Spanish civil war video assignment

This assignment is about watching a video about the spanish civil war:

The video explains that the Spanish Civil war started with a feeling that something was about to happen: there was this premonition of civil war and the next thing we know is that there is a coordinated uprising in Spain. The military fell under the command of Francisco Franco and they controlled like a third of the country; besides, the government refused to take the issue seriously, which was a wrong move because the issue was pretty serious. 

Germany and Italy supported Franco with his rebellion but Britain didn't because they said that there was a pretty good chance there would be a spread of soviet influence in a country they had interest on, but eventually they did  side with Fernando Franco.

Fernando was named the head of government but he decided to name himself head of state. The nationalists army attacked Madrid and the cities around it, they fought the milicianos, who lost lots of men. The war continued and missiles fell on the enter of the city; but the madrigueños kept fighting and the focus of war kept being Madrid. Germany and Italy recognized the Franco Regime. 

Eventually they decided to attack Bisbao instead, German bombers attacked and the city's control fell under the nationalists, who were able to push the republicans back to madrid after they tried to storm Brunete, a town near Madrid. 

International Brigades refused to o back to battle because of the damage and the losses; volunteers returned home and the nationalists were controlling most of Spain. Basically the nationalists had the upper hand and Franco was winning the war. The republicans tried to take over another city to gain some moral but the Nationalists kept winning every battle and slowly driving the republican's back. 

After the war, the republican army was basically dissolved and the republican president recognized the nationalist government. Fernando Franco had succeeded

History book essay

THE SECOND WORLD WAR: A COMPLETE HISTORY by Martin Gilbert

Martin Gilbert calls the book I read “THE SECOND WORLD WAR: A COMPLETE HISTORY” which is a book that talks about every aspect of the war, its reasons, its development and its outcome.

                        Martin Gilbert is one of the most famous historians of the XX century; he was born in London in 1936, studied in High gate School, graduated in Modern History and had many of his work published.

                        The book talks about the beginning of the war: it was during 1939, when Hitler was in the apogee of his political career. On September 1^st Germany invades Poland under an operation called Blitzkrieg, it was a very bloody situation. This caused an immediate war declaration from France and the British islands.

                        During this war there was The Axis, which was made up of Italy, Japan and Germany. In Italy, the leader was Benito Mussolini, In Japan Hirohito and in Germany, Adolf Hitler. On the other side, there were the allies: the UK, under the control of the Queen and the prime minister Winston Churchill, Russia, with Stalin, France and a little later the US with Theodore Roosevelt.

            The participation of the US in the World War II

                        The morning of the 7^th of September an attack was made against the Pearl Harbor port by Japan, which was a part of the US. This was a surprise and caused a lot of damage. The US was neutral up until that point; after this attack an immediate invasion by the US against Japan was ordered. This was how the United States got involved in the war.

           

The battle of Stalingrad

             It was a conflict between Germany and Russia. It happened because they were disputing over the control of the city of Stalingrad. It happened in August 23d 1943 and it is considered the bloodiest war ever. It was the easiest way to get in Russia and that’s why the Germans wanted the city.

The outcome of the war

            The allies won the war; there were really big losses of human life, economy and infrastructure but Europe was freed from the oppression of the German dictatorship.

            The United States and Russia weakened the German entry, allowing the Russians to get inside of Germany. When the Russians enter Berlin the Germans already knew they had lost the war. On April 30^th 1955, when Hitler heard the news about the Soviet Union taking over Berlin he decides to kill himself with his wife. Germany gives up on May 8^th 1945 losing the war; but this doesn’t mean the war was over.

            The war continued in Japan until the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the United States in August 15^th 1945 leaving as a consequence the ONU, the United States as a power, the making of new countries and the loss of territory from Germany.

This war has been one of the most remarkable and studied events in the human history; because of it, our world prevails this way, the countries, the settlements, and the organizations. A lot of what our world is now is due to what happened during this war: the mistakes made, the results, the causes, the loss, the gain.

            I personally find this topic to be very interesting but also devastating, because when you look at it from a human point of view, not a historical one, you can really see that this event was an abomination and it is because of wars and disagreements like this that studying history is a very important thing because of one thing: so that we learn from our mistakes.

            I really liked this book because it taught me a lot about political, economic and social aspects of the world and the way everything used to be during this time, it reminded me that there are always things that you don’t know a thing about and how important it is to be open-minded, to read and to never stop learning.

            In general, this has been my favorite WWII book, because I have read some of them since I really like the subject; and I think that this is by far the most complete and the one that portrays better what was going on during the war and the situation over-all. I thin Martin Gilbert is a very talented man who has done a lot of amazing work during his life.

Bibliography

Gilbert, Martin. The Second World War: A Complete History. New York: H. Holt, 1989.             Print.

Wartime letters assignment

Dear boyfriend,

I've been missing you a lot lately. When I volunteered as a nurse for the war, I expected to see rough things, but I definitely didn't expect to see what really is going on. I need you by my side, and I know that you are going through a hard time fighting the war yourself so please take care because I can't even bear the thought of losing you too. 
Everyday I get to see awful things, more wounded soldiers, more death and suffering and I honestly don't think i can't do it anymore. The only thing holding me together is the though of the war ending and you and I finally getting back together and living the life we always planned to have. 
I'm staying here even though it is really hard because I know that they need me and I refuse to let people suffer even more just because I'm weak. No. I will get through this and I will help as many as I can because I know that's what our country needs and because you are also doing everything you can for the country and for me.
I love you so much and I can't wait to see you again, please please take good care of yourself and write often because your letters are the only thing that brings me joy these days.
Forever yours, 
Maria Jose.

