Webresource: January Highlights at AwesomeStories

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January Highlights
at AwesomeStories
January, 2008

In This Issue
From the Editor
Forwarding This Newsletter
What's New
Learning Tools
January Highlights
Noteworthy Stories
Searching AwesomeStories



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HAPPY NEW YEAR!


FROM THE EDITOR
Historically, significant events have happened in January:

Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation took effect (on the first of January, 1863).
Captain James Cook, and his Royal Navy sloop - the HMS Resolution - crossed the Antarctic Circle (in 1773).
Joan of Arc and Martin Luther King, Jr. were born (in 1412 and 1929, respectively).
At the Speedwell Iron Works (in Morristown, New Jersey), Samuel Morse first demonstrated (on January 6, 1838) the dots and dashes of his revolutionary communication-code. He would send his first message 6½ years later.
On the 7th of January, 1789, most of America's original thirteen states chose "electors" who would pick the new country's first president. They ultimately selected George Washington - the only unanimously elected president of the United States.
The Daguerreotype photo process - ushering in the age of photography - was announced at the French Academy of Science (1839).
On January 24, 1848 - when the city we know as San Francisco was just a village called Yerba Buena - John Sutter was building a sawmill in Coloma, California. Although some folks called the sawmill "another folly of Sutter's," the building process turned-up a yellow metal: gold. California would never be the same. From the nineteenth-century gold rush to the twentieth-century great migration, America's largest state was forever transformed.
Arthur Wright read about W.C. Roentgen's discovery of X-rays and the next day (January 27, 1896) made the first American X-ray image at Yale. That was followed - days later (February 3, 1896) - by the first U.S. clinical X-ray (made by brothers Edwin and Gilman Frost) at Dartmouth's Reed Hall.
Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition located the magnetic South Pole (1909).
The U.S. Congress passed the 13th Amendment, freeing American slaves (1865).
Amelia Earhart was first to fly solo from Hawaii to California (1935).
The PGA allowed (on a limited basis) participants of color to play in golf tournaments (1952).
January is also the month when:

Vikings invaded Britain (793).
Leaders were crowned ("Ivan the Terrible" in Russia, Elizabeth I in Britain) or killed (Louis XVI in 1792, Charles I in 1649 and Mahatma Gandhi in 1948).
The Tet Offensive escalated hostilities in Vietnam (1968).
Challenger exploded (1986).
Spanish Flu decimated the ranks of nurses trying to provide care during the pandemic (1919).
Apollo 1 astronauts died in an unexpected fire (1967).
Nazis held the Wannsee Conference (1942).
India annexed Kashmir (1957) leading to consequences still felt today.
We have produced stories on these, and other topics, which are featured in this newsletter.

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FORWARDING THIS NEWSLETTER

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WHAT'S NEW

AFRICAN-AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH

February is African-American Heritage Month in the United States. This list of stories will provide commemorative and background resources.
STREAMING AUDIO at AWESOME STORIES

We have completed many audio recordings of our stories. You do not have to load a player - just click on the green arrow, at the top of each recorded chapter, and off you go! (Soon the audio versions will also be available as podcasts.)
DOMINO'S - FOUNDING CORPORATE SPONSOR

We are pleased that Domino's Pizza - the world's leader in pizza delivery - is the founding corporate sponsor of AwesomeStories.

LEARNING TOOLS

AwesomeStories has hundreds of links to explanatory animations, audio/video clips, online games and virtual field trips. Linked throughout the entire site, they are not always easy to spot. We thought a separate section, where you can quickly locate these learning tools, would be helpful.

JANUARY READING

We look forward to welcoming more individual and academic members of AwesomeStories.
Follow the link to select a free individual password. Academic group memberships are always available for educators, schools and libraries. Click here to make that selection.

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JANUARY HIGHLIGHTS

EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.

Although the famous proclamation had limited initial effect, Abraham Lincoln's effort to free American slaves is one of America's treasured documents. You can view the five-page, handwritten original which is linked in this story.
VIKINGS INVADE BRITAIN.

In January of 793, Danish Vikings invaded Britain and destroyed the Church at Lindisfarne. Escaping monks were able to save what is now one of Britain's great treasures - a foot-high book known as the Lindisfarne Gospels.
Who were these Vikings? Who were the Anglo-Saxons? With links in this chapter, you can virtually create (and sail) a Viking ship to/from Lindisfarne, view videos about the looting invaders, take a virtual tour of a Viking-era farm and "turn the pages" of ancient books (including from the Viking era).

