Munchkins!

Defeat the Gelatinous Octahedron and the Potted Plant with the aid of the Boots of Butt-kicking or the Slimy Armour! Meanwhile, watch out for curses like the Duck of Doom or even the terrible Income Tax!

Me and my brothers got Munchkin as a Christmas present. Munchkin is a really funny, simple game -- without all that complicated role-playing stuff! We had to look at the rules every five minutes at first, but since then we got the hang of it.

You get treasures, like the slimy armor, by killing monsters. Sometimes, the better players speed ahead of everybody else, because of the positive circle generated. You get bigger treasures by killing worse monsters, kill worse monsters by getting bigger treasures, gain more levels by killing worse monsters, and kill worse monsters by gaining more levels. To compensate for this, there is a charity phase, in which you give all but five cards to the lowest level player.

This can mean a lot of cards around the board get circulated around the game for a while, before getting worn down by monsters, curses, and other cards played.

Here are the three best things about Munchkin:

1.   It is a really funny game. My favorite monster is the Net Troll, who is dangerous because he does not have any special abilities, and is really mad about it.

2.   There are so many fifteen-card sets you can buy, and add to the decks. I once played, at a relatives house, a Christmas version of Munchkin. It included monsters like Kris Kringle!

3.   You can play the game with a lot of players. Six, to be exact.

Since this is a full review, here are the two worst things about Munchkin:

1.   Many times, my brothers spent a long time thinking about what to give to who in the Charity phase, and we did not even have time to finish our first game.

2.   Once, we all spent a very long time at level 1. After level 1, it is easier to gain levels, but it sometimes takes a while to launch off.

The day of fire

Christmas is not celebrated by everybody, but New Years sure is. The people who do not go to firework shows or countdowns in the center of the city, do change calendars and say "happy new year" to everyone they meet the next day.

New Years was not always on January 1. It is only like this in the Gregorian calender, and there were many other calendars floating around the world at the time.

Lithuania was among the first places to start using the Gregorian calendar, on 1362. Venice started using it on 1522, followed closely by Germany, Spain, France and the Netherlands. Scotland started using the calendar 1600, but it was not until 1752 that the British started using the calendar. Soon, the entire world was using it, and Thailand began celebrating New Years on 1941.

China, and other countries in the area, are not using the Gregorian calendar. China has an ancient calendar of its own, and in this calendar it is the year of the horse, and New Years is February 19. Last year it was January 31 and next year it will be February 8. This is the Lunisolar calendar, and has been adopted by other countries like Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.

A list of cities and how they celebrate Gregorian or Lunisolar New Years there:

Shanghai

Lunisolar new years are usually three-day celebrations. In Shanghai, a light and sound show is put on. The following is common everywhere in China, particularly Beijing:

The first day of the year is a day to ward off evil spirits. This is done by burning firecrackers and bamboo poles.

The second day of the year is when there are feasts, and is the time you want family members over.

The third day is a day of evil spirits. Many things are considered unlucky on this day.

Hong Kong

New Year's Eve is celebrated in Hong Kong the same way it is celebrated in New York.

Goa

Many Indians go to Goa for the live concerts and other festivities there. It is common for them to spend time with family on New Year's Eve.

Jakarta

In Jakarta, there is a countdown and fireworks party. Out of the center of the city, there is dancing and trumpets.

Tokyo

Balloon releasing in the Zojoji Temple, lighting of the Tokyo Tower and the year number displayed in the observatory.

Seoul

Ringing of the Bosingak bell 33 times and fireworks display. Some Koreans believe that if you eat a special soup at New Year's, you gain a year of life, and if you do not, you get bad luck.

Manila

There are quite a few ways to celebrate New Years eve in the Philippines. Some eat barbecued food. Some wear polka-dotted shirts. Some throw around coins to increase wealth the coming year. Some jump to increase their height. Some eat grapes, and some blow car horns to scare off evil spirits. Some also go to parties and set off fireworks.

Riyadh

Nothing. New years celebrations in Saudi Arabia have been banned by the religious police.

Singapore

Hundreds of thousands gather to watch "wishing spheres", as well as an arts display, on the wharf. Also, there are countdown events across Singapore.

Taipei

Gigantic countdown fireworks show involving Taipei 101.

Lagos

People gather to watch the Lagos Countdown.

Casablanca

A fireworks display. The only other large fireworks displays in Africa are in Ghana.

Auckland

The first major cities to witness New Years are in New Zealand. Auckland celebrates with a fireworks display.

Sydney

The first city of over one million people west of the International date line, Sydney has one of the largest firework celebrations in the world.

London

At the stroke of midnight, people around the Big Ben join hands and sing Auld Lang Syne.

On the night of 2010-2011, there was a fireworks show along with a musical soundtrack around the London Eye.

2011-2012, there was a parade and a fireworks show around the Big Ben.

Paris

Celebrating at parties with foie gras, oysters, and champagne. It can be a simple dinner, or a fancy ball.

Berlin

The largest fireworks celebration in Europe, focused around the Brandenburg Gate.

Budapest

A dinner with traditional dishes. The Timewheel runs out on the New Year, and is mechanically rotated so that sand goes through it for another year.

Reykjavik

Fireworks are very popular. Many stay up very late. (Not as if there is more than an hour of light in the first place.)

Rotterdam

There is a central fireworks display on one of the bridges. New year's Eve is celebrated with a cozy night with family and snacks like Oliebollen.

Moscow

The tolling of the Kremlin clock and the singing of the Russian national anthem.

Edinburgh

The firing of a cannon and the stroke of midnight brings a famous fireworks display.

Belgrade

In Serbia, Santa Claus comes a week late!

Madrid

A countdown and a seafood dinner.

Toronto

Late-night partying, sporting events, and free public transit.

Mexico City

Mexican sweet bread is baked with a coin in the dough. Whoever finds the coin gets the luck of the new year. This is one tradition. There are many more.

New York 

A ball drop in Times Square. One of the most popular New Years events in the world.

As you can see, there are many, many events around the world on one day. It is almost time for these festivities. 

