The Culture of the 1990’s to 2001

Today, I was officially given the assignment to write about one of the lessons that was covered during this week. I couldn’t really decide what to write about, so I chose two things to write about. I chose to write about the 90’s and about something very important in 2001. I think that these, because they aren’t very far apart time-wise, are pretty much related. So, without any further adieu, let’s learn about the 90’s and 2001. (Just to put this out, this essay is more for a younger audience. However, if you were alive in the 90’s, please feel free to leave comments about any extra cool or fun facts about the 90’s.)

To start, the most important political change in the 90’s was the fall of the Soviet Union. This was pretty important because it pretty much marked the end of the Cold War, and it also meant that Russia would soon come into the picture as a world power. Now, the most important change inside of the U.S. in the 90’s was the Lewinsky Trial being reported by the magazine Newsweek. However, instead of publishing this article, they sat on it. They should have published it, because that could have been enough evidence to fully impeach President Clinton. However, because they sat on it, other magazines and reporters picked up the story but it didn’t have enough of an effect because the Clinton’s fought hard to cover it up.

To mark the beginning of the Computer Era, the Drudge Report was created. Today, there is a website called drudgereport.com/ which is basically news but online. So, instead of having so many left-wing news reporters and companies, which we still have, they introduced online news. However, this only really worked for a little while. Also, in order to make this all possible, computers and digital software became increasingly popular. However, they were not the same kind of computers that we have now, such as laptops and desktops. They had big bulky awkward computers that had green screens and the letters were blocky. These were pretty basic computers but, they were very powerful still. Actually, I learned that we have more powerful computers in our cell-phones, than scientists had when they sent men to the moon. So they had more power in the 90’s too.

The music of the 90’s was pretty diverse, it is pretty difficult to name the exact type of music that was the most popular, because they were all popular. So, I will list the three that I think were the most popular. The first was pop; the most popular groups of this genre include groups like Spice girls. Then there was Country, some people include Toby Keith and Kenny Chesney. Then there was Grunge. I think that the most popular of this genre is definitely Nirvana. I say this because they are popular, for teens, even now.

The most scary part of the 90s, for most people, was the Y2K scare. This was when everyone was worried that after December 31, 1999 the computers would malfunction and nothing would work anymore. This was very scary for people like my dad. Although, I think she was scared, my mom said that she wasn’t scared.

Since we have reached this point, I will now talk about September 11, 2001. Now, I know that most of you watch the memorials so you probably know all of this. However, I find it very important to reiterate this specific subject. So, for those of you who don’t know, on September 11, 2001 the terrorist group Al-Qaeda hijacked 4 planes and crashed them. Let’s talk about American Airlines flight 11. On flight 11, the terrorists hijacked the plane and flew it into the North Tower at the World Trade Center in New York City. The next flight hijacked was United Airlines flight 175 and this plane flew into the South Tower at the World Trade Center. These two towers fell down and took another building with it. There were about 8 towers  at the World Trade Center but only three of them fell. They were 1, 2, and 7. Nobody knows for sure why this building fell.

The next flight was American Airlines flight 77. This flight was hijacked and flew into the Pentagon. This killed 184 in that part of the facility. The next plane was United Airlines flight 93, which was hijacked but never reached its destination. This is because the passengers fought back against the terrorists and crashed the plane. Unfortunately nobody survived the crash. There are conspiracy theories about where the plane was headed. The most popular of which is, that it was headed to Washington D.C., however I think it was headed to the Statue of Liberty, as does my dad.

In conclusion, there some scary things that happened from 1990 to 2001. However, the scary things only made the U.S. stronger instead of weaker. This must have scared many people who were fighting against us, but that is good. Please like and subscribe for more from Homeschooled Hero!

Until next time, your friendly neighborhood Homeschooler…

Click here, to see the flight path of United Airlines flight 93.

