My Year as a Maz Student

For the first three years of high school, I always imagined that my senior year would fly by. I thought that I would be so busy with dealing with my nostalgia and cherishing every moment that the end of the year would come before I was ready and I would never want it to end. Well, turns out, senior year drags on like any other year, and when summer's just around the corner, you want it more than ever. I want to be done with calculus, done with physics, done with English! There is one class, however, that I'm not quite ready to leave: European History.
The first time I heard of Maz was my freshman year. My mom knew her, and wanted to introduce her to me so I could join Model U.N. She followed this proposition by telling me, "Maz is nice, but if you mess up, she'll kick your butt." As a weak little ninth grader, I decided to steer clear. The next time I encountered Maz was my junior year. As a student of her "next-door neighbor" Mr. Morgans, the two teachers were always running in and out of each other's classrooms. I was friends with people in her senior classes, and virtually everyone I talked to highly recommended taking her AP class, as tough as it was. Even people who didn't really care about school insisted that it was the most beneficial class that had ever taken. So, when school began in September, I knew that I was in for a ride.
Now, as graduation comes closer and closer, I honestly cannot imagine my senior year without this class. When my other classes was boring, history was a pick-me-up. Even though calculus and physics put me to sleep, history is what kept my day going. You never knew what was going to happen: random outbreaks into debate (such as Amber attacking me for calling African tribes "innocent"), a myriad of projects (such as my giant "waterfall of communism"), and hilarious moments in class (such as Anthony always texting and not noticing that everyone could see him) were plentiful. This was my all-time favorite class, and I can't even explain the number of times in conversation with my history buff family that I've now been able to participate. I can tell you the tribulations in England in the Middle Ages; I can tell you the whole story of the French Revolution; I can tell you the saga of the Romanovs. I only hope that my college classes are all just as enticing as this one has been. Thank you, Maz.

Chapter 31 Illustrated

Everyone knows what this is a picture of. The al-Qaeda attacks on
the New York City World Trade Centers have become a well-known image in the mind of every American (and the majority of non-Americans, whether they like us or hate us). These two crumbling buildings show just how vulnerable we were, and that "they got us." However, this event did not only destroy; it also rebuilt. Americans united over this tragedy, and resolved that it would never happen again.





Genocide has occurred since the beginning of time. Some people are wishy-washy in their belief of it when it comes to certain incidents; however, a few instances should stand out in every mind when breaching this subject. One of these is the Holocaust. Another is the Darfur region of Sudan. Finally, yet another is the mass murder in Srebrenica, Bosnia. In the 1990s, Serbia led a campaign of violence and ethnic cleansing against the Muslim Bosnians and Croats, and all others who interfered. This picture shows a bullet-shattered building, and really portrays the destruction caused by hatred.

This image portrays Lech Walesa, leader of the revolutionary Solidarity group in Poland, leading his followers through the streets of Warsaw. I really like this picture, because it is of one of the revolutions in history that actually lead to something better for the people. It immediately made me think of Juan and Eva Peron, leading their "movement of the workers" and then become dictators of Argentina; which, of course, made me admire Lech Walesa that much more. I also think it's really interesting that he was good friends and cohorts with our former pope. I love connections through history, and watching unlikely lives intertwine in what is sometimes unfathomable ways.

Chapter 31: Revolution, Rebuilding, and New Challenges

Overview:

-->Decline of communism in Eastern Europe
-->Revolutions of 1989
-->Changes in Europe in the 1990s
-->Genocide
-->Population decline
-->Immigration growth
-->Human rights issues
-->Al-Qaeda's terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001
-->The European Union
-->"West Divided" & the war in Iraq

Debate:
We recently had a class debate about the EU's effectivity. While the effectivity of our debate itself is arguable, the fact that the EU has become extremely prominent in world politics is not. We watched a movie earlier last week that showed a plethora of reasons and proof that Europeans dislike Americans, and ways that the EU is choosing to stand up to the U.S. in world affairs.

