Group items tagged

Gutenberg printed words on paper the way you would use a stamp and an inkpa

Gutenberg's printing press made it possible to make books more easily and cheapl

Then more people bought and read book

more than 150 miles from the nearest settlement,

Well, since you have traveled this far, you might as well come in.'

omething from the middle ages. Jerry-built from whatever materials came to hand, the dwelling was not much more than a burrow—"a low, soot-blackened log kennel that was as cold as a cellar," with a floor consisting of potato peel and pine-nut shells. Looking around in the dim light, the visitors saw that it consisted of a single room. It was cramped, musty and indescribably filthy, propped up by sagging joists—and, astonishingly, home to a family of five:

Have you ever eaten bread?

he daughters spoke a language distorted by a lifetime of isolation. "When the sisters talked to each other, it sounded like a slow, blurred cooing."

a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect, worshiping in a style unchanged since the 17th century.

Peter was a personal enemy and "the anti-Christ in human form"—a point he insisted had been amply proved by Tsar's campaign to modernize Russia by forcibly "chopping off the beards of Christians."

Things had only got worse for the Lykov family when the atheist Bolsheviks took power. Under the Soviets, isolated Old Believer communities that had fled to Siberia to escape persecution began to retreat ever further from civilization. During the purges of the 1930s, with Christianity itself under assault, a Communist patrol had shot Lykov's brother on the outskirts of their village while Lykov knelt working beside him. He had responded by scooping up his family and bolting into forest.

our Lykovs then—Karp;

wife, Akulina

son named Savin

Natalia, a daughter who was only 2.

wo more children had been born in the wild—Dmitry in 1940 and Agafia in 1943—

d neither of the youngest Lykov children had ever seen a human being who was not a member of their famil

new there were places called cities where humans lived crammed together in tall buildings. They had heard there were countries other than Russia. But such concepts were no more than abstractions to them. Their only reading matter was prayer books and an ancient family Bible. Akulina had used the gospels to teach her children to read and write, using sharpened birch sticks dipped into honeysuckle juice as pen and ink. When Agafia was shown a picture of a horse, she recognized it from her mother's Bible stories. "Look, papa," she exclaimed. "A steed!"

e traversed 250 kilometres [155 miles] without seeing a single human dwelling!"

They fashioned birch-bark galoshes in place of shoes. Clothes were patched and repatched until they fell apart, then replaced with hemp cloth grown from seed.

pinning wheel a

A couple of kettles served them well for many years, but when rust finally overcame them, the only replacements they could fashion came from birch bark.

heir staple diet was potato patties mixed with ground rye and hemp seeds.

bundance

stream. Stands of larch, spruce, pine and birch yielded all that anyone could take.... Bilberries and raspberries were close to hand, firewood as well, and pine nuts fell right on the roof."

rmanently on the edge of famine.

not until the late 1950s, when Dmitry reached manhood, that they first trapped animals for their meat and skins. Lacking guns and even bows, they could hunt only by digging traps or pursuing prey across the mountains until the animals collapsed from exhaustion

Agafia's unusual speech—she had a singsong voice and stretched simple words into polysyllables—convinced some of her visitors she was slow-witted; in fact she was markedly intelligent, and took charge of the difficult task, in a family that possessed no calendars, of keeping track of time. 

mitry, a

urious and perhaps the most forward-looking member of the family

Perhaps it was no surprise that he was also the most enraptured by the scientists' technology.

many happy hours in its little sawmill, marveling at how easily a circular saw and lathes could finish wood.

he Lord would provide, and she would stay, she said—as indeed she has. A quarter of a century later, now in her seventies herself, this child of the taiga lives on alone, high above the Abakan.

The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809

Two years later he heard that Frances Allan, the only mother he had ever known, was dying of tuberculosis and wanted to see him before she died. By the time Poe returned to Richmond she had already been buried. Poe and Allan briefly reconciled, and Allan helped Poe gain an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. 

Humiliated by his poverty and furious with Allan for not providing enough funds in the first place, Poe returned to Richmond and visited the home of his fiancée Elmira Royster, only to discover that she had become engaged to another man in Poe’s absence.

Before going to West Point, Poe published another volume of poetry

. After only eight months at West Point Poe was thrown out, but he soon published yet another book.

Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families.

Poe was living in poverty but had started publishing his short stories

“Panic of 1837,” Poe struggled to find magazine work and wrote his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. 

first useful microscope

many advances in medicine and hygiene could be made with the microscope.

1608 a Dutch eyeglass maker named Hans Lippershey made the first telescope

Isaac Newton improved the telescope by adding mirrors instead of lenses.

Galileo Galileo

moon had huge valleys and craters

discovered four moons orbiting Jupiter.

planets revolve around the sun and not around the earth.

printed in a book called Starry Messenger in 1610.

