As you can see this a part 2 to the things I loved learning this year but this time just going to be about history. I felt like it would be fun to go in a little more detail of the things I learned because last time there wasn’t much information. So the top 3 things I learned in history were how God created the world as number one because is insanely fascinating on watching how our world was made and what stages the world went through to make it as beautiful as it is now. Next in my top 3 things is the greek olympics which I have wrote about before. It’s so cool to see how much it has evolved over the years. It went from just being a way to bring everyone together and watch people fight off animals along with other sports to something kids dream to compete in and with very beautiful sports for both winter and summer. Now for the third and final thing is Sparta. Sparta was an old city state in Laconia in ancient Greece. I mainly loved learning about Sparta because of their fighting technique. Men in Sparta start to learn how to fight at a very young age and never stop fighting. Since they are taught so young thats all they know and when its time for battle all they want to do is kill.

I learned so much threw the school year and had some pretty fun assignments. So right now let me show you my top three favorite things I learned. To start off my favorite book that I read is around the world in 80 days. I’ve wrote about this book a few times and if you haven’t read any of my posts on it the book is basically about a man who makes a bet with all of his friends that he could travel around the whole world in 80 days and when doing this crazy adventure a lot of insane things happen to him. I would definitely recommend reading this book. Next thing I loved learning was history. I found it insanely cool to learn how people used to live and how wars affected these people. The last thing in my three favorite things I learned is natural disasters because what needs to happen to cause them is very fascinating to me. It’s also shocking how much damage they can cause.

Well what is gymnastics, gymnastics is a sport that requires an insane amount of strength, flexibility and many other things. There are two types of gymnastics, there is rhythmic gymnastics and artistic gymnastics. I do artistic women’s gymnastics which is what I’m going to be talking about today. One thing I wanted to point out today really quick is that there is also mens artistic gymnastics which is way different then women’s.

History

Gymnastics originated in Greece and was used to keep people fit. Gymnastics has changed a lot over the years and one of the biggest ways it has changed is in its tumbling. Tumbling is where a gymnast preforms a series of acrobatic skills in a line. Tumbling used to be purely for entertainment but has evolved into a huge part in two of the gymnastics events. Gymnastics in early Greece had events such as swimming, running, weight lifting, and many other things. These events were preformed by both men and women and still are. The main difference between then and now is the events, for mens there are 6 events and for women’s there are 4. Mens events include rings, high bar, parallel bars, pommel horse, vault, and floor. Women’s events include beam, uneven bars, floor, and vault.

Vault

Vault is the first event in that comes in olympic order and is preformed by both men and women. Early forms of vault were preformed on a men’s pommel horse without handles. It was banned because it was believed to cause many serious injures in competitions. Vault routines start off by a gymnast running down a vault runway then punching a springboard and doing whatever vault they need to do whether its a front hand spring, half-on, etc. When doing that vault in competition there are rules that go into the scoring. The gymnast is expected to run in a straight line and hit the spring board with a tight body and do the vault with beautiful form than land on a mat without taking any steps or hops which would be a deduction.

Uneven Bars

Uneven bars the second event that comes after vault in olympic order and is only preformed by women. Uneven bars is an event where two bars are parallel to each other at different hight’s. There are many different settings for uneven bars and every gymnast has it at their own setting depending on their hight. Its preformed by a gymnast mounting the bar and doing their routine according to that gymnast’s level then they finish their routine with a dismount. A few skills that you normally see in a routine are release moves, pirouettes and circles.

Balance Beam

Beam is the third event in olympic order and is an event where a long piece of wood that is 4 inches wide and about 4 feet off the ground with a thin layer of padding that covers the wood and is used to preform many different skills. Beam is normally considered the most dangerous event to some people but to others its their favorite. Beam routines often consist of acro skills, dance skills, and a dismount. What level a gymnast is depends on how many acro and dance skills that are in their routine but no matter what level every gymnast only has one dismount since thats how they got off the beam when finish a beam routine. Beam acro are also known as a flipping skill. Acro skills are often backwards but sometimes higher level gymnast preform forward acro skills because they can be harder.

Floor

Finally we have floor which is last event in olympic order and is exactly what it sounds like. It’s made out of one layer of thin wood than a layer springs and one more layer of wood before a giant carpet is put on top. Floor is similar to beam skill wise, just like beam routines floor also has dance and acro skills. These acro skills are fit in to tumbling passes which are a series of skills in a row which creates a tumbling pass. Floor routines are normally what people find the coolest out of the gymnastics events. Floor routines have many different things that make them an actual routine. They have music, choreography, tumbling, and dance. I would definitely recommend watching videos on all these routines so you can see how beautiful and amazing these routines are.

Western Rome was the largest and strongest empire the world knew but when the fourth century came around it all began to crumble. It began when Rome was split into Western Rome and Eastern Rome which was thought to be a good thing for their government but in reality the two empires would always fight over things such as resources and territories which weakened Rome. The next thing that contributed to the fall of Rome was their military. The Roman military was organized by using the tribes that they conquered as recruits for their military. When they conquered the barbarian tribe they could not be converted to join the Roman military with loyalty. Which made it hard to fight other people because it would just result in family fighting family. A lot happened to Rome such as moral struggles, political revelries and much more but what pushed Rome over the edge was the invasions of the Visigoths and the barbarians. In the end Romulus Agustulus which was the last ruler of Rome was deposed which was the last thing that caused Rome to crumble.

