Louis XIV RAFT C

Dear King Louis XIV,

I am immensely blessed to have been welcomed into your beloved Versailles. I am one of the only peasants to have been granted a tour of Versailles. When I first walked in, I was flabbergasted at the sight of the finest paintings and statues, glittering chandeliers and mirrors displayed in the halls and salons. I couldn't believe that it used to be a royal hunting lodge. As we were guided to the royal gardens, I was blown away by the millions of flowers, plants, trees, and fountains that were set out in precise geometric patterns. Although I was astounded by the beauty of Versailles, I couldn't help but think that the money wasted on this palace could have been used more wisely on more important issues for the better of France. While you are having elaborate ceremonies to emphasize your own importance, your people are dying of hunger. There is no food left, there are barely any citizens left because of the depopulation, there are no jobs and everyone is getting laid off, and the economy is desperately struggling. Instead of crushing Frances economy, you should be helping it and strengthening it. I just believe that there are better places where the money and focus of France should be directed to.

Please don't kill me,

French Peasant

A Day in the Life...

London, 27 March 1667

This blog post represents how I might have spent a day in the life as a common folk in 17th century London.

Today, on my way to work, I stepped in animal feces twice and tumbled over the carcass of a dead dog once. My water carrier is late today and I think that I have a disease just from washing myself. The water tasted even more foul than it usually does today.

Dinner is at midday today and it is going to be delicious. I didn't even have breakfast today so I am very hungry. We are having fish and meat and sweet pies for dinner today with sweet meats and fruit for dessert and weak beer for our drinks.

Today I am wearing a wig and a three-piece suit. My wig had nits and lice in it when I first got it but then I cleaned it. My eyebrows are unfashionable so I replace them with little bits of mouse skin. Also, I really smell bad today.

Today I went to see a nice execution. Since I was in that type of mood, after that, I went to go see a bear-baiting on the south bank. Next I went to this new thing called a coffee-house just to see what it was and try it out. It was pretty good. Then, I enjoyed a nice walk in the royal parks and while I was near there, I took a boat ride up the river. Lastly, I went to another new thing that was opened called a theatre and watched an actress for the first time. Today was just an average day.



Picard, Lisa. "Sex, Lice, and Chamber Pots in Pepys' London." 17 February 2011. British Broadcasting Company. http://tinyurl.com/LondonDayintheLife

"Bear-Baiting." Shakespeare's England. http://www.shakespearesengland.co.uk/2009/11/17/drunken-cocks-bear-baiting/

Dumbfound Discovery in D.C.

Over the summer, my family and I went to Washington D.C.. We went to countless amounts of museums and saw extraordinary things like the Wright Brothers first plane and the gun that killed President Lincoln.

While I was in the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, I was going through an exhibit that featured many things from the earliest settlements of the new world called "Written in Bone: Forensic Files of the 17th Century Chesapeake". When I first entered the exhibit, I looked over to my right and was blown away by the scene of the mold of a skull that appeared to be carved or dug into with a sharp object.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/05/01/scientists-find-evidence-cannibalism-at-jamestown/

I walked over to the display. Next to the skull in the glass was a wax mold of a young ladies head and shoulders. She looked young and was in a position where you could see everything about her.

http://www.dailypress.com/features/history/dp-jamestown-cannibalism-20130522,0,6258299.post

I looked over to the poster that was next to the display. It said in large letters "Jane of Jamestown." I thought to myself; Jamestown, I remember vaguely learning about that in fifth grade. Underneath the title described what was in the display and what scientists had discovered happened to her and many others during "the starving times" of Jamestown.

http://chickgeek.org/jamestown-cannibals/

Many of the settlers from Jamestown were starving to death and had become very desperate so they resulted to the last possible solution that they could think of; cannibalism. They would dig up dead bodies that they had buried and they would eat them.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130501-jamestown-cannibalism-archeology-science/

In history class this year we learned about early Jamestown and we were asked a very complex question. That question was "Why did so many colonists die during early Jamestown?"


This connects to that question and what we learned about in class because this proves that one of the answers to that question was because of starvation. The starvation was so bad during this time that the settlers had to refer to eating their deceased.


I think that the discovery of cannibalism at Jamestown was a very significant discovery and will open up many doors in both the historic world and the scientific world. It will open up many doors because people will maybe think of cannibalism as a possible answer to some of their questions for other problems. Also, because many scientists can use this type of technology to help figure out many more historic mysteries.

The Truth Behind the Pligrims

Recently, I have read two chapters from the book "Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War" by Nathaniel Philbrick. The two chapters' names are "The Heart of Winter" and "In a Dark and Dismal Swamp." The two chapters that I read began about how the Pilgrims first settled. It also talked about the Pilgrims' first Winter and how bad life was during that time. Then it started talking about the Pilgrims' first relations with the Native Americans. Lastly, it talked about the Pilgrims and the Native Americans finally making peace and what they did to help each other.

http://www.fertilizer101.org/food/?storyid=4

I thought that the story behind the Pilgrims was very interesting and that the amount of facts worked in to this book was outstanding. This book was very clear and was very educational. The key topics in this book were the Pilgrims arriving in Plymouth, the staggering death rates, and the Pilgrims' relations with the Natives.

I liked this book better than any textbook or lecture but I still did not feel as though this book was put into the style of a story that you follow along with. Overall I enjoyed the amount of facts that were placed into this book and I thought that each one was important. Personally, I only enjoy books that have plots or plot twists in them. I didn't have any emotions while reading this and I like to be exited while reading a story which I did not feel while reading this book. I still felt that this book was just a little bit better than a textbook.

I would recommend this book to people who enjoy learning about history and do not care about a plot but just want to read something that is more enjoyable and easier to read than a big, fat history textbook.

I think that this book would have been better if there was a main character and the story was told from either a Pilgrims view or a Native Americans view, or even both, while still conveying the truth and having important and well-placed facts in it. I would rate this book 3 stars just because it was better than a textbook but not by a landslide.