The Greeks: More Notes from the Movie Pt. 3

• Pericles was the ruler of Athens at its golden era
• The Parthenon was the most glorious thing in Athens history
• The Parthenon Frieze was a wall that sculptures were drawn all over
• Pericles let his prostitute in on conversations he has with important people in Athens
• This isn't usual for 5th century Athens
• Odepius was a man in a tragedy that he ends up having a sexual relationship with his mother...
• All Gods in ancient Greece had one fatal flaw in their powers
• Pericles went on to make Athens the undisputed leader of the Mediterranean area 
• To get to be the leader of the Mediterranean area, Pericles knew he had to defeat Sparta 
• Wanting to be the leader of the area was Pericles' fetal flaw
• To go into the battle with Sparta, Pericles told the Athenian to leave their homes once again 

The Greeks: More Notes from the Movie Pt. 2

• Themistocles worked his way up to being a general through the new democracy that begun
• Triremes were lightweight war boats that Themistocles wanted to begin the Athens Navy
• Themistocles began a Naval force of over 200 triremes
• As soon as Themistocles built these, Xerxes promised that in his fathers honor, he would burn Athens to the ground
• The military that Xerxes made for this war was something like 2 million men
• The people of Athens went to see the Oracle of Delehi to see what was going to happen to them in this war
• The Oracle said that they were doomed and that they should run before they get trashed by some Persians
• Themistocles sent people back to the Oracle
• The Oracle said "The wooden wall only would not fail" 
• Themistocles said that this meant inside the walls of the wooden triremes
• Athens was ordered to evacuate
• The people of Athens fled to Salamis 
• Xerxes and his men went into Athens, and burnt down the acropolis  
• The Persians lost 200 ships in this war and had its Navy broken
• Athens was head of the Delian League 
• Themistocles got banished from Athens
• Athens had said that Themistocles had "gotten too big for his boats"
• He had finally died while he was still in exile somewhere in Persia
• Pericles was the next ruler for Athens
• Pericles wanted to create a place where people would admire it forever
• Pericles commanded people to recreate the acropolis that was burnt down and changing it to the parthenon  
• The parthenon was a billion dollar statue in modern day money
• Aspasia was a foreign woman that was basically a prostitute
• The Greeks basically invented drama and comedies 

The Greeks: More Notes from the Movie Pt. 2

• The people of Athens began a revolution
• Isagoris was the leader that took over after Hippias 
• The people of Athens stood up against Isagoris 
• This revolution was in 508 B.C 
• During the end of the revolution, Isagoris was hiding at the top of the acropolis with Spartan soldiers 
• The Agora was the central meeting place when Cleisthenes came back to government to start democracy
• The idea of using the black rock and the white rock to vote on what you want began democracy
• In 490 B.C Pheidippides ran from Athens to Sparta to try to get help for the fight they are about to have against Persia
• Athenians had little hope in this battle against Persia
• But, the Greeks won
• This battle was the first victory a democracy had ever seen 
• Themistocles was an Athenian general 

