George Alfred Henty was born in 1832 to James Henty and Mary Bovill. He attended school as well as taking pursuit in sports like rowing and boxing which he continued to do at Caius College. During the outbreak of the Crimean War Henty and his brother Fredrick were commissioned to service. Fredrick ended up passing away after contracting cholera so Henty was invalided home. During his healing journey he continued to write. He got married in 1857 and had four children, two of which died at the ages of 18 and 19 as well as his wife, all of them passed away from tuberculosis. Henty was overcome with grief causing him to resign from his job as captain and start his career as a war correspondent. Henty finally resigned from the military and fell in love with writing publishing his first book in 1871 called Out on the Pampas, naming some of the characters after his children. He continued to live a fully filled life of integrity, hard work, and bravery due to his Christian values.

Andrew Jackson was born in 1767 to Scot/Irish parents. Jacksons father died shortly after he was born so his uncles helped raise him so he had a male figure in his life. He had a good education growing up, he also worked in a saddle maker’s shop for some time. When he was 13 he was informally working as a courier to the local militia which both of his older brothers served in.

Things took a turn for Jackson in the revolution when him and his brother were captured, almost starved to death, and Jackson was left with a scar from a sword that lived with him for the rest of his life. Their mother worked extremely hard for their release but sadly even after they were freed his brother died shortly after. His mother also died about a year later which left Jackson with no immediate family. Jackson blamed the British for the lost of his family but he eventually moved on to study law in Salisbury North Carolina. After passing the bar exam he set up practice in Jonesborough. Since he had no family or connections he had to do all of this completely by himself. All through out 1788 to 1804 Jackson worked in many public offices and finally found his home right out side the city of Nashville where he made one of the most valued plantations with 150 slaves working on it, he called it the Hermitage

He returned to active service during the war of 1812 where he got the nick name “Old Hickory” because he was brave and hard working but also really stubborn. He then became nominated for president in 1822 because of his good reputation. He mostly campaigned against John Quincy Adams which he did lose to when the House of Representatives decided who the final vote was. Jackson didn’t give up there and instead ran again in 1829 where he won and served for 2 terms.

Madison was born in Virginia and spent most of his adult life there. He was the oldest of 12 children although 5 of his siblings died before the age of 8. As a child he didn’t have perfect health and stoped growing at the height of 5’4 making him the smallest U.S. president in history. Madison graduated in 1771 from the College of New Jersey and became involved in the rising resistance to British taxation. Eventually when the war broke out he wanted to fight but was to small to be accepted into the service. Madison started a career in politics without having to worry about income because his family was extremely wealthy. He started his career around the age of 36 which made him the youngest man in office but he was still respected for his hard work because he brought up the need for revising the Articles of Confederation, which even led to the Constitutional Convention. Madison showed up to the convention with a opening draft called the Virginia Plan which was used to finish the complete constitution along with him writing 12 amendments, 10 of which were used in the Bill of Rights. There were a bunch of projects he was working on as he dedicated his life to politics but this drained his financial sources and drove him sick. Madison was so obsessed with leaving behind a good legacy, which he definitely did he drove himself sick causing him to die soon later in 1836 as one of the greatest founding fathers.

In 1799 Napoleon Bonaparte gained power in France and wanted to make the French Empire massive so in his attempt to expand the Empire he started looking for land beyond Europe. Soon later he ended up making a treaty with Spain that granted him the Louisiana territory. The American’s were still allowed to use the Mississippi river and the port of New Orlean only because of the Pinckney treaty. Napoleon liked getting to use the natural resources that were in Louisiana because they supported his sugar industry in Saint-Domingue. This was all took place around the same time as the French Revolution, so the slaves on the island of Saint-Domingue took this to their advantage and rebelled against the French plantation owners. A few years later in 1804 the country of Haiti was established on one half of the island and the other half is known as the Dominican Republic.

