The Roaring 20's

The 20’s to me was very interesting to learn about. I think because there was a drastic change in our American culture. People started to have much more money than before, different styles came into play, and just overall it was a good time for the economy. It’s crazy to think that The Great Depression hit shortly after this time. That just showed how much of a bubble our country was living in at the moment. Overall, the country started to become more of a consumer society. Instead of everyone having a farm in their backyard, they would simply buy product just like we do to this day. That also meant that there were going to be more cities than farms in the area.

One thing that I particularly like about this time was that not only were women allowed to vote, but they were also able to get jobs right alongside men. Our society was slowly becoming better in that aspect and I love hearing good news like that throughout history. That wasn’t even the only big change that was happening. Everyone was starting to do similar things. It was almost like this was the time that there were such things as “fads”. Before this time this would be immoral. They wouldn’t just do that same things but they would spend their money on the same things. Including spending their money on radios. Yes, this was when radios started to become popular. There wasn’t a ton of channels at the time but quickly, many came after the first one. That wasn’t the only entertainment that was becoming more popular. Most people started to go to the movie theater at least once a week! That to me, is a lot. But the movie were coming out faster so I could see why they went there so much. So, money was no issue during the 20’s. The first car was already invented before but not many people purchased them at first because one, they didn’t have enough money, and two, it just wasn’t popular yet. Well, that was before the 20’s. The Model T which was one of the early cars started to be on the roads more than ever before. The economy also was helping businesses as well.

If you saw the movie The Great Gatsby or even read the book, you would notice that it took place in the 20’s. You would also notice that alcohol was popular during that time. But that was the “in” thing because it was when the 18^th Amendment was fading. The 18^th Amendment prohibited the transportation, selling, and making of alcohol. How did they get it then you ask? Well everyone can find a way to get something that they really want. In this case, there were underground taverns and people just basically smuggled alcohol. There is always a way for people to find a way around the laws that the government makes.

So, the 20’s seemed like a comfortable time for Americans and they didn’t have to worry about much. Sadly, The Great Depression hit shortly after and wiped out the good economy of our country. We are even in a depression right now. Do you see everyone becoming easily wealthy? No. There’s tons and tons of taxes being made on everything and the government is even taking from everyone’s income which is fairly their money to pocket. But that is not the case.

Education also changed during this time. It wasn’t always like the way you see schools today. Prussia was actually the first nation to introduce the way of education where the government can put their foot into it. The United States decided to pick up that way of education and that is where it all started to lead up to how it is today. The government thought that if they were going to make their country better they needed a better education system. It was supposedly for the people, but really, it was all to help the government themselves. It’s basically like another way that the government can make money. This was also when education became mandatory. Before this time, if the family didn’t have enough money, they couldn’t put their kids in school. But now it started to be like it is to this day.

Darwinism was also started to get introduced to the school system. This type of learning originally came from Charles Darwin. So, Darwinism introduced evolution. To explain it in simpler terms, it taught how we possibly came from another species. That species that I’m talking about is monkeys. Even when some people agreed with this theory and thought it was a good idea, the government started to ban the teachings of it in the school system. This was because it was against the idea of how we got created by the Christianity beliefs. This led to the Scopes Monkey Trial. There was a man named John Scopes who was accused of teaching Darwinism in the schools. Although he wasn’t completely aware that he was teaching evolution specifically. In the end, it was decided that he was guilty and therefore fined. I personally think that it wasn’t a bad idea to teach people this theory. Even to children too. Why do I think that? Well I believe that everyone should see the options that they have to decide on what they personally believe in. Maybe someone right across from you in a restaurant believes that we were created by God, but you believe that we evolved from monkeys. But isn’t that what makes up our country? We are allowed to believe in different things and NOT be judged upon it. I don’t personally believe in a specific religion. But that doesn’t mean that I am going to totally block out any ways of hearing or learning about them. I think it is a good idea for everyone to learn about all the different types of religion because it is what makes up all the different international governments. The theory of evolution can be questioned because there isn’t that much information to back it up, but that doesn’t mean that we should restrain people from believing in it. Look at the theory for believing that God created the earth. That can be questioned as well since there isn’t that much facts behind it. Overall, we should not stop people from believing in something that they passionately believe in.

World War I

World War I is one of the worst wars that we have had in our history. Personally, my least favorite thing about history is learning about wars. Because of course, those weren’t the fun times but also because of how sad it is to see how many lives were actually lost in all of those wars. People thought back then that this was going to be the last big war. Little did they know that not long after that there was a World War II. That war was even worse. But in this essay I’m focusing more on World War I

The first fight was the Battle of Liege. During most of the war I noticed that Germany had their nose in most of the fights. So they were the ones that started this first fight. But during this debacle, the Germans ignored that Belgium was neutral and they didn’t want to have anything to do with this chaos that was happening. When Britain realized that….. They started to get defensive. Because think about what they were going through, they found out that Germany wasn’t leaving the neutral countries out of it, so what would hold them back from attacking Britain? This made them declare war. So from the very beginning all of the European countries were starting to get sucked into this chaos. During this time Germany was also taking on Russia. Most of the battles were the same as I see it. One side “wins” and the other “loses” but nothing major changes. That isn’t just for World War I, but for all the other battles that have happened in history. But the fight between Germany and Russia was a victory for the Germans. That pushed the Russians to back off a little.