Merry and bright

A long time ago, a bright star appeared in the sky and drifted east, or at least from the east, for a long time before reaching a roman town on the eastern side of the Mediterranean, where it stopped. Three kings followed the star, and they were led to where a baby was born, on Christmas. They gave the baby gifts and the baby grew up to become Jesus. He was killed at a young age and his body was claimed by God. Of course, different people will believe different parts of this story, and the exact details are after all pretty vague, so I can't talk much more about the origin of Christmas, except to say that Christ could have been born around March or April, not December or January.

I am stuck with talking about Santa Claus.

What is the origin of Santa Claus? I am going to start by saying Santa Claus used to be called Saint Nicholas. The dutch version of Santa Claus, described in an earlier article, is also sometimes called Sint Nicolaas by the Dutch, which means the two may have the same origin.

I have read an article on the Internet that claims Saint Nicholas was a kind saint who gave gifts and lived in the roman Middle East, a little while after Jesus was born. I do not think this is truth, however, the truth is undoubtedly very similar. This does not tell us very much about what Santa Claus looks like, though. There are three sources that tell us this.

The first one is poems. There were a lot of poems written about Santa. A very old poem by Clement Moore does indeed describe Saint Nicholas as plump, as well as naming the reindeer and mentioning the elves, but there were details missed by Clement Moore, such as the elves making gifts at the north pole. These details were invented by the media later on.

Humiliatingly enough, our exact picture of Santa Claus came from ads! That's right, the picture of a big fat guy with glasses comes almost completely from Cola ads in the supermarket! I must admit the description came from Clement Moore and other writers of Christmas poems, but Clement Moore did not draw any pictures, and the Cola industry did!

The world's oldest sport

Five thousand years ago, everybody could never get anywhere very quickly. People were still going everywhere by using canoes and similar boats using oars and paddles. Then, around 3000 BC, boats started using the sail.

The first sailboat was a very simple raft with a square sail on top, but it was a great improvement to paddling. The sail meant that boats could get big. Sails were invented at different times at different parts of the world, and people in Peru, Polynesia, the Mediterranean, and other places benefited greatly from them. The Greeks and the Phoenicians went on long voyages and conquered faraway lands with the aid of the sail.

However, the square sail has its problems. Sometimes you need to wait very long until the wind changes and you can sail where you want to. The Phoenicians were the first ones to invent a sail you can sail into the wind with, about 3000 years ago. The new technology was slow to be used, but when it was used, it kicked off an age of discovery. Many lands were discovered with the aid of the triangular sail. However, the first steamboat was made in the late 1700's. How are sails used today?

The answer is simple. Sailboats are being used simply as a recreational sport. Holidays are spent on sailboats, and sailboats are being spent on races. Races are sometimes epic journeys, and epic journeys are also taken on sailboats.
The sailboat has evolved into many different forms, from the slow, bathtub-sized Optimist to speedy Laser to large racing yachts to the most common, a slightly-larger-than-yacht sized recreational boat with a living room, kitchen, and possibly bedroom and toilet under the deck. I currently am learning to sail all but the latter. There were some simple tricks I learned the helped me a lot on the way.

Balance could be the most useful thing on a sailboat. If there is too much weight on the back (stern) of the boat, the boat drags in the water, and slows you down. If there is too much weight on the front (bow), every little wave can slow you down as well as splashing your face.

I find the hardest part of sailing not sailing itself, but the names of the parts of the sailboats. Sailors have practically invented a new language. So far the words I learned are: Stern, bow, port, starboard, tack, gybe, rudder, tiller, tiller extension, centerboard(or daggerboard), cleat, clam cleat, jib sail, main sheet, mast, boom, vang, boomvang, hull, gooseneck, outhaul, downhaul, bung, bung hole. This is only a fraction of all the words.

Many people are very scared of capsizing. However, capsizing can be fun, as long as it is not in cold water. The way to upright the boat is to push the centerboard or daggerboard back into the water, and slowly rolling the boat back upright. One problem with capsizing is that you can hurt your fingers if you grab onto ropes while capsizing. A reason to use sailing gloves!

my vacation in the Australian outback

Some shops at Dunedoo

Semi-arid regions
    My vacation in Australia started a while ago. I packed three books and a kindle so I wouldn't bore myself in the car.
    The first drive in the trip was one of the longest. I watched the landscape as the hilly forest I live in gave way to the Blue Mountains, a huge plateau split by gorges. After the Blue Mountains was the Great dividing range, a huge area in eastern Australia that divides the forests at the coast from the desert at the other side of the range. There was hill after hill, in between there was an expanse taken up mostly by farms that harvested big yellow fields of canola and big green fields of other plants.
    After a while, there were less and less hills, and at one point none at all. This was part of the semi-arid regions of Australia, past the Great dividing range. The land looked much the same as the land in between the hills of the Great dividing range, with colourful fields and small towns.

My family around an old well at the Old Dubbo
Gaol

Behind bars
    After eating lunch at a small town called Dunedoo, My family stopped at Dubbo, a city to the west of Dunedoo. The first attraction I saw at Dubbo was the historical Old Dubbo Gaol.
    The Old Dubbo Gaol was a prison built for colonists before Australia became a nation, and since has been made into a museum. I went through a self-guided tour that was marked on the map. I learned about the conditions that prisoners there would undergo. A bed would be a straw mattress and a pillow stuffed with straw. The prisoners were daily taken to an exercise yard and, if the sentence was hard labour, a work area. In the same building as the men's cells there are two dark rooms. They have two inch thick iron doors and six inches of dirt packed above the ceiling, to block out all of the noise. Sometimes prisoners would be put into these dark rooms where they would see no light and hear absolutely nothing. Other features of the Old Dubbo Gaol include the gallows, where eight hangings were performed, and the guard tower at the northeast corner of the gaol wall.
    After seeing the Old Dubbo Gaol, My family put up a tent at the big 4 Dubbo parklands. At this camp site there was a recreation room with a table tennis table and a movie shown by an overhead projector. There wasn't very much to do though, and I occupied myself by reading a World Book encyclopedia. After dinner, I came into the tent and tried to sleep. I was kept up by the lights and noise of the campground and only got 6 hours of sleep. I thought all of the campgrounds would be like this.

