"This is Halloween (Halloween, Halloween!)"

Trick-or-treat, history students. Monday's current events quiz is on schedule as usual...

• A Coast Guard plane carrying 2 and a Marine helicopter carrying 7crashed on Thursday. Rescue efforts continue...

• Somalia pirates are holding a yachting couple hostage. What is their motive? What do they want?

• Be sure to read about the possible election run-off boycott in Afghanistan.

• Another car bomb in the news this week, this time in Islamabad, Pakistan.

• Former tennis champ Andre Agassi admitted to using drugs throughout 1997.

I haven't decided what the bonus will be this week, but it will probably be about something that happens on Sunday that I haven't posted.

Monday, after the quiz, we will start a Power Point on the Five Pillars. We will finish it up on Tuesday Wednesday.

Hope everyone is having a safe and happy Halloween!

~Mrs. S.

Current Events

Tomorrow is Monday, and you know what that means. After the Current Events quiz and discussion, we will talk about "Dear America: Letters Home to Vietnam". By Tuesday, I hope to have the rest of your Cold War Unit exams graded; they will be done by Wednesday at the latest. It's taking a lot of time this weekend to grade those essays-- but most of you have done a very nice job, and it's evident that there was a lot of studying going on!

After we go over the unit test scores, we will kick off our unit on the Modern Middle East.

So, on with the current events...

• On Sunday morning, two car bombings killed at least 135 and wounded at least 520 civilians.

• In China, three coal miners were rescued after having been trapped for eight days. Why do you think the number of mining accidents is so high in China?

• President Obama has declared the H1N1 virus situation a national emergency.

• The three last questions on tomorrow's quiz will actually come from this article about tourism in Berlin, Germany. This article is a very timely one for us to read considering we are just wrapping up our unit on the Berlin Wall. Be sure to read the whole article, and try to view the Photo Gallery (though it wasn't working for me on this Sunday morning, so we'll see...)
  
  Either way, the article is available for you to read, so why don't you take care of that right now and get it out of the way?
  
  
  

Khrushchev in Pittsburgh?

You can read an interesting story in the Post Gazette about Nikita Khrushchev visiting Pittsburgh in 1959. The story is linked here.



What in particular made Khrushchev want to visit Pittsburgh?

Today, of course, we took the 80-point Cold War Unit Exam. If you were absent only today, you will have to make up the test tomorrow (Friday) during class. The substitute teacher will have your name and blank test.

For those of you who took the test already, tomorrow you will be watching a classic HBO production about veterans' experiences in Vietnam called Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam. We will discuss the Emmy award-winning show after our current events quiz on Monday.

I hope you all have a safe and wonderful weekend. Don't forget that if you post a news article as a comment in this blog entry, you may earn bonus points if I use it in the quiz!

Rainy, dreary, cold.

That about sums up the weather report for this weekend, no? Mr. Cullen and I went to see "Where the Wild Things Are" this morning and it was nice to hide away from the dreary skies for a short bit.

I'm updating the website a bit early this weekend, hoping to re-work this week's Cold War exam tomorrow afternoon. I want to make sure the essay question is worded in a fair way and that students know what is expected of them, so for now-- Monday's current event clues!

• Mr. Cullen thought we were under attack by aliens when he first saw this footage, but it turned out just to be balloon boy... or was it?

• 3,500 troops who were supposed to ship out to Iraq won't be leaving, afterall.

• A fireworks blaze kills 32 in India just days before a big holiday.

• This article has to do with a different kind of "Cold War" in Moscow.

• Pakistan has launched an offensive attack against Taliban and Al-Quaeda strongholds along the Afghanistan border.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Your unit final exam on the Cold War will take place this Thursday. On Monday I will have study guides for you that include a long list of topics that will be included on the exam. Although I have not finished re-working the test, I can tell you that it will have a map section, a matching section, and one essay question worth approximately 30 points.

On Monday and Tuesday we will go over Chapter 18, Section 5 (The End of the Cold War) and on Wednesday we will have a review in preparation for Thursday's exam.

ugh

I am suffering from the worst flu! I hope you all are healthy and enjoyed a safe and fun Homecoming weekend. Regardless of whether or not I am well enough to return tomorrow, you will have a current events quiz...

• Who was chosen to be this year's winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, leaving some feeling confused?

• Talk about rights we take for granted... in this country, three people (amongst tens of thousands) who protested what they believed to be a rigged election are being sentenced to death.

• Are you worried that the world will end in 2012? According to the Mayan elder Chile Pixtun, the Western world is worrying needlessly.

• NASA crashed two U.S. spacecraft into the moon in search of water. Were they successful in their pursuits?

• Militants took 42 people hostage in this nation's military headquarters on Sunday.
  

Tuesday!

Today we took a quiz on Chapter 18, Section 3 (Communism Spreads in East Asia). Even with open notes, some found it to be tricky-- so be sure to study for it!

With the remaining time we completed some map work, labeling countries in Asia, color-coding it to help us study for the Cold War exam (which will be in about two weeks-- more info to follow--) and listing the leaders of those countries.

Here is a link to a copy of the map-- you can easily Google "Asia map" if you don't have an atlas at home-- but there are several countries missing from this version that you need to add. Below is a complete list.

Asia map

North Korea
South Korea
Vietnam (distinguish "north" and "south")
U.S.S.R.
Turkey
Cambodia
Laos
Japan
Turkey
Indonesia
Philippines
China
Taiwan

Current events tomorrow, plus an open-notes quiz.

Tomorrow we will have our regularly scheduled current events quiz, and then go back to our Chapter 18, Section 3 notes (most classes only have three or four slides to finish.) If time allows, we will have an open-notes 10-point quiz on Section 3; if we run out of time we will take the quiz on Tuesday and then move on to talk about the conflict in Southeast Asia (the Vietnam War).

Here are some links for you to check out for tomorrow's quiz!

• This city won the bid to host the 2016 Olympics. Where will the next Olympics take place (in 2012)?

• Iran agrees to let the U.N. inspect the controversial uranium enrichment site on October 25th.

• A typhoon whips through the already storm-battered Philippean Islands.

• Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood is calling this act while driving a "national epidemic".

• Binge-drinking is becoming a problem in Rome, Italy. To what do they attribute this recent change in culture?
  

Communism Spreads in East Asia

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we talked about the Communist Revolution in China (today coincidentally marks the 60th anniversary, or 60th "birthday" of communist China.

If you missed those days, here are the notes:

Chapter 18 Section 3

On Thursday and Friday we are watching a video about the Korean War-- a very good film produced by PBS about America's "Forgotten War". If you have Netflix at home, you can watch this on streaming video (on your computer). Here is the information about the documentary:

Korean War Stories (You have to answer the questions that are included on this link. Many thanks to the author of "The Educated Teacher" blog, because the questions that go along with the video are incredibly helpful!)

As always, remember you have a current events quiz on Monday. The site should be updated by early-ish Sunday morning this week.