A social contract is an agreement that people make that makes up the government. People must give something up to get something in return and in this case is protection that is provided from the government. It keeps people in line, and from doing things that would harm the community. Leaders are necessary so there is not crime and people follow the rules. The leaders keep everyone in line.

Hobbes believed that a social contract was necessary. His belief was that people were selfish. He did not think that the majority of people were kind. This is why Thomas Hobbes thinks that a social contract is needed. Locke had different ideas than Hobbes did about a social contract. While Hobbes wanted the contract to protect people's lives, Locke wanted it to protect rights. Locke also thought that people were good unlike Hobbes did. They also did not agree on amount of authority that the government should be given. Hobbes says unlimited authority but locke says that they should have limited authority. Locke and Hobbes had different views on social contracts.


Making a set of  rules that a community needed to follow was much more difficult than I expexted it to be. There are many things you have to think about that you normally would not. The rules we came up with are as follows. One, three leaders are selected by the people every four years. Don't start wars, finish them! Three, new members are accepted only if they agree to the rules. Four, have reasons for your actions. Five, everyone has equal rights, listen to others' opinions. Six, finally if rules are broken the leaders will choose punishments for people to vote on. It was difficult to come up with these rules because you had to think about so many possibilities and loopholes or flaws in the rules that people could find, and therefore wouldn't technically be breaking the rules if they did do something that was not necessarily allowed. There are many changes to some of the rules that I would make. First is with rule number one. I would say that four leaders will be elected every six months. This way if something happened to any of the rulers, they will still have more. Also by changing rulers more often people will believe they are more a part of the community. I would also reword some of the rules to make them more clear to people who are new to them.

Absolutist and Enlightened Rulers

King James the first says that a ruler has the god given right to rule. “God hath power to create or destrov make or unmake at his pleasure, to give life or send death, to judge all and to be judged nor accountable to none: to raise low things and to make high things low at his pleasure, and to God are both souls and body due. And the like power have kings: they make and unmake their subjects, thv have power of raising and casting down, of life and death, judges over all their subjects and in all causes and yet accountable to none but god only” by King James the first.  He believes that it is wrong to question a King because that is basically like questioning God. According to him, Kings are representatives sent from God to rule for him, as an absolutist. They have power that they were given and they have a connection to god. “Kings are not only God’s lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God’s throne, but even by himself are called gods.” by King James the first. King James is asking parliament to keep their hands off what is rightfully his. He does not want to be told how to do his job, and how to rule his land and people.

I was fortunate to learn about Catherine the Great, also known as Catherine II. Catherine was both an absolutist and enlightened ruler. She did many great things like improve the education in Russia, and expanded the border to get Russia a warm water port. She also did things to make her an absolutist ruler. She formed a set of laws called the Nakaz. The Nakaz could have proved her to be an absolutist ruler or an enlightened ruler. The laws helped her people, taking away torture and making sure everyone would be treated equal. She made the laws happen by using her power and that’s why she can also be an absolutist. Without using all of her power she would not have been able to make the set of laws she created possible. To help her country she gained them a warm water port. On her part that was a good thing to do so her country would  be happy, but once she got her way she was still unhappy. She started another war which isn’t good for her country. Having people in war after she even got her way already is not a smart idea and it is not in favor of the people living in the country. That is just use of her power that she already has plenty of. Another horrible thing Catherine did was her decision to impose serfdom. The majority of the people under her rule were serfs. It was not only bad that she put serfdom in place but she also used the profits they made for her benefit.

In my opinion I think at times Catherine was a good ruler, but at the same time she did things that did not make her a good ruler. Catherine built schools to make the education in Russia better, and I thought that was one of the great things she did. That really helped the people and not herself because building schools wouldn’t help her. The people who got the education would benefit from it. Although, the way Catherine treated the peasants was inhumane. They suffered and they should not have had to. She gave control of the peasants to the nobles. The nobles were happy, but again the majority of the population was not happy. Catherine's reign was both good and bad.

Someone from the search party is talking to a colonist. The search party is in the new world, Roanoke. They talk about where they are and possibilities of where they went. They thought they joined in with the natives because a blonde boy was spotted with the tribe, they are not common in their tribe

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Colombus Sailed the Ocean Blue

Since we were young, we were always taught that Christopher Columbus sailed the across the ocean in 1492, and discovered America. If Columbus discovered America, then why were there already people there? Christopher Columbus got money from the King and Queen for boats and a crew. They sailed across the ocean in search for India, to find new trade routes. He ended up in America, he thought it was India. Columbus was not a very nice person either. He did not treat the Native Americans how he should have, and abducted some and brought them back to England. Christopher Columbus is not a very good person.