THE VIRGIN QUEEN.

Life for Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was difficult during her childhood years. Before the little girl was three, her mother was beheaded. When her half-sister Mary became Queen, no one could be sure about Elizabeth's safety. Then, on the 15th of January, 1559, Elizabeth Tudor was crowned Queen. She was twenty-five years old.
SPANISH FLU. In January of 1919, the Red Cross announced that hundreds of nurses - recruited to care for people with a type of influenza known as "Spanish Flu" - had died. The sweeping pandemic, which spread like wildfire during World War I, took the lives of more individuals than the war itself.

What was this illness? How was it spread? How did it impact the lives of people who were already enduring "The Great War?" Don't miss the animations, video clips and time lines linked in chapter 4 of this story.

X-RAYS.

Sir William Crookes (who invented the cathode ray tube) was upset with photographic plates he'd received from a shop in Ilford, England. Why, he demanded to know, were those plates fogged and blackened when the boxes hadn't even been opened?! Replacing the gelatin plates, the seller observed (correctly) that the damage must have happened while the products were in Crookes' possession (since no one else had complained about such a phenomenon).
In fact, the plates were affected by what was going on in Crookes' lab - he just didn't understand what had happened. Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen figured it out, and his discovery led to the widespread use of diagnostic X-rays.

In this chapter, meet Roentgen and see the famous picture he "made" of his wife's hand.

PROHIBITION: A FAILED EXPERIMENT

On the 16th of January, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment (which prohibited "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors" in the United States) became law. Because of its unintended consequences (including nationwide lawlessness), the Amendment (mandating "prohibition") was repealed just thirteen years later.
What was actually prohibited? And ... What was life like in America during those thirteen years?

WANNSEE CONFERENCE.

In one of mankind's darkest chapters, Nazi officials held the "Wannsee Conference" on January 20, 1942. During that meeting, participants discussed Hitler's directive that Jewish people should be killed.
This story links to documents evidencing aspects of "The Final Solution," including minutes of the Wannsee meeting (click on "planned" in the first chapter) and an audio clip of Himmler's infamous speech. It also links to an animated time line with documents (in the first chapter), an animated time line of Auschwitz (in the fourth chapter), war photos at various national archives and survivor stories from the Shoah Foundation.

LOUIS XVI.

On the 21st of January, 1792, Louis XVI was executed in Paris. What were his alleged crimes? How did he, and his family, react to their stunning reversal of fortune? What is a guillotine, and how did it appear during the French Revolution? What happened to his family after the king died?
For answers to these questions, see the second half of the linked story.

CHALLENGER EXPLOSION.

On the 28th of January, 1986, school children throughout America were watching television. They expected to see a teacher - Christa McAuliffe - launch into space aboard the space shuttle Challenger.
Unknown to television viewers - and to the astronauts - a battle had raged over whether it was safe for the shuttle to launch. The wrong decision was made, as reported later by the Rogers Commission.

Learn the story with links to the official report, video clips and NASA photographs which depict, among other things, that the shuttle was in trouble before it left the launch pad.

IVAN THE TERRIBLE.

In 1547, the newly crowned Ivan IV of Russia - then seventeen years old - decided he wanted a different name. He would thereafter be known as "Caesar," so he selected the Russian word Tsar ("Czar") as his new title. Later, he was also known as Ivan Grozny - or - "Ivan the Terrible." Who was he? How did he earn the name Ivan the Terrible?
This famous Russian leader ordered the construction of one of Moscow's most beautiful structures: St. Basil's Cathedral. Are the stories about his shameful treatment of the building's architects true? In this story, take a virtual trip to Russia and "meet" Ivan the Terrible.

NOTEWORTHY STORIES

Our story behind the popular film National Treasure: Book of Secrets will soon be available online. It features the diary of John Wilkes Booth, the "twin desks" made from HMS Resolute, a description of Olmec glyphs and much more. Stay tuned!

SEARCHING AwesomeStories

At the request of countless teachers, we have developed a comprehensive subject index for AwesomeStories. With this tool, you can check the entire site, including its more than 150,000 links to primary sources, for information on specific topics. We will continue to refine that index which now exceeds 350 pages. All topics are arranged alphabetically. We hope you find the index helpful and easy to use.



Best Wishes for a Great 2008!

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