Space Exploration and the 1970’s Recession

Today, I had to decide what to write about for my history class. I was told to choose one topic to write about, however there were two that really interested me so I decided to make a fusion of topics. The topic of Space Exploration is something that probably interested everyone at one point, but the recession of the 70’s is something a little less well-known. So, without any further adieu, let’s get into the essay.

Let’s start with Space Exploration, just to get you into the mood of the essay. The first country to get a man-made object into space was actually…. Nazi Germany. The fact that they were able to get to send something to space, while at war is amazing, but also very scary.

After Nazi Germany had sent their man-made object into space, a new organization was created. This organization was then called the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles or ICBM for short. Their purpose was to launch nuclear missiles to create a “mutually assured destruction” situation.

Later on, in the Space Race, the country with the most “firsts” to its credit was the U.S.S.R. (Russia). Unfortunately this means that they had done things before other countries had the chance to. Which, in the end, resulted in the U.S.S.R technically winning the Space Race. However we (U.S.) hold the first man on the moon to our credit. Speaking of people getting on the moon, want to guess how many people have stepped foot on the moon? I bet you guessed about 5, well that’s wrong… 12 people have stepped foot on the moon. The first of which was Neil Armstrong.

There was a group of space shuttles known as the 5 space shuttles. Can you guess what their names were? They were called: Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavor. Now, I know that I listed six. This is because of the Challenger disaster. The Challenger was launched to go to space, but it exploded before it even left the atmosphere. The thing that really made this incident super-famous was that there was a teacher on the shuttle going to space. Her name was Sharon Christa McAuliffe.

Now we will talk about the recession of the 1970’s. To start, the longest sustained period of growth in U.S. history, before 1990, was from 1961 to 1968. (Note that this is all information from 2013. This may be out of date.) Now this growth is growth in the economy. This is where the stock market was up and businesses are doing very well. This is a very long time for things to be running on time, so naturally it has to fall apart.

Now, there are four phases of the business cycle. These steps/phases are Expansion, Boom, Recession, and Depression. The recession has the root word recede. Recede means to move backwards. In this case it means to slow and start to backtrack on progress made. In this scenario, the recession is a very bad thing. This is because after the business has been doing so well, they didn’t see anything coming their way to stop them from doing so well, now they are going to lose a lot of what they just earned. This was the recession of 1969. Luckily this recession only lasted about a year is lasted from 1969 to 1970.

Then there was Nixon. Nixon was the president at the time, and he didn’t know what to do to stop this. So, he pulled the U.S. off of it’s fixed exchange rate for gold. This was probably a good thing, because the U.S.’s gold reserves started to shrink very quickly.

Meanwhile oil was being sold very cheap, because it was easy to get. However, after the Nixon Shock, OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) chose to cut back on its oil production, which in turn raised the price per barrel to $12.

One thing that President Nixon and Ford had in common was that they both tried to do something that was ultimately very bad. This is one of the problems that we have today, inflation. They both tried to continue inflation to get the economy back on its feet. So, this didn’t work for either administration and the people were not very happy that they even tried that.

The third highest period of oil prices in history, when you account for inflation, was in 1979 where the price per barrel was $24. That is just a fun fact that I thought would be important. (Plus it was in my video!)

In conclusion, Space and the 1970’s recession were both pretty important times in American history. They both had different end results, but they were both very significant. I hope that this essay broadened your understanding. Please like and subscribe for more. Also, be sure to Share your favorite essays and pieces to your friends!

Until next time, your friendly neighborhood Homeschooler…

Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union

Today I am writing about Joseph Stalin and his role with the Soviet Union. I am writing this essay for my 8th grade history class. Stalin was a bad leader but his bad leadership also had good side effects for the Soviet Union. He even has an approximate death toll for the time that he lead the Soviet Union. Now, without delaying any further, let’s delve into “Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union.”

Joseph Stalin was the Dictator of the USSR/Soviet Union from 1929 to 1953. Under the Dictatorship of Stalin, the Soviet Union went from peasant country to military superpower. While this may seem great and all, he had some strict rules over the people in the Soviet Union. If history had been different in the Soviet Union however, and Stalin didn’t come to power, the Soviet Union would not be where it is today. So, no matter how we look at this, Stalin had to take over Russia in order for  it to be in the state in which it is.

