Humanities Final Portfolio 2013

Over the course of the year I’ve learned a variety of things about the different time periods and people in those time periods. Those time periods and people in them were very significant to the shaping of the history in the world. I learned about two main ideas that stood out to me, The 1st main idea was “No one is really innocent, everyone is guilty of something” and the second main idea was “Revolutions cause the world to change in unexpected ways” .

These stood out to me because they are so true. When we were conducting the trials in World History, we learned that everyone in the cortes trial was partly guilty for why Cortes did what he did. Also in the multi-national elite trial, everyone was partly guilty of why poorer countries are taken advantage of. One quote from the trial is “We bow down to the system of profit, we’re brainwashed into taking as much money as possible, just as the leaders of rich countries like the United States would do, and their leaders are ridiculed too. We are no better, or no worse.” This is saying the the ruling elite in the poor countries are following the ways of the US and how we handle business here and they are just modeling our work Another quote is “Our country is not where it needs to be. No country is perfect, we have to work to move our way up.” I strongly agree with this quote. No matter what, every country has it’s problems.I’ve always believed this and after the trial, it furthered my beliefs in this.

The only country that came close to perfection was Atlantis and we aren’t even sure if it existed. I believe every country does need to build it’s way up. No country starts at the top. The United States started from the bottom and now they here at the top. Every country wants to get to the top so they can provide a better life for the people in their country. If they are struggling then no one there has the luxury to live a comfortable life.

During the trials I learned that in order to get significant funding from the bigger companies, countries have to decide if they want to please the companies or the residents. They can’t come to a decision to satisfy both parties because no matter how they try to balance the choices, it always favors one party more than the other. My group was faced with the challenge of trying to do so, as were 5 other groups and no one truly succeeded despite who was said to be the “winner”. Now some revolutions that changed the world would include the French Revolution, the American Revolution and the Haitian Revolution. The American and French Revolution are the two best known revolutions but the Cuban Revolution is significant also.

The French Revolution was huge in changing the future of Europe as prior to this Great Britain ruled over the French. The French people were sick of the way they were being treated so they did something about it and they enlisted some of the biggest names, manly Napoleon Bonaparte. He was a big reason the French Revolution went the way it did. For the American Revolution the Americans wanted to break free of Great Britain’s control over them. They fought back and overthrew the government. They also enlisted a historic figure in George Washington and he helped get the now United States their freedom. Over the course of the year I learned why this was all important. Doing research on it helped because prior to this I would always hear little details here and there about it but never the full story.

I began to compare the two revolutions and see which one seemed more important but in the end, they both were important in shaping the future. If neither one occurred, I wouldn’t be writing about this. I might be working somewhere through forced labor by Great Britain.The history of these revolutions made sure the future was bright for it’s kin. In the present there have been other revolutions inspired by this two which helped their country gain independence and they aren’t ruled over by another country.