Giraffes at the Taronga Western Plains Zoo

Western plains
    The next day, I went to the recreation room to eat breakfast.  I noticed that the movies in the recreation room were from a Foxtel channel showing family movies. I think the movies weren't very good, and I thought they looked like Foxtel just sorted out all of the worst movies, and picked the ones that were the best rated.
    Then my family went to the Dubbo Zoo, also called the Taronga Western Plains zoo. I have been to the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, and I would say it was similar in some ways, different in others. The Dubbo Zoo had a hippo pond, a few lemurs, and many other African and Asian animals. My favourite was the Eland, and I was surprised at the name because "Eland" in dutch means 'moose'. I also enjoyed seeing the elephants and an endangered Asian species of horse called Przewalski's horse.
    After a very cold cloudy night, we packed everything up and hit the road. The next stop was Cobar.

The outback. It is far from a bare desert.

Outback
    The landscape changed again as I looked out the window. Slowly, the farms changed to a forest with low-growing trees. Then I caught glimpses of red sand. Later, close to Alice Springs, I was to learn that the sand was ordinary white sand with a layer of iron around it. The trees stopped, and there were small bushes covering the ground, in between them more red sand.
    This was an area of Australia called the outback. It takes up most of Australia and is completely desert. As I went I saw hill after hill after hill, and I can imagine that when the first explorers came into the outback with camels, they got pretty bored of the landscape. The only things that disturb the endless hills are salt pans, where lakes used to be but dried up, leaving the salt they dissolved from the crumbly soil in the outback.
    We stopped at Cobar to see the big beer can. The 'big things' are attractions in Australia that are, obviously, models of ordinary things that are a lot bigger than life-size(And they are worth getting out of the car and seeing!). Besides the big beer can, I have also seen the big merino at Goulburn. The big banana at Brisbane was the first 'big thing' to be built.
    After we started driving again, we went on a very long drive west to Broken Hill, a town close to the South Australia/NSW border.

Exploring a ruin at Silverton

39 dips
    My family drove to the information centre and got nothing but a few maps. On Them I was able to spot weird names like Oxide Street and Sulphide street, Two streets that I saw when I was looking out the car window earlier.
    When we finally found out where it was, we drove to the Broken Hill Tourist Park. Then we parked at the 'tents only' zone and put up the tent.
    The next morning, we drove the car through the 39 dips to Silverton. Once in every 10 meters or so, there was a sign that said 'DIP', and then a curve downward in the road. After we passed all of the dips, we arrived at Silverton.
    Silverton is a small abandoned town outside broken hill. It and its surrounding hills are the place where more than a hundred movies and advertisements have been shot. It is also a good place to see ruins. The ruined buildings include a church, a few houses, and a school that has been made into a museum. There are a few buildings where you can buy souvenirs, But not very much else that is still running. Still, visiting Silverton is a nice way to see the things that are so common in the outback.
    That night, when I was walking away from the playground at the Broken Hill Tourist Park, I looked up, and saw the sky covered with stars. I was able to spot the star Antares inside the constellation Scorpius. Those were two things I could recognise in the night sky, which I spent about half an hour looking at. Then I went inside the tent and slept. It wasn't nearly as bad as the Dubbo campground, without bright lights and without loud sounds.

An airplane on display at the Flying Doctors

Lane Lane
    The next day, Me and my family visited an old mine near Broken Hill, but I didn't get to go inside it. I learned that Broken Hill is famous for its silver mining, which led to the name of the town.
    The next thing I saw around Broken Hill was the Flying Doctors for the area of Broken Hill and Adelaide. 
    The Flying Doctors is a federal organisation that helps sick and injured people in the outback. Many homes and towns are so remote they cannot be reached by hospitals or ambulances, so they have to be reached by plane. The Flying Doctors has airplanes that are small and can land on short runways. During a tour, I saw some of the airplanes, as well as an old radio that the Flying Doctors used before more technology came along.
    After seeing the Flying Doctors I went to a museum about Broken Hill.
    Besides silver, the Broken Hill mines dug up all kinds of gems and minerals. This led to the names of many roads, including Oxide Street, Sulphide Street(see beginning of the section above; '39 dips'), Kaolin Street, Crystal Street, and Uranium Street!
    At the museum is a display showing some of the crystals that were mined in Broken Hill. There is also a model of a tree completely made of silver, called, 'The Silver Tree'. As I rode home I saw more roads named after minerals, like Garnet Street and Galena Street. I even saw a street called 'Lane Ln'.
    That night I looked at some stars, then fell asleep.

The middle of nowhere
    It was a long drive the next day. On the way we passed Port Augusta and also saw many salt pans. They are very common in the outback and there is one big salt pan far north of Port Augusta. It is called Lake Eyre(pronounced 'heir') and fills up with water every pelican breeding season. The pelicans then gather around the shores of the lake, and after the second clutch of eggs have hatched, Lake Eyre drains into the ocean and the pelicans fly away.
    Port Augusta is a city in South Australia that lies at the end of the Spencer Gulf. After we drove through it, there was not a cloud the whole day, and it was very hot. That evening, we camped at a very small town, population 30, called Glendambo. It was so remote, there was no light pollution, making the sky brilliant. It was probably the most beautiful night sky in the entire trip.