Stalin was not always someone higher than everyone. He was just a normal kid from the Soviet Union. He lived like almost everyone else in the entire country. Then once the Bolshevik Revolution broke out, Stalin began his rise to Dictatorship. To begin his rise, he was promoted to be part of the governing council.

As Dictator, Stalin establish that he was the best Dictator since the beginning of the Soviet Union. However as he tried to implement concepts of Communism, he failed. This is because Communism doesn’t work for anyone. Everyone thinks that sharing the cost of something is perfect but it isn’t. For example if you and one other live on an island, and you each have to collect coconuts for yourselves. At the end of the day you have collected 20 and the other person has collected 16, you would be forced to give them 2 so that you would have “equal” amounts. Then the next day, you would do less work, because your hard work would be shared with someone who doesn’t work hard anyway. This is a basic idea for why Communism doesn’t ever work.

While Stalin was Dictator, the Soviet Union suffered terribly. This is because he forced everyone to live the way that he thought that they should, which was wrong. This is because when you force someone to do something or live a certain way, you basically take away everything that they had thought was theirs. So, many people would resist this. Then, when Stalin would find out who it was, he would eliminate them.

Stalin had an approximate death toll of 10 million people in the countries of Russia and Ukraine. This is scary, because it meant that not only did he kill his own people, but he killed people in another country like 30 times smaller than his own. This is a massacre of 4 million people more than the Jews killed in World War 2. Also, he most likely ordered his own soldiers to kill more than that but died before the order was carried out… This makes me glad that I didn’t live in the Soviet Union while Stalin was Dictator. Actually, I am glad that I don’t even live in Russia at all.

Free nations fear Communism today and they did in the past as well. If you don’t know why, I will explain now. They feared Communism because Communism basically stands for everything other than what freedom represents. Communism is terrible and never works for any nation or country that has ever tried to use that system of government. This is not to say however than any other government is perfect because none is, but almost all of them are better than Communism.

In conclusion, Joseph Stalin was a dictator of the Soviet Union. He was a very bad person, but he did change the course that the Soviet Union was headed on. He took it from super poor to super powerful within his 24 years as dictator. Please like and subscribe for more from your friendly neighborhood Homeschooler. If you know of any consequences to using Communism, please tell me about them in the comments below.

Until next time, your friendly neighborhood Homeschooler…

President Ronald Reagan

Hey guys, today I am writing about the 40th President Of The United States. Ronald Reagan is considered by a large majority of Conservatives and Republicans, to be one of the very best Presidents in the history of the United States.

As I was doing my research, I realized that the current President, Donald Trump, seems to be very similar to Ronald Reagan. Actually, the day that I wrote my rough draft, I learned that Trump passed a bill that was very similar to a bill that Reagan signed when he was President. I hope that you guys see the similarities as well, but if you don’t feel free to leave a comment explaining why you feel otherwise. So without further adieu, let’s learn about Ronald Reagan.

Let’s start with his birth, Reagan was born on February 6, 1911. He was born in Illinois. Some personality traits that people commonly attribute to Reagan include his optimistic faith, and the fact that he always saw the best in people. Before World War 2, Reagan had held the jobs of a lifeguard, a radio announcer, and an actor. Let’s start with the lifeguarding. When Reagan was a lifeguard, he would never get his suit wet unless he was saving somebody, as were the rules at the time. He would actually have a wooden log that he would put notch into every-time that he would save somebody. Historians say that he saved around 75 people.

Now let’s talk about his radio announcer job. When Reagan was a radio announcer, he wouldn’t actually watch the games like announcers do today. This is a little strange, but there would be people at the game who would send telegrams with play-by-plays that Reagan would read into the microphone. One time, the telegraph information just stopped coming in, so Reagan had to stall. He started saying that the batter hit a foul and kept hitting them, until 12 which he thought was just ridiculous. Then, the machine turned back on and Reagan filled the nation in on the actual play-by-play. That was pretty scary for them, but I bet that Reagan had some fun.