Thomas Jefferson was looking to buy the New Orlean area from France to make shipping go a lot easier and smoother. So he went to France to negotiate with Napoleon. This came in perfect time for Napoleon because without Saint-Domingue he had no use for the territory and he also had wars going on in Europe that were costing him a lot of money so he was looking for a way to make some money. The deal went well between them and Bonaparte ended up not only selling New Orlean but the whole Louisiana territory to Jefferson for 0.03 cents per acre. Although before the purchase was made Congress funded an expedition to explore the West to look for any natural resources. The people in charge of this expedition were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, there main goal was to find a running waterway to the Pacific Ocean. The journey was unsuccessful but they did meet and make peace with multiple Indian tribes. In the end the Louisiana Purchase expanded the U.S and led to great things.

Mozart was born in 1756 in Salzburg, Austria. His parents were Leopold and Anna Maria Mozart. Mozart had 6 siblings but only him and his sister Maria Anna were the only ones to live to adulthood, the rest died at infancy. Wolfgang was a very bright child and learned clavier at the age of 3 just by mimicking his sister who was being taught by their dad. Leopold saw Wolfgangs talent and started to teach him other instruments like the violin. Their father wanted to show the world not only Wolfgangs talent but as well as his sisters because she was also extremely talented for her age, so he started to take the children on tours in Europe to preform in front of different royal courts. The children grew very famous and went on long trips which were tiring for all of them especially for their mother because she never got to see her kids since she couldn’t come with them. In 1769 Wolfgang and his father went on a really long trip to Italy. During this trip he was listening to a very famous piece preformed only once by the Vatican choir and Wolfgang copied the whole piece by memory with little to no mistakes from only listening to it once. This almost got him in trouble until the Pope realized his talents from writing it all down just from memory. He soon later got a job, married, and had 6 kids. He died in 1791 before he could complete one of his works. He is remembered as one of the best musicians to every live.

In most societies the pursuit of happiness is the human right but its also true that the attainment of happiness is hard to achieve. That may be true but theres a lot of things in my life that were really hard to achieve but when I did I was a lot happier then I was trying to achieve it because I got to look back and know I did it. Since you work so hard for the things that make you happy once you have them it gives you a feeling of achievement. Some people do find more joy in the pursuit of happiness rather than obtaining it because it gives them something to look forward to and a sense of purpose. Personally in my life for things that make me happy the path to achieving them is so hard, so when I do achieve my goals the enjoyment I get from that compared to the journey is a lot higher. I think that once you do find happiness it’s worth the journey.

For generations apple pie has been considered the most popular dessert in America and still is but I disagree. So much has changed there are a bunch of desserts including chocolate chip cookies which I think are the most popular.

Apple pie originated in England even though most people think its an American food. You couldn’t even find the ingredients for an apple pie in America back then. Apples were grown in Europe, wheat originated in the Middle East, and pastry fats arrived when Christopher Columbus brought pigs to the New World. When the Europeans introduced this dish to the American colonies it grew popular very fast and two recipes were put into the first American cook book. In the 18th and 19th centuries during the civil war it became a staple in American cuisine because it was easy to make along with it being affordable. The war created a misleading narrative that turned the pie into a nationalist symbol. An example of this is way back in 1902 when the New York Times made an article naming the food as “Pie is the food for the heroic”. This also sprouted the famous phrase “as American as apple pie” but we don’t know the exact origin of this phrase. It grew more and more popular and was associated with the U.S. government.

Even though most people like to think that apple pie is the staple of American desserts, I think it has evolved into chocolate chip cookies. Unlike apple pie, cookies originated in the U.S. and are very popular. I feel as apple pie is more enjoyed during the holidays instead of year round. It is still enjoyed during the whole year but isn’t as popular as it used to be. Cookies have become insanely popular and are enjoyed every day wether its for a snack, dessert, etc. They are also easier to make than apple pie because there are many premade doughs as well as you can just by a pack from the store. Both desserts are very popular but I still think cookies are the most popular because times have changed.

