April 15, 1865, 7:22 AM, President Abraham Lincoln is presumed dead by one of the many doctors surrounding his deathbed in the Petersen house. John Wilkes Booth is running away from Ford’s Theatre where he had assassinated the 16th President of the United States of America. This book, Manhunt: The 12-day Chase for Lincoln's Killer, by James L. Swanson, highlights what happens before and after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It shows the perspective of both the people of America and John Wilkes Booth as he attempts to escape D.C. officials. It goes into detail on why Booth murdered Lincoln, and how he survived without being caught for twelve days.…
The central premise of both Malcolm Gladwell’s article “Small Change: Why The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted.” and Zizi Papacharissi’s book Affective Publics: Sentiment, Technology, and Politics is to discuss the ways in which social media platforms such as Twitter can serve as communication tools that foster action for various causes. In his article, Gladwell notes that some scholars believe that the internet and social media platforms enable an upgraded and new model of activism due to the “ease” and speed” of mobilizing causes through such outlets (Gladwell, pp. 8-9). However, Gladwell rejects such a simple assertion and, instead, argues that although these platforms can help mobilize particular movements, they alone are not enough to maintain…
Among the reading assignments, the chapter “Who Owns the Past?” in Dangerous Game by MacMillan piqued my interest to elaborate on. In this chapter, she emphasizes that history is written by many historians who have their own views, interpretations, and biases. In this regard, she implies that we should not simply believe in what historians claim, but dig into its sources and figure out from many perspectives. There are many ‘bad’ history produced by historians without offering a wide range of views and this can be used as an instrument that can largely influence on people by giving them prejudice on certain events. There are always reasons behind each event and it is important to find out what indeed happened as well as where the history is…
Weather remembering/regretting what has happened, or planning/worrying about what might happen, the past and future steal away our attention from the present. We become mentally absent forgetting to experience what is happening right here and right now. I believe that this is related to the theme in this novel which is that people should live in the present. Life unfolds in the present. The present is where decisions are made and emotions are felt. People should give it the attention it deserves. The great philosopher Buddha once stated, “The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn the past, worry about the future, but live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.” (131…
Throughout Malcolm Gladwell's, "Small Change", he assesses the difference between strong-tie activism and weak-tie activism. Strong ties are the relationships between us and those we are closest to, our friends and family. This type of bond enables true social activism because we are committed to the relationships and are more likely to be compelled to take a stand and fight for change. Weak ties, on the other hand, are described as the type of relationship we have with our "friends" online. These relationships are far more fragile than strong ties because of their foundation of distance.…
“Killing Lincoln” is a historical thriller written by Bill O’Reilly that explains the events prior to, and after the death, of our beloved 16th President, Abraham Lincoln. Bill O’Reilly first sets the stage in the last days of our great Civil War, which takes place in the beginning of April, 1865. Mr. O’Reilly takes the readers from the civil war, to the killing of Lincoln, to the pursuit of the assassins, to the final hour of John Wilkes Booth’s life. Knowing that there are many Civil War battles and that the assassins of Lincoln fled to many different places, the setting of “Killing Lincoln” varies greatly, ranging from the battle of St. Petersburg, to an old barn shed in the Maryland countryside where John Wilkes Booth and David Harold are sleeping. Ultimately, the book that Bill O’Reilly provides for his readers is about Abraham Lincoln’s death and how it impacted the world. Abraham Lincoln and his death were significant to American history because he abolished slavery, ended the Civil War, and was a godly leader among men.…
How can one event in history impact a generation? It can change the next generation a lot more than you think. Sandy Hook Elementary,December,14, 2012. At approximately 9:30 am . Adam Lanza, shot and killed his mother, Nancy Lanza. He then grabbed three guns from his house, a semi-automatic AR-15 assault rifle, and pistols, wearing all black and a military vest. Then he went to the Sandy Hook Elementary School. Where he finally massacred 20 first-graders and 6 teachers before taking his own life at the school. School counselor Mary Sherlach, and vice principal Natalie Hammond went out to investigate.Only Natalie Hammond returned from the hallway alive.…
How did the priorities of the FBI have to be reoriented with regards to issues of national security and terrorism?…
On April 14 1865, Abraham Lincoln went to Laura Keene's light comedy, "Our American Cousin", at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., but then a man called John Wilkes Booth shot him in the head because he wanted to avenge for the South. If I could change history, I would change the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. If he wasn't assassinated, he could have help the economic integration, western development, and cleaning the Confederate slate…
Throughout “Small Change,” Malcolm Gladwell describes how the civil rights movement have changed. He introduces the traditional activism at the beginning of the essay. Then, he briefly introduces one example of reinvented social activism. The author shows social changes by using social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. The author points out that unlike traditional activism, recent social activism is empowered by social media and leads to unexpected results because they can easily unite people together for a cause. However, the author also argues that there are several drawbacks and contradiction. Unlike traditional activism, which is based on strong-tie relationship between ‘friends,’ recent social activism is based on weak-tie…
Imagine living in a society in which the government monitors your every move. That sets the scene of George Orwell's 1984. Winston Smith, the protagonist of this novel, lives in such a society, and his job is to modify history by altering old newspaper records to coincide with the new reality decided by the Party. Therefore, it has complete and utter control of its subjects: a totalitarian government. To reinforce its authority, the Party has slogans that hold its ideals and major beliefs. One of these slogans are "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." This, as a whole, means that the past has an effect on the future, for previous events that occurred ensure the mindset of the people in the future, and whether or not they want to repeat history. Also, the Party controls the people in the present, and can therefore control the past with the authority to go back and modify history on paper to control what is being taught to the masses.…
That's the point of Billy's time travel. Humans don't see the whole picture. Humans don't see the consequences and repercussions of their actions. The implication is that, if humans could see, or would think about, the whole picture, they wouldn't do things like bomb the city of Dresden, treat each other cruelly, etc.…
Martin Luther King once said “We are not makers of history. We are made by history," which interprets how the surrounding events played a big role in my great grandfather’s life. At the age of 103, T.W. Cooper, my great grandfather witnessed plenty of extravagant events. Some of these events include: The Waco Horror, KKK, Emmett Till case, The Watergate scandal, O.J. Simpson trial, and the Trayvon Martin Trial.…
In the year 1933 to 1945 millions of people died. In 1918 world war 1 was done and Germany took the blame for the start of the war. Germany was in a lot of a war dept and was looking for someone to save them. They found Hitler. Hitler was the leader of the Holocaust. To remember the past we look to books. Elie Wiesel broke out and told his story. He says “he tells his story so it won’t happen again.” This is what this Essays is about remembering the past so we don’t make the same mistakes in the future.…
Romeo and Juliet. A tragic story about two young star-crossed lovers, known by many throughout the world. This story originally written by William Shakespeare, has been rewritten, performed and filmed numerous times with modified versions of the original script. Even though all of the different performances of this Shakespearean tragedy all revolve around the same concept, some performances and/or films better represent the original story when compared to others. This is the result of some of the scripts of these numerous performances and films being drastically different to the original writing of Shakespeare, due to the changes in important factors of the story.…