Robert Hooke published his book Micrographia in 1665 men began to take the microscope seriously.

Gutenberg was a goldsmith

Essential questions usually probe the deep and often confounding issues confronting us - complex and baffling matters that elude simple answers: Life - Death - Marriage - Identity - Purpose - Betrayal - Honor Integrity - Courage - Temptation - Faith - Leadership - Addiction Invention - Inspiration

They are worthy of our time and are likely to spark interest and awaken curiosity.

Many of us believe that schools should devote more time to essential questions and less time to Trivial Pursuit.

They pass the test of “So what?” They focus on matters of import.

They require new thought rather than the mere collection of facts, second hand opinions or cut-and-paste thinking.

Greek scupture inspired the Romans and (indirectly) the great sculptors of the Renaissance.

Elements of Greek architecture have been copied again and again from Roman times onward--and we still see many elements of Greek architecture in at least some of our public buildings today.

Sports (Olympic games)

The Greeks also are important for the contribution to sports.

There are lots of other echoes of the Greeks in our sports tradition of today.

  History (first and some of greatest historians, including HERODOTUS, Thucydides, and Xenophon)

The Greeks give us the first true historical works, and it was a Greek (Herodotus) that first used the term "history" for what we call history today.  Not only did the Greeks give us our first historical works, they also give us some of  our greatest.

The buildings on the Athenian acropolis are a great example.

First of all, it is impressive because it moves beyond the mere chronicling of events (something that had been done before) and attempts to explain why certain events happen and what those events means: what lesssons we can learn from history.

  Herodotus might be considered, not just the father of history, but the father of cultural anthropology as well.

And particular this is so when one looks at Herodotus' central theme: freedom.  A central theme of Herodotus' book is the value of living in a free society (even though it means sacrifice) rather than living under despotism no matter how well-organized and prosperous a society run by a despot might seem.  Herodotus book is one of the sources of the Western love of freedom.

Political science Not only do the Greeks give us our first history, they give us also our first political science, the systematic study of human government.  When one studies political science today, one constantly uses Greek terms (monarchy, democracy, etc.). Why?  Because the Greeks were the first to study the various forms of human government and to identify the strengths and weakness of each.

Aristotle's Politics and Plato's Republic are still much read in political science/political philosophy classes today, another good example of the lasting influence of the Greeks.

Poetry In poetery too, the Greek had a lasting influence.  When we analyze poetry today, we use Greek words (iamb, dactyl, trochee, etc.).  Why?  Because the Greeks were the first to systematically analyze poetry.  Here too Aristotle is a key figure.  His "Poetics" is as influential in literary criticism as his "Politics" is in political science.

Among the greatest and most influential of epic poems are the two great poems of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. 

The Greeks also excelled at lyric poetry. 

Mathematics Math is another area in which the Greeks made important contributions.  You are all familiar with the Pythagorean theorum, and the Greek reverence for numbers that starts with Pythagoras is certainly an important contribution of the Greeks.

Now what's important here is *not* the practical application of geometry.  What's important is the systematic, rigorous thinking process one must go through in coming up with these proofs.  The study of Euclid taught generation after generation to think clearly and logically: and it is a pity that the current geometry texts have drifted away from this.

  Science The Greeks also made important contributions to the sciences.  Biology, Physics, Physiology, Zoology: all Greek names, because the Greeks were the first to systematically explore these areas.  Thales, the first Greek philosopher, also is the father of physics, asking a fundamental question: what are all things made of?  The Greeks explored the question, coming up with promising answers.  Ultimately, Greeks like Aristotle believed that the world was made up of four fundamental elements. Other Greeks added the idea that these elements in their turn were made up of invisible, indivisable particles they called atoms.  Now we have a lot more elements than the Greek four, and we believe the atom can be divided into evern more fundamental particles, but note that the Greeks are certainly on the right track.

Perhaps most impressive of all was Archimedes

  But its not just in literature the Greeks excelled. They produced some of the world's greatest art, the first true science, and some of the greatest athletes the world has ever seen.  In fact, of all the ancient peoples, it was the Greeks who contributed the most to subsequent civilization in virtually every field of human endeavor.  What's all the more amazing is that the Greek were able to do all these things despite the fact that they were constantly at war--or maybe because they were constantly at war. Generalization: Greeks made more important contributions to sub. civilization than any other ancient people.  Achievements:

Probably one of the first things learned from history books or classes on ancient Greece is that the Greeks invented democrac

Probably one of the first things learned from history books or classes on ancient Greece is that the Greeks invented democracy

Athens originally had kings, but gradually, by the 5th century B.C., it developed a system that required active, ongoing participation of the citizens.

While virtually all citizens were allowed to participate in the democracy, citizens did not include: women,children,slaves, orresident aliens, including those from other Greek poleis