The Dark Ages
Authors Note: I was told to make a blog post on something that I chose so I thought that I should do the Dark Ages (It is the same as the middle ages, medieval times, or what ever you want to call it.
Everyone has heard the term dark ages at one point in time and thought of knights in shining armor slaying dragons, because isn't this what the dark ages where? WRONG! The dark ages were a time of sickness, war, and death. This time spans from the Roman Empire to the Renaissance.It was worse than the Depression.
The fall of Rome
Towards the end of the Roman Empires power and glory a group of Barbarians cut off all of the grain going to the city. The empire started to starve and it was crumbling from within. People got so hungry that when a gladiator or criminal or someone else died in the Colosseum that people would buy the meat of the dead man to survive. These barbarians where called "The Saxons, the Warrior Kings".
The Saxons attacked Rome out of desperation. They wanted food. Finally Rome opened the gates and the Saxons charged in. They broke many things and destroyed buildings and aqueducts and took all the food they could find. When they left they only left ruins of buildings. The great Roman Empire had fallen.
In 533 A.D. A new emperor wanted to take back Rome, and he did. Later after he took it back, a riot took place. the riot was so big that Justinian, the new emperor, got on a boat and was ready to go when his wife Theadora said "I won't leave". Justinian was so shocked that he just decided to stay.
Justinian then called in the shock troops and killed 30,000 rioting people.
Later he ordered that all of his political enemies were executed. that night he and his wife feasted and celebrated. The victory wouldn't last.
The plague struck killing half of the people in Rome and it even infected the king. He survived but he was scared for life mentally and physically.
Later the emperors wife died of cancer and eventually the emperor himself died.
After his death the empire could no longer fund the over seas trips to reinforce the borders. they pulled back all of their troops and the barbarians regained control.
eventually these people in a monetary where afraid that the barbarians would come and kill the so they wanted to keep the out at all costs. they had one man go into the country side to gather up farmers to be trained for an army. They were very successful and created a powerful army. When the moors arrived they where surprised to see such a powerful force. the Moors waited 6 days. Then they attacked. In the end the Franks won and they defeated the moors.
The worst was not over yet. The early United Kingdom was attacked by Vikings. The vikings were mean and they wanted money and they would destroy anything that was in their way. one viking was playing a game and he lost so he went home grabbed an ax and chopped the winners head right in half. his mom was not mad at all she just said "You'll make a fine viking one day." he was then called skull splitter and if someone with that name was attacking you had to be concerned. the British had fought them before and knew that they didn't like fortresses so what did they do? They built fortresses!
They had attacked the British and lost. the surviveing vikings just built homes and lived there forever. but it took years to get rid of all of the vikings.
The final part of the middle ages was when the knights finally came. They were ruthless and attacked villagers often to make them accept their lords leadership. Eventually some people where mad at these knights so they made some rules. the rules stated who they could attack and when. After this the knights weren't used often, and the knights just were waiting for a fight so they started the crusades. In the end the knights had lost them and they returned home but they did gain something. Knowledge. they had found papers with medical information battle strategies and different languages. The darkages were over and the rebirth of the Renaissance had begun.
In the end you kind of see that even in the darkest places there is light. The dark ages, I think, were a time of learning and suffering. I also think that this time was almost like a test for mankind to see if we could make it through these times to live on for a very long time.
Sources
Dark Ages 1of10 - History Channel. Dir. . AllHistories. Perf. unknown. 2009. YouTube, 2010. Film.
Iwo Jima
Authors note:I was supposed to do a social studies topic for my tasks and some other people were doing the "battle of bunker hill" and stuff like that so I decided to do my topic on this.
Iwo Jima was one of the many battles in WWII. Iwo Jima is an island half way between America and Japan. It was also a hard place to capture. It is very helpful because when the Americans attacked Japan with the "Atom bombs" The bombers had to refuel on Iwo Jima.
Preparation
Before the battle the Japanese had set up powerful defenses that included an elaborate tunnel system that ran throughout almost the whole island. The general had also set up many camouflaged sniper and machine gun posts. He also had many artillery guns in the mountain protected by reinforced doors which would be shut immediately after firing to prevent counter fire. Then lastly many Japanese soldiers stood at the beach waiting for the Americans. The whole island was subject to Japanese fire.
The Battle
Naval ships arrived on February 19 1945 (D-Day) at 2:00 PM and started by bombarding the shore with everything they had. Main guns, AA guns, and even missiles. After that they bombed the island with 100 bombers and fired the Naval guns once more. This did almost nothing because the Japanese posts were heavily fortified. This continued until the troops arrived.
At 8:59 the troops arrived and the ships stopped firing. When the troops arrived they had thought that all the Japanese had been killed from the shelling. Actually the Japanese were waiting until the beach was completely full of American troops. The Americans kept coming and coming and unloading supplies. Then eventually machine gunners started firing an many Americans went down. The Americans were dashing for cover and setting up cover to fire back.
The fight raged on and there were many casualty's. The Americans had noticed how effective flame throwers and grenades were at the time so they sent more to help they even got a bunch of "Sherman" tanks with flamethrowers on top. The flame throwers and grenades were used to flush out tunnels.
Eventually the Americans made it to the top of Mt. Suribachi and famously planted the flag. When the Americans had cleared the mountain, they blew the command center sky high with 4 tons of explosives (because the bunker was 75ft underground).
The Americans won, the battle was over. The Americans had taken Iwo Jima on March 26th 1945.
Iwo Jima was a hard place to capture and it was the only battle were the American casualty's outnumbered the enemy's. It was one of the last battles of WWII. It was very brutal.
Sources:
1944, June, and Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi. "Battle of Iwo Jima - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Jan. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima>.
"Iwo Jima." Iwo Jima. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Jan. 2011. <http://www.iwojima.com/>.