We all of bad days for what ever reason which is ok because not every day is perfect and its normal to have bad days. Sometimes I have bad days cause i woke up late or had a hard time with school but normally a bad day for me is usually because of gymnastics practice, and yesterday was a really bad practice.

Gymnastics is one of the hardest sports in the world and is an extremely mental sport. When you see a gymnast do a skill they were most likely scared of that skill at some point while learning it. When a gymnast gets really scared of a skill to the point where they can’t do it at all for a period of time we call that a mental block because it feels like when you try to do the skill theres something stopping you from doing it. It feels like theres a wall behind you stopping you from doing it no matter how bad you want to do it or how many times you’ve done it before.

While I was on balance beam yesterday I was doing one of my skills called a back handspring. Back handsprings on beam are one of the skills I have a mental block on so lately I have been doing it on a beam with mats under it so its less scary. This usually works and i work on making the beam higher and higher so I can eventually do the skill in competition on a high beam. When I went to go do the skill, I couldn’t I would hop off the beam reset and try to go again but I couldn’t which eventually started to make me really upset. I left beam that day not doing it on the beam I planned on doing the back handspring on which took a big tole on my gymnastics that day. Gymnastics is manly mental and can go wrong in many ways which is why something that may sound small to a non gymnast could be something that ruins a gymnasts whole day.

Starting in 1651 taxes and acts were starting to be implemented by Parliament in England along with the other colonies. These acts would put rules and taxes on shipping goods over seas, forbid some of these colonies to trade with each other at all, and that was just the beginning of it. Over time more and more colonies started to be affected by these acts so they started to revolt. A group of American patriots at the dock in Boston refused to unload the tea because they didn’t want to pay the tea tax which was when all of the tea that was shipped would be taxed. So they disguised themselves as Native Americans so they could board the ship with all of the tea and tossed it over board into the Boston Harbor, this was called the Boston Tea Party.

This resulted in severe punishment for Massachusetts. This made the other colonies realize they could get in that much trouble too so they fought back together. This began the Continental Congress with 12 of colonies sending 55 delegates to create a representative body to stand up to Parliament and the King. They talked about boycotting British goods in colonies along with sending a list of grievances to George the III. They did end up boycotting British goods but the king didn’t take any off it seriously and dismissed their grievances which really angered the colonies. Thus 7 months later the Revolutionary War took place in 1775.

20,000 leagues under the seas is a science fiction adventure novel written in 1870 by the French author Jules Verne. It follows the adventure of Captain Nemo of the submarine called the Nautilus as well as three men who are held captive in the submarine, Professor Pierre Aronnax, his devoted servant, and Ned Land a skilled harpooner. As they travel in this submarine they experience a lot of different adventures and here are my 3 favorites.

My third favorite part is at the beginning of the book when all three of the men get thrown over board from the original ship they were on, Ned ended up being separated from Aronnax and Conseil his servant. Conseil and Aronnax used team work to swim as far as they could to any type of land mark, they did this by one of them swimming holding on to the other persons ankle while they laid flat on their back conserving their energy they would take turns doing this until eventually they found Ned who had a flotation device. I liked this part because it shows how hard they worked and the men didn’t just give up. My second favorite part is when the men have been captive for a couple of years and Nemo lets them go hunting on real land. They went on an island to go hunt real meat not knowing it was inhabited by savages who tried to kill Aronnax and Ned but they escaped just in time while the savages were throwing spears at them as they ran. I enjoyed this scene because it was a little funny to see Nemo’s reaction to them running as well as I wasn’t to scared that they were going to die right in the middle of the book. Now for my favorite part in the book was the ending when the Nautilus was being attacked by a battleship but they fought back and slammed into it sinking it with all of the passengers on it. After that Nemo was silent and the men didn’t see him for 2 weeks so the three of them played an escape plan but right before they were going to put it to action a big storm swept up the Nautilus causing Aronnax to hit he’s head falling unconscious.