Essays on Expeditions

Answer two questions

Answer two questions

The Islamic influence in Spain was a strong one lasting for a long period of time. Islam offered more than just a territorial succession to the public, but it was the religion that offered intellect and social structure as well as a great privilege to society. Islamic principles did conquer the thought, language and architecture of Spain, particularly in the cities of Granada and Al-Andalus. Islamic influence was deeply ingrained in the Spanish society. Hence it led to the development of Islamic thought that promulgated deep in the society, and much of the former Christian world ...

The ethics behind the space exploration frenzy has remained persistent for many years now. However, never has space exploration elicited more debate, controversy and calls for abandonment than the days that followed the space shuttle Challenger accident. Seeking to improve its record of sending manned mission to space, the United States, through the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), sought to send a crew of seven astronauts to a space expedition whose aim, as it always been, seeking to explore and understand the outer space.

Background Information

The lift off from the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center was televised ...

Thesis Proposal

Thesis Statement There are conspicuous differences regarding the extent of racism that readers perceive through narratives when comparing the experiences of people reading stories from the 21st century point of view and others reading the same narratives and interpreting them on their own terms.

Introduction

Racism entails distinguishing the superiority or inferiority of members belonging to a specific race based on perceived characteristics and abilities leading to discrimination against people belonging to races that people consider inferior. Many texts whether scholarly or not present information that may portray specific races as inferior while depicting others as superior. The way texts ...

Roanoke was a colony located on Roanoke Island that disappeared. The colony was founded by Sir Walter Raleigh in the late 16th century on behalf of Queen Elizabeth I. Queen Elizabeth I had wanted to create a non-temporary English town in the United States. The colonists later disappeared during the Anglo-Spanish War while waiting for supplies from England. The last shipment of supplies that they had received had been three years prior and when Raleigh’s men returned both the colonists and city were gone, with no evidence of what had occurred. The charter and financing for the colony ...

The concept of “whiteness” is, of course, silly on its face. “Pinkness,” or perhaps, “very light tanness” would be more accurate. Nevertheless, the term is deeply embedded into cultural discourse. “White privilege” is the phrase of the day. “White Man’s Burden” was the public face of the reasoning for British imperialism. White men (no women need apply in those bygone days) not only “could” govern their poor, benighted “colored” brethren better than they could govern themselves, it was an affirmative duty to bring superior culture and civilization to the savages. In the history of the United States the ...

The Ming dynasty in the 1600s made considerable and deliberate efforts in a bid to ensure that its regions remain under one ruler. A Buddhist monk who was also a peasant found the dynasty, rose to the rank of an army general and led a rebellion against the Mongols. The monk assumed the name of Hong Wu and made the decision to have Nanjing as the capital of China, but a latter emperor of the dynasty moved the capital back to Beijing. One of the major roles that Hong Wu assumed as the emperor include reorganizing every aspect of ...

INTRODUCTION

World exploration and explorers are always hailed in history books and classes as significant events and people because they have opened doors to new eras of trade, knowledge and information, technology and cultural consolidation. The names Christopher Columbus, Vasco de Gama and Ferdinand Magellan are some of the greatest names in exploration. Countries that have often been associated with historical explorations are Spain, Portugal, Great Britain – in other words, Western countries. A closer scrutiny, however, of historical explorations showed that ancient China conducted explorations and voyages even before these Western countries did in the 15th century. The voyages occurred ...

This paper is to research the nature of documentary films, their history and theory. Documentary films are movies with close-to-reality plots. The themes of documentary films are often thoroughly chosen and arranged according to the unknown things of the world. The documentaries give the audience the lessons and warning about the peculiarities of the arrangement of different things. Many components of the films are analyzed through the impact they carry along with background voices and meaning of the scenes. These components are timbre, gender, texture, tone etc. They have connotative meanings similarly to those which modes of documentary films ...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the traditional institution of trade and economics among the Trobriand Islanders. The primary focus is on the symbolic interpretation of the acts involved in the kula ring and in yam production, display and distribution. The first section of the paper explains the kula ring and how it operated in Trobriand society at the time of the first ethnographic description of the Trobrianders by Malinowski in 1914. The second section examines how social hierarchy is expressed in trade within the kula ring. The third section looks at the difference between symbolic gift ...