You have to also take into account the allies that were made between certain European countries. If Britain was coming into the war, that means that all of the other countries that were on their side would support them through the battles. Same for all of the other allies that were brought into the fights. That’s part of the reason why there were so many countries that were pulled into this predicament. It was not until later that the U.S. jumped in because of something specific that Germany declared.

There wasn’t that many major battles of the war to point out because like I said, nothing ever really changes with the outcome. So the war sort of dragged on with a much of smaller battles incorporated into it. I always wonder what big thing that countries think they’ll solve with wars. Even to this day we are in war so we evidently aren’t learning anything from our past history. But with all the lives lost throughout just wars in history…… It’s crazy. Was it worth it? Did we solve anything or did we just gain more land for our country to own? That’s what I wonder. But to me, I never, ever will think that losing lives in wars are worth it. Because the outcome isn’t something grand.

But one of the bloodiest battles in World War I was the Battle of Verdun. There were over 700,000 casualties and guess what? There were no changes made between Germany and France who were in the fight. That’s the sad part. Those people fought for their country and they died for what? For another war to start up again? I understand that they wanted to support their country but what did their side get out of it. And was it worth it? The one thing that the French got out of it was the Germans to get off their tail and leave them alone for a little while. So technically, it was a victory for the French but there really wasn’t that much of a win for either sides. There was another battle that happened that had that same result as the Battle of Verdun. It was the Battle of Somme. The British, French, and Germans were the main countries in the war, if there was any other countries interfering than they were supporting a side that they were allied with. In this battle the territory only changed by 8 miles and there were many lives lost just like Verdun.

Germany got something taken away from them and it was a set back and a change in what was the norm for this war. I say that because the Germans held their head high in this war and were basically very confident since they were very successful in many of the battles. But, even though they were like that, Britain was able to take over some of Germany’s colonies located in East Africa and Southeast Asia. Of course, this gave Britain’s side a little more hope.

Later on in the war there was the Battle of Caporetto that took place. This was between the countries of the Triple Alliance. Italy was one of the countries that was a part of that group but they backed out of the alliance when the war began. Basically, in this fight Germany and Austria destroyed Italy’s army and basically pushed Italy out of World War I because they really didn’t have a choice since they now had to pick up their pieces and start building themselves back up again. That’s how bad of a predicament that country was in.

The Battle of Cambrai was the first battle that the United States took part in. This fight took place in 1917. At first the goal was to overwhelm the Germans. So this makes it quite obvious that the Germans were a really big threat to many of the European countries. But, it turned out to be another Germany victory. A while after that the Battle of Amiens was the final fight of World War I. Finally it was the end of this terrible time. But it was not as good for the Germans as with the other battles. In fact, this fight put them in retreat mode where they would back off for a while and regroup. But overall there wasn’t a big change with much territories except for some of Germany’s land getting lessened because of the aftermath of what terror they created.

Back then they didn’t have all of the technology that we have today. Especially with their artillery. So right around this time they started to create more elaborate inventions to help them with war. The first invention was machine guns. But, they were not just recently invented. They technically got invented around 1860 but they weren’t commonly used up until World War I. The machine gun helped the armies in the war incredibly. The reason is because these types of guns fired much faster than the ones that they used previously. So basically the machine guns were more efficient. Flamethrowers were another new weapon that was made during this time. Of course this gun is a little more self-explanatory but basically they were able to burn out their enemies out of their hideouts. So those were a lot of help with armies as well. Tracer bullets were also another new thing. As you can tell there was a lot of new inventions that even helped wars not just lifestyle. But anyway, tracer bullets helped people figure out where the bullets landed. There was one gun that was bigger than any other war weapon at the time. It was created by the Germans and it was called the Big Bertha. This shot a huge cannonball out to its enemies. So as you can probably guess this caused a lot of damage. It was a very successful and helpful invention for the Germans. The Germans were not the only successful inventors of artillery. Tanks were invented during this time by the British. Of course it was great against enemies because it gives great protection. This invention was such a success that later on other countries copied the idea to make some for their own armies and that is how we have gotten to use tanks in our wars to this day. There was even more transportation that was slowly becoming popular as well. This new transportation was airplanes. This wasn’t just for wars but it became a great help to them. This was the more successful mode of transportation. But the Germans tried to get themselves into that type of inventing. They created zeppelins. They are what we know today as blimps. Since they were so large they became threatening and scary but armies started to find a flaw in this new invention. This mode of transportation is flammable! So they weren’t as efficient in wars as they thought they would be. There was on more creation that was made specifically for wars. Poison Gas. This at first was becoming very successful and lives were lost from this terrible weapon. But other enemies started to become smarter. They made gas masks to protect themselves. So throughout these inventions, other countries just kept building their armies up. If one side created something big, the other side would upgrade to something even better to protect themselves from the other invention. So there wasn’t just one country that was better than any of the others. The fact was that lots of lives were lost while using these weapons and whether it was a good turnout or not it is still sad that there were so many people that fought for their country but never got to walk away with their victory.