My brother at the Big Winch Lookout

A town made of opals
    Once we drove away from Glendambo the next morning, we saw the same outback landscape.
    It is hard for people to imagine the Australian outback. It is a desert with red sand, but in most places the ground is covered with bushes. There are a few trees as well, and a grassy plant called Spinifex.  There are many other types of plants as well.
    After a few hours, big lumps of earth and rock came into view. These were dug up from opal mines around the next stop; Coober Pedy, which is well known in the outback for its underground buildings and opal mining. The next thing we saw was the sign with the name of the town(It has a truck on top of it), and the Big Winch.
    The Big Winch is another of Australia's big things, and from its standpoint on a hill it can be seen from all over Coober Pedy. We drove to the top of the hill, got out of the car, and saw the town from the Big Winch Lookout. We saw many buildings, a drive-in theatre, and a few more hills, one of them with an opal shop on top of it. I remember seeing Coober Pedy filled and surrounded with a tan-red colour, the colour of the dust there.
    There was also the Winch. It was very tall and was carrying a bucket with a diameter of about two meters(six feet). On display is the broken and bent handle of the original, which was destroyed in a storm.
    The next thing we saw at Coober Pedy was the Old Timers Mine. It used to be a disused mine, but it was rediscovered when a citizen of Coober Pedy broke into it when digging out a girl's bedroom. The Old Timers Mine has a self guided tour, which I took, and along It I saw some of the tools miners in Coober Pedy use, as well as some opals and opalised seashells they dug up.
    At the end of the Old Timers Mine, there is a fun activity for kids. There is a pit full of rocks there, and about 75% of them are opals. I dug up some very beautiful ones, and I still keep them at home. Most of the opals in the pit are completely white, and of absolutely no value. A few sparkle one or two colours. I think the rocks in the pit are the least precious opals miners dig up around Coober Pedy, but they are still worth going to the museum, if you have kids.
    We didn't camp there for tonight. Instead we set off again through the world of small bushes, trees that take decades to grow to an undersized height, and red sand.

No, this is not Uluru, this is Mount Connor

Kangaroo
      Marla is a town north along the highway from Coober Pedy. Compared to the vast outback, it is only a dust speck. We camped there for the night, and then kept driving.
    Towns in the outback, such as Marla and Glendambo, are incredibly small. They still seem to attract tourists on a road trip, as they seem to be the only things for miles and miles. People who work or live in those places get their resources from 46-wheeled trucks called road trains.
    There was a long and hot drive after Marla, even hotter than it was when we were visiting Coober Pedy. As we got nearer and nearer to the center of Australia, it kept getting hotter.
    It wasn't long before we saw Uluru.
    Well, not really.
    There was a huge red rock, standing out against the hills and bushes around. We drove past it, and then it went out of sight. On the road map we had, we should have bumped into Yulara by now.
    It turned out this was actually Mt Connor. It is a gigantic sandstone rock, like Uluru, but it is standing on a pile of eroded rock and its top is flat. Many tourists(including us) mistake Mt Connor for Uluru at first. It is more like a mesa than a rock. Mt Connor can be seen on the road from Alice Springs and Marla to Yulara.

Me and my brothers in front of Uluru at the
Ayers Rock Resort

Arkose
    The Indigenous Australians are the people that have lived in Australia for a long time before white settelers came.  They invented the spear, woomera, clapping sticks and boomerang. The Indigenous Australians, also called the Aboriginies, are sort of like the American Indians. There are many of them in Northern Territory, due to the Northern Territory containing the last tribes to be discovered by the English, and the Aboriginal Protection Act.
    The Aboriginal Protection Act was passed in 1869, and ran for 101 years until, in 1970, the Aboriginal Lands Act was passed, which made the Act abandoned. The Aboriginal Protection Act made Aboriginies lose their freedom and took their children away from them to learn in Australian schools. As a result, Aboriginal reserves started losing their population and closing, which was the reason the Aboriginal Lands Act was passed.
    Uluru is a sacred place for the Aboriginals. It is also very famous and attracts tourists from all over the world.
    Soon, Uluru came into sight. It looked a lot bigger than Mt Connor, and a lot redder. I heard it is made of Arkose, a type of sandstone.
    After driving past Uluru, we camped at the Ayers Rock Resort and stayed there until the next morning, at one time in the afternoon going to a lookout to see Uluru.

A sacred place
    The next morning, we went up close to Uluru and had a tour on a walk that went to a small waterhole at one side. The tour guide explained how the Aboriginals in the area used a woomera(spear thrower) and how they made collecting bowls. The local Aboriginals also made a hard-setting glue from a plant called Spinifex, which grows all over the outback.
    The tour guide showed us to a sandstone cave, where there were cave paintings of leaves and animal tracks. The dating of the cave paintings suggests that Aboriginals have been at Uluru for over 10,000 years.
    There was also a cave where the old people would live, a cave for women, a cave for men, and a cave for children(next to the womens' cave). The paintings in the old peoples' cave were mostly groups of rings(a ring inside another one, inside another one, and so on), which can mean a waterhole or a special place. The Aboriginals would sometimes make maps on cave walls.
    The mens' cave had strange rock features on the walls. In one Dreaming Myth, some of the Mala men(a Mala is a rabbit-like animal that lives in the outback) got killed by a monster and turned into the rock formations.
    The tour ended at a very small waterhole. The rock above the waterhole was black with algae where there is a waterfall when it rains. There were also black streaks above. The Aboriginals used to drink from the waterhole.
    Besides a guided tour, you can also climb to the summit of Uluru. I advise you NOT to do that. Here are some reasons:
    1: It causes pollution. Most of the water that drains off of Uluru goes into a larger waterhole. The water there is now ruined because of camera batteries and ordinary rubbish.
    2: Uluru is a sacred place for the Aboriginals. There are cave paintings at the top, and they are being worn down. It is best to leave it alone.
    3: There have been deaths. About five people have died falling off the side.
    So please care for the waterhole, listen to the Aboriginals, and refrain from  climbing Uluru for your own safety.

(There are no photos in this section because we were not allowed to take any on the tour. Uluru is a place that you can see best with your own eyes.)

