SECOND SEMESTER BEGINS: Welcome students---including a few new ones!

Second semester began on Monday, January 30th.  Students were barely alive, but we began with a crash---by learning about the sinking of the Titanic.  Students also went on the National Geographic 100 Titanic site and watched a few CGI reproductions about the wreck.  They also took a brief quiz.

The story of the Titanic is important:  it foreshadowed the hubris---or pride that many countries in Europe had at the eve of World War I.  It seemed as if the major countries of Europe were sleepwalking toward disaster.  

Like the Titanic's unpredictable sinking....war broke out unexpectedly with the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand...soon, within two months, over half a million Europeans were dead.  The war would not end for four more years and the final death toll would be 17 million.  America would also become involved a provide the final push to defeat Germany.

We will be spending the next few weeks studying the war---after all, we hope that there will only be two World Wars to study for the next ten thousand years....two world wars are enough!

We will be learning about all the different weapons developed, how the war couldn't be ended with just one battle, and why the United States eventually entered the war.