11-29-12 Learned

Today I learned that the first bomb dropped in World War Two killed the only elephant in the Berlin zoo. It was dropped by the Allies o November 26, 1943. The bombing destroyed the supposedly beautiful zoo as well.

John Calhoun Voicethread

What I learned today 11-28-12

Today I learned that penguins can change saltwater to freshwater. This can occur because of a gland near the penguin's beak that filters saltwater. Once the gland is full, the penguin will then smash his beak on a rock to empty it out. I found this fact to be interesting because I had no idea that any mammals could create freshwater from saltwater. This would be a very useful ability to us humans.

11-27-12 Learned Today

Today I learned that if you put your foot in between your wrist and elbow it will fit perfectly. Thus, your forearm is the same size as your foot. I tried it out, and it worked. Also, your thumb is the same size as your nose, and your two arms outstretched are as tall as your height. The branch of science that covers this subject is called anthropology.

Day 7 Class Summary

On Day five as well as day six we didn't have class. However on day seven we did have class. Today, we learned about the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Stephen Douglass proposed that the territories Kansas and Nebraska would decide the issue of slavery by popular sovereignty. The southerners agreed with this act, because it would give them a chance to even up representatives in the senate. The Northerners disagreed though because it went against the Missouri Compromise. At this pointy proslavery and antislavery settlers were angry at each other and were trying to win over Kansas. Border Ruffians (proslavery) caused quite a ruckus themselves. They actually illegally voted and helped Kansas become proslavery. Immediately thereafter this was announced many laws were made that concerned proslavery. The antislavery settlers wouldn't stand for it and killed five proslavery people in Pottawatomie Creek. By the mid 1850s more than 200 people had been killed in Kansas. Soon after, Charles Sumner, an abolitionist senator called out Andrew Butler of South carolina. He insulted him in a crude fashion. Several days later, Preston Brooks, Andrew Butler's relative went into Sumner's office and beat him with his cane. Sumner would not return to the senate for three years.

11-26-12 Learning

Today I learned that Americans collectively eat one hundred pounds of chocolate every second. The average person in America will eat about 12 pounds of chocolate, if you multiply that number by the average life expectancy for a United States citizen (78.2) it comes out to around 938 pounds of chocolate that a human will consume in his/her lifetime.

11-25-12 Learn

Today I learned about how most people have lost 50% of their taste buds by the time they reach the age of sixty. This is because  of either disorders or rare diseases. Of course the loss or distortion of taste and smell can be also be a factor, which is more common. This fact also explains older peoples poor eating habits, mainly consisting of simple tea or bread.

11-24-12 Learning

Toda I learned a little about the sun, for example it contains 99.85% of the mass in the solar system. Hopefully this can give you perspective on how big the sun is. The mass of the sun is equivalent to 332,900 Earth masses. The total mass of the sun is 1.9891x10to the 30th power kilograms. So, the sun is huge.

11-23-12 Learning

Today I learned about how one billion people in the world do not have access to safe drinking water. Today many people are raising funds to provide these people with water filters and water bottles. The U.N recently gave out statistics showing that more than 2 billion people have gained safe water fixtures between 1990 and 2010. So, the situation is improving but still has a long way to go until everyone has drinking water.

11-19-12 Learning still...

Today I learned about Mark Twain mainly because he is prominent to our next reading in English. Mark Twain was born in 1835, and died at age 74 in 1910.  His most accomplished works are Tom Sawyer and The adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Many new him as the greatest American humorist of all time because of his early short story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. A fun fact about Mark Twain is that he never finished Elementary school. Surprising since he is such an impressive author.

11-18-12 What I learned about today

Today I learned about the Jimmy Fund, it was created after The Boston Braves (now the Boston Red Sox) recorded their visit to a child with cancer on national radio broadcasts. Today The Jimmy Fund donates millions of dollars to cancer research primarily at the Dana Farber Institute per year. A fun fact is that Jimmy of The Jimmy Funds' real name was actually Einar Gustafson.

