World War I began on 28 July 1914 and ended on 11 November 1918. This war is also called as the Great War, and it happened in Europe. Many of the countries, which had the world's great powers, has participated in this war separated into two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Central Powers. In the Allies, there were United Kingdom, France, Russia and in the Central Powers, there were Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy. Many people had suffered from this life, since it killed about 9 million people. Many people believe that the World War I started because of these four reasons, Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, and Nationalism. Different countries wanted to show that they are the strongest country, so they wanted to fight others to prove that they are the strongest. Countries started to build up strong armies, which is nationalism and militarism. Also, since countries were alliances to different countries, when one country participated in the war, others had to support them. Not only this but World War I also happened because of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Zheng He

In our AP World History class, had been watching many videos about Zheng He and we were able to learn about him, his life story, and his achievements. Zheng He was a mariner, explorer, diplomat, and fleet admiral, who commanded voyages. He was had birth in the year of 1371 and he was born in Yunnan, China. Zheng He was from the poor Muslim family, so therefore he started to study about his religion when he was very young. Also Zheng He’s descendants were Arabic. During his young age, when the Ming Dynasty forces defeated the Yuan Dynasty, unfortunately, his father got executed. Not only this, but Zheng He, himself got castrated also. 

After this he entered into imperial service, and was sent to Beiping, which is current day Beijing, for purpose of serving Zhu Di, the prince of Yan. When Zheng He was sent to Zhu Di, because of his brilliance and loyalty, Zhu Di trusted him very much. Therefore, later Zheng He was able to become Zhu Di’s personal bodyguard and was able to learn and show his smartness and leadership abilities. For many years, he stayed with Zhu Di being successful on campaigns and battles. Since he had gained so much trust from Zhu Di and also he knew that Zheng He was very intelligent and had many extraordinary abilities, he was able to be an ideal commander for the voyages. Nowadays, Zheng He is still remembered by many people in the world. He was a most famous maritime explorer, and that his extraordinary abilities made people to remember him as that way. He had achieved such things as exploration, foreign diplomacy and military affairs also. Zheng He was very intelligent and hard working man, who gain trusts from people by showing his own abilities very well.

Babylon

Artistic
Babylon’s city shares unique artistic traditions, which is shared with the Sumerians and those traits are antiquity, variety, and richness. Babylonia was able to dominate Mesopotamia under Hammurabi, so there were many portrait of Hammurabi drawn back in the days. Not only portraits, but sculptures were also made for Hammurabi, and they also made many goddesses’ and gods’ sculptures too.  

Social

Babylonians had three main parts for their hierarchy, and they also had two basic unites of family and people depended their marriage and social life between people on their hierarchy. Kings and nobles were basically on the top of the hierarchy, followed by the free citizens and then at the very bottom there were slaves. These three groups had specific name for their hierarchy, and it was awilu, mushkenu, and then the wardu, from top to bottom.

Political
Like most of the cities to, Babylon was under the king’s control, which practiced legislative and judicial and executive powers. Even though the king is controlling the city, there is also a group of government who helps the king to govern the city. All the rules and political things were decided by the government members and the king who had to most power.

Intellectual

Babylonians had used the cuneiform system of writing which was developed by the Sumerian predecessors. Since Babylonians have to learn how to read and write these words, they were educated in their schools. These developments of the writings helped Babylonians to improve in their legal, administrative, and economical functions.

Religious

In the ancient Babylon, citizen’s had two kinds of religions, state’s religion and the private citizen’s religion. State’s religion involved some huge temples, since it was devoted by the state; however the private citizen’s religion believed in the sorcery and magic. There were many gods involved in the city of ancient Babylon, and many different temples built for their own god.

Economic

Babylon’s economy was based on the agriculture, animal husbandry, manufactured goods and foreign trade. Also there were many people used silvers to trade goods that they needed. While they were trading things, they measured things by weight for payment.

Video Response

We have watched a video called “Did the Cooking make us Human?” and it was about whether if the cooking helped us to get developed or not. I personally think that cooking has made humans to develop in physical ways, and I think this is proven enough by the researches and the experiments. Even though people cannot say that it is absolutely right that humans developed quicker because of the cooking, however there are some results, which shows that cooking at least helped a bit. For example, the scientists have done an experiment using a snake. They gave both of the raw meet and cooked meet, and the snake responded faster when the scientists gave the snake a cooked meet. Not only this, but also I think that cooking made people to think more and use more advanced tools. Long time ago, they must have used fires to cook their food and they must have known that fire is very dangerous for them to use freely. Therefore, people had to think and choose the right tools to cook their food. So, I am saying that since they would know that the fire is dangerous and it is much delicious when they cook their ingredients, they would have started to think more to use their tools. Thinking must have made people to ‘think’ in a better way, in other words they must have helped people to get smarter. Also, since they had to think differently, they must have used themselves different. In conclusion, since they have used themselves and think differently, it must have helped them to get developed physically.