After the war to summarize it all up there were treaties that were made to finally agree on peace from war (for now) and finally some of the countries that lost a lot could pick themselves back up. Germany was blamed a lot for the war and it was kind of true because they were basically in every single battle that took place in World War I. Unfortunately, there was also some other bad issues that happened after the war like the Flu of 1819. Diseases and sicknesses were not as easy to make a comeback from back then because they don’t have all of the medicine that we have today. So this wasn’t like a regular flu season that we have to this day….. People actually died from this sickness. But throughout these catastrophes, countries were finally done with the war. Everyone didn’t realize though that it wasn’t the end. World War II would come very soon and make the World War I look like child’s play because it was even worse. Imagine all the lives lost in this war…….. That makes me not even close to imagining what comes next with World War II.

Constitutional Amendments 16-19

There’s a lot of Constitutional Amendments but I recently learned a lot about the 16^th, 17^th, and 18^th, and 19^th Amendments. Some of them we still use to this day, but others have been ignored and tweaked a little bit. Amendments are basically like great laws that everybody in America has to follow. They give rights to citizens like the right to remain silent and many more. But the ones that I am going to be talking about in this essay is mostly going to be Amendments that kind of act like laws more than rights.

The 16^th Amendment was ratified on February 13^th, 1913. This Amendment gave a right to Congress. Specifically, it gave them the right to collect income tax. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. They are allowed to collect income tax based on a person’s level of income. So everyone would be in a different situation depending on how much money they receive. This is when the taxes started to get even crazier in the America. Taxes are included in basically everything in our country to this day. They have even made a no tax day right before school starts where everything in the clothing section of purchases have no taxes added on. One day out of the year. The rest of the days just have more and more taxes on everything. They keep finding other ways that they can tax the population. They’re going to start taxing us on breathing air sooner or later because that’s how crazy it’s getting.

The 17^th Amendment was ratified on April 8^th, 1913. It talks all about Senators and how they are elected. It also states that each state must have two Senates. Also, just like the President, the Senate gets voted by the people. I think that’s the right way to do it. Because the people are what make up the population. So we should have a voice in who we want to run our country. This is what is called a democracy. This hopefully will never change because I think this is the best way to run a country. The people who live in the area can have a voice. Plus, the person gets elected fairly. We never want to change to a different government like a dictator for example. This is when the person who runs the country stays put in that place until they die and all of the population does not have a voice. There are other types of government but that is one of the worse ones that we never want to turn into.

The 18^th Amendment was ratified on January 16^th, 1919. This one is quite simple but we don’t use it at all to this day. It didn’t really have anything to do with politics. It had something to do with liquor. Basically, the sale, manufacture, import, export, or transportation of intoxicating liquors were prohibited. Of course, you can tell right away that this is not in use to this day because it’s very common for people to purchase these beverages. A movement called the temperance movement is what sparked for this new Amendment to be made. But this was a failure because the choice to purchase these liquors, is for the personal decision of whoever is buying it. Yes, it does cause some people to become alcoholics, but that is their decision and it’s not up to the government to decide that for them. So overall it was not possible to keep this Amendment strong so it was just simply reversed.

This is probably my favorite Amendment out of all of the ones that I talked about in this essay. The 19^th Amendment was ratified on August 18^th, 1920. This one stated that the government cannot deny anyone to vote because of their gender. This made men and women have equal rights. Personally, I think that this should have happened much earlier because it just doesn’t make sense to hold other people back with less rights just because of what gender they are. This Amendment doesn’t really need that much explaining because it’s a quite simple concept. But I like when things like this happen in history because frankly, everyone is the same. Yes, we have different personalities, but I mean we are all humans. Everyone should have the same rights. If they don’t, then it’s just becoming a double standard. If someone is trying to state their own personal opinion…. They have that right. If they are getting told that they can’t do that, stand by their side and support them! Even if you don’t agree with their opinion they do have the right to have their own thoughts. If you don’t support them because you don’t agree on their specific opinion, then that is just showing that your rights should be taken away too. Because everyone has different views on different subjects. Just because someone doesn’t agree with you, doesn’t mean that they don’t have the right to personally think those thoughts.

Overall, some of these Amendments make a lot of sense, but others didn’t really work out and didn’t make the country any better. But Amendments do help the country we just have to keep everyone in check that we continue to follow them.