Dylan inherited). Florence Hannah Williams, Thomas’s mother, was a tailor before she was married. Thomas was a troublesome child. He stole money from his mother’s purse, and lied about it. While his mother was in denial about this, his sister Nancy was becoming very irritated.

From 1925-1931,he attended Swansea grammar school, where his father taught. He was a small, pretty boy, and was bullied at school, until he became aggressive and rebellious. (Merric, 1) In 1931 seventeen year old Dylan Thomas left school and became a reporter on the South Wales Evening Post, although he was not successful. He reported a lacrosse game once, except that he was in a pub and the game had been cancelled! He was later fired. (Merric, 1) He began drinking around the age of fifteen. He would sneak into pubs with a friend. He later entered amateur dramatics, and appeared with his sister in Hay Fever.

In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Thomas was in a pub again, and missed his cue. (Merric, 1) In 1933, Thomas began publishing some of his poetry. He submitted a poem to a BBC competition, and it was read on the air. During 1934, he moved to London, where alcohol took over his life. While he was in London Thomas published his first volume of 18 Poems. This was his first taste of success. Three years after living in London he met his future wife, Caitlin Macnamara. (Merric, 1) Thomas’s first broadcast was in 1937 for the BBC. His job was to read other poets’ works on the air.

He began to read his own works with the company of well-known poets like Auden and Spencer. (Merric, 1) When WWII began, Thomas was worried that he would be drafted, fortunate for him he was judged medically unfit. Some of his neighbors thought that he was a “conchie” (“concienting” objector) and was often attacked. For a while he thought that he would have to work in a Mauritius factory. Thomas said, “deary me, I’d rather be a poet any day and live on guile and beer. ” Instead, he worked in a documentary film unit under one of John Griersons five disciples, Donald Taylor.

Thomas began to sober up and became serious and focused on his writing. During this time, he was living with friends, however it was said that he was abusing their hospitality. (Ferris 2, 59) During 1943, he began his career in freelance broadcasts on national radio. His voice was perfect. Being short of funds, Thomas always asked for his money in cash and in advance. In 1946, Thomas’s poem, Deaths and Entrances was a success for him and his publisher J. N. Dents. Soon he began touring through the United States. He was spending a lot of money on alcohol, was fired, and asked to moderate his lifestyle.

The number of people who showed up at his tour confirmed his reputation as a charismatic leader of poetry who was charming but disruptive. Thomas was a heavy drunk, and on his last show in the U. S. , he collapsed with alcohol poisoning, dying shortly after being taken to a hospital in New York. He was thirty-six years old. Dylan Thomas was buried at St. Martins Church in Laugharne. (Ferris 2, 61) Dylan Thomas was a man with a certain talent. He was a poet. Some say he was brilliant and others say he wrote nonsense. Whether he was a genius, or an idiot, we may never know.

However, many critics say he was a brilliant man who had a problem. On the other hand, some authorities feel his influence could have been derived from his Welsh background or from being an alcoholic. With many poets, love might have been another influence as well. “Religion, such as he knew it, was direct and natural; the symbolism of religion, as he uses it, is poetry, direct knowledge. Religion is not to be used: it is simply part of life, part of himself; it is like a tree; take it or leave it, it is there. ” – Karl Shapiro (Cox, p. 26) In order to understand Thomas’ poetry you have to understand his religious background.

Karl Shapiro says that it is essential to know Thomas’s religious beliefs, otherwise you do not know what Thomas’s thoughts are reflecting on or from where they are coming. (Cox, p 27). He also says that religion is not something Thomas does, it is what Thomas is, and therefor religion is going to be part of his poetry, because that is what he knows. Puritanism directed Welsh life and thought. The Puritanism influence was inescapable. (Walters, p. 6) An example of his religious poetry is the poem Incarnate Devil. It is about the Garden of Eden, and the snake, representing the devil, trying to persuade a man to eat the forbidden fruit.

The fruit is god in disguise, and he comes from this fruit and turns into a fiddling warden. This poem has biblical influence including the Garden of Eden. Thomas could not have been inspired from anything but religion when he wrote this poem. Thomas’ Welsh background was a direct influence on his poems, also along with the Welsh culture and tradition were the Anglo-Welsh writers that affected him. (Moynoban, p. 74). Geoffrey Moore wrote in an article: The national felling engendered by so many hundreds of years of Welsh speaking survives now without the actual bond of language.