I do not believe that we should still celebrate a day in honor of Christopher Columbus. He did not really discover America, so he should't have all the honor. Instead we should celebrate a day for the Native Americans, the same day as we used to celebrate for Columbus, but replace it to celebrate the people who were really already in America. Those people, the Native Americans deserve a day in their honor that we celebrate!

The Scientific Revolution

The scientific revolution was a time when scientists began to have new theories about how the solar system really worked. These ideas went against the church's teachings, and the church was not happy. The Roman Catholic Church always taught that the solar system was geocentric, having the earth as a center, but scientists began to have new theories about astronomy, the study of the universe. They believed that the solar system was heliocentric, revolving around the sun. Copernicus was an important scientist who made a discovery that the sun was the center of the universe and figured out that the earth revolved around the sun. Galileo then came up with evidence to support his theory. The church became furious, because he was changing their teachings. Galileo took back his theories and was punished by prohibiting his book, being sent to prison and having to recite the seven penitential psalms once a week for three weeks. Chemistry was discovered by Robert Boyle. He founded modern chemistry helped with the founding of The Scientific Method. The Scientific Method is a seven step method which helps with experiments and how to carry it out.  Chemistry is the study of elements. Ambroise Pare discovered a medicine, a mixture that heals illnesses or wounds. He mixed egg yolks, turpentine, and oil of roses to heal wounds. He joined the military in 1536 and became a doctor. 


I am a catholic merchant traveling around for buisness. I have recently been hearing about the discoveries of Da Vinci, Vesalius and Harvey. They have been drawing the human body, and their drawings are so realistic because they are using real human bodies to dissect, observe then draw. I do not believe in this idea. Since I am catholic I don't believe that these bodies should be used in his way. They should be buried peacefully.  I also agree with the church. I don't think that there is another way to think about the anatomy. We have been taught by the church for so long, our ways of belief should not be changed now.




Image from: Image from: http://people.highline.edu/iglozman/classes/astronotes/geocentric.jpg

The Printing Press

The printing press changed the spread of ideas, they could travel faster and easier. Before the printing press existed, there were only 30,000 books. The reason for that is because books were written by hand, they had someone usually a pope, write and copy books. Since people hand-wrote the books, they were expensive and very time consuming. They had to copy every letter and every word. The books were a lot of times also filled with errors, because mistakes were very easy to make. After the printing press was invented, so many new doors opened up. There were then 12 million books in the library. It was easier to make a lot of one book also because they were easily mass produced with the new machine.  More people could afford these books, and they were less expensive for people to buy them and make them. Last, the books were so much faster to make.


Hello, I am Henry the 8th. I have had many wives, and I used to be catholic, but now I am protestant. Once in my life, I really wanted a son, I only had one daughter named Mary Tudor. I thought we should have a male heir for the throne. My wife didn't want to have a son, so I asked the pope to divorce us, but the priest would not let me. That's when I decided I did not want to be catholic anymore, so I took over the English Church, and I married Anne Boleyn, and we had another daughter. Since I did not have a son with her, I married four other women, I only ended up having one son, named Edward.

The Reformation Begins with Martin Luther

Luther was a monk who confronted the Church. He didn't believe in the idea of selling indulgences, which was basically a clean slate to get you out of your sins. He challenged the Catholic Church because he didn't believe in these indulgences. He wrote a letter which ended up in the hands of the pope. Luther was then excommunicated from the Holy Roman Empire. "I do not bring accusation against the outcries of the preachers, which I have not heard, so much as I grieve over the wholly false impressions which the people have conceived from the indulgences." - Martin Luther. He is trying to say he doesn't like the indulgences, because people buy them believing if they buy one they are guaranteed to be saved, but that's not always the truth, they might be wasting their needed money. 

Martin Luther's intentions were originally for the good of the people. He did not want them to get their hopes up, because not everybody had a lot of money and they bought them thinking they would be completely saved.  Luther was more concerned with spiritual reforms. The peasants didn't understand what he was saying, but Luther was actually talking spiritually, not about money. He did not believe in the indulgences and he wanted to make his point clear. He wrote a letter, and posted it to the doors of the church. Primarily, Luther's intentions were for the good of the people.