The mystery that is the assassination of JFK

   John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the thirty fifth president of our great nation. He was born into the powerful Kennedy family on may twenty-ninth 1917. President Kennedy's father was a very prominent businessman and investor, so President Kennedy was born into a very wealthy and powerful family. In his adolescence, Kennedy attended the finest private schools. His higher education continued into college when he attended none other that Harvard University. While at Harvard, He devolved a passion for political philosophy and he went on to graduate with a Cum Laude in international affairs.After his graduation, Kennedy enlisted in the united states navy. His original plan was to join the army, but he was denied because he suffered form chronic lower back problems. I was able to find the majority of the information that i used in this paragraph at The White House website. This website was fantastic! It provided me with the essential background information that i was looking for!

   Jfk came back from the war and he decided to become a member of the senate and he eventually worked his way up into congress. Kennedy had great success in congress and in 1960 he won the ballot for the democratic candidate for president of the United States. He endured several heated televised debates with his opponent, Richard Nixon. Kennedy won the election by popular vote and he soon became the first and only Roman Catholic president. He went to become a very popular president among the American people. Not a single person could have ever imagined that Kennedy would suffer the tragic fate that he did.

   It was a completely normal November morning in Dallas Texas in 1963. Air force One touched down at Love field at around 11:10 am President Kennedy and the first lady then transferred into the presidential motorcade. At around 11:40, the motorcade made its way into the heart of downtown Dallas. The motorcade made its way through Dallas and it eventually came upon Dealey Plaza. The events that unfolded from 12:15 to 12:30 are even till this day, one big mystery but one thing is for certain; John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated at approximately 12:31 P.M on November 22, 1963. The official perpetrator was Lee Harvey Oswald, But it is still unclear today if there was more than one shooter involved with that tragic day. Due to video evidence, several different theories of what really happened on that day have been created.

  One of the more popular theories is the single bullet theory. The theory states that there was only one bullet that was used in the assassination of Kennedy. The reason that this theory is often not credited as being logical is because of the fact that in order for there to have only been one bullet, the bullet had to curve once it exited the president. Obviously this would seem highly untrue.

   The other most famous theory is the grassy knoll theory. This theory is easily the most believable theory because it makes it possible for both the president and governor Connaly to both be shot from different angles. The theory states that there was actually a second shooter that was posited on a small grassy knoll at towards the far side of Dealy Plaza. Several eye witnesses claimed to have seen many "suspicious beings" that were located on the knoll at the time of the shooting, but no one will ever be completely sure if there was actually a second shooter on the knoll.

Despite all of the far fetched theories one thing is for sure, Lee Harvey Oslwald was up in his shooters nest that was located in the Texas school book depository building. Lee was camped out in the building and he was waiting for the motorcade to pass by his line of fire. He ended up being captured by the police only days after he fired his shot at the president. Sadly Oswald suffered the same fate that President Kennedy did. Lee Harvey Oswald was assassinated by Jack Ruby on November 24, 1963.

http://lawsonsrandolphhistory.wikispaces.com/US+History+Research+Project
http://lawsonsrandolphhistory.wikispaces.com/file/view/USH+final+research+project+contract.pdf/325443178/USH%20final%20research%20project%20contract.pdf

Dorothea Lange Photograph

Refugee camp near Holtville, Dorothea Lange

This photograph illustrates just how bad many Americans had it. Many Americans lived in slums that were very similar to this one. They were forced to leave their homes and live in the slums because they were either unemployed or they could have lost all of their savings when the markets crashed. Dorothea Lange was trying to show the American people the conditions that some people were actually living in. Also this photograph helps people understand the severity  of the amount of people that lived in poverty during the depression. 

