Pocahontas biography

Pocahontas was the beloved daughter of the Algonquian Chief Powhatan, you know about her life because of the famous Disney picture, but you can also listen to her biography here:




 Follow the link and read while you listen, (I know, it is a bit too long...).
 This is a download from: Voice of America Special English.

Here you have some more links about biographies.

And click here for a crazy quiz about Pocahontas.

Some English words of Amerindian origin.

Where do calendars come from?

And a universal calendar.
The Mayan had a beautiful calendar.
Moon phases calendar.
And a Chinese calendar.

Days of remembrance

 "There must be people who remember World War II and the Holocaust who can help us get out of this rut."  Martin Scorsese.
"History must be written of, by and for the survivors" (anonymous).
"History teaches everything including the future" (Lamartine)

Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi Death Camp was liberated on January 27, 1945 so this day is the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

We must learn of the darkest pages in our history, and this tragedy usually called Holocaust is one of the worst in European history. We call "Holocaust" to the systematic progamme that exterminated about six million Jews by the Germans during the World War II. The Nazi called this "The final solution to the Jewish question".  Prisoners of war, gipsies, or Spanish republican were also interned in these Death Camps.   
 

Hitler's rage is a website built for students.

Click if you want to learn more.
Learn about Irena Sendler, the Polish who saved the lives of 2,500 Jew children during that terrible time.
Trial of Nuremburg: Declaration of the Commandant of Auschwitz.

Football: How much do you know?

The history of the football - Explania

Did you know that football is an old sport that has been played for ancient cultures in the whole world?
How many words related to football can you say in English? follow the link to the BBC and check.

And a video:

And the Premier League.

Theatre in the age of Shakespeare

See above a facsimile of the baptism of William Shakespeare. 

The entry is in Latin and reads "Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere" or, if you prefer it in English, "William son of John Shakspere".
And a quote from one of his plays:

"The course of true love never did run smooth"

From A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act 1, Scene 1)
And the second part is here

Watch the video and tell me if theatre is the same now as it used to be in Shakespeare's time.



Do you find any difference?
Remember:
People used to go to theatres in the afternoon (no artificial lighting at the time).
Gentlemen could have their chair put right up on the stage (a great privilege!)for an extra fee.
You could enjoy a different play every afternoon, perhaps 4-6 plays in a repertory season.
There were no playhouses until 1576, so that performances usually took place in an inn yard.
Ladies could attend, but they used to be veiled or in masks.
A woman was not allowed to work as an actress on stage.

Christopher Columbus

Watch the video from National geographic about Christopher Columbus.This video is here to remember the long and difficult journey that Columbus made from Spain to America (although he died without believing that he had discovered a new land.
As you already know we celebrate  this journey on 12 October.
Follow the link if you want to learn more: BBC famous people:his life.

Watch the 2010 Columbus parade in New York:
Columbus Day Celebration 2010 from YeahNewYork on Vimeo.

A busy garage

The garage in Los Altos, California, where Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple Inc. in 1976.
 (Credit: Mathieu Thouvenin/Wikimedia Commons)

This picture shows the first Apple business in the world. Steve Jobs who died last Wednesday was the innovator of the digital world.

Click if you want to know more about him and learn about some more important US businesses that started in similar garages.

Bloody Sunday

On January 30, 1972, British troops opened fire on unarmed and peaceful civilians in Derry, Ireland during a civil rights march, 13 people were killed and 14 wounded, one of those died later.That was remembered with the name of  "Bloody Sunday".
The conflict in Northern Ireland (called "the troubles") was an old one,  Irish Catholic people wanted an independent Irish state or associated to the independent South (they were called "Republicans") while Irish Protestants wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom (they were called "Unionists"). As a result of Bloody Sunday, more people started to believe that the pacific protests were of no use and the IRA increased its violent acts and bombing.
Nearly forty years after Bloody Sunday, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron apologises for the killings, after the results of the Saville report on the matter were released.
 Watch the news in Channel 4:



Click here to watch and listen to "we shall overcome" this anthem was sung by Bloody Sunday demonstrators.
U2 adicated a song to the ones who died that day.


Click to see the lyrics.

Listen to David Cameron apology in the House of Commons:

D-Day

"At the present time, it is still too early to say whether this is a large-scale diversionary attack or the main effort" 
German Army - Morning Report for the 6th June 1944

World War II

On the very early hours of the 6th of June of 1944 allied troops landed in Normandy and so they invaded the North of France. That day is usually called  The D-Day  although the code name of the whole operation was Operation Overlord.
This landing was the beginning of the end of  the war, that conflict affected not only troops, they say it was the war with the highest number of casualties, civilian many of them.

Click if you want to see an animated map of the places where the invasion took place, just follow the link and click on play.

 Click here if you want to learn about WW2.

Follow the link for a wordsearch.
Click if you like doing crosswords.
Visit the Second World War objects Museum.

