Boer War

The Boer Wars was the name given to the South African Wars of 1880-1881 and 1899-1902, that were fought between the British and the descendants of the Dutch settlers (Boers) in South Africa. After the first Boer War William Gladstone granted the Boers self-government in the Transvaal. A few years after being granted their independence the British took it away again. The Boers, under the leadership of Paul Kruger, were given military equipment from Germany and the Boers immediately had a series of successes on the borders of Capr Colony and Natal between October 1899 and January 1900. Even though the Boers only had 88 000 soldiers, they had outstanding leadership that lead them to victory. In 1900 reinforcements arrived for the British(who were getting wrecked by the Boers) and with these "fresh legs" the Boers were surrounded and captured and had no choice but to surrender. The British then went on to seize the two capital cities and gained the upper hand in the war. Just wen the British thought they had the war won, the Boers made a come back, adopting a guerrilla style of war fare. This proved to be very effecting against the British soldiers.

But as soon as the Boers made their come back, the British regained control by setting up lines of fences all over, reducing the Boers freedom to move around so easily, along with inside information given to them by Local African natives.

In all, the war had cost around 75,000 lives. 22,000 British soldiers (7,792 battle casualties, the rest through disease), 6,000 – 7,000 Boer soldiers, 20,000 – 28,000 Boer civilians and perhaps 20,000 indigenous Africans. The last of the Boers surrendered in May 1902 and the war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging in the same month.

The Boers were given £3,000,000 for reconstruction and were promised eventual self-government, which in my opinion defeats the whole purpose of the war. The second Boer war started because the British took the freedom of the Boers and after three additional years of fighting and bloodshed they lose the war and get it back anyway.

The Flying Fortress

The Boeing B-17 was first introduced in 1941 after the army requested for a large multy engined bomber. It was a low-wing monoplane armed with bombs and five .30-caliber machine guns. The B-17 was the first Boeing military aircraft with a flight deck instead of an open cockpit. With every improver model of the B-17, like the B-17E and the B-17G, they grew more and more deadly. The B-17E had nine machine guns and carried a 4000 pound bomb load. The B-17G was the best of the three models. It had an improved tail that was bigger, allowing for a smoother more satble flight at high altitudes. It also had 11 to 13 machine guns and carried a 9600 pound bomb pay-load. Over 1200 B-17's were made nation-wide.

The B-17 was known as the Flying Fortress because of its legendary reputation of being able to take a beating but still make it home. In June 1942 when US carrier aircraft (with assistance from US submarines) inflicted a crushing defeat on the Japanese Navy in the Battle of Midway by B-17s. Headlines in the US read "Army Fliers Blasted Two Fleets off Midway." This was greatly resented in the Navy because they did not even hit one ship, but this mythical account of the Midway battle persisted until the end of the war.

I think that the B-17 was a remarkable aircraft for its time. It was the most powerful and packed more heat than any other bomber in its time; and on top of all that it was the toughest as well. It became known as the Flying Fortress because it could take a lick'n but keep on kick'n.

Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden was born on March 10, 1957 into a very rich Islamic family in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Osamas father, Muhammed bin Laden, obtained his riches by being the building contractor for the Saudi royal family during the 1950's. Muhammed is unofficially said to have had 55 children with his 22 wives. Osama was his seventeenth child. Shortly after being born Ossamas parents divorced and his mother remarried to Muhammed al-Attas, a man who worked for Muhammed bin Laden. He already had 4 children, so when Osama moved in he had three stepbrothers and a stepsister. When Osama was 17 he married his first cousin and later went on to Marie 3 other women. He was the father of anywhere form 12-24 children.
Osama was the founder of the organisation called al-Qaeda. He issued two fatwas, in 1996 and 1998, saying that muslims should kill civilians and military personnel from the US and allied countries until they withdraw forces from Islamic countries. In 1998 he was blamed by the US for the bombing of the US embassy and made it onto the top 10 most wanted fugitives list. On September 11, 2001 Osama takes credit for the attacks on the twin towers and the United States. The attacks involved suicide pilots hijacking four American air planes and crashing them into various important buildings in the US. The targeted buildings were the two World Trade buildings, the Pentagon and the White house (although the plane for the white house never reached its destination). To this day Osama bin Laden has not been brought to justice for his unspeakable crimes, or even found for that matter.
I think Osama had the right idea to want American and Allied forces out of his country but he went to far in bombing the US embassy and way, way to far in planning and carrying out his planed attacks on the United States.

