Niccolò Machiavelli

     I was born in the beautiful city of Florence, Italy on May 3, 1469. My whole life I had always been very interested in politics and patriotism. I remember one of my first political experiences was watching Savanarola from afar, but that was a very long time ago. When Savanarola was executed I made the decision to enter the Florentine government as a secretary. Soon after that, I was already engaging in diplomatic missions.
     In my life I met many important politicians such as the Pope and the King of France, but it was Cesare Borgia that made the biggest impact on my life. He was a prince of the Papal States and a very cruel man. I never did like his policies, but I thought that with a ruler like him he could unite Italy. That was one of my main goals in life.
     When the Medici came to rule Florence I was dismissed from office. I couldn't stand being away from politics though because I loved my job so much. I thought of many different ways that I could try to convince the Medici to give me my place back in the office. Eventually I decided to write a book titled "The Prince". They didn't agree with my book though and the public were outraged by it. However, I continued to write other various books about politics.
     One year the Medici was finally kicked out of Florenc so I decided to run for office again. The reputation that I had with the people in the city prevented me from being elected. They just didn't understand that what I was trying to do would be the best for them. I just wanted to make a change in Florence. Everyone just thought of me as cold and uncaring. When my health started to fail me I knew I wasn't fit to run for office anymore. That was pretty much the end of my career.
    
    

Notes on Chapter 15 Section 1

• renaissance - rebirth
• renaissance started in Florence, Italy
• Medici family started renaissance movement. Lorenzo Medici (Lorenzo the Magnificent)
• humanists - someone who returns to classics and studies them
• artists - Italian artists relied on perspective for paintings, made art life like
• Michelangelo - great painter & sculptor, most famous painting - Sistine Chapel (located in Vatican City) He signed the Pieta (Virgin Mary holding body of Jesus)
• Da Vinci - painter, sculptor, scientist, engineer. famous painting - Mona Lisa (people aren't sure who she is) eyebrows missing on Mona Lisa. other famous painting - The Last Supper
• Rafael - Madonnas - paintings or sculptors of Virgin Mary
• Titian - assumption of Virgin Mary
• writers -
• Petrarch - known for love poems, wrote them to Laura.
• Machiavelli - florentine writer, wrote "The Prince".
• "Is better to be feared than loved or loved than feared?" As a person, as a leader.
• I think that it is better to be loved than feared. If you are feared you will be very lonely and not have many friends because everyone would be afraid of you. If you are loved then you will have a better life and many people will want to be around you.

Notes on Chapter 14

• The Black Death swept through Europe in 1347, which was a terrible plague.
• Plague began in Asia and spread along busy trade routes.
• It entered ports by way of trading ships, black rats on the ship carried the disease.
• Plague spread to people by bites from fleas on the rats.
• Deaths happened rapidly. Some entire villages and towns were wiped out.
• About 25 million people died in Europe from 1347-1351 (1/3 of population).
• Caused changes - faith in God shaken, workers demand higher wages, peasants staged uprisings.

• Geoffrey Chaucer - a midieval writer. Had great influences on literary styles and approaches.
• Chauncer born in England about 1340. Fought in France for about 10 years, served as diplomat thoughtout western Europe.
• The Canterbury Tales - one of most famous works, stories told from pilgrims
• Wrote in dialect known as Middle English. Later writers followed his example.
• vernacular languages - everyday speech that varied from place to place, spoken by people with little education.
• troubadours - traveling singers who wrote poems about love and chivilary.
• Dante Alighieri - a great medieval writer
• scholasticism - attempt to bring together faith and reason
• Peter Abelard - important philosopher of scholasticism
• Thomas Aquinas - monk of Dominican order
• gothic - a style of church architecture

Hundred Year's War

• Hundred Year's War - series of conflicts between England & France
• 1328 - last male member of France's Capetian dynasty died
• Edward III claimed French throne
• 1337 - Edward brought an army to Flanders hoping to gain control of rich trading area
• Wars continued for 116 years as a series of raids and battles
• England won many battles but lost war
• 1453 - France controlled all of England's French lands except Calais.
• 1415 - Battle of Agincourt
• late 1300s - king needed Parliament's consent on all special taxes.

February Black History Month

Jackie Joyner-Kersee

•  Was born on March 3, 1962 in East St. Louis, Illinois.
• She was a track and basketball star in high school.
• Jackie got an athletic scholarship to UCLA where she earned a B.A. in history.
• She won a silver medal in the heptathlon in the 1884 Olympics. 
• In the 1988 and 1992 games, she won gold medals. 

Sojourner Truth

• She was born into slavery in Ulster County, New York. 
• She spoke out against racial oppression that she had endured throughout her childhood.
• In 1850 she published "The Narrative of Sojourner Truth".
• She became a itinerant preacher and traveled around New England.
• By 1851 she was active in the suffrage movement.