Dreamtime
     Then we went to the visitors center and learned more about the Aboriginals' culture. The children would work with the women until they grew up, when they started learning about how to survive. Men learned things like hunting, skinning meat, and throwing boomerangs, while women learned how to dig for grubs, cook, and harvesting things from plants. Men were strictly not allowed to watch women's ceremonies or watch or do what women were doing, and vice versa.
    The Aboriginals believed in a time called the Dreamtime or Dreaming, a time when there was nothing but spirits, named after local animals. All Aboriginal creation myths are set in the Dreaming. These myths can explain permanent landmarks, such as rock formations on Uluru, or features in plants. There are three known myths about Uluru(But I cannot perfectly recall any of them, so I guess you will have to go there yourself!)
    Many towns in the outback are named after Aboriginal words, such as Marla, which means 'Kangaroo', and Coober Pedy, which means 'white man in a hole'.
    When I got back to the tent in Ayers Rock Resort Campgroud, it was extremely hot. This seems surprising, because it was July, and in the southern hemisphere that is the middle of winter! Imagine how hot it must be in the middle of outback Australia, in the summer!

    That was part of the story of my August family's trip into outback Australia. I might post the next part later.

How a wooden stick started World War II

World war II was the most deadly war of all time, involving the most soldiers in the most parallels all around the world. It included epic victories (The Axis conquest of France, the Battle of Midway) and epic defeats (Pearl Harbor, the defeat of Germany). But what was this terrible war caused by? Hitler and Mussolini, right? Not exactly. Hitler could only have begun his rise to power in the right conditions. World War I created these conditions.

World war I triggered anger in Germany because of the improper armistice at its end. At the meeting where the Allied powers met to decide the conditions of the armistice, Germany was not invited. The armistice meant Germany had to keep its army under 100,000 men, it meant the navy had very few ships, it meant the Germans were very angry at the Allies. A German told the Allies that the armistice did not mean the end of war, it meant another war in twenty years. He was wrong by mere months.

What caused World War I ? The answer was a complicated system of alliances. Austria was against Serbia. Serbia was the friend of Russia. Russia was the enemy of Germany. Germany was the enemy of France. So, when the Archduke was assassinated by a Serb, Austria blamed the Serbian government, and declared war on Serbia. If Russia had not stepped in, there probably would not have been any world wars. But Russia had sworn to help Serbia in this kind of situation. As Russian forces mobilised, Germany declared war on Russia. France and England joined the Allies, and the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers. A war began. So, as you can see, a bonfire was set off by a single spark.

Many "sparks" had been going off in the Balkans, which caused wars, but only in the Balkans. Only in the right conditions could these "sparks" actually create a terrible fire. This was the right condition.

The entire thing started with the Ottoman Empire. The empire took over the Balkans before shrinking. When the Ottoman Empire started to decline, riots broke out in the Balkans. These riots were, however, unrelated with each other.
 When the new Balkan states were made, they started to fight over land almost immediately. New countries were being made all the time. Fighting is still going on.

The Ottoman Empire rose directly out of the ruins of the Byzantine, or Eastern Roman Empire. The temples, libraries, and farms from this old empire gave the Ottoman Empire some success over some small surrounding kingdoms, and meant the Ottoman Empire could expand into Europe some 400 years later.

What was this Byzantine Empire? At around 300 AD, the Roman Empire collapsed. It became two smaller empires, the Western Roman Empire, which was still ruled by Italy but collapsed quite quickly, and the Eastern Roman or Byzantine empire which was ruled by Greece, then Turkey, and endured almost a thousand more years.

Where did the Roman Empire come from? Even though it was always based at Rome, Roman culture copied Greek culture. Romans and Greeks worshiped the same gods, lusted after the same general things, had the same kind of palaces and temples. In a way, the Romans rose straight out of the Greeks.

Greeks first got civilized and strong when bronze working spread. Greeks got bronze from the Phoenicians, a group of seafarers living and trading on the Mediterranean. Phoenicians were based in the eastern side of the Mediterranean. And their ancestors were not just the ones who invented bronze, but farming.

So, is that really how World War II started, with the invention of farming? Actually, it would make sense that all wars started with farming. Without farming, people would not get so much food, and would not trade their goods at the markets. No markets, no cities. No cities, no inequality among rich and poor, as some people are more successful than others at selling their goods. No inequality, no thieving and jealousy. No jealousy, no sense of ownership. No sense of ownership, no fighting over ownership. No fighting, no war.

Giving thanks

On 1619, in the summer, two ships carrying over a hundred people set sail from a dock in the Netherlands. They were looking for a new life, new happiness, new freedom. They succeeded, and the name of one of their ships is a name everybody in the United States today knows.

These people did not come originally from the Netherlands, but from England. The religion that they practiced was against the law there, so despite attempts from the English to contain them there, the group ended up fleeing across the English Channel. Now a new problem arose. This group wanted to live in a place where they did not have to teach their children, and themselves, a foreign language.

So, one morning, a hundred pilgrims set out for America in their two ships, the Speedwell, and the Mayflower.  After stopping at Southampton, the Speedwell started to leak. It was put into the port of Dartmouth for repairs. After the Speedwell almost sank completely of its leaks, 200 kilometers after Lands End, it was put into port at Plymouth and deemed unseaworthy. Some passengers quit the trip altogether, while others joined the Mayflower, already a heavily burdened ship.

The real trouble of the voyage was on the second month. The winter gales threatened to tear the ship apart. There were two deaths among the crew, one an accident involving the sail, and one a man overboard. And disease spread among the passengers in the crowded conditions. Luckily, this did not result in any deaths.

The pilgrims first landed a place they called Provincetown harbor. After stealing from the Native Americans, the natives fought back, and the pilgrims decided to leave. They landed on Plymouth Rock, and called the new colony Plymouth. After finding an abandoned Native American camp, the colony was built.

It was December 23 when the building started. The men worked during the day and returned to the Mayflower at night to sleep. Bad conditions meant that the first "house", a small hut, took two weeks to complete. The workers suffered of disease. By the end of the first winter, 45 out of the 102 had perished, and only seven residences were built.

After peaceful encounters with the natives, the Mayflower left Plymouth at April. People kept on dying. By the end of November, there were only 53 pilgrims left. Before the dark months of the winter, the pilgrims decided to have a feast. They ate what was available, some wild cranberries, a turkey somebody had killed, and bread to stuff the turkey. This was known as the first Thanksgiving, now a public holiday in America.

