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...

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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.