For many historians and academics, globalization was a big bang phenomenon of 1492. The onset of globalization is thus often related to the voyage of Christopher Columbus, which resulted in his discovery of the Americas. Later on, Vas Co Da Gama’s voyage around Africa and his eventual entry into spice trading further laid the foundation of globalization and interconnectedness. The focus of this essay is to develop a clear analysis of the actual onset of the globalization process. It seeks to show that globalization was present even before the famously-acclaimed voyage of 1492. Globalization in itself denotes the ...

2.11 Modern imperialism and economic globalization Economic globalization refers to increased instances of integration and interdependence among various national economies of the world. While the phenomenon has grown over the years as a result of deliberate government actions such as trade deals, the idea has its origins in the era of colonization by the world powers from the beginning of the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. The effects of imperialism on the global economy continue to be felt until today. It is therefore important to have some background on imperialism. Imperialism was initially a project of a few European ...

Religion was the basic unifying factor and source of unity between Mesopotamia and Egypt. The nature evidently explained the divine forces in work and every person in these two societies worked towards the goal of serving the gods. In Mesopotamia, the Sumerians had a sole believe that the laws guiding them descended from the gods to the ruling kings. These kings then administered the laws to the people with the core support of the priests. The priests then revealed the will of the gods to the kings and the people.

Art and religion are like one thing for the artists ...

Decades before even Columbus discovered the New World, Zheng He, a Chinese explorer had already made a number of successful voyages (Little 469). Zheng He, was a devoted Muslim and a eunuch, and among the most successful commanders of his time. Within a short time between 1405 and 1433, Zheng He led at least seven successful expeditions. This is one of his greatest accomplishments that Zheng He is celebrated for.

Zheng he was a man of huge physique (Littel 469). Given the situation at the time, it is amazing how he was able to lead the largest ever maritime expedition. This particular expedition had 300 ...

Counterfactual History: What Ifs of the Gallipoli Campaign

Introduction Although counterfactual history is concerned with what didn’t happen, it acts as a manifestation of what did. Without a doubt, counterfactual history challenges the traditional academic ways of thinking with regards to risk management in the historical analysis. It explicitly inflates the range of plausible explanations by focusing on the number of possible outcomes. In doing so, there is a threat that a multiplicity of chaotic perspectives, each facilitated by chance and contingency might open up. In the case of the Gallipoli Campaign, the following questions may be asked if the Ottomans did not win at Gallipoli:

Would the Republic of Turkey still have been established?

Would the Russian ...

Bainbridge, B. (1991). The Birthday Boys. London: Hachette UK. “The Birthday Boys” is an acclaimed piece of literary work by Beryl Bainbridge. This novel was published in the year 1991and presents an imaginary tale of South Pole mission by captain Robert Falcon Scott. This story describes the emotional aspect of human endurance and misguided audacity in a very realistic manner. This paper intends to discuss the novel with a focuses on courage as central them of the story. Beryl Bainbridge is an English author who is named as one of the greatest authors of the United Kingdom. The author ...

Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca was more successful as a writer and traveler than he was as a conquisidator. He was an early explorer, exploring the New World hailing from Spain, as well as a protoanthropological author. He was born in Jerez de la Frontera, Cadiz in the year 1490 into a wealthy family. Orphaned at a very early age, Cabeza grew up under care of his maternal aunt. Pedro de Vera, his grandfather, had conquered the Canary Islands and would serve a large shadow in Cabeza de Vaca’s ambitions in ‘the new world’ America. His name cabeza means ‘head’ and de Vaca means ‘ ...