From then on, the town of Plymouth grew, and became many towns, and the colony slowly covered all of Cape Cod. Until 1691, when it became part of one of the Thirteen Colonies. You can trace my family back to that voyage, a voyage that became one of the most known of any voyage...

HTML

What is HTML?

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language.Html is a program for making websites.

Try it!

If you want to learn more about html or even learn it(as I did)click on the link.
Important note:This article was written using HTML!
W3schools.com

The dutch Santa Claus

Christmas is widely celebrated all over the world. In many countries it is the biggest holiday. Christmas is also celebrated in the Netherlands, but not so widely. Dutch people instead celebrate a similar holiday with a similar man who wears red and white. However, he comes in a ship from Spain, and his name is Sinterklaas.

Another difference from Santa Claus is the helpers of Sinterklaas, not elves but black people from Spain (Zwarte Piet and his friends the Pieten). Many people find this bad as the helpers started as slaves in the early days of Sinterklaas but currently act goofy. However, some white helpers have been introduced this year.

How do we know so much about Sinterklaas? Well, he actually comes to the Netherlands in mid-November, and there is a website in which you can actually view the latest news. There is usually a different problem every year to keep kids viewing the website, such as the Pieten dropping keys in cookie dough and trying to find the keys, as well as some of the Pieten taking the boat back to Spain early.

When is Sinterklaas? Well, the kids start putting out their shoes by the fireplace in November. Then the Pieten come in the night, fill the shoes with things such as pepernoten, a kind of very small, hard cookie, and chocolate letters, and other dutch sweets. Children usually put out their shoes two to four or five times within the month of November.

Sinterklaas on his horse. 

 Bag of pepernoten.

Pakjesavond (present day) is the fifth of December. It is when Sinterklaas comes and brings a large bag of sweets to every family. Most of the presents are what you would normally get for Christmas, but there are a few added pepernoten and possibly the chocolate letters.

It's a small world. Really?

Hunter-gatherers thought the world was gigantic.

Farming did not change much. People could still not comprehend much beyond the Mediterranean, as was suggested by maps. When Alexander made his empire, however, maps of India popped up, and the world was centered on the Middle East. Over the years, places such as China, Siberia, southern Africa, Scandinavia, and finally America were added. It became apparent that the world was even larger than large, larger than anybody could imagine. When the car was widely used, it did not do much to this image.

It was the plane that did. The world began shrinking. Now many people picture the Earth as people used to picture the Mediterranean. And it is still shrinking, as planes become faster and faster.

Or is it?

Australia is a great example of how the world is still immense. Many travelers believe you can drive from Sydney to Perth in one day. This is a journey taking you over the Murray, Australia's biggest and muddiest river, to Adelaide, the smallest true city of Australia, across the Eyre peninsula, and the Nullarbor Plain, before hitting Kalgoorlie, and then Perth, the fourth largest and fourth smallest Australian capital (After Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, and before Adelaide, Darwin, Canberra). Now, consider this: It takes an entire day to get halfway to Adelaide, and it takes a week, at the very least, to get to Perth! Forget about one day!

One reason why many people think Australia is so small is the population density. During peak season, Yulara (The Ayers Rock Resort) is the third largest town in the Australian territory it is in. And did you know that the capital of Australia has a population barely over 125,000? Australia has only ten cities over 100,000, compared to, say, twenty cities in the Netherlands. Crazy!

There are many other examples. Canada is larger than Australia, but it sometimes seems like it is smaller than India.

My conclusion is that the world is small on a plane, but too large to imagine on the ground. There are endless things to see there and do there, but most importantly, you don't have to even travel to a different country to see many things.....

The stars of the Earth

Many items have been sought after in human history. First it was fertile land that could yield crops. Next it was the crops that the fertile land yielded.

After people started working iron and bronze, it was metal people tried hard to get. After iron came land, control of trading routes, wood, and so many other things. All of these -- fertile land, crops, metal, wood, including ships, stone, and slaves, have something in common, even though they are so different. During one time or another, the kingdom/empire which had the most of one of these different things was the most powerful in the land.

But this only applied to the medieval times, and earlier, when world maps only showed Europe, northern Africa, and Asia. Since then, the world has grown, to cover all five inhabited continents as well as Antarctica. Many nations are powerful for different reasons. China for its people, the USA mostly for its military power, the UK partly for its trading position. But what makes countries powerful in the end is things from the Earth: Fossil fuels, metals, and also precious stones.

Oil and coal continue to be of much value, and places like Saudi Arabia get rich off of fossil fuels. When people first started coal, they saw an unlimited amount of energy that was easy to get to. But there is a finite amount of everything, and fossil fuels started to run out. Now people are starting to become desperate,  looking under the sea for coal and oil. If people continue mining fossil fuels at the rate they are doing it, there will be an economic crisis within the next one hundred years.

As for metals and precious stones, there are plenty left. And people have been looking for gold for a much, much longer time than they have been looking for oil.

Of metals and stones, gold is the king of them all. Gold does not tarnish or rust, and it has been sought after for more than four millennium. Gold has been mined by the Egyptians to decorate their sarcophagi. Then it was used by the Greeks to decorate pretty much anything in palaces and temples. Then it was used by everyone in currency. Even though gold is not particularly valuable (there was a time when pepper was more valuable than gold!), there was ever only one other metal or crystal that people lusted for as much, and that was diamond.

The problem with diamond is, there is only one way to tell it apart from quartz, and that is to hold it up to the moonlight. But that doesn't stop thousands of people panning for it in Africa. Even though sometimes tainted, diamond is a very beautiful crystal. And it is hard, the hardest substance known to people.

There are many minerals and metals: Jet, quartz, amethyst, smoke quartz, pink quartz, ruby, sapphire, platinum, lead, tungsten, steel, silver, copper, nickel, zinc, mercury, and countless others. People have found a use for all of them, and people could not live without them.

50 posts on Lyra's Letters!

