When you begin to look into the number of Olympic controversies it’s a little surprising how many exist considering the purpose of the Olympic Games happens to be goodwill, peace and reconciliation. One of the most recent controversies caught my eye a few days ago….a controversy involving one of the most tragic events that have ever occurred during the Olympics…..the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes during the Munich Games in 1972 . Since that time the families of the slain athletes have tried in vain to get the International Olympic Committee to recognize the athletes who were killed during the opening ceremonies. This year….the London Games……were no different. This article from Sports Illustrated gives a little background and discusses the fight the families continue to lay at the feet of the International Olympic Committee. Since the Sydney Games in 2000, Israel has organized a commemorative event , but the families think the International...
Quick! Dig down deep into that creaky file cabinet in your mind and pull out the folder labeled “Vikings” and name a few of the more famous ones for me. I’ll wait. No, not the football team. There should be another folder there for the OTHER Vikings. You know, the Norsemen who were explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates. There you go. That’s it. Wow, that folder hasn’t seen the light of day in…..well, just blow the dust off it and open it up. So, what have you got? Erik the Red Leif Ericsson ….son of Erik the Red Canute (Knut or Cnut) Sweynsson….better known as Canute the Great ….King of England, etc. Those are usually the top three names I get. Most of the time folks just give me Erik and Leif. What about Thorfinn Karlsefni? Yep, you are so very right. Who in the heck is Thorfinn Karlsefni? Well….here goes…. 1. Thorfinn was a Norse merchant who followed Leif Ericsson’s route seven years later.…around 1010 AD…to North America. 2. While on a trading trip to Greenland Thorfinn met ...
Sometimes historians can group together a series of events and tag them with an overall identifying name that connects all of the events together such as the Civil War or the American Revolution, but certain events just stand out and beg to be treated special because they serve as pivot points such as the firing on Ft. Sumter or the Battle of Saratoga. Then there are certain events that might not be pivotal but shouldn’t be ignored in the classroom simply because they touch upon so many different instructional moments such as the Mussel Slough Tragedy. Westward expansion, growth of the railroad including the impact on settlement, muckrakers and their role in the Progressive Era, perspective and accuracy regarding the historical record and even a bit of vocabulary instruction regarding geographic landforms can be handled by examining this little known event in California history. First of all….what the heck is a slough? On the west coast of North America a slough is def...
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