TheRussian Cvil war lasted from 1917 to 1921. It all started few years after Lenin's Boleviks overew the existing provisional government, when signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. It was the treaty that ended the war with Germany, but gave tem a huge chunk of land and people. Not only did the siging of the treaty infurriate some Russin people but also the British and French. They were at war with Germany and because Russia backed out of the war and gave up land and people to Germany, the German army got a huge boost in numbers and power.

Lenin 's communist party became known as the Red Army and their opposition was called the White Army. The Whites consisted of mainly people form mid eastern Russia and were allied with the French and the British; becuse they want their revenge on lenin for almost screwing them over by giving Germany all that land. The Red Army ended up winning because of better resorces and better leadership. The end resut was a country left in ruins.

I say that in reality both countries lost because all they did was destory their own counrty. Nothing even ended up changing because Lenin started the war in power and ended the war, still, in power.

Rasputin

Rasputin was born in the village of Pokrovskoye as a pesant. When he was just a child buth his brother and sister died at a young age, this was said to have greatly effected rasputin. The mythes surrounding rasputin say that he had supernatural powers through put his childhood. The say that he could identify theves. Ironically wen he was eighteen he was sent to prison for theft. His experience there combined with his supposed vision of the other of God turned him in to a wondering "holy man." By 1903 he was widly known to have healing powers and prophetical powers on top of being a holy man. In 1904 Tsarevich Alexie (a hemophiliac) suffered from uncortroable internal bleading afer falling off a horse. At that time there was nothing anyone could do for him so out of despiration the tsar got rasputian to help his son. Rasputin succesfully helped the family over and over again. He bacme a close freind of the family and caused much contravercy with the public. He was accused by many people, of various misdeeds, ranging from an unrestricted sexual life (including raping a nun) to undue political domination over the royal family.

At the start of ww1 rasputian said that he wanted to go to the front lnes to bless the troops before they went to battle but the general said that if he did, he would personally see to it that that rasputian is hanged. So hat night Rasputian had a vission that the only way russia could win the war was if the Tsar was in complete controle. Ofcourse the Tsar listened and went to the front to command his armins. While Tsar NicholasII was away, Rasputin's influence over Tsaritsa Alexandra increased immensely. He soon became her confidant and personal advisor. He also convinced her to fill some government posessions with his own handpicked candidates. To further advance his power, "Rasputin cohabitated with upper-class women in exchange for granting political favours." Because of World War I Russia’s economy was declining at a rapid rate. Many at the time placed the blame with Alexandra and with Rasputin, because of his influence over her.

I think that rasputian was as strange as a person could be. It is amazing how someone who started his life off in such a harsh way (with his siblings diening and being very poor) could work his way all the way to the top of the country. Althogh I do not beleiv that he had magical healing powers or visions or anything like that.

The Frisbee

The flying disk is a disk shaped object that is generally made of hard plastic and measures 20-25 centimeters in diameter. The edges are curved in-ward to make the dick easier to throw and catch. The shape of the disk, an air foil in cross section, allows the disk to fly by generating lift as it rotates and movers through the air. The term "Frisbee" is what most people use to describe a flying disk because it was the first disk on the market and the name just stuck.

The fad of the flying disk began with collage students at Yale tossing around old pie plates. In late 1955 a toy company called "Wham-O" made the first official flying disk and called it the Pluto Plater. It was not until 1964 that they changed the name to the Frisbee. Wham-O made millions of dollars off his Frisbee and it is a toy that is still loved and enjoyed by millions to this day.

I love playing Frisbee and ultament Frisbee. It is tons of fun and is really starting to get popular. It is the perfect thing to do on the beach, in between swimming and nothing.

Nazisim

The word Nazi is derived from the full name of the party in German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, in English the name of the party is the National Socialism Germans worker party. The Nazis came at a time when Germany was in need of new hope. They came about after Germany had signed the Treaty of Versailles and were in massive debt to other countries. Hitler, The leader of the party, believed in the superiority of an Aryan master race and that the German war efforts were sabotaged internally by the communists and the Jews. He put a stop to the Germans paying reparations and began to build a new army and get his revenge.
On May 10Th 1940 Germany invaded France, Belgium, Holland and other parts western Europe using a creative fighting tactic called the Blitzkrieg or "lightning warfare." They combined a lethal mixture of fast and deadly tanks on land and superior planes coverage to easily overthrow Holland and Belgium by the end of may; and just two weeks the German forces captured Paris.
I think that the Nazi party did have some good points, and some bad ones. I think that it was good that they stopped paying the reparations, found many jobs for the people of the country and recovered Germany's economy. I do not think that they needed to go to war and wast so many lives as some sort of revenge for the treaty of Versailles, and the Jewish concentration camps were absolutely horrible.