Statue of Liberty turns 125 this Week! *Also Halloween Links*

Picture by DarkSaif on DeviantArt. I couldn't find my own photograph of it when I went to New York, so I used this one instead.

EDIT: Hey guys! I found some cool links about the Statue of Liberty's birthday!
http://www.scientificamerican.com/gallery_directory.cfm?photo_id=4C7EFAF9-047B-E3F8-C48622B1D4B40110

In French, the Statue of Liberty is called La Liberté éclairant le monde. Of course, if anyone's ever been to New York, you must've seen its glorious beauty in the New York Harbour, on, (surprise surprise) Liberty Island. (I've seen it when I went there!)

Contrary to popular belief, however, the statue was NOT given to the U.S. by the French government, but instead, French people (two completely different things).

She was based on the Roman goddess Liberta (the goddess of freedom). It is now one of the most iconic figures of the United States, because of course, French people gave it to the United States people their country to celebrate America's democracy and triumphs, and also because of the strong relations between the two countries.

It was finally finished in June of 1884, and on October 28th, 1886, it was finally unveiled to the public.

Let's just say that the celebration was tremendous!

Extra Fun Fact: Did you know that the statue of liberty is a UNESCO World Heritage Site? (Yes, a little obvious, but I bet some of you didn't know!)

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Happy Hallowe'en guys!!! Picture by BabyLondonStar on DeviantArt (so cute!)

LINKS FOR ANY HALLOWE'EN SITES I SHARED AT THIS WEEK'S MEETING
Fun Hallowe'en Facts 
http://www.history.com/topics/halloween/interactives/halloween-by-the-numbers
Vampire Myths
www.history.com/topics/halloween/videos#vampire-myths


LINKS FOR ANY HALLOWE'EN SITES I DID NOT SHARE AT THIS WEEK'S MEETINGHaunted History of Hallowe'en
http://www.history.com/topics/halloween/videos#haunted-history-of-halloween
Hallowe'en's Origins
http://www.history.com/topics/halloween/videos#halloweens-origins

HISTORY TOPICS? VOTE HERE!

Hey guys. Here is what our schedule looks like:


Next Week 
- some Mythology (we still won't be able to finish the presentation next week, so it'll be finished in the week after_
- Hallowe'en (History of it, Ivan the Impaler, Haitian Zombies)
- scary facts, blah blah blah
- dress up as a historical figure and talk to the class about who you dressed up as
- if you don't dress up, you'll still have to go in front of the class and talk about your favourite historical figure (It's a lose-lose situation!)

The Week After
- VIDEO GAME NIGHT (Age of Mythology)
- more mythology!

Week(s) after the Week After 
- SUGGESTIONS??? COMMENT ON THIS POST! (Include your name. Please do not use pseudonames e.g. neinthousand)

Black Death - Ancestor of ALL Modern Plagues?

 I'd hate to be this guy (a plague doctor; ameteur doctors who got paid to treat victims of the bubonic plague. Since the 14th century, plague doctors wore beak-like masks, and inside the tips of the beaks would be aromatic items e.g. flowers, because they thought that those nice-smelling things would ward off the bad-smelling plague bacteria. Obviously, they were wrong).

The Bubonic plague of the Middle Ages isn't a new concept - practically everyone's heard of it. Everything from its first coming to Europe (the Justinian plague, named after the Roman emperor who ruled at that time, Justinian), how it was originally a bacteria that was in the soil and mutated to infect humans, and was spread because of fleas on rats on cargo ships. And of course, how a majority of the European population was wiped out because of this plague! However, new research suggests that the Bubonic plague (scientific name: Yersinia pestis) is now the ancestor of practically every modern plague!

The skull that had its tooth used to help map the genome of the black death.

Scientists have done this by extracting a tooth from a black death victim during the 14th century (when the Bubonic plague was at its worst). The black death victim was from London England's East Smithfield burial ground (which was a burial ground for the plague victims). From this single tooth, they have successfully sequenced the black death's genome.

Analyses show that the plague hasn't changed much over the last couple of centuries (it evolves slowly), and ergo; many modern Yersinia pestis epidemics have their roots from the medieval plague.

This is a quote from History.com that really intrigues me.

“The data that we’ve collected for this particular paper reveals something very fascinating about the origins of plague,” explained co-author Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist at McMaster University in Canada. “They show that the medieval plague of 1348 London is the ancestor of all modern plagues that we have in existence around the world today. That means a plague outbreak in India last year, one in Africa not that long ago and one very recently in Colorado all have their origins in London 1348, in the midst of the Black Death.”

REFERENCES

http://www.history.com/news/2011/10/12/is-the-black-death-the-ancestor-of-all-modern-plagues/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/10/111012-plague-black-death-yersinia-pestis-genetics-nature-health/

New Human Ancestor? Australopithecus sediba - missing link?

Lee R. Berger holds the cranium of Australopithecus sediba. He is credited of the finding of these two fossils.

As you may not know, a new Australopithecus specie has been found! This specie is called Australopithecus sediba and the two fossils that were found were dated to be around 2 million years old. These two fossils are of an adult woman and a young adolescent male (around 10 to 13 years for the young boy)  - some suggest that it was a mother and a son.