The harp of Wales sounds in the ears of Welshmen whether they are archdruids from Bangor or boyos from the back streets of Cardiff. Without being hopelessly mystical about race, one can with some confidence assert that both it and environment have an effect on the nature of a people and the art that springs from themthe spirit of place and of country is an inescapable influence. To this degree, and to the degree that Dylan Thomas opened himself to the scenes and people and manners of the place in which he was born, it is meaningful to talk about the Welsh quality of his work.

Thomas’ earliest works show his strong Welsh influence, but he was less aware of it. When he moved from Wales, he realized that his poetry was strongly affected by his Welsh culture. He felt himself belonging to his native culture. (Ferris 1, p. 67). In a note with his Collected Poems, he writes: I read somewhere of a shepherd who, when asked why he made, from within fairy rings, ritual observances to the moon to protect his flocks, replied: “I’d be a damn’ fool if I didn’t!

These poems, with all their crudities, doubts and confusions, are written for the love of Man and in praise of God, and I’d be a damn’ fool if they weren’t. (Cox, p. 29) Thomas was very careful to have evidence of his statement before setting it forth. His estimation of his poetry comes from his Welsh tradition, life, and thought. This tradition can be explained by Thomas’s confidence in his romantic and apocalyptic manner. “It was his Welsh environment which offered a background of thought and culture fostering belief in the more primitive, mystical, and romantic conception of the poet”.

A feature of old Welsh poetry is the duality of nature, of unity in disunity, of life and death, and of time as an eternal moment rather than as something with a separate past and future. The basis of this is an oxymoron. (Thomas, Dylan (Marlais), p. 17) The poem, Today, This Insect was written while Thomas was living in Whales, inspired from his Welsh experiences, and his Welsh background. Today, This Insect is about an insect and his loss of ability to write. It says that his thoughts are not producing any sense and this is resulting in the destruction of Genesis and Eden.

The Insect feels he is a monster and is being destroyed by his feelings, or thoughts. This poem is also about Thomas being an alcoholic. He came to terms in this poem, saying that his alcoholism is blocking his thoughts and he is destroying his Welsh religion. This is stated when he talks about the destruction of Genesis and Eden. The “monster” is himself when he is under the influence, and that is when he destroys himself. In some of Thomas’ later poems, the characters are portrayed as being between man and God, a prophet or a man mediating.

In the poems Author’s Prologue, Over Sir Johns Hill, and Poem on his Birthday this is exemplified. The subjects in these poems are imbued with a special wisdom. (Thomas, Dylan (Marlais), p. 20) Thomas let alcohol consume him. His addiction began at age 15 and continued until it killed him. Drinking was an everyday event, stripping him of his money and ability to write. Some critics and poets of Thomas’ time say that his poems were too incomprehensible to understand. His poetry went from brilliant poems of love to ungraspable poems of wombs and tombs, and sex and corpses, to try to protect himself from the reality of adulthood.

While Thomas was a heavy drunk, his poems also had emphasis on birth, prenatal life, the relation of parent to child, growth, the relation of body and spirit, of life to death, of human and animal to vegetable, and similar themes. A poem that has some of these relationships is This Bread I Break, which talks about the growth of bread, it is not very clear what the poem is saying, but it follows the steps bread takes before it becomes a loaf. The poems he wrote with these themes remain confusing, disturbing, and never completely understood.

During his time, the most perceptive critics and poets had little idea of what his poems were about or what he was trying to say. Thomas’s poem, On a Wedding Anniversary, shows the relationship of a man and a woman, and how in spite of their love for each other, it is no longer lasting. He showed this with the description of a gloomy, stormy day, and described the closing of doors, which was symbolic of the lives of these two people. In another poem, The Tombstone Told When She Died, the death of a woman brings such pain to her true love that he spends his life thinking of her suicide and how he hurt her.

He goes back to her grave, kisses death on the lips, and joins his love. Thomas’s poems express great love and what people would do for each other. They are not all confusing and hard to understand, but lovely descriptions of what has gone on in the lives of many characters. His religious background influences most of his poems, and the others are from personal experiences or just from the heart. Some seem to think that alcoholism had an extreme influence on Thomas’s poetry; however, there is no real evidence, or strong argument that can actually hold to this.

The use of religion and Welsh background falls right into place. He speaks of God in many of his poems. Every poet is inspired someway by his or her background, which is inescapable. Moreover, Dylan Thomas does not speak of things that are totally irrelevant, only thoughts that are complex. Thomas shows strong Welsh and religious background in his poetry, along with some poems that are very far-fetched. The only direct influence on his poetry is his background. Being an alcoholic did not influence Thomas as much as some critics say.