History Final Exam

In my past history class, there was a huge banner up on the wall that loomed over the classroom. I read it every day: “Learn from the Past. Live in the Present. Prepare for the Future.” Less than a year ago, my classmates and I in our history class were panicked about final exams, studying hard and frantically, cramming everything in the night before - in other words, exactly what our teachers told us not to do. This was probably not the best method to attack the final exams. This year, my classmates and I tried to “learn from the past,” and prepare better. But I guess you could say history repeats itself.

On a larger scale, one can see the repetition through the Syrian Civil War, technically going on since 2011, but there was a long history of political instability dating back way into the 1900s. Just as in the Pequot War of 1634, where without doing research, one would think the war was just the English against the Pequots, many people think that the Syrian Conflict is between “rebel forces” and Bashar al-Assad (the President of Syria) and his government. When “reluctantly” taking power in 2000, due to the deaths of his male relatives, many people believed that he would reform the tumultuous Syria. However, his administration has been deemed “filled with hardliners,” or people who support, strict, often extreme, rules. It is believed that his administration “steered him away from reforms.” Assad and his administration have built up many rebels, angry with the government and wanting to overthrow it. But the “rebel forces” are not one big group, just like “the English” consisted of the English, Mohegans, and Narragansetts. There are about 100,000 rebels in Syria make up about 1,000 different rebel groups. Some of the groups ar...

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...mpire grow into what it is today?

Today, China’s population is approximately 1.354 billion people, and India’s is about 1.27 billion people. In 1600, there were about 200 million people in China(*) and India did not take a censuses, but they had a densely populated country (**). China is very powerful and important to the USA. They produce almost all of the objects that we use - most of everything from a doll, to any plastic, to clothing has “MADE IN CHINA” written on its tag. Has China always held such an important role in the world’s society? Have China and India always had the highest populations in the world? If not, when did this powerful rise begin?

*according to http://www.meteor.iastate.edu/gccourse/energy/china.html

**according to http://www.preservearticles.com/2011112818005/notes-on-the-early-history-of-the-growth-of-population-in-india.html