Upstairs downstairs assignment

UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS.

For this assignment I had to watch a chapter of a TV series called "Upstairs, downstairs" which makes reference to the old Britain, when there were servants and upper class people. This show is about the Bellamy family, who lived upstairs, and their servants, who lived downstairs. 

Despite of being servants, they get a really good treatment, the bellamys respected them and gave them saturday afternoon's off. 

In this chapter, the King was supposed to be coming to the Bellamy's house to have a dinner party; everyone got very excited and was trying to do as much as possible to have this dinner be completely perfect. 

But there's obviously a problem: Sarah, a maid, goes into labor making things a little difficult to keep under control.

This TV series portrays the families in Britain during the 1920 or so and the different lifestyles. 

Modernism in the arts assignment

MODERNISM IN THE ARTS

Claude Monet- Impression: Sunrise

This is an impressionist painting, which is used when the painter wants to express his own feelings, this painting is considered one of monet's most poetic expressions. I really like Monet's technique because I personally fond it very beautiful even though it is hard to understand since it comes from his own point of view and his own thoughts. 

Piet Mondrian - Composition with Yellow, Red, and Blue

This technique is called cubism, this painter did the same exact same thing in many different paintings: just lines and not a very wide variety of colors. I honestly do not understand art at all, because how come beautiful things do not get recognition and the things that are not special at all do? Sometimes I feel that art is sort of like society, it is not appreciated for what it is, but for what it is worth, but you know. Whatever. Cubism is not one of my favorite kind of expression of the arts. 

Charles Ives - The Fourth of July

This is a song that was created during modernism to express the patriotism that the americans had back then; it expresses freedom and the love that they had for they country and why it was important to celebrate their independence which is what this song is mainly about:4th of july, the independence day. 

Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World

BRITISH EMPIRE

The British Empire focused, not in exploiting colonies, but in improving them and abolishing slavery. This new ideal was being promoted by David Livingstone who was a very important doctor and explorer.
The clapham sect was a group of christian people who made it their labor to abolish slavery and finally got the government to abolish it.
Britain started to look forward to establishing new colonies in Africa because of the natural resources and because of the land, but mainly because of the slave trade which seemed like a really good idea until slavery was abolished.
African culture was very weird to the british and they didn't like it at all, which made the two cultures dislike each other. 
This did not happen with India; the British accepted their ideals and their culture even though they also thought it was pretty weird, they saw them as civilized people with different customs but they did change some of their traditions.
In time, David Livingstone decided to explore the the interior of Africa and discovered that slavery hadn't been completely eliminated and was very shocked.
Some british believed that they shouldn't try to change Indians' religion because it would affect the economy, but the Clapham Sect demanded that the government let them send missionaries to India, which was eventually allowed and cause discrepancies between the two countries. 
The missionaries were extremely annoyed by some indian practices like the suttee and the female infanticide so he british sent more troops to India to control this situation and they said that the path was marked by indian soldiers hanging on trees. 
David Livingstone disappeared but was found by Henry Morton Stanley in an African village.
The year in which David died was the day that slavery was completely abolished in the east. 
Christianity remained as a major religion and the Indians kept their own. 

Economics podcast

Economics podcast homework questions

Laissez-faire capitalism: Is an economic environment in which transactions between private parties are free from tariffs, government subsides and enforced monopolies. 
Free market: Isa structure in which the distribution and costs of goods and services, wages and rates are coordinated by supply and demand by the government, regulation or control or a monopoly.
Law of supply and demand: Is an economic model of price and determination in a market. 

Law of self-interest: Is a philosophy in ethics, which states that a person, acts further the interest of other. 

Law of competition: applies to companies who offer goods for sale and compete to get customers to buy their products. Competition Law is designed to prevent companies from trading unfairly. 

The invisible hand:  is a metaphor conceived by Adam Smith to describe the self-regulating behavior of the market place. 

Contract: A contract is a legally binding or valid agreement between two parties.

Free trade: a policy by which a government does not discriminate against imports or interfere with exports, subsides or quotas. 

Balance of trade: is the largest component of a country's balance of payments. Debit items include imports, foreign aid, domestic spending abroad and domestic investments abroad.

Zero-sum game: a mathematical representation of a situation in which participant’s gain or loss of utility is exactly balanced by the losses of gains of the utility of the other participants.

Protectionism: is an economic policy meant to benefit domestic producers of goods and services. 

Embargo: the partial or complete prohibition of commerce and trade with a particular country. 

Quota: A government-imposed trade restriction that limits the number, or in certain cases the value, of goods and services that can be imported or exported during a particular time period. 

Tariff: : a tax imposed on imports in a country.

Comparative advantage: is an economic law that demonstrates the ways in which protectionism is unnecessary in free trade.

Trading partner: One of the two or more participants in an ongoing business relationship.

Niche product: Is a specialised and often technical product. It's designed for a small market and often is complicated.

Specialization: An agreement within a community, group, or organization under which the members most suited for a specific activity or task assume greater responsibility for its execution or performance.

Life expectancy: The average amount of years remaining in a person’s life, as per the mortality table being used as a reference.

 Birth rate: The ratio of total live births to total population in a specified community or area over a specified period of time. The birthrate is often expressed as the number of live births per 1,000 of the population per year. Also called natality.

Replacement rate: The rate at which stock-keeping units (SKUs) are ordered to replace depleted stores.

Carrying capacity: The carrying capacity is the size of a population that can live indefinitely using the resources available where that population lives.

Utilitarianism: Utilitarianism is the moral belief that an action is right if it produces the greatest good for the most number of people.