Australopithecus sediba is younger than Lucy and lived around the same time as Homo habilis - some think that sediba is a transitional fossil between Lucy and Homo erectus, and that Homo habilis may not be our ancestor! Others say Homo habilis is one, and that sediba is an evolutionary dead end (no species today are descended from it).

These two fossils were found in a cave of Malapa, 40 km near Johannesburg, Africa. What's amazing about these fossils is that it debunks the preconceived notion that the first brain first grew in size and then "reorganized" itself. Instead, from the evidence of these two new fossils, we can see how parts of the brain were "reorganizing" for long-term planning, reasoning, and multitasking, while the vault capacity of the brain itself was only 420 cubic centimeters. Its height was similar to that of a chimpanzee (1.3 m tall). Additionally, although people once thought that the brain size grew first, and then the pelvis size grew (to compensate for the big heads popping out of the mother's womb), the pelvis size was the first to grow, since the female Australopithecus sediba found had a pelvis similar to that of a modern human's.

The fossils were too old to be dated by themselves, so scientists tested the calcified sediments that kept the fossils preserved (which would determine the ages before and after the fossils themselves, e.g. determine the layers of earth near the fossils, a.k.a. stratigraphy.) Then, uranium-lead dating and paleo-magnetic dating precisely determines the age of the fossils (1.977 years ago, rounded to 2 million years).

A video about Australopithecus sediba.

REFERENCES

http://www.speroforum.com/a/60223/Australopithecus-sediba-paved-the-way-for-Homo-species

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/sep/08/australopithecus-sediba-ancestor-modern-humans

Waterloo Record - Friday, September 9 2011 (Mrs. R.C. gave me it)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus_sediba

http://static2.stuff.co.nz/1315556237/989/5597989.jpg (picture)

Columbus Day + Thanksgiving

Hey guys! :) Lucky for us, not only can we celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada with turkey on October 8th 2011, we can also remember the great achievements of Christopher Columbus! In 1971, president Nixon named Columbus Day as a national holiday, which is always on second Monday of October (same as our Canadian Thanksgivings!)

Everyone knows that Columbus sailed and landed in the Americas on the 12th of October 1492, but did you know that he was from Genoa (a.k.a. he was Italian). With the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria (the three ships), plus with Queen Isabella's + King Ferdinand's (Spain) permission, he sailed westwards hoping to for riches. Because of the Fall of Constantinople by the Muslims (and thus created the Ottoman Empire), Columbus was hoping to discover a new trade route to India and Asia instead of through the Middle East (and obviously, get rich and famous because China and India have lots of valuable commodities). Instead, he found the Americas ^-^!.

And here's a historicLOL about Columbus

Obviously the whole myth about Columbus wanting to prove the earth was not flat was untrue, but still, this historicLOL is still funny :)

HISTORY CLUB INFO

DESCRIPTION
"History is a kind of introduction to more interesting people than we can possibly meet in our restricted lives; let us not neglect the opportunity." ~Dexter Perkins

The W.C.I. History Club attempts to enrich and stimulate people's interests in an educational subject which many are ignorant in. We want to give students a new outlook on their lives and our past, and hopefully change their perspective on the world and how it developed.

Our goals this year are to teach club members about many historical events, enrich them in some history courses they are already taking, and of course, have fun!

This is our second consecutive year for History Club! Let's keep this up!

RULES

-if you miss more than 5 meetings WITHOUT a proper explanation (e.g. another event, etc.) then you will be kicked out
-participate in the club
-have fun

PLANS THROUGHOUT YEAR

-ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) (it's really cheap! Come!) Dec. 1st contact Mrs. Russell-Caplan
-trip to Spain (it's like 3000 bucks)
-Medieval Times Restaurant (ask Mrs. Russell-Caplan, it's also cheap!)
-bring in movies on DVD or usb stick (Private Ryan, Historical documentaries, etc. etc. suggest some)
-historical video-game suggestions (Age of Mythology, Civilization, Age of Empires, FPS shooters that are based on history e.g. COD, Assassin's Creed, Mount&Blade, etc. send us your suggestions!)
-contact us if you want to teach history for a day
-killing each other day (dress up like a gladiator!) (if anyone has any toy swords you get from dollarama, please contact one of us! We need as many swords as we can!)
-dress up as a historical figure on halloween!
-we can help you study for any test/exams in any of your history courses!
-give us some suggestions on what we could do!

UPCOMING LECTURES (LIST UPDATED FREQUENTLY) 

-Egypt (Ancient)
-possibly another lecture about the Paleolithic age + EMH (early modern humans)
-Pakistan and India conflicts
-Mythology (2-3 lectures) we will be doing Greek + Norse mainly but if you have any other suggestions then go ahead and tell us
-History of Astronomy, Science, Democritus (atoms), and Space Exploration a.k.a. astronauts
-Indigenous Peoples of the World (Americas, Europe, Siberia, Oceania (we'll look at cannibals!), Asia (Ainu), etc. etc.
-Gladiators (I bring foam swords and we all duke it out outside on the playing field!!!)
-all your suggestions! (Scandinavia, Egypt, Neolithic, Pax Britannia etc.)

KEEP CALM AND GO TO HISTORY CLUB.