Blog #19 - Top 3 Most Important Inventions in the Past 200 Years

For the past couple of days, we have been talking about the most influential inventions and concepts that have changed human life for the better or worse, initially in our short lives, and then we expanded it to the past 200 years (of course, the Snuggie is right up there in the Top 1 Million Inventions of the Decade).

There were a lot of great ideas listed during the brainstorming sessions.  They included, but were not limited to:

 - antibiotics, painkillers, refrigerators, televisions, telephones, harnessing the use of electricity, light bulb, airplanes, computers, calculators, air conditioning (I think that's in my selfish top 3), duct tape (someone insisted on putting it on the board), the car, steam engine, gasoline engine, light saber, and many others. 

Your job in this blog is to think of how your life and your parents' and grandparents' lives would have been amazingly different w/o the top three inventions that you have chosen.  Ask your parents and / or grandparents, aunts, uncles or other family members for perspective on technology, b/c we have a hard time looking past the few years we've lived in.  Right now, I don't know how I've lived w/o cell phones, but I obviously had for over 20+ years.  Now, try finding a pay phone.  But my personal favorite invention in the past 200 yrs (mainly b/c I'm not a huge fan of going outside in the middle of the night when ya gotta go) is:

The flushing toilet, right along w/ toilet paper.  It has made life so much more comfortable.  You can laugh, but think of having a pit toilet in your back yard, and having to go there in the middle of the night.  In the winter. I know, the girls, you would hold it, but the boys.... you're gross.   

Here's a website where you can rank your own top ten list of inventions: http://www.the-top-tens.com/lists/top-ten-inventions-in-the-last-200-years.asp
Top medical breakthroughs - http://zayamsbury.net/top-medical-breakthroughs-of-the-past-200-years/index.html


Due Tuesday, 150 words total.

List your top 3 most influential inventions in America and explain why for each.  Finding some reasons why and then citing them w/ online sources wouldn't be a bad idea. 

Blog #18 - What do we owe Haiti?

I started thinking about what the Haitian ambassador to the U.S., Raymond Joseph, had said here on this clip from the Rachel Maddow Show below about the impact of Haitian independence on both America and South America:

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In summary, the U.S. greatly benefitted from Haiti's independence b/c they were France's last major foothold in the northern part of the western hemisphere, therefore it made little military sense for them to hold onto the Louisiana territory.  So Thomas Jefferson and Congress worked out the deal to buy it for an insanely low bargain basement price of .03 cents an acre.  Just think of all the benefits we reaped from the Louisiana Purchase. 

For South America, several of the countries owe their independence to Simon Bolivar who used Haiti as a launching pad for his revolutionary army.  For instance, here's an excerpt from a Bolivar letter written December 23,1822; concerning the strength of Haiti, and the vulnerability of Colombia:

"I then cast my eyes over the endless coastline of Colombia, threatened by the fleets of every nation, by the Europeans whose colonies surround us, and by the Africans of Haiti whose strength is mightier than primeval fire."

Another quote written March 11, 1825; concerning the military tactics Bolivar wished to implement at this stage of the war against Spain:

"The wars in Russia and Haiti should be our model on some points, but without the terrible type of self-destruction that those countries adopted." 1
 
Without the sacrifice and support of the Haitian people, the countries in South America and the U.S. may not have become as prosperous or gained their independence as quickly throughout history.  If the Spanish hadn't been hassled by the revolutionary movements, they might have been able to bother the United States or reconquer Mexico. 
 
Questions:
1. Do the countries of America and Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, and Bolivia owe Haiti anything? Why or why not?

150 words, due Friday 4/16 by class time. 

If interested, the Haitian Embassy in D.C. is sponsoring an art contest to celebrate its Flag Day on May 18.  Click here for more info: http://www.haiti.org/files/CALL%20FOR%20ARTISTIC%20CONTRIBUTION.pdf


Sources:
1. http://www.historyvortex.org/HaitianRevolutionImpactSpanishCaribbean.html  Haitian Revolution and its Impact on the Spanish Revolution.