Became Integrated

The Eurasian landmass has witnessed the spread of such major religions as Christianity and Islam. It is also where knowledge of philosophy, science and technology originated, shaping Western culture and thought. This cultural melting pot flourished because the peoples of the Eurasian landmass have been linked along cultural, religious and political lines for centuries; trade and war among other factors, stimulated the sharing of social experiences and improvements in technology and agriculture. The purpose of this essay is to explain how the integration of Eurasia came about between 1000 and 1600 CE up to eventual integration of the Americas ...

Annotated Bibliography

Cline, Duane A. Navigation in the Age of Discovery: An Introduction. Rogers, AR: Montfleury, 1990. This book provides an analysis of the tools used by navigators during the early days of the discovery age. These includes the challenges faced by the early navigators in their attempt to understand the rough waters and overcome the challenges of a rough and dangerous voyage.. Koeman, C. Flemish and Dutch Contributions to the Art of Navigations in the XVIth Century. Lisboa: Instituto De Investigação Científica Tropical, 1988. This book provides some of the major contributions of the Dutch to ...

Imperialistic practices exist and are in practice for thousands of years in this world. Imperialism, in an organized form, started during fifteen and sixteen centuries. Many European nations expanded their power and influence in African and Asian nations. These global powers have shaped the world politics since centuries. They effectively influenced politics and economy of different countries of the world. United Kingdom became the biggest empire of the world. United States of America followed the footsteps of United Kingdom but in different ways. This paper intends to discuss the imperialism of United Kingdom of England and United States of ...

There has been historical contradiction on the role Columbus played in the dominance of Europe of the world. Even though textbooks have different accounts of events, the role played by Columbus was a fundamental one. He was the first explorer and sailor to discover America, and the possibilities it presented. Through the discovery, the process of conquering began. Columbus was crucial to forming history, even though it is hardly recognized in many of the history books after 1482. He was not the first sailor to discover Americas, but he was the last upon whom paths were opened from a world ...

The Franklin ship was a Canadian ship that was being commanded by Sir John Franklin. The ship was used for various expeditions by the British man. However, the ship was involved with an expedition in the arctic where due lots of ice it got trapped. The ship was on a quest to try and navigate the water passages in the northwest. The ship got stuck there, and they could not make it back home. Franklin together with the rest of the crew managed to reach land, but the cold conditions of the arctic were unbearable to them and so they succumbed ...

Obstacles of Spanish Monarchs during Colonization

The current state of Spain was established by the unification of separate and distinct kingdoms that prospered in the Iberian Peninsula during the 15th century. It emerged through the marriage of Queen Isabelle from the Castile Kingdom and King Ferdinand from Aragon. They initiated the development of the Catholic Monarch and the unification of various territories from the Iberian Peninsula although they separate their institutional identities such as political, social and economic powers. During their expansion and colonization, the Crown of Spain has been one of the most powerful and influential government in the Early Europe. However, it becomes ...

Question 1. The Crusades are probably the greatest symbol of the religious enthusiasm of the age. What were the goals of the Crusades? Targets? What motivated people to go on a crusade besides religious zeal? How do we account for their general failure? How were the Crusades viewed by the Muslims, as indicated by the evidence from “Listening to the Past”? What lasting impact did they have? Answer 1. Modern history judges the crusades as severe and prejudiced and declares the celebrated period of Christian history as morally evil. There have been apologies for the crusades from many ...

‘Instructor’s Name’

Christopher Columbus and "Globalization" in the early modern world Globalization is by no means a phenomenon invented in the twentieth century, particularly with reference to cultural exchanges. Globalization is much more than a commodities exchange across national borders. It is a phenomenon which denotes the flow and bartering of knowledge, commodities, values, specimens and people on a global scale. It is fast replacing the societal identity of nationality with globality. Most historians attach the origin of globalization to the year 1492, when ‘Columbus’ stumbled upon America in his search for trade route to Asia. But even as early as thousand years before ...