Mae Jemison

• Mae C. Jemison was an astronaut and physician who was born on October 17, 1956.
• She was the first African American woman ever admitted into the astronaut training program.
• On September 12, 1992 she flew into space with six other astronauts on the Endeavour.
• She conducted experiments on weightlessness and motion sickness.
• Mae spent slightly over 190 hours in space.

Clarence Thomas

• Clarence Thomas was born on June 23, 1948 in Pin Point, Georgia.
• For the first few years of his life he lived in a one room shack with dirt floors.
• He was a U.S. Supreme Court justice.
• In 1979, he moved to Washington D.C. and became a legislative assistant.
• In 1982 he became the chairman of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Langston Hughes

• He was a famous writer.
• His parents soon separated after he was born on February 1, 1902.
• One of his famous poems were "Shakespeare in Harlem".
• He graduated from high school in Cleveland, Ohio in 1920.
• In his senior year of high school he was chosen as class poet and yearbook editor.

Benjamin Banneker

• He was the son of two freed slaves.
• He was called the "first African American inventor".
• After his parents died, he taught astronomy through borrowed books.
• Benjamin grew up on a tobacco farm.
• Benjamin grew up in Maryland.

Marcus Garvey

• He was the first to forcefully articulate the concept of African nationalism.
• Marcus was born in Jamaica on August 17, 1887.
• At the age of 14 he became an apprentice in the printing trade.
• In 1903 he went to Kingston to work as a printer.
• He published a periodical called the Watchman.

George Washington Carter

• He started his life as a slave and ended it as a respected and world-reowned agricultural chemist.
• George Washington Carver became the kidnap victim of night riders.
• He had responsibility for his own education.
• He wished to become an artist.
• He attended Simpson College.

Colin Powell

• Colin Luther Powell served as a national security adviser to Ronald Reagan.
• In 2001 he was confirmed as the Secretary of State.
• He was born in Harlem, New York City.
• In 1962 he met and marrie Alma Vivian Johnson.
• In 1987 he replaced Carlucci as national security adviser.

Michael Jordan

• He played for the University of North Carolina from 1982 - 1984.
• In 1991, 1992, and 1993, he led the Bulls to NBA championships and was the league's most valuable player in 1991 and 1992.
• He was born on February 17, 1963 in Brooklyn, New York.
• He played for the 1984 U.S. Olympic team.
• In 1998, he led the Bulls to their sixth NBA title of the decade.

Dred Scott

• He waged one of the most important legal battles in the history of the United States.
• Dred Scott was born a slave in Southampton County, Virginia in 1795.
• He was employed as a farmhand, stevedore, craftsman, and general handyman.
• In 1832 he was sold for $500 to a surgeon in the U.S. Army.
• Later the surgeon returned with Scott to Missouri.

William Edward Burghardt

• He was the founder and secretary of the Niagra movement.
• Burghardt was part of CRISIS.
• His funeral marked a phenomenon
• William had two children.
• On August 27, 1963 he died.

Muhammad Ali

• He was born on January 17, 1942
• He won 100 out of 108 matches.
• Muhammad Ali was the father of nine children.
• He had parkinsons syndrome.
• When he was 12 he began boxing.

Duke Ellington

• At the age of seven he began piano lessons.
• He was a famous pianist.
• On July 2, 1918 he was married.
• In 1930 he was separated from his wife.
• At one point in his life he had a band with 18 members.

Marshall Thurgood

• He was born on July 2, 1908.
• He was a lawyer, jurist, and associate justice.
• He went to Howard University.
• In his life he won 29 out of 32 civil cases.
• He practiced in Baltimore until 1938.

Whoopi Goldberg

• She was in the movie the The Color Purple.
• She won the Bay Area Threatre Award for her portrayal of comedienne Moms Mabley in a one-woman show.
• She was an actress and comedienne.
• She married her drug counselor and had a son.
• She has hosted the academy awards three different times.

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett

• Many of her friends that were businessmen were killed and their businesses were destroyed by whites.
• She was an African American journalist.
• Many of her brothers and sisters died of yellow fever.
• She was forcably thrown out of a first class car by a conductor while traveling to school.
• She joined a literary society in Memphis.
  

Nursery Rhyme Project

6 slide powerpoint
1-3 - history of nursery rhyme
1-2 - line by line summary of nursery rhyme.
have 2 pictures on every slide
3 - want advertisement
4-6 - pick another historical event and make a nursery rhymee

Facts about Technology

• None of these sites existed 6 years ago - Facebook, Myspace, YouTube
• Wikepedia launched in 2001.
• 93% of adults own cell phones.
• They are currently preparing kids for jobs they didn't know existed.
• Many of today's college majors didn't exist 10 years ago.
• More than 70% of four year olds have computers.
• The number of text messages sent today exceeds the number of people on the planet.
• Today's 21 year olds have watched 20,000 hours of television.
• The top 10 in demand jobs for 2010 didn't exist in 2004.
• There are over 200 million people registered on Myspace.
• There are 31 billion searches on Google every month.
• The 1st commercial text message was sent in December of 1992.