Lyra's Letters has published 50 posts so far, so here is some information:

The origins:    This blog started out as a newsletter that we would mail to our friends. There were three issues published, and it was designed by Stephen(in 'Contributors'), and written by the kids(Wytse, Daniel, Arwin). I(Wytse) wrote mostly short stories, Daniel wrote mostly nonfiction posts, and Arwin submitted poems and comic strips. Lyra's Letters was made into a blog around 13 February 2014.

The name:    Lyra's Letters is an elected name. It was written on a list along with The Gensemer Times and other names, then the family voted for some of them. Lyra's Letters was Stephen's idea, so that we could put a picture of the family dog, Lyra(see the July article) in the corner of the newsletter.

The posts:     There are many types of posts written in Lyra's Letters:
Short story posts:
    Storm above the Alinian plains(March, May, June)
    paradise(May)
    The Battle in the Hills(July)
    "new book", "new story"(May, July, September, October, Continuing)
Nonfiction posts:
    How did the Europeans react to the Australian Animals when they were exploring Australia?(February)
    Medical uses of gold in the past(April)
    Dogs(May)
    Cats(June)
    The first Australians(June)
    What is an endangered species?(June)
    Celebrating independence day(July)
    Black Saturday(July)
    stargazing(August)
    To the top of the world(August)
    The weirdest animals of the world(September)
    Hallow's Eve(October)
Nonfictional/Personal posts:
    The Walkabout Wildlife Park(February)
    Another trip to Jindabyne(April)
    Blue Mountains Trip(April)
    How to get rid of an Australian land leech(May)
    Plastic of Umina(June)
    The Six Foot Track(July)
    Lyra(July)
    Being a Writer(July)
    What to do with a paper and pencil(July)
Other posts:
    poem(poem, February)
    Stop the XL Pipeline!(comment, March)
    Homemade recipe(recipe, April)
    Energy(poem, May)
    Top 5 favourite books(book review, July)
    IMPORTANT MESSAGE(notice, October)

The contributors:    look at the 'Contributors' section. Stephen designed the original newsletter(look above), Nynke owns the blog, Arwin wrote a poem, posted in February, Daniel has made a significant contribution, and I(Wytse) have written a lot too.

I have learned a lot about writing ever since the blog started, and I hope I will keep getting better.

IMPORTANT MESSAGE

The Lyra's Letters writers have produced almost fifty posts since February. Three stories have been and are being posted. And a quite a handful of posts have been seen by over twenty people. Recommended/popular articles include:

Medical uses of gold in the past (April)

paradise (May) (Cont'd as "The Battle In The Hills")

How to get rid of an Australian land leech (May)

What is an endangered species? (June)

Plastic of Umina (June)

Being a writer (July)

Lyra (July)

The Six Foot Track (July)

To the top of the world (August)

Stargazing (August)

The weirdest animals of the world (September)

Hallow's Eve (October)

The Lyra's Letters team would love it if our followers could send in their own contributions. We will publish:

Recounts

Illustrations

Stories*

Nonfiction

Poems
Recipes**

*Can be any type of fiction, but has to be, at the most, 3000 words long.

**Has to be tested at your house first.

Anything not useful such as advertisements and inappropriate content will be discarded. Remember that anything that goes into Lyra's Letters will be edited. 

Thank you, the followers of Lyra's Letters! We encourage you to comment a lot.

Hallow's Eve

Among Christmas, Easter, and New Years, Halloween is a very old holiday celebrated throughout the world. And it is coming in just seventeen days!

There are two ways people celebrate Halloween. There is trick-or-treating, the practice of knocking on peoples' doors with costumes around dusk and asking for candy. However, this only works well in certain neighborhoods as many people do not give out treats at Halloween. Another way of celebrating is going to parties, almost any type, although most require costumes.

Why is "Halloween Eve" the evening of Halloween, and not the day before? The answer lies in the holiday's origin.

There used to be an ancient holiday on the first of November called All Saint's Day, the day when ghosts were apparently the most active. People celebrated at the end of the day, so happy they were that it was over. The celebration dated back to the Middle Ages.

Someone wondered what time of  All Saints' Day would be the worst. This guy chose not the day, but the night before. Everybody struggled to find a good name for this night. They finally settled with "All Hallows' Eve" or just "Hallows' Eve".

On the spookiest night of the year, why not sit inside, around the fire? Why not party, and be merry? Soon, more parties happened on Hallows' Eve than on All Saints' Day itself. All Saints' Day slowly faded away into nothing much more than history. Some still celebrate it, but not the people who celebrate Halloween.

The cat, bat, and owl were quickly adopted as symbols of Halloween, as hunters of the night. Stories such as Bram Stoker's Dracula were also associated with Halloween, just because they were spooky.

Soon, the holiday we know as Halloween began to assemble. It is no longer a time to fear, but a time to look forward to.

The weirdest animals of the world

Australia

Many weird animals live in Australia. This may be because Australia and Antarctica broke away from all other land masses long before other continents detached from their neighbours, but it may have something to do with the dinosaurs wiping out large mammals on other continents. For more information see Wytse's February article.

Marsupials live in Australia, some large islands in Oceania, New Zealand, New Guinea, and Indonesia. There is also a stand of them in North America.

Marsupials make up the bulk of Australian fauna. There is the kangaroo, an animal Australia is famous for. By hopping everywhere, kangaroos are three times as efficient as people. There are many types of kangaroos, including the eastern and western gray and the red kangaroo. There are also many close relatives of the kangaroo, including the euro, padimellon, wallaroo, and wallaby.
One of the benefits of a pouch in all these animals is that young can be born at a very early stage of growth, giving kangaroos, wallabies, and their relatives a rather short gestation period.

Koalas are some of the only animals capable of eating the poisonous eucalyptus
leaves. Digesting the leaves, however, robs them of all energy, so koalas spend up to 160 hours a week dozing off in a tree. The most active marsupials are the predators. Unfortunately, the largest went extinct in 1936 from hunting, the second largest is dying out from a contagious cancer, and the third largest is critically endangered from habitat loss! Bringing back all these animals, even the Thylacine, is or will be possible, but only if we really try.