11-17-12 What I've learned

Today I learned that Napoleon made his battle plans in a sandbox. People believe that he did this so that he could get rid of the plans without anyone knowing about them, such as spies. This is surprising because Napoleon was a great leader of France, and you wouldn't suspect someone such as him to construct battle plans in a sandbox especially since he was very self centered.

11-16-12 What I've learned today

Today i learned that the Hershey Bar was used overseas in World War Two in some cases as currency. The US government actually asked the Hershey company to create a chocolate bar to have the soldiers carry as rations. This is a coo, fact because I never would have guessed that the Hershey Bar was used as a currency.

11-15-12 What I learned Today

Today I learned that during a Mars winter 20% of the air on Mars freezes. The reasons for this are because of the fact that Mars is farther from the Sun then Earth. The winter on Mars is also a total of 146 days long which is 59 days longer then we have. That fact might contribute to the frozen air as it has more time to freeze compared to the air on Earth.

What I learned on 11-14-12

Today I learned about the shortest war on record. It was fought between England and Zanzibar in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered within thirty eight minutes. It is known as the Anglo-Zanzibr war. During the battle a total of one British soldier was wounded, while Zanzibar suffered 500 casualties as The Zanzibar palace was bombarded by a British fleet.

11-13-12 What I learned today

Toda I learned that in the morning you are one centimeter taller than you are in the evening. After learning this I decided to test this fact. It turns out hat I was about one centimeter taller in the morning then the evening. That's pretty cool!

11-13-12 What I did today

Today in history class we learned about the Missouri Compromise. We also reviewed the stats of the north and south, including total square miles, population density, amount of african americans in each region, and male to female ratios in the regions. The south had more square miles in terms of area and the north had a higher population density. The south had more african-americans, while the north had some states with more females then males. We recorded all these facts while using an interactive map of the time period with detailed analysis of the Missouri Compromise. The Missouri Compromise, made it so that no slaves were allowed in the unorganized territories, however there could be slaves in Missouri and Arkansas. The Missouri Compromise was positive for the abolition of slavery as it stopped westward expansion of slavery.

11-12-12 What I've learned

Today I learned that the average heart beats 100,000 times per day, pumping over 2,000 gallons of blood throughout the body. If a human lives to be 70-ish then their heart will beat at least 2.5 billion times. I found this to be an amazing fun fact.

What I learned on 11-10-12

 I learned about an easy strategy to find the sum of the  numbers 1 through 10. First visualize the numbers as stones and line them up in a column like this 1
                                                                                          12
                                                                                          123
and so on until you get to ten. Once that is done visualize that figure upside down attached to the first figure you've created, it should form a rectangle. The rectangle has 10x11 dimensions. Now multiply the dimensions to find the area, which is 110. After that is done, cut the area in half leaving you with 55. 55 is the answer to the sum of the numbers from 1 to 10. This can be done with any group of numbers.

30 Day Project 11-9-12

Today I learned about slaves trying to escape from slavery and become free men and women. The main passage for them was called the "Underground Railroad". One women Harriet Tubman otherwise known as "Black Moses", she helped over 300 slaves become free men in Canada and Northern North America. Over time over 1000 slaves were being freed per year. The slaves were helped along the way by white and black slavery abolitionists. The most famous of these was William Lloyd Garrison, who is from Newburyport. Slavery is a terrible thing and it is amazing how some slaves were able to escape it.

30 Day Project

 For thirty days, on each day I will learn something new. This will help me broaden my knowledge of the world. It will also allow me to to spread my knowledge to others. This is what I will do every day for thirty days. On November 1st I learned more about the electoral colleges and how they vote. I looked at some of the pols and made my own electoral college map. The way that the electoral colleges work, is that each state has their election, the polls get tallied and sent to electoral representatives for each state for example California has fifty five and Iowa has six. The electoral college reps will view the polls and make a decision for the whole state on who to send the state's electoral votes to. The candidate that gets 270 electoral votes or more is guaranteed a win.