Saint Valentine's Day: The history behind the holiday

Valentines day is not just a special day for lovers to shower each other with gifts and affection. Valentines day is actually a holiday that honors the christian martyr, Saint Valentine. This day of honoring Saint Valentine was first introduces by Pope Gelasius in 496 A.D. Valentines day did not become associated with love until the high middle ages, when the tradition or marital love flourished. Lovers during this time period began to send each other flowers and greeting cards that expressed their love. These traditions are the foundation for our modern day valentines day!
Saint Valentine

World War One era communications!

   My subject for my research project, is World War One era communications. I was very excited when I received this topic because I am fascinated with anything that has to do with how wars were fought. WWI was the testing grounds for the new advancements in radio technology. During my research I was surprised to out all of the things that the military did in order to control all of America's radios.


   Radio communication played a vital role for all combatants during the great war. The use of radios during the war greatly decreased the difficulty for soldiers to communicate from trench to trench. There were also many important breakthroughs in radio technology that occured during the great war. One pretty cool advancement was that ATT devolved a two-way radio system that allowed communication with the ground and airplanes. This breakthrough was very significant because of the fact that it allowed for the planes to maintain their squadron formation even when they were in the air.
  
 I found that another crucial communication medium was the telegraph. A telegraph is the long distance transmission of messages, usually in a coded form. Telegraphs were highly useful during the war because of the fact that the military could send a complexly coded messages, and they were usually not able to be deciphered. I found out the the most infamous telegraph was by far the Zimmermann Telegraph. This telegraph was essential what brought the United States into the great war. In a nutshell, the British military intercepted a telegraph that was sent from Arthur Zimmermann( he was the German foreign minister) to the Mexican government. In the telegraph, Germany offered American territory to Mexico in return for Mexico's support in the war. This was of great concern to America because of the fact that Mexico was literally right next door to them. 

The Zimmermann Telegraph
Childress, Alxander. "The Zimmermann Telegram." National Archives and Records Administration. Apr. 2010. Web. 12 Feb. 2012. <http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/zimmermann/>.
  
 I actually had a pretty difficult time finding adequate information on my topic. There are numerous amounts of articles about communication, but hardly any of them actually provided great detail about the various types of communication. I had to resort to going onto Wikipedia, but honestly I did not really find an overwhelming amount of information on communication during WWI. I even went to our text book because I was still short of information. Our own textbook didn't even have that much on WWI communications! that's crazy!


   Something that I found pretty neat was the fact that the United states used music as a form of propaganda during the great war. Propaganda is defined as "doctrines, ideas, arguments, facts, or allegations spread by deliberate effort through any medium of communication in order to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause" and as "a public action or display having the purpose or effect of furthering or hindering a cause. The United States' government would actually play song over the radio that were about how the Germans were "huns" as well as "barbarians". I really thought that this fact was really interesting because I just never imagined that The United States would use music as a way to attack the Germans.



     Overall, I really enjoyed doing research on communication, I found out a lot of cool facts that I would have never have known about if I never did this project. I feel like whoever had the strongest communication system, had the strongest army because they would be able to easily organize and mobilize their troops. I ran into a little road block during my research, But I was able to locate more that enough information!
    

The German U-1

I learned that the U-1 was one of the earlier German U-Boats. Also I found out that compared with other ships of its time, the U-1 was relatively small. It held three torpedoes and it also only had a crew of ten men. Through many trials, the Germans found out that the U-1 was not suitable for open ocean use. Therefore it was only used for coastline exercises. The U-1 never got to see heavy combat action due to the fact that its kerosene engines produced heavy amounts of white smoke, which made the ship very visible.

Sources

Lhor, Thomas. "The U.S. Navy's Great White Fleet Served a Foreign Policy Purpose in 1907." Military History 1st ser. 23.1 (2006): 64-67. Alabama Virtual Library. Web. <http://www.avl.lib.al.us/resources/display_resources.php>.


http://www.greatwhitefleet.info/Great_White_Fleet_Cruise.html




Sweetman, Jack. American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1984.




http://www.greatwhitefleet.info/GWF_in_Asia.html