Reagan was the first president to be elected out of a non-political position. He was an actor. Many people know that much, but some people don’t know this. They don’t know that Reagan was actually the first of two presidents to have been divorced. (The second is Donald Trump) Reagan’s first wife was Jane Wyman, he actually had a daughter with Jane, and he had to explain to her why her parents were getting divorced. However, he didn’t understand very well (Neither did his daughter) so that didn’t work very well. The divorce was completed in 1949. Then, in 1952, Reagan met his next wife Nancy Reagan. When he met Nancy, he was a Democrat but as time went on, he became a Conservative Republican. He also became a life member of the NRA (National Rifle Association). Another strange but cool connection between Trump and Reagan is that they are both the two oldest people to be elected president.

Many people don’t know this, but Reagan was actually the oldest president to be elected, he was inaugurated at 69 but the next day he turned 70. This was true until Donald Trump was inaugurated. Many people also don’t know that Reagan’s mom died of Alzheimer’s disease. This is probably why Reagan died of the disease himself.

Reagan’s legacy as a president is important to know. His legacy is as a firm and unswerving leader, which restored faith in the presidency after two decades of weak presidents, until Bill Clinton. When Bill Clinton went into office then the presidency started to slip again. However now that we have Trump, the economy seems to be changing in the same ways that it did when Reagan was president.

In conclusion, Ronald Reagan is arguably one of the top 3 best presidents in the history of the United States. I hope that you saw similarities between Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan. Again, if you didn’t leave a comment why not, or write a blog post on it and link to me! I hope that you enjoyed this essay. Please like and subscribe for more from Homeschooled Hero!

Until next time, your friendly neighborhood Homeschooler…

A Journey to the Past

On Monday, my family (excluding my mom) and I went to the MOSH (Museum Of Science and History) for the World War 2 Holocaust exhibit. Before we went there, my sister and I had no idea where we could be going. The only thing that we knew was that, the destination was near water. That hint didn’t help us much though, this is because we live in Florida. Here, you can barely take 5 steps without hitting a body of water. (Warning: Do NOT take this literally, you can take 5 steps.) Now, it turns out that the body of water is what’s known as, “Friendship Fountain” it would’ve taken me years to guess that!

Once we got there, one really cool thing that happened was that we got in for free. We only got in for free because of the Holocaust exhibit. The first thing that we did, before the Holocaust exhibit, was sea life. While we were there, we got to touch sea urchins. One of the sea urchins that we touched was known as a “pencil urchin.” That specific urchin felt really hard and stiff, luckily the “spines” weren’t spikey, they were rather dull. The other urchin that I touched was a little more spikey that the pencil urchin, it didn’t hurt but I feel like I cheated. The way that I “cheated” was that I used my calloused “guitar-fingers” just in case it was going to hurt.

There were two parts of the Holocaust exhibit, one was upstairs, on the second floor, and the other was on the first floor. Obviously, the first one that we went to was on the first floor. That one was telling the story of others through paintings. So, the room had paintings hanging on all of the walls and they also had a television going with a program that had people talking about their own personal experiences in the camps that the Nazis had put them in. One really sad thing that happened to someone was, they had gotten into the camp, and then their parents disappeared. Well, they noticed their parents missing and asked a Nazi, “Where are my parents?” and the Nazi pointed at some smoke coming out of a chimney and said, “You see that smoke? That’s where your parents are.” which makes me really mad that they would do something like that.

Another sad thing that happened to someone was, they got out of the camp, and they met someone who didn’t believe that the Holocaust had actually happened. Well, the person who had gotten out got really upset because they had to live through all of that. They had to deal with starvation and malnutrition just to hear someone say, “That never really happened!” This infuriates me because there is proof everywhere about all of this happening.  What I don’t get is how someone can learn all about this, and never know that this tragedy happened. What’s really sad is the fact that they weren’t even careful about who they said it to, they walked right up to a survivor and said that. You kind of have to be a special kind  of stupid.