Battles of the Ottoman and the Safavid Empires

The Middle East has long been seen as one of the richest regions in the world, not just for its riches, but it was also rich of centuries-old traditions and history that has shaped mankind. The region became known as the epicenter of world trade with the establishment of the Silk Road and sea-lanes connecting Eurasia together. It was also in the Middle East wherein religions and ethnicities were created and diversified, transforming societies and cultures throughout the globe. Many nations have attempted to take this very diverse and rich land, however, the region was only controlled by a select ...

The Spanish established colonial empire in the Americas in the 16th Century in parts of South, North and Central America; a region that later became known as the Latin America. Its empire was among the first and largest global empires in the world. Its territories spanned the Americas, Asia, Oceania, Europe, and Africa between the 15th centuries until the late 19th Centuries, with several other colonial empires in Africa in the late 20th century (Mills, Taylor, & Graham). In 1492, Spain began as one united monarch after the Iberian Peninsula was Reconquista. A Spanish voyager, Christopher Columbus, commanded and exploratory voyage ...

Introduction.

Born in Genoa in 1451 between August and October, Christopher Columbus started going to the sea at a teenage stage. He travelled extensively making Portugal his area. He tried to gain royal patronage to no avail for Indies enterprise. During his time in the sea, he made other 2 voyages to the new territories and in the long run he was defeated and humiliated along the way. He was indeed great navigator, but failed in matters regarding administration and management. The study below shows his history in two historian’s perspectives.

A summary of the history of Columbus by Howard Zinn in “A People’s History of the United States”

In the treatment of individuals who are referred to ...

A basic challenge in climbing peaks like Everest is that air past 800o meters becomes exceptionally obscure. There are just 14 mountains globally with maximum heights of more than 8000 meters and though top climbers strive to conquer all of them this also implies that the faculties of their brains is impeded severely, and cannot spend longer time periods in zones over 8,000 meters devoid of risking their lives, even without storm. Rob Hall was to rule on turnaround times to ensure that his worn out clients could make it back to camp before it became dark, as ...

The frontier development was the turning point in the history of the United States because it marked the beginning of European colonies in America and defined the character and spirit of America for centuries ahead, together with the conflicts between Native Americans and the colonists. According to the Oregon model, the frontier development passed through three distinct stages marked by contact through trade, penetration, and settlement of the America by the European colonists. According to the Oregon model, the first stage of frontier movement involved exploration by European expeditions of the territory beyond the frontier. The European travelers ...

Introduction

The crusades were a sequence of Holy Wars waged by Christian states of Europe in response to centuries of Muslim wars of expansion. The declared purpose of the Crusades, which were orchestrated and supported by the papal policy, was to reclaim the city of Jerusalem as well as other religious pilgrimage locations found within eastern region from the control of Muslims. The Muslim Turks conquered Palestine and Syria during the mid-eleventh century causing concern among Western Christians. Crusades started in 1095, when Pope Urban II preached at the Council of Clermont where he proposed that Western Europe should wage war ...

Pharaoh Akhenaten, Imhotep, Hippocrates, Nefertari and Hashepsut are Egyptian leaders who served at different times. They served at various dynasties. For, example, Pharaoh Akhenaten was an Egyptian leader of the eighteenth dynasty of the Egyptian leaders. Records indicate that he ruled for seventeen years. However, when he died is not very clear. Some books show that he died between 1336 and 1334 BC. Akhenaten was an Egyptian sun king who served the Egyptians between 13352-1336 BC. He was a monotheist ruler. He is the Egyptian pharaoh who introduced the worship system in Egypt thus the phrase ‘god of the ...

Arguably, the conquest of the New World brought a lot of changes in the history of Latin America and the entire globe. In fact, it became a gateway of land conquest, exploration and colonization. In the year 1492, Columbus explored across and made one of the greatest discoveries in the world, the New World. The term Conquistador entails Portuguese and Spanish warriors and adventurers who led the conquest and the expeditions of the New World in the exploration age. These conquistadors conquered and invaded Latin America as well as the Caribbean from the 15th century to the 17th century. For clarification, ...