The Greeks: More Detailed Notes from the Movie

• Greeks achieved their success by winning battles that were so uneven 
• 508 B.C was when Athens turned on their rulers, demanding freedom 
• Cleisthenes, who had been brought up from birth to be a leader, realized that the people of Athens needed to have freedom 
• Cleisthenes was an aristocrat 
• An acropolis was the "highest city" in Greece
• Reading and writing was not a usual skill
• Life expectancy in Athens was somewhere around 50 years
• Athenians lived under the rule of aristocrats
• In Greece, mountains are everywhere, cutting off ideas of wanting to combine forces with another area, so they weren't thought to have such strong militarily
• The places in Greece were called City States
• Sparta was the City State that dominated military in the area
• Spartans were brought up from birth to be soldiers by being separated from their families starting when the boys are six or seven years old
• The food that was given to the soldiers was so bad that the soldiers weren't worried about dieing because dieing wasn't as bad as eating that food
• Mythology influenced the young children in ancient Greece
• Iliad and Odyssey were maybe the most influential to the citizens in Greece, written by Homer
• Some people in ancient Greece memorized Iliad and Odyssey, and they are like, 400 page myths
• Everyone in Greece knew what the stories were about 
• In the 6th century, Athens got taken over by a tyrant 
• This tyrant was Pisistratus 
• Pisistratus was Cleisthenes' brother-in-law
• The original meaning of a tyrant was someone that came in and ceased power
• Back then, a tyrant didn't always mean that he was a bad ruler
• Pisistratus realized that to continue his rule and to ensure that his family would become rulers, he understood that he needed strong allies
• Pisistratus' rule began Athens growing 
• To get the people in Athens to like him, he lowered taxes, and he began giving out loans
• Pisistratus did this so people weren't going to stand up and run him out of government
• Greece was surrounded by huge military powers, from the Persian Empire, to Italian barbarians, and then the Roman Empire
• Other places were willing to trade their goods for the olives grown in Athens 
• Athens first great artistic legacy began at the vase 
• The look of the pot wasn't what was important, the contents inside the pot was more important
• Potters in Athens weren't thought as trash, but they weren't given any special rights
• 527 B.C Pisistratus died
• After Pisistratus' death, his son, Hippias took over
• Pisistratus was a tyrant, but that didn't mean he was a bad ruler
• But when Hippias took over, Athenians realized tyrants are also bad
• In 540 B.C Hippias' brother was killed
• After his brothers death, Hippias became a trash ruler
• Numerous executions and exiles were called by Hippias 
• The modern term, tyrant, is now what was happening under Hippias rule
• Cleisthenes realized Athenian life was going downhill 
• Cleisthenes took it into his own hands to restore Athenian life, and to overthrow Hippias
• 510 B.C Cleisthenes becomes ruler of Athens after overthrowing Hippias 
• After overthrowing Hippias, they didn't kill him or imprison him, they banished him from Athens
• Cleisthenes became the most powerful man in Athens

The Greeks

Today we watched "The Greeks" and these are the notes that I took:

• In 508 B.C Cleisthenes found that the people needed freedom
• Athens was on the peninsula thats now Greece 
• Reading and writing was a rare skill to Athenians 
• Sciences weren't even introduced yet
• Athenians lived under the rule of aristocrats
• In Greece,  there was mountains everywhere, so it was an unusual place for great colonies to form
• Corinthians dominated Greek trade
• Sparta was the colony that looked like they dominated the military in that area
• Spartan soldiers began training for the military at extremely young ages
• Spartan food was so bad, because eating the food was almost worse then dieing, so if they ate that, they wouldn't be afraid to die in battle
• Mythology was a huge part of the colonies everywhere in Greece
• Images of war heroes are found everywhere on Greek art
• In the middle of the 6th century, Pisistratus demanded that he became ruler of Athens 
• With Pisistratus became ruler, people saw that Athens became more successful 
• Pottery was huge in ancient Greece
• Back then, it didn't matter what the pot itself looked like, it mattered what actually was inside of it
• In 527 B.C Hippias took over Athens after his father, Pisistratus died
• Hippias' brother got killed, and he executed the murderers and tortured one of the wifes
• Since his brothers death, Hippias began to be much more of a tyrant 
• Hippias feared that someone would try to take him out
• Cleisthenes was this man that tried to do that
• Cleisthenes successfully took over Hippias and threw him out of Athens
• The Olympics were created here in ancient Greece, but back then there was no reward in winning
• Thousands of people came to watch the ancient Olympics 
• The Spartans backed up Isagoras to take over Athens from Cleisthenes rule.  
• While Cleisthenes was gone from Athens, the Athenians revolted against Isagoras and his Spartan soldiers and took their destiny into their own hands
• On the third day of fighting for freedom, the Athenians got Isagoras to surrender
• After the revolution, Athenians once again needed a person to be their leader
• Cleisthenes was recalled to become leader of Athens once again
• Athenians and Cleisthenes sat down and began talking about what they are going to do now
• Cleisthenes began the idea of democracy by giving power to the people to decide what they wanted
• The modern American Government and many other successful governments were based on Cleisthenes' start 
• Phidippides was sent from Athens to run 140 miles to Sparta to help them fight against the Persians
• The Persian empire was literally the place not to mess with, they aren't a joke when it comes to war
• Athens, at the time, didn't have a standing army so all the men in Athens had to come together
• Phidippides' run to Sparta in a desperate run for help, only to get denied by the Spartans
• Athenians were forced to fight by themselves, in a fight that was almost impossible to win
• In the end, Athenians realized they didn't need Spartan help anyways and made an amazing victory against Persia 
• Themistocles was an Athenian general that realized that Athens needed a strong navy because he knew they couldn't continue fighting the way they were
• Themistocles began to make a huge fleet of 200 triremes
• Darius I of Persia had died, leaving his son, Xerxes to take the throne 
• Xerxes swore that he would avenge his fathers death
• Xerxes began on a run to take over everywhere 
• Athenians heard about Xerxes' taking over and knew they would be his first target
• Athenians were in terror and their only option was to turn to their Gods
• Athenians asked their oracle what they could do to save themselves 
• The oracle gave negative answers and made people think that even the Gods have turned on them
• Themistocles declared that they had to fight Persia at sea
• Themistocles said that they should meet at Salamis, he also declared that everyone should leave their homes and go into exile
• Persians wen into an abandoned Athens, and burned everything 