The next part of the Holocaust exhibit was a timeline. The timeline was basically a bunch boards leading across the room explaining what happened beginning at the end of World War 1. THere was also a movie that you could watch that had the same information, minus a few details here and there. Well, since my family and I had already watched the movie, we decided to just read.

Along the way I learned a lot about the history of World War 2. One thing that I learned was that the Nazis would secretly sterilize black children. This was all part of their plan to create the perfect super race. (Speaking of a super race, that is the basis that the comic book hero Captain America is based upon.) The procedure made it so that the people would never be able to reproduce/ have kids. Another thing that I learned was that they would kill you if you were disabled and they would kill them regardless of if you were Jewish or not.

In conclusion, World War 2 was terrible, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t remember it. This is something that we need to know, because that way we can prevent anything like it to ever happen again. Be sure to subscribe to keep up with  the fast-paced, Homeschooled Hero! See ya next time!

Until next time, your friendly neighborhood Homeschooler…

One of the pictures that we saw in the first room.

         Entitled, “Three Sisters.” another painting we saw in the first room.

My One Sentence Story Idea

Hey guys, today I am writing my story idea for English. The only twist was that it had to be one sentence long. At first I was going to go into a different reality, but he told us that it would have to be America from the 1800s. So, based on that I have to come up with something very different. So here is my one sentence story idea:

George Carnegie, the long lost brother of Andrew Carnegie, immigrates to America but is lost from his family.

In this story we will follow George as he struggles to find his way throughout America, meeting some very fascinating and important figures throughout the way. Please be on the lookout for The Lost Brother. Only on Homeschooled Hero!

The American Civil War

The American Civil war was the bloodiest war in American history. This is proven because, it had a little over 600,000 casualties. That is more than all other wars starting from the American Revolution to Afghanistan. (Wow, right?!) Hey, I am Homeschooled Hero, and this is my essay, for history, on what I found most interesting about the American Civil war. I hope that you guys, and girls, enjoy this essay!

The Civil War wasn’t a war that anyone really wanted to fight. Not to say that anyone ever wants to fight in a war, but this one was definitely not like that. This war was fought because the Union, or the more commonly known “North”, was trying to take away the Confederacy’s rights to own slaves, among other things. The war was not started because the North wanted to abolish slavery, heck, even some of the Northerners had slaves themselves, hypocrites. The problem with this misconception is that, people start to think that the South was full of racists who don’t care for human rights. Some people in the south were that way though, but not everyone who owned slaves were bad to them. Most people, today, believe that every single slave owner was bad to their slaves, which is completely false! The thing is, some slave owners set up a way that when they died their slaves were set free! The problem with this is that it has to be written in order for it to work, and most people didn’t know that, so then people stole the slaves when the person died, and now (today) people think that these men and women only ever tortured slaves. The other thing that people get wrong about this war is that, Blacks or “African Americans” were the only people being discriminated against. Well, I have news for you, Asians were being discriminated against too. They were actually treated a little bit worse than blacks were.

The first “battle” of the Civil War was the battle of Fort Sumter. This fight took place in, duh, Fort Sumter in South Carolina. One of the contributing factors to start this battle, was Abraham Lincoln, the current president, not making a stand for either sides of the conflict. This really made both sides mad. Lincoln wasn’t a true supporter or abolitionist towards slavery. He thought that he should just try to preserve the Union, unfortunately this kind of blew up in his face. Instead of his actions keeping the two sides of the conflict together, the two sides split apart. Thus creating the first major step in the opposite direction that Lincoln wanted to go. The next step, to really kickstart the war, was the battle at Fort Sumter. Well, the general of the Confederacy knew that the fort was open for the taking. He also knew that if he could keep his supplies coming, he would be good for a little while. Well, the fort was in South Carolina, a Union state, and the Union hadn’t announced war against the Confederacy, and vice versa. Then the general moved his troops into the fort without the consent of anyone else higher up. The Union then began to complain to Lincoln so much that Lincoln had to take action. Lincoln asked and then ordered the troops to leave the fort. The general didn’t move his troops out so, Lincoln brought his fleet, in the water, to intimidate them to come out. The soldiers still didn’t move out. So, Lincoln ordered a barrage on the fort, there ended up being a 34- hour long barrage. The troops eventually did leave the fort. Luckily nobody died until, on accident, one person hit a mine and died because of it, thus really starting the war.