The military has been traditionally painted by the media as the source of protection against state to state aggression. However, the changing notions of security have caused the military in many countries to be used to deal with domestic sources of insecurity. This would include dealing with the individual. This paper seeks to sensitize its readers the changing securitization of the state and therefore the role of the military. This paper does this by looking and how the tradition notions created by the media regarding the military has been challenged by the changing notions of security. Some of the ...

Science fiction is a fairly new genre in the spectrum of literature; the earliest practitioners include Mary Shelley, H.G. Wells and even Mark Twain (if you’ve read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, then you’ve read an early work of science fiction) – both of whom wrote in the nineteenth century. Some of this has a lot to do with the fact that science and technology did not really take off until the early 1800’s, which brought the Industrial Revolution. What with steam engines powering vast machines, the imagination of writers soon foresaw the wonders that those ...

Background

In a recent documentary published by National Geographic about the trails of the DNA, particularly in Africa, a lot of facts and correlations between races were discovered. The documentary focused on three races: the Africans, Europeans and the Asians. The researchers theorized that majority of humans in this planet have African origins, at least by looking at their mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome structures. This paper will focus on the different aspects of DNA; what is a DNA and why its journey is such a good one to follow.

Basic Information about DNAs

DNA is a type of nucleic acid located inside cells of living organisms. It is a ...

Organizational Change

Arguably, in the entire history of United States, the most unusual and peculiar event was California acquisition, as well as the New Mexico. The acquisition was tremendously significant in development and expansion of United States. Furthermore, it was the most significant outcome of Mexican War, more important as the annexing of Texas. In the year, 1846-1848, Mexican-American war took place; momentarily, this was the most defining opportunity of American history. Perhaps, in the year 1850, California became part of United States. The Mexican Army was defeated by United States army, after various engagements the army entered Mexico City. Generally, ...

PART I: Writing short essays

a) Bering Strait Bering Strait is a bridge located to the south of the Arctic Circle (Oliver, 2006). The bridge is important to the history of American Indians. It is said that the ancestors of the American Indians migrated across the land surrounding the bridge from Asia to America. However, this claim has been contradicted due to a number of reasons. One reason is that the traditional religion of the American Indians gives a different story. Many religions tend to contradict what is recorded in history books (Oliver, 2006). The American Indians feel that they are being disregarded when people claim ...

Sensing the possibilities of America, Spaniards started their American expedition in earlier sixteenth century under administration and support of Spanish monarchy. Christopher Columbus started his mission in the year, 1492. He sailed to America with a motive to sell, buy spices as well as other goods and to hunt for the potential trade opportunities of the new places. Spanish sailors were among the first explorers of different new places of the world including the North American territory. This paper discusses the Spanish mission, establishment of Spanish colonies and other related aspects of the story. Spanish colonies were established in ...

Antarctica Tourism: Still an appropriate market for operators and tourism?

Introduction

Antarctica may not sound like the greatest vacation spot for most people but many tourists ready for a challenge head there during the South Pole’s summer season. Tourism has been increasing since the first visitors to Antarctica despite the difficulties reaching the place. The freezing temperatures are not enough to slow the dedicated traveler away either.

Tourist operators’ infrastructure has grown to meet the needs of Antarctica tourism. The infrastructure includes everything from selling parkas and equipment, to training guides and to offering trips by ships and planes coordinated with travel agencies. Several decades of increasing tourism to ...

A new appetite of territory expansion was observed among European empires in the nineteenth century. Several European countries participated in the race of empire building. In this round of expansion plans, these empires competed to one another and after a number of war expeditions and treaties, established their colonies in various parts of Asia and Africa. Their expansion plan was instigated by several needs and it was not possible for these countries to close their eyes to these demands. There were more than a few factors behind the spreading out plans of European empires and in this paper we would examine ...