And if you believe that war is something from the past, here you have some figures from today:
1.366,350 is the number of Iraqi people who died since the US invaded the country.
4,718 is the number of US military personnel who died in Iraq.

"History repeats itself, and that's one of the things that's wrong with history."
Clarence Darrow 

Italian Resistence Day

On the 25th of April Italian people celebrate "The Day of the Resistence" that was the date their country became liberated and World War II finished at last for Italy. The video above shows the main events of that terrible war in Europe.

The shortest reign in Britain

Lady Jane Grey was the first Queen of Britain, but her reign was the shortest in British history and maybe the shortest in the whole world. She was a Queen during nine days and after that period she was executed in the Tower of London by her cousin Queen Mary. She was beheaded on the 12 of February of 1554.

We don't know for sure if the above picture is  her real portrait, but she is shown with a book and historians tell that she was a a learned person, the most learned of the women of her time, they say.

Remembrance of the fallen

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below."
(In Flanders Fields, John McCrae)

This Sunday is Remembrance Day, it is a day in which British people remember all those who were killed in war, specially during World War II (they thought that they had finished with war after it, they were wrong, obviously).

This day is also called Poppy Day because it has become a tradition to wear an artificial poppy as those which grow in the fields of Belgium, where so many British died during World War I.

Barack Obama, inaugural speech

Watch (and read) Barack Obama's inaugural speech. You can choose among different languages, but, of course, it is much better if you follow the speech in English, and read it at the same pace as Obama talks.

Remember that you can download the speech from the printing box.

Click to read his biography.

Click here to an African-American History Timeline.

If Dr.King were among us he would be really happy. 

Click here if you want to see (or dub) some other videos.

St. Crispin Day

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;"

William Shakespeare, (Henry V, St.Crispin Day speech)

The French village of Agincourt, now known as Azincourt, gives name to the battle that took place there between the English, led by Henry V, and the French, with a much larger and heavier armoured army at that time.

The French were totally defeated, in part because they had been so confident about their supremacy that the young English king seized the initiative. The Welsh longbow played an important part in the battle. As a result king Henry married the French princess Catherine of Valois and entered into legend. The battle was fought on the 25th of October of 1415, St. Crispin day, and was celebrated by Shakespeare with one great play.

Columbus Day

Columbus, the explorer who left Europe and sailed looking for fame and fortune in Cathay, the man who discovered a new continent but never took notice of it, the same who died in poverty in Spain, in spite of being his day a public holiday in many American countries, many people don't feel comfortable with this celebration as this explorer has a dark side which is usually forgotten.

Try the following links:

Watch the film: Columbus landing in America.

Click here to link to the BBC for schools and listen about Columbus life.

A different point of view:
Follow the link to learn about Native American from South Dakota.

And a controversial article in the CNN.

Slave Trade

"In war the strong make slaves of the weak, and in peace the rich make slaves of the poor. We must work to live, and they give us such mean wages that we die. We toil for them all day long, and they heap up gold in their coffers, and our children fade away before their time, and the faces of those we love become hard and evil. We tread out the grapes, and another drinks the wine. We sow the corn, and our own board is empty. We have chains, though no eyes behold them; and are slaves, though men call us free."
Oscar Wilde

1st August 1834 is the day we celebrate the end of slave trade in Great Britain and the British Empire. So, although you are on holidays, maybe you find a moment to surf the links and learn about it:

BBC history
Understanding slavery: Discovery Channel.

But human beings are still enslaved and it is necessary to work against this exploitation:try this web, stop the traffik, because people shouldn't be bought and sold,we still need to fight against slavery.
Learn about child labour. because many children are enslaved and forced to work around the world.

Titanic: 96 years ago.

On April 10th 1912 the Titanic set sail from Southampton with 2,200 passengers and crew, four days later the Titanic collided with an iceberg and sank. 1500 people died and 700 survived. Titanic was known as the most luxurious, largest and safest ship in the world, it was constructed in Belfast (Northern Ireland). It had some new advances as the double bottom hull and they made people think that it was impossible to sink. But it did, and in its maiden voyage. Those who died in the ship came from very different social origins, some were very rich and wealthy people from the US and British but most of them were third class passangers. As a result of such disaster, rules were set up to increase safety in ships.

We shall overcome

Today we will remember M.L.King who was the leader of the Nonviolence movement in the US and was assassinated on the 4th of April of 1968. He defended peaceful ways for Afroamericans to achieve the same Civil Rights as white people and was a leader of a movement inspired for Gandhi and his nonviolence philosophy.

Shepherd's pie, Guy Fawkes...?

How much do you know about Guy Fawkes? is there anything to do with the Gunpowder Plot or Bonfire night? and Shepherd's pie, what is it? you can find out surfing the web.
Here you have some interesting links:
Woodland Junior School is a great place with lots of information.
The newspaper "The Guardian" about Guy Fawkes.
And a Museum has something about him.
Ask in plain English and you'll get an answer.
And you always have the wikipedia.
Nice surfing!