Thoughts and Reflections on the Pericles' Funeral Oration

Agnes Yu

Period 7 World History

01 / 15 / 15

  Athens is one of the greatest cities in Greece, without Athens, Greece wouldn't have its glory

today. Athens has brought so many glories to Greeks and enriched Greece with so

many aspects. What made Athens great? This is a very broad question because there are so many

answers to that and the factors that made Athens great are uncountable.

  First of all, all the Athenians were stick together as one unit, they all did their own job. Also, the

Greeks ancestors have given the offsprings good rules to follow as a city. By the courage and the

virtues from the old ones, they have handed it on to the next generation, a free country.

  Secondly, the Athenians which were mostly in the prime of life, added to the power of their empire

and have organized Greece in a good way that is perfectly well able to look after itself both in peace

and in wars. This is how we seen Greece as an independently city.

  For the third idea, I think one of the factors that made Athens so grandiose is the spirit in which they

faced their trails and constitution and the way of life. To be more specific, their education system is

different from the Spartans, the boyhood of the Spartans were just keep training for wars and to be

taught how to be a great warrior. But Athens was different, they lived their lives normally, no

trainings, no violence. Whenever the war came upon them, they just faced it with a thousands of

brave hearts.

  Additional, the Athenians thought it was more case of them being a model to others instead of

imitating anyone else. What it means by that is they had special and unique government system, and

the system was good enough to be the model for others, therefore, that they didn't have to copy any

other cities' systems, they were the one who's master them.

  The fifth, they're the only one who has DEMOCRACY, because that the power was in the hands

not of a minority or a few people but of the whole people. Not only the people who had intelligence

could have ideas but also all the people had rights to give suggestions.
   
  The sixth reason was that their political life is free and open, so was their day-to-day life in their

relations with each other. What this means is that people could associate with each other with open-

minded thoughts and it was free to talk about anything. The kind of society would make citizens feel

more comfortable and easy to fit in.

  For the seventh reason, I found out that they obey the laws really well and gave their obedience to

those whom they put in positions of authority, because those people gave them acknowledged laws.

  Last but not least, the Athenians could have entertainments after they have done with all their work,

from this information we can know that Athens was a free and have rights to do so many things, they

were equal and live a happy life. This is an important factor which made Athens great!

  There're still a lot of reasons why Athens was seen as a great city. I'll give more examples: the

Athenians didn't want to lead all the beautiful things to extravagance, they were more into simple and

not luxuries. Also, they gave people goods but don't expect good things from people, they opened

their country to the whole world and made friends from all over the world while gaining new

knowledge; the Athenians had a spirit of adventure, they knew their duty, they were ashamed to fall

below a certain standard, they made up their minds, gave Athens the best contribution that they could

etc. All these little things mix up together made Athens such a wonderful city with grandeur.

 

Thoughts and Reflections on the History of the Peloponnesian War

Agnes Yu

Period 7 World History

01 / 13 / 15

  What was the Thucydides' method of recording history? From the reading, we can know that while

 keeping actually used, to make the speakers say what, he thinks it was called for by each situation.

Also, with the regard to his factual reporting of the events of the war, he have made it a principle not

to write down the first story that came his way. Additional, he thinks his history will seem less easy to

read because it's lack a romantic element. He also thinks that his work has done to last forever.

  He wrote those stories to let the whole world to know what  happened in the past, the stories are

for the scholars as well, to those who wants to know about the past. Also, to wrote down what

happened in the war to remind us whom were the people in the war, what did they do? And why?

Digital Scrapbook Entry#6 - China

Agnes Yu

Period 7 - WORLD HISTORY

01 / 11 / 15

        

                            "Foot-binding" in the ancient time compares to nowadays

Link 1)

http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/09/the-peculiar-history-of-foot-binding-in-china/279718/

Link 2)

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/02/china-s-last-foot-binding-survivors.html

  In ancient China, food-binding was a normal thing that happened to all the women. They bound 

their feet at the age of six. They  needed to suffer from this painful custom. Some women even 

thought that it's a beautiful and acceptable thing. The feet were binding with the cloth and after a long 

time they would become really tiny. People needed to make beautiful shoes for those feet, and the 

women needed to practise how to walk with their's uncomfortable feet.

In ancient China, women and men thought that tiny feet are beautiful. They thought that they can 

wear something that is fancy and beautiful. Also, people at that time imagined that women have tiny 

feet can walk lightly or dance on special surface such as lotus leaf.

Foot-binding ended in 1949, Western countries opposed this painful thing. And by the control of Mao 

ZeDong, Foot-Binding thoroughly out of China, but in those far away countrysides, there're still a 

few people doing foot-binding. Nowadays, no matter girls or women, their feet can grow normally 

just like other people in this world. They can buy big shoes and a lot of girls in China wearing size 9 

or 10 shoes or even larger. 

The food-binding custom no more exists in China nowadays, this is a dark history in ancient China 

even though a lot of Chinese women were proud about this traditional thing and how lucky they have 

experienced that. It's a good thing that you don't have to do foot-binding anymore, your feet grow 

well and no need to suffer from anything:)

Thoughts and Reflections on Two Ancients Cities Follow Diverse Paths

                                                                                                                                                           Yu 1
Agnes Yu

Period 7 World History

Ms. Mitchell

1 / 5 / 15


  Athens and Sparta were different in fundamental ways. They were two harsh ruling systems. The

most basic one is that Sparta was 3 times bigger than Athens . Another difference was that Sparta

ruled autocratically but Athens had ruled by many different people, the last ruler of Athens was wise

and treated his people fairly. Spartans were born to be warriors, no matter women or men, they both

needed to be trained and to fight (for most of them). However, some of the Athenians were free and

have rights,  some of them could take part in ruling council but only men(and had to be citizens)

could take part in those works.

  The Greeks had many accomplishments, Athens towarded democracy(it was the first one), both the

Athens and Sparta had poems, literature, music and arts. They even had their government and rules.

They had wars and kept a lot of things in words so that people could know what happened in the past.

  It's the similar ways that how America rules and how Greeks ruled. Greeks had a lot of different

states so that they could hold all of life's possibilities. Life in Greeks was vivid and because they had

small states they could see almost everything. In the U.S, it has a lot of city states and this is  similar

to Greeks. They both have governments and the rules for life, people and states. That's how I feel

America has the legacy from greeks.