Ambrose

Ambrose was born into a Christian Roman family. When Ambrose was born a swarm of bees flew around Ambrose and his dad took that as a sign that he was going to be sweet as honey. He would always pay close attention in school and studied a lot. He was a very smart man and ended up following his dad who was a lawyer into politics. He was unexpectedly appointed to be the Bishop of Milan even though he told people he was unprepared. In the end he had no choice but to be Bishop because the emperor confirmed the nomination of him becoming Bishop. He was loved by the people and the emperor. He sadly died in c.397 at the age of 58.

Tertullian

Tertullian was raised in Carthage and trained to be a lawyer. He ended up becoming a Christian and really wasn’t ordinated as part of the church leadership. Tertullian was more known for his writing on apologetic matters. He was later drawn to Montanist Heresy in the end of his life.

Jerome

Jerome was born in Stridon. He ended up moving to Rome where he was a student. At first he was skeptical about Christianity but he ended having a vision to study God when he fell ill on a trip to Asia Minor. He had many great accomplishments but one of his biggest ones was that he translated the bible to Latin. In the end he adopted an ascetic lifestyle and lived his life as a hermit.

One day a young girl named Jessica was with her best friend Leah and they were running around in a field right before they both had to go eat dinner. Leah asked Jessica if they could play a different game, Jessica said yes but what game she asked. Leah replied with hide and seek because thats what they would play when they were little. Great idea said Jessica, I’ll count first you better hurry I’m only counting to 10. So Leah hurried off to go hide somewhere. Leah ran as fast as she could not paying any attention to her surroundings because her only goal was to get behind a tree she could see not too far away. As Leah was running she tripped over a big rock and cut her foot open and it started to bleed. She screamed in pain and started to cry. Jessica came running over once she heard Leah scream and saw that her foot was bleeding a lot. Jessica ripped off apart of her dress and wrapped her foot with it to hopefully help with the bleeding. She picked Leah up and walked with Leah to get her home so her mom could help with Leah’s foot. Once they got to her house and her mom saw her foot she immediately grabbed Leah. She took Leah to the bathroom and started to aid Leahs foot. Ok you should fine thanks to Jessica wrapping your foot in her dress said Leahs mom. Jessica was standing outside their house nervous and worried that her best friend was badly injured. Leahs mom saw her out the window and came outside to tell her that Leah was fine but she also asked why she thought to rip a piece of her dress off for Leahs foot. Jessica told her that she thought it would help soak up liquid so she used it to soak up the blood. Well that was an amazing idea we can use that for so much more your an amazing kid Jessica. Thank you so much said Leah.

And thats how the towel was first started.

Constantine was a Roman emperor who reigned from 306 to 337 AD. Constantine grew up in the military while his father ruled over Rome. When his father passed away while at war in Britain Constantine decided to stay there for awhile. While he was gone people got mad and said that other people should rule over Rome even though Constantine was the rightful heir to the throne. This ended causing a war to breakout that war was called the Battle of Milvian Bridge. Constantine had a vision that he should fight with the symbol of a cross on his shield and he did. After winning the war he became a Christian. Constantine ended up making it illegal to persecute Christians in the Roman Empire.

Lower Class Homes

Lower class homes in Rome were very different compared to upper class homes. Most lower class homes were made out of wood so they often didn’t have kitchens and in general most homes didn’t have kitchens cause they were terrified of any chance of the house catching on fire and spreading threw out the city. The poorer people in Rome often lived in small apartments that were dirty, dark, and falling apart. Sometimes they would have share an apartment with a stranger.

Upper Class Homes

Upper class homes were very different then lower class homes, they were luxurious, spacious and very clean. There were many different parts to these houses. First there was the atrium which was at the front of the house and was the main living area which included several different rooms. Once you got further back in the house there were bedrooms and the kitchen. Once you got to the end of the house you’d see the garden which is where they would sometimes relax. Even though these homes are a lot nicer than the lower class ones they still weren’t decorated and some didn’t even have bathrooms.

Monday December 23 2019 my house caught on fire. On that morning while my brother and I were eating breakfast, my dad was working out, and my mom was taking a shower my dad smelled something weird coming from our garage so he went to go check what the smell was. By then my brother and I smelled something so we were also curious what the smell was so when my dad opened the door to the garage all he saw was a wall of flames. So he screamed that the house was on fire and we had to call 911, my brother and I grabbed our phones and I got our dog out of the house while my dad ran to go get my mom and to get us all out of the house. My brother called 911 and then my dad came out and pulled the cars away from the garage. Are mom came out seconds later trying to help us calm down. The firefighters thankfully put out the fire but our garage was destroyed along with the living room and kitchen. Our neighbors were very nice and let us in their house and gave us blankets and a snack while our parents talked to the firefighters. In the end we were all ok and they were able to repair the house and we still live inside it till this day.

Caligula

Caligula was born in 12 AD and was the third ruler of Rome. Caligula ruled for 5 years and at the beginning of his ruling he was praised because he wasn’t Tiberius but little did the people know that it would go horribly wrong. Caligula’s ruling was going fine until he got ill and either went insane or suffered from epilepsy. His reign was marked by the poor decisions that he made as well as moral perversity.

Claudius

Claudius was born in 10 BC and was the forth ruler of Rome. He ended up ruling for 13 years and had a limp so he was often shunned by his family and never was considered a threat to anyone. Since he was never considered a threat so neither Tiberius or Caligula had any plan on killing him. So when Caligula died Claudius was the rightful heir to the throne. Claudius had a pretty calm reign over Rome but he did not have any heirs so it was important that he have a son. He married four women and his fourth wife had a son Nero so he adopted him.