Saint Valentine
Monday, February 13, 2012
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
Saint Valentine
Sunday, February 12, 2012
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!
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!
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