One thing that makes me really mad is when people say that Lincoln’s main goal was to abolish slavery. This makes me mad because it is completely FALSE! He wasn’t an abolitionist, he wasn’t a supporter, he was just a man who had been elected president and wanted to keep the United States, united. The problem is that people always want to believe whatever they heard from somebody who was misinformed.  People these days tend to believe what others tell them without fact checking it first. This is why people always think that Lincoln was an abolitionist. Since people just “buy into” that stuff, I get angry and people then say that I am a racist and that I am trying promote slavery.

One of the things that I am supposed to be writing about, is my favorite part about the war. Well, I don’t think that you can have a sane reason for why you have a favorite part of any war. Except for maybe the ending. Then, if that is the case, that’s fine. I guess that my favorite part of the war was the surrender of Robert E. Lee. The reason that this is my favorite part is because, it shows the start of a country mending wounds dealt from both sides of this conflict.

What I really thought was interesting was that Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant both looked up to each other. Even though they were on opposite sides of this war, they still looked up to each other. Since they looked up to each other, Grant made Lee’s surrender conditions as light as possible considering the situation. I thought that was cool because he did that. I don’t if anyone else would do that if they were in his shoes. The next cool thing that happened was, the Union army gave the Confederacy some of their rations for the march back home. Then, around 4 pm, the Confederacy began it’s long march home and the Union began cheering over their victory. Now, I didn’t see anything wrong with this until Grant made a great statement, “Stop men, we don’t cheer over the loss of our own countrymen.” I thought that this was a great thing to say because it really showed the process of bringing the United States back together again. I am, personally, really glad that this wasn’t like “Humpty Dumpty,”   because if that were the case, we would not be in the great place that we are today.

In conclusion, I think that the American Civil War was very important for history. If this event hadn’t occurred,  life wouldn’t be the same and people would definitely not be the same. I don’t know what I would do if this war hadn’t gone on because then a lot of American history would be missing. I don’t even know if we would have slaves or if I would be a slave. All in all life would be way different than it is today. Please like and leave comments! Let me know what you thought of this essay via email, or the comments below. Don’t forget to subscribe for more.

Until next time, your friendly neighborhood Homeschooler…

Abraham Lincoln

Today I am writing about the life of our 16th POTUS (President Of The United States) Abraham Lincoln. I am writing this essay for my History class. Now, most you know of Abraham Lincoln because of his work trying to free the slaves. Or, some you may know him because of his assassination  by the hands of John Wilkes Booth.

Lincoln was, obviously, the 16th President. He was born in 1809 in Kentucky to Thomas  and Nancy Lincoln, at the time one of the wealthiest farming families. Unfortunately the Lincolns faced some legal problems and lost their land. Once this happened Thomas Lincoln moved his family to Indiana.

Lincoln’s education was a rather strange one. Most people thought that maybe he was taught in a school or by his parents but no. He was actually, for the most part, self-taught. He had very little schoolhouse learning. I think that he must be very good at self-teaching because, he even taught himself law! One of the reasons that Lincoln was successful in that field was because of his immense size. He often scared other lawyers with his height of 6”4’ and his brawn. He was also a pretty good lawyer for being self-taught.