Chapter 29 in Illustration

Though we have, of course, learned about the Holocaust before, its study has never impacted me as much as it did this year. After reading the Diary of Anne Frank in elementary school, I became obsessed with learning about the Holocaust and its victims. I couldn't understand how this could have happened, and remember asking my fourth-grade Social Studies teacher how people could have let all of those people die. However, reading all of the Holocaust-themed novels and even biographies in the world could not compare to the experience of hearing the story from the mouth of a Holocaust survivor. Even writing about it now, I still can't believe I actually shook his hand, talked to him, listened to his story. At the same time, it was more unnerving than ever. He reminded me of a cute little grandpa, and from the moment he came onto the stage until the final applause, my eyes were swimming with tears. My head raced as I thought of the people exactly like you and me, exactly like Mr. Lurie, exactly like my parents and grandparents who died through persecution, who STILL are dying through persecution in Darfur and various hotspots. I couldn't help but cry when I saw this picture, because ever since that day with Mr. Lurie, every time I see these images, I see my family's faces, my friends' faces, my teachers' faces, my OWN face on these crippled and starved corpses. It makes me want nothing more than to change the world.

Although there have been various controversies over this photograph, I choose to believe in its reality. Whether or not this man or that man was truly standing where in the original photo, the overall idea is important. As far as historical photography goes, this is one of my favorite representations of the United States. My grandfather was a Marine stationed at Iwo Jima, and I'm really proud of all that they accomplished.

This picture shows a young Japanese child, brutally burned and ultimately murdered by the United States and World War II. But it was not guns or swords that killed this innocent being. It was a weapon that, until this point, had only been spoken of. This weapon was the atomic bomb. On August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped two bombs on Japan in an attempt to end the war for good. This child was one of the many to die a tragic death at the hands of the U.S. Can this be compared to the situation in Iraq, where innocent children also die every day? Does destruction ever truly bring peace? And, ultimately: do the ends justify the means?

Chapter 29: Rise of Dictators & World War II

WORLD WAR II

Why?
-->Weak League of Nations
-->Great Depression
-->German invasions
-->Spanish Civil War

Major Events:
-->Poland is attacked
-->France surrenders
-->Allies vs. Axis
-->Blitzkrieg
-->Meeting of the Big Three-Yalta Conference, Potsdam Conference
-->D-Day
-->Dropping of the atomic bombs

Who?
Adolf Hitler (Germany)
Benito Mussolini (Italy)
Winston Churchill (the U.K.)
FDR then Harry Truman (the U.S.)
Hideki Tojo (Japan)
France (Paul Reunaud)


~> Was it worth...

...$1,653,000,000,000?

...72 million lives?

Chapter 28 Illustrated

As I plan on becoming a journalist, I find newspapers (especially particularly memorable historical ones) absolutely fascinating. With this in mind, I began to think of how hard it would be to be forced to read the various depressing headlines that must have appeared atop the news articles at this time. Since everyone used to read the newspaper, this was a major contribution to the all-around atmosphere of the time. In this vein, I decided to look up some of these old newspapers and discovered this image. Today, too, we have depressing headlines covering our media. However, up till this point, I believe that Americans had generally felt pretty stable and secure. This was a major blow to them, and I thought it would be interesting to include an image that portray this panic.

This painting, entitled "The Old Guitarist" and created by Pablo Picasso, is one of my all-time favorite works of art. In middle school, we had to pick an artist, do a report on them, paint one of their pictures (or in my case, make a ridiculous attempt), and create a story around that painting. It was one of my absolute favorite assignments of all my years in school. I picked Picasso, and fell completely in love with his pieces. Part of his Blue Period, "The Old Guitarist" portrays perfectly the tint of blue and grey that surrounded the lives of those trying to survive this daunting era.