In Class 3-10-11

In class today we went over the Slides we did on ancient Greece. My slide was about the Bridge of Hellespont that Xerxes built to attack Greece, reading the articles about it, it really confused me because it said: "According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Xerxes' first attempt to bridge the Hellespont ended in failure when a storm destroyed the flax and papyrus bridge; Xerxes ordered the Hellespont (the strait itself) whipped three hundred times and had fetters thrown into the water" This made absolutely no sense to me because the man commanded people to whip a body of watter...? I though I just read a typo, but whatever. We also talked about Leonidas, a Spartan king that went through the training the youths did to become a warrior. Leonidas and his 300 warriors fought off millions of Persian soldiers and they actually were successful for a few days fighting at Thermopylae, this inspired the rest of Greece to join together and fight against Persia. Back in ancient Greece this battle of Thermopylae was so unheard of because Persia was the greatest empire the ancient world has EVER seen, so since this is true, Persia wasn't a place to mess with. Herodotus was a Greek historian and is known as the "Father of History". He was the first historian to collect materials systematically, and test for the accuracy and arranged them very detailed. Some of the stories Herodotus wrote were not completely true, all he said was "I only write what I hear". 

New Notes on Egypt

• Egypt's economy consists of: money from tourism, oil and gas manufacturing, and agriculture.
• Egypt's official language is Arabic, but English, French, and German are sometimes taught.
• In Egypt, the people are packed in such a little space because the rest of Egypt is a desert
• 90% of the people are Muslim, and the rest is Christian (Coptic)
• Egypt is the 5th worst for religious freedom
• Egypt is 12th in the world for religious violence
• In 1953 Egypt declared a Republic
• 1954-1970 was ruled by Gamal Nasser and he formed an allegiance with the Soviet Union and he nationalized the Suez Canal
• 1970-1981 was ruled by Anwar Sadat and he switched allegiance to the United States, was assassinated in 1981
• 1981-2011 was ruled by Hosni Mubarak, he kept alliance with US (helped in Iraq war) he was accused of corruption, political persecution, human rights violations, and was driven from office last month
• Egypt is currently ruled by military junta, but elections scheduled for September 2011

In Class 3-3-11

In class we went over the Prezi that the class started going over yesterday while I wasn't here. 


Notes:

• Managing the river required technological breakthroughs, such as dams, and canals.
• The canals lead through to the Mediterranean Sea 
• There were classes of people back in Ancient Egypt
• Slaves or servants helped the wealthy with household and child raising duties 
• Artisans would carve statues and reliefs showing military battles an scenes in the afterlife
• Scribes kept records, told stories, and wrote poetry. Also they'd write in hieroglyphs and in hieratic
• Hieroglyphs were pictures that describe something in an easier way then writing it out
• Soldiers used wooden weapons (bows&arrows, spears) with bronze tips and might ride chariots 
• Upper class, known as the "white kilt class" were priests, physicians, and engineers
• Religious and political leaders were the only class higher than the white kilt class
• Pharaohs were the political and religious leaders of Egypt
• Otherwise known as "Lord of the two lands" because of his rule of all the land
• He protected Egypt against foreign invasion
• Hatshepsut was a woman who served as pharaoh 
• Cleopatara VII also served as pharaoh