One of Lincoln’s most famous speeches was the House Divided speech. Based on the time period, I think most of you can guess what this speech was about but if you can’t, here it is. It means that, Lincoln was just realizing that in this conflict, one side had to come out on top. Otherwise the country was going to be torn apart. Although, Lincoln wasn’t the best President, by any means, he still did his part in trying to keep the country as a whole, mostly.

Lincoln had a series of debates with a man named Douglas. These were called the Lincoln-Douglas debates. There were seven total. They were publicly spoken and recorded on paper by the news. The news for both sides did edit their sides words to make it seem better than it was and then left the other sides words alone. This way they make their side look better than the other side and thus, promote your views.

Lincoln didn’t have a big position on slavery for most of his life. He only made his position once he was President. Although, that’s true he didn’t make it immediately either. He wanted to try whatever he could to stop the war to come. I think that this was a good idea because it significantly delayed the war from happening. If he had chosen his position earlier the battle would have gone on sooner and probably would’ve been over faster too. Lincoln’s position was anti-slavery, but he wasn’t a major abolitionist like most people at the time were.

Lincoln’s primary goal as president was not to abolish slavery, like most people think. His primary goal was to actually prevent a war between the states. He was trying whatever would work so that he could keep the country out of conflict at the time. Obviously, that didn’t work. He didn’t think that abolishing slavery was the best idea but it wasn’t the worst either.

When Lincoln was killed, it sent a message to all of America. This was the first time a President had been assassinated in public, and it scared people. The culprit was none other than John Wilkes Booth, a leading slave owner. His original plan was not to kill the President but to kidnap him first. I guess that plan was thrown away.

In conclusion, Lincoln was a pretty good President. He did have his ups and downs but so does everyone. He was self-taught so maybe he even taught himself how to be a good President. Please like and subscribe to my blog if you would like to read more from me. If you didn’t enjoy this please leave a comment explaining why and what you think would make it better. Thank you!

California Gold Rush

Today I am writing about the California Gold Rush for my history class. This is one of the most amazing and well known events in American History. I think that this was probably one of the best and worst things to ever happen to the citizens of America in that time. I only think that because the men had to leave their families and some of them couldn’t get back home because they were too poor or died or something along those lines.

Many people think that California was the only place where gold was found in high increments, but they are wrong. The first place to actually have a gold strike was North Carolina in the year 1799. I don’t know a lot about this gold strike but I do know that California made a bigger commotion than North Carolina. Although there was a lot of gold in the area, too many people went to get the gold so it ran out fast and not many people struck it rich with gold. Since this was the case, many people were not able to get home to their families. Many people would assume that the news of the gold strike spread super fast just because so many people went to get the gold, but that isn’t true. The news actually spread rather slowly, it took an entire year before the news got to all of America at the time.

Seeing as though the gold struck in California in 1848 and took an entire year to travel, the people who went to California were given a special nickname. The nickname given was the “49ers.” They were called this because most of the people went to California in 1849. I think that this is a clever name for that time, also there is a football team named after the 49ers.

Since there were so many people going to California, they had to have many routes to get there. They actually developed three major routes to get there. The three major routes were:

• Overland by the Oregon and California Trails (about 1 year)
• By water around Cape Horn in South America (about 8 months)
• By water through the Isthmus of Panama (about 1 month)

Unfortunately, not everyone got to get into California to search for the gold. Some people did in fact get to but the majority didn’t. The majority of people were sent away from California without actually collected any gold at all. I think that this is wrong because, these left their families and don’t get anything to bring back to them. They probably don’t even have the money to get back to their families for several years. If I was sent away from California at this time, I would at least like someone to pay me back for all of the money I spent, not to mention the time I lost from my family. (Leave in the comments how you feel about this!) Also, not everyone was sent away, some were allowed to come in but never found anything. These are the people that resulted in banditry, stealing others’ gold, and drunkenness. This caused a great disruption for the men and boys who were trying to find gold by panning, and mining, etc,.

