Alfred the Great Rules England

Alfred the Great was not originally named “Great” until later in history. He ruled England (871-889) and was the first “King of the West Saxons” to style himself “King of the Anglo-Saxons”. At the age of four he was anointed as king by the Pope in Rome (remember that doesn’t mean he had a coronation, they were just preparing, as they expected him to be king someday). When he was king his reign didn’t start off that great because the Danes started to invade Wessex. The Danes were very strong at this time. Fortunately, Alfred did defeat the Danes successfully in battle. The Danish king Gurthrum converted to Christianity when the Saxons and the Danes made a peace treaty together. This tied the two territories closer which made them stronger. They were united.

Alfred unified other territories as well. In 886 he reclaimed London from Danish control, so that unified Southern England.

Some things that Alfred was known for was his reorganization of the military and creating big fleets of longships. He also wrote a code of law that was 120 chapters long. Although, his greatest thing that Alfred was known for was reviving education as a crucial part of English culture. He wanted every young man no matter what station they were to be educated.

Now there was peace for a little while in England after the peace treaty. Gurthrum was a neutralized threat. After the peace treaty he still had some Danish threats every once in a while.

Unfortunately Alfred dealt with illness in his life and died in 889. Now, after Alfred died is when writers in the 16^th century added “the Great” at the end of his name. Continuing with the heir to the throne his son Edward succeeded in taking the throne after Alfred.

The Viking Culture

People have a lot of misconceptions about Vikings like, they wore helmets with horns on them, and that they were always barbarians. These statements are not true. They actually were very clean people at home. Some were farmers, raiders, metalworkers or jewelers.

The name Viking originally comes from the Old Norse words meaning, “seamen”, and “expeditions”. These words describe the Vikings exactly. There were two kinds of boats that they used. Both of them were used for two different reasons. The first boat is called longships. That boat is actually the same design on both sides, which is an advantage so if you need to turn around there wouldn’t be a problem. This type of boat can be propelled by oars or by wind. Since the boat was so expertly designed in a way, they could travel fine in shallow waters. It was designed as a warship but was not actually used in wars. They simply transported the troops where they need to go. They were called dragon ships by their enemies because of the dragon shapes carved on both of their prows. The other boat that they used was called knarrs which were merchant ships. The way that they were designed was not like the longships. This ship was used to transport goods like crops and livestock. This was primarily designed to be propelled by wind but also can have rowers navigating it.

Even though the Vikings did not use their ships in war they did fight on land. They had a very chaotic unorganized fashion. The weapons that they used in battle were mostly swords, spears, and battle axes. They did enjoy fighting.

The Vikings did invent their own alphabet. They mostly used a type of stone to write on, that stone is called runestone.  The main things that were written on the stone were the purpose of the stone, who had erected it, and the relation of the raiser and the deceased. Now if the stone was not used upon someone who died then that last point would not be used.

The Vikings were originally pagans. They worshipped certain pantheon gods and goddesses. Now the gods that they worshipped does have a big impact on our modern day culture. The names of the gods that they worshipped were named Odin, Thor, and Freya. It seems like these names would not have a big impact in our world today but they really do. From these names came Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

So as you can see Vikings were not always barbarians but they also had good communities that were based on an agricultural civilization. They did like fighting and all but they did not act that way all the time. They actually expanded in many parts of the world during the Viking Age.

The Hunger Games Essay

The book that I chose to explain the plot development points in it is The Hunger Games.

The Exposition is quite short in this book. It all starts off by explaining what The Hunger Games is all about and why the government makes two children (a boy and girl) from each district to fight to the death until one lone victor remains. Then it starts with the Everdeen family. They live in District 12. Katniss is the older sister and Primrose is the younger sister. The book explains that Katniss takes care of her family the most and provides food for them by hunting.  Prim is 12 so it is the first time she has to put herself in for the chance to be in the hunger games, turns out that Prim gets picked for one of the children to go into the Hunger Games, but Katniss volunteers in her place to protect her. Then they pick the boy who gets to go into the games to represent District 12 as well. The boy who got picked is named Peeta Mellark and Katniss met him vaguely once before but never really talked to him. So then the Rising Action begins.

When the Rising Action starts is when all of the children who do get picked to go into the Hunger Games get brought to the Capitol where the President and the wealthier lives. They get a whole makeover and get treated like royalty for just a short amount of time before they go into the games. While that is going on they get trained to go into the games and get judged on their ability by the Game Keeper (The one who creates the arena where the games are). Katniss was surprised that she got the highest score out of all the people with an 11. So as they’re getting ready for the games the book builds up to the point where the reader wants to know what is going to happen when they get into the arena.