Similar to the image of the despaired soldier of World War I, I also love this picture. Its grey gloom and somber feeling are exactly what I imagine when I think of the Great Depression. Plus, it's really interesting to see details. When it comes to old pictures, I love to look for small but defining characteristics, from the papers someone is holding to the way they carry themselves. As a writer, I automatically characterize each of the people shown in the pictures, casting them and building a story around them without even realizing it. Even so, it's hard to imagine a time when the Chamber of Commerce actually posted signs like this one. Although our economy isn't thriving at the moment, we can at least be grateful that we are living now, and not during the Age of Anxiety.

Chapters 28: Age of Anxiety

Totalitarianism in Europe:

-->Germany (Adolf Hitler) - censorship, persecution, one-party (Nazi) rule, used Gestapo
--> Russia (Joseph Stalin) - censorship, dictatorship, used secret police
--> Italy (Benito Mussolini) - censorship, economic control, major propaganda, OVRA

People of the Time:

-->Guglielmo Marconi - inventor of radio telegraph system
-->Marie Curie - chemist and physicist, won Nobel Prize twice
-->Albert Einstein - one of the greatest scientists of all time (theory of matter and energy, atomic bomb, etc.)
-->Ernest Rutherford - major physicist, split the atom
-->Charles Dawes - creator of the Dawes Plan to circulate international payment
-->Charles Lindbergh - flew the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, France on the Spirit of St. Louis
-->Pablo Picasso - one of the great artists of the era, inventor of cubism
-->Igor Stravinsky - considered the 20th century's most influential musical composer
-->Virginia Woolf - author, used stream-of-conciousness technique
-->William Faulkner - author, another proponent of the stream-of-consciousness technique
-->Charlie Chaplin - actor of the time whose comedy added a relief to the war-stressed citizens

Short Timeline of the Great Depression:

(1929) Stock market crashes: loans, panic, and unemployment skyrocket
(1932) U.S. President FDR creates the New Deal to reconstruct the American capitalist system
(1937) "I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished." -FDR's second inaugural speech
(1939) Recovery considered to be established

Chapter 27 in Illustration

I decided to start off with a basic map of the continent of Europe at the time of World War I. This map shows the countries involved, as well as major cities, the locations of head-turning battles, and other hotspots during the war. As boring as maps can sometimes be, I think that they are so important when it comes to wars, because they provide a visual for an otherwise imaginary process of who gets what land, and who moved who's boundary, and so on.

This picture, as depressing as it may be, is one of my favorites that I discovered while researching World War I. The destruction and wreckage in the background and the mud covering everything only add to the utter despair portrayed by the soldier's expression. Pictures like this make me wish more than anything that I could travel back in time, to any place at any time, even if it was just for a few minutes. It makes me wonder if this man's life is at all intertwined with mine--you never know. This soldier could be Curran's distant relative, or my mom's great-great-aunt's friend, or anyone! Thinking about things such as this forces me to wonder, yet again: how can anyone dislike learning about history?

Propaganda was a major factor in both the coming about and the result of World War I. The picture on the left is an example, showing a pretty American woman dressed patriotically encouraging the citizens of the United States to plant victory gardens and support their troops. Today, we still have similar propaganda, reminding us of the sacrifice made by the soldiers that protect us. As inspiring as some propaganda may be, it is important to remember that not all of it should be taken to heart. Propaganda can also be used negatively--especially during wars. By "brainwashing" a nation through media, a government can strengthen its people's nationalism to the point of utter hostility, which undoubtedly only results in the worsening of the war.

Chapter 27: "The Great Break"

Notes:

What were the main causes of World War I?

*M.A.I.N.*
--> militarism: especially Britain's navy and Germany's army
--> alliances: Triple Entente, Triple Alliance, etc.
--> imperialism: constant quest for new territories--rampant mistrust between nations
--> nationalism: everyone wanted their country to be the most powerful

Some major events:
--> Unrestricted submarine warfare
--> sinking of the Lusitania
--> propaganda spread
--> $338 billion spent
--> 21 million injured/8.5 million dead
--> Treaty of Versailles
-->U.S. President Wilson's 14 Points (war guilt clause!), GARGLE, consisted of the Big
Four" and excluded the Central Powers (and Russia)