One interesting thing about this movement was the population of California. California, remember, was a newly founded territory until 1850. Since this was the case, the population would definitely have been lower than other states would have been. For example, in the year 1848, the population of California was roughly 1,000 people. After the gold strike however, the population of California skyrocketed. In 1850 the population was close to 20,000 people. Then, in 1860, 10 years later, the population was about 379,994 people, which is a 410% increase since 1850. (Let me know what you think of that in the comments 🙂

In conclusion, the California gold rush was a very important event. I think that the ideology of Manifest Destiny (read Westward Expansion) even played a part in this. I think that may be a reason for why the population went up so fast, besides the hope for more gold. Please tell me what you thought of this post and I will get back to you. Like or dislike please and stay tuned for more from the Homeschooled Hero.

Until next time, your friendly neighborhood Homeschooler…

Westward Expansion

Today I am writing about the Westward Expansion for my history class. The Westward Expansion was when most of the American people decided to move to the west. This was allowed and supported by the Manifest Destiny. The Manifest Destiny was the ideology that all American Settlers were destined to eventually expand throughout the continent.

Most of the settlers lived far to the east. While this may be true, most of the settlers left from Missouri when they were heading west. I don’t exactly know why this is the fact but, it may be because when the settlers decided to move, they wanted Missouri to go first since they were closer. The Westward Expansion, I think, was a good thing but when you look closer it wasn’t all that good. Well, when you think about it, “More Land!? Heck Yeah!” but, when you move from your area, you take other people’s land. The Indians, or Native Americans, were being severely taken advantage of. When the settlers moved over west they basically took away Indian land. The worst part is that the land was promised to the Native Americans.

One of the most popular routes to get west was the Oregon Trail. The Oregon Trail was the trail that developed in Louisiana near the Mississippi River to get to Oregon. The people that developed the Oregon Trail obviously wanted to earn their money back, so they created a way to entice the settlers to go to Oregon. The easiest way to get people to move was to give them a lot of land  for cheap. The people really liked that idea and they were soon on their way to get to Oregon. At this time, unfortunately, automobiles and trains were not invented yet. So, the settlers had to travel in carts which had to be packed with everything needed. The carts were then put into a long line, which was then called a train. They did this so that nobody would be stuck in the back by themselves. They didn’t want anyone disappear. I think that this was a very intelligent idea seeing as though they have to fill the space that was bought.

The Oregon Trail was a road straight to Oregon, but there were some variations made to the trail. The two main variations made were the California and Mormon trails. The California Trail is pretty obvious to where it goes, but I will tell you anyways, it goes to California. The Mormon trail however, is a different story. The Mormon Trail led from Nauvoo, Illinois to Salt Lake City, Utah. I don’t think that anyone could have just guessed that from the top of their heads.

There was also another trail that connected with the Oregon Trail around that time. This trail was known as the Santa Fe trail. (Want to guess where this trail goes? You guessed it, Santa Fe, New Mexico.) This trail was actually developed in 1821 in Missouri. I think that the idea for having all of these trails was so that people could get to many different places without having trouble and having to take back routes and stuff. The whole concept of a trail makes sense especially for the people of this time.

Time to go to Texas, Texas is a big buffalo state. At this time, the people of Texas had to get those buffalo to Kansas. This is because they needed to get cattle to railheads from their ranches. The problem was they were passing through states with different animals. The problem with this is that the cattle from Texas is immune to certain ticks and other parasites that the other animals are not immune to. So, what ends up happening is that the animals end up getting sick and the cattle die. That being said, they decided to create a trail to bypass those states called the Chisholm Trail.

In the end, the westward expansion was a good thing until the mid-19th century. The reason is because eventually the Transcontinental Railroad and the start of the Industrial Revolution began. The Transcontinental Railroad actually made most of these trails obsolete. If you like this essay please subscribe for more. Also, please like or dislike this essay and leave a comment why. I appreciate you staying and reading, stay tuned for more from Homeschooled Hero!

Until Next time, your friendly neighborhood Homeschooler…