The Climax begins when Katniss and the others get sent into the arena where they are forced to fight to the death. When the games start all chaos happens. Some people are going after each other while others run away to find shelter. While they are all in the arena relationships start to evolve. Katniss meets a 12 year old girl who reminds her quite like her own sister and tries to protect her. Unfortunately, when she was in the games the 12 year old friend she loves gets torn from her and passed away. After that the Game Keeper decides to change the games up a bit. They changed it to where if the other person from your district is still alive you can be winners together if the pair of you are the only ones left. Katniss then decides to try and look for Peeta.  When she ends up finding him a romantic relationship evolves and she becomes closer to Peeta. They begin to look after each other and help each other to stay alive. Towards the end of the games there is only one more person left in the games besides the two of them. When Peeta and Katniss  meet with the other person left they get caught up to where the other person was about to kill Peeta, while Katniss still had her bow and arrow Peeta secretly pointed to where she should shoot to get the other person off of him and they will win. They ended up being successful in that and they knew that they won!

This is when the Falling Action begins. The Game Keeper actually decides to revoke the last change in the games where it puts Katniss and Peeta in the situation where they are forced to kill each other. Katniss does not agree with that and decides to get Peeta to eat poisonous berries that can instantly kill them both and gives the Capitol no victor. Just before they were about to do that the Game Keeper announced to order them to stop. They ended up accepting them both as victors but with haste.

Where the Resolutions begins is when they both get brought back to the Capitol to get interviewed about when they were in the games. Even though the games showed that Katniss and Peeta were supposedly “in love” Katniss thought it was just for show. So they acted as if they were in love but secretly Peeta was really in love for her and wasn’t really acting. They then get brought back to their home in District 12 with their loved ones but then ends with the President angry about what happened and a revolution slowly starts happening in the next book.

Charlemagne

In this essay I am going to be talking all about the ruler Charlemagne. I’ll answer questions like, “How did he get such a name?” and “What accomplishments did he make during his rule?” I hope you enjoy learning about this because I sure did!

When Charlemagne was born (April 2^nd 742 AD) his names Carolus or Charles, was after his Grandfather Charles Martel. One of the names he was known by was Charles the Great, which translates to Charlemagne. Interesting right? I personally get somewhat confused when repetitive names come up in history, one of those names is Charles, and lots of people were named Charles. If I lived back then I would get so confused over who is who! But I understand that back then they wanted the name to carry on throughout the family.

At first he did not become sole ruler of the Carolingian kingdom, but he did become co-ruler with his brother Carloman when he was 26 in 768. Although when Carloman died in 771 Charlemagne became sole ruler of the Carolingian kingdom.

While he was ruling he married a Lombard princess which strengthened more relationships in different areas, although that marriage didn’t last and so he began to marry another wife later on. He had a total of 18 children with 10 different women.

Charlemagne sooner or later accomplished being ruler of France and Italy. I think that was a pretty big accomplishment if you ask me! He did have almost constant war going on when he reigned. Get ready for this…. He fought against the Saxons in 18 wars in 30 years! That is a lot of wars that went on! Charlemagne did forcefully convert the Saxons to Christianity whether they like it or not. But since Charlemagne did that the Saxons obviously revolted which led to Charlemagne choosing to execute all 4500 of them. That whole incident was known as the Massacre of Verdun.

He conquered even MORE areas of the world which were the Avars and Slavs. He was very successful over ruling a lot of areas. Aside from his accomplishments of his battles and conquering he did have a lot of emphasis over the education for boys and girls. I think that was a good quality about him.

Even though Charlemagne accomplished a lot in his lifetime he was very depressed towards the end of his life because he had even more plans that he wanted to accomplish but he didn’t. On the 47^th year of his reign, he fell ill to his death at the age of 72 in 814. He was king for a pretty good amount of time!

Signaling Devices You Should Have in Your Ready Pack

There are many different signaling devices you can use and have for your ready pack. The only question is what devices are the best to have? I will answer that to what I personally think would be the best devices to have in your ready pack for signaling.

The first signaling device is a mirror. If you can’t bring a mirror bring a credit card. I say this because you can reflect those things from the sun and flash it towards any passing airplane in the sky. This is to me one of the best ways to signal somebody in the air because if you constantly keep flashing them they will think that it is not a normal thing to happen and they might look your way. Plus, this means of signaling does not need a ton of energy so if you are injured or exhausted you can still signal for help.

The next signaling device I think is a really good thing to have in your ready pack is a whistle.  This means of signaling can notify people who are in the surrounding area. If other people hear it constantly, again they will think it is not normal for that noise to happen and they might travel towards your way or get other means of help for you.

Another device for signaling that is one of the best is an ELT device. This signaling method just like the first one that I mentioned doesn’t require a ton of energy to use it. It is an automatic device to notify others that you need help right away so I think if you have an opportunity to bring something like this with you on a hike or something like that I would take it with me just to be safe.

Those are some of the signaling devices I think would be the best to have in your ready pack. It is always good to bring signaling items like this just in case because some people think that it won’t happen to them and they won’t get lost, but it just might happen and you need to be prepared.