Australia has many types of bird -- Cockatoos, lorikeets, turkeys, the largest population of pelicans. Even penguins live in Australia. The weirdest bird is the Lyrebird. This bird can mimic anything, from human voices to chainsaws to other birds. It also has six unique calls. 

The Americas

The Americas have been isolated for over 90 million years. This let the animals there get more and more different before a land bridge was formed between Alaska and Siberia.
The first animals to cross the bridge did not come from Siberia, but from America. Bears had been evolving in the continent for years. Over that time, some bears had migrated onto the ice caps. These bears adapted to have white fur, so their prey could not easily see them in the ice. The bears also grew very large, so they could produce enough body heat. The polar bear had evolved. Polar bears, adapted to the cold, could easily cross the icy land bridge. They were followed by grizzly bears, which evolved into sun bears later on.

The next animals to cross the bridge were cats. Cats evolved in Siberia and dispersed south since then. Some cats, like bobcats, with their long hair and short tails, stayed in Siberia. When the land bridge formed, bobcats crossed to the other side. Now there are more bobcats in North America then there are in Russia. Along with bobcats came tundra-grazing caribou and the people following them. Later came beavers and otters, and, from America, songbirds.

In America, the birds did not evolve to become amazingly beautiful, but some became very intelligent, like the raven. Ravens have been known to use taps. The owl also evolved in America. Owls are intelligent, too.
One bird, the Arctic tern, has the longest migration in the world. It spends its time in Alaska when it is summer there. As it gets colder, the Arctic tern flies south over the Pacific to Antarctica for the summer there. In this way, the Arctic tern sees the most daylight of any animal.

Eurasia

The most biodiversity in Eurasia lies in India and Indonesia. Sadly, this area is also very crowded. One of the most endangered animals on Earth lives in the rainforest  regions of Asia -- The tiger. Tigers are the largest big cats as well as the deadliest, but tigers do not kill a fraction as many people as people kill tigers.  Tigers are not really weird, but they're different from other big cats in many ways.

Ever since agriculture became widespread, there were barely any real forests in northern Europe. However, a few pockets of land still exist. In a few of the wetlands, otters swim. Otters are not very weird either, but unlike many other animals, they are not bothered by human habitation.

The reason why there are not any truly weird animals in Eurasia is, white people have had encounters with them for millennium. Things are only weird if they are new.

Africa

Africa has a range of unique animals. Giraffes use their long necks and feet to reach high branches, as well as to be invincible against predators. Elephants are the largest animals on land, as well as the most dangerous. Zebras as well as other grazing animals travel in herds in the greatest migrations. Hippos are dangerous, very large and formidable.

Africa also has powerful predators. Of these, lions are the most charismatic and iconic. Hyenas are not just scavengers. They hunt during the night.

Cheetahs are more related to domestic cats then leopards. However, this does not stop them behaving like other big cats. Cheetahs are the fastest animal in the world, but only for half a minute. Cheetahs quickly tire. A person would easily be able to beat them in a race if the race was more than five kilometers long.

Interestingly enough, true big cats only exist in 2 continents, Asia and Africa. Africa has the largest big cat population in the world.

The Islands 


That's all the continents! Actually, there is more. Many islands were never connected to a continent, so weird animals could evolve there easily. The problem is, many islands are very new. Only grass and seagulls would find the island before it sinks into the sea.

There are a few old islands, though. The Galapagos Islands are very old, and much life has found a foothold there.

Iguanas live in the Galapagos islands. Marine Iguanas cling onto rocks warmed from the sun in the day, as well as just sitting there being battered by waves and diveing for algae. During the night they lie in rocks.

The Galapagos turtle can live up to 160 years and is very large. The Galapagos turtle was not evolved to look beautiful. Its legs look like big, scaly sacks of sand and it may have one or two dents in its shell. But the Galapagos turtle is a key species. If it disappears, so may many other plants and animals in Galapagos.
 
The Ocean


Water covers most of the Earth. In the water, all sorts of fish swim. The water is where life came from. The water is where most life is. The water is where the last life will die.

Around the edges of the ocean, fish are normal. It is thought that life started in rock pools, and it is true that in rock pools there is much ancient life. Life forms older than trilobites search the bottom. Hundreds of types of seaweed, algae, and mosses grow in the edges. Oysters and limpets are five hundred million years old.

This is not just it. Farther out, on the continental shelf, there are atolls with coral reefs. Coral and sponges were the first multi-celled life. All sorts of fish, sea slugs and sea cucumbers, shells, shellfish, cuttlefish, sharks, and many other types of life inhabit coral reefs and make them living rainbows full of the essence of life.

The continental shelf slopes off into the 2-mile deep waters of the Abyssal plain. Here, most animals never see the sun. The Abyssal plain has pressure that could crumple you like a paper cup. It is also very cold. Once, people thought it was as barren as a desert. However, life has been found. The Anglerfish lures fish by light into their mouths. The fish they lure have glowing eyes.

The trenches are the ultimate Abyss. No fish lives here, but all sorts of incredibly strange life abounds here. Much of this life is not animal, or plant, or any other type of life form well known of.

The weirdest animal in the world


Long ago, there were two types of mammal.  There were animals that resembled mice, and the egg-laying Thecodont. Then the dinosaurs evolved, keeping the mouse population small and wiping out Thecodonts. At least, in six continents. Three egg-laying mammals still exist. They are the long-beaked Echidna, the short-beaked Echidna, and the Platypus.


Platypuses ought to be the weirdest animals in the world. The platypus has the tail of a beaver and the bill of a duck. It lays eggs like a reptile and has poison like a snake. The platypus can sense electric signals like no other tetrapod.
When Europeans first brought specimens back to their home, people thought the Platypus was a hoax.


The weirdest thing about the Platypus is: The animal is very common, unlike certain weird animals who live in places which don't have room for weird animals. Australia accepts the weird, and only the weird.