Kublai Khan Biography

Samantha Hovasse

Period 4

AP World History

Biography

 

Kublai (Khubilai) Khan

 

Kublai Khan was born September 23, 1215 in Mongolia. His father was Tolui Borjigin and his mother was Sorghaghtani Beki, who was a Nestorian Christian princess of the Kereyid Confederacy. Khan’s grandfather was the famous Genghis Khan. Kublai Khan also was known as Shizu in his lifetime, meaning that he was a wise person. He also had other siblings who were Mengke, the older brother, and Arigbge, the younger brother and he had another older brother named Hulegu. When Kublai Khan was seventeen, his father died. His mother was a very strong woman and raised her sons to become the next rulers of the Mongol Empire. In 1251, when Kublai was in his mid-thirties, Mengke became the next Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, and Kublai was given control over Chinese territories in the eastern part of the empire, which happened to be China. Kublai Khan was a very intelligent person. He cared about the people he ruled. He organized a group of Confucian Chinese advisers to introduce reforms in his territories. But in August of 1259, Mengke was killed in battle and that meant that Kublai was supposed to be the next Khan, but his younger brother Arigbge had other ideas and decided to name himself Khan. But Kublai had the support of his people and advisors and they named Kublai the next great Khan. Kublai and Arigbge eventually went to battle and Kublai won. Two years after that battle Arigbge died and Kublai was named the great Khan and the true leader.

Since Kublai mainly reigned in the northern part of China, he sent emissaries to the Song Dynasty in the south to restore relations but the emissaries always came back in bad condition. He then decided to take his army down and was victorious in bringing the end of the Song Dynasty and unifying China under the Mongol rule, and with this, he created the Yuan Dynasty. Kublai Khan was a respected leader. The Mongols and Chinese lived separate lives and did not come in contact with each other that often so the Chinese way of life never changed. He tolerated many religions and actively promoted Buddhism, but he supported Doaists, Muslims, and Christians in his realm. He never forced anyone to follow one religion or to make everyone live the life of a Mongol. Kublai Khan was a rare man in the fact that he was a Mongol, but unlike his ancestors before him, he was able to sit still in one place and not try to go conquer the whole world. He cared more about the people living inside his kingdom. He was one of the only rulers to successfully use paper money as the currency in an empire.  Kublai Khan also met a very important person by the name of Marco Polo, he became a friend to him, since Marco Polo wrote highly of him in his writings and Kublai Khan made him a part of his court. However, like any ruler, he did want more land, just not the world. He successfully conquered parts of Burma and Vietnam, but he led invasions against Japan and he lost every time. The people thought it was a sign that Kublai Khan was not the Mandate of Heaven. In 1281, his favorite wife, Chabi died, and then his eldest son and heir, Zhenjin, died in 1285. Kublai Khan then became an alcoholic, grew obese, and got gout. He later died on February 18, 1294.

Kublai Khan is a significant leader in history because he is the first Mongol to ever rule China, to ever be an emperor of China, and the first to ever start his own Dynasty. He’s even more famous and respected by being able to live in peace, for the most part, with the two sides, the Mongols and the Chinese. He is also significant because he had a close relationship with Marco Polo, who was a very famous explorer and some of Kublai Khan’s fame comes from him.

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

 

"Kublai Khan." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 27 2013, 07:55 http://www.biography.com/people/kublai-khan-9369657.

Szczepanski, Kallie. N.p.. Web. 27 May 2013. http://asianhistory.about.com/od/mongolia/p/Kublai-Khan-Biography-Of-The-Great-Khan.htm

Bentley, Jerry H. and Herbert F. Ziegler. Traditions and Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past. New York: McGraw-Hill. 2006. Print.

Explain Everything

It's 11:23 and I'm tired. That app has sooooo much to it and its so confusing. The first one I did got deleted by accident...then the second one's audio got erased due to another stupid mistake...they say three times's the charm!

Da Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aisjHvxJZ0

Enjoy.

Kublai Khan is the greatest....just saying
Sorry I get sassy/weird when I'm tired and cranky.
Have a lovely night. Or morning. Or day.
I'm done.
Bye.

Kwame Nkrumah on African Unity

Nkrumah's call for African unity rather than fragmentation reflects the tensions between decolonization and the ongoing Cold War becasue he is proposing peace and no wars. He likes seeing the flags of other countries come done from decolonization and then he speaks of joining everyone together and made one giant, massive union. Which is pretty ironic. The he talks about how everyone in the world will respect them for their wealth and size.

Conclusion of the war

The beautiful drawings below are what I did in class and they are pretty self explanatory. I believe I added a conclusion that fit because for one thing it's true and it was probably the easiest ending to draw. I believe that the end of the war solved some problems since Hitler is dead and can't take control over another country and there aren't any other leaders like him and even if there were, they now knew what would happen if they did try to take over the world. But not all problems will die, there's always hate left in the world and someone wanting revenge.

Change and Continuity

Continuity: the Western Hemisphere stayed the same.
Change: Iraq and Syria were not controlled by anyone at first, and then France took over Syria and Britain took over Iraq.
• the colors changed on the map
•used to have no control (just tribes and such) not colonized by Europeans
• us never changes, color stays same
•lots of immigrants to us but the power never changes
• due to treaty of Versailles, Austria and Hungary split up

This certain change happened because Iraq and Syria and Saudis Arabian area in general was rich in oils and other resources like that, that we were very valuable and the oils worked better then coals and it helped them industrialize.

Similarities and Differences between Central Asian, Chinese, and Japanese empires

Religion was an important role in government decisions in both the Islamic Empires, which were the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals, and the Asian Empires, which included the Ming and Qing empires in China and Tokugawa in Japan. All of the empires do this because it offers the rulers a guideline to follow and gives them a structure of power and control to rule over their people. The two groups of empires differ because the Islamic Empires allowed women to play unofficial roles in the government so if their husband was away conquering lands, the wife would step in and take control over the government and have rights while the Asian Empires gave women no rights.

Why the three empires together?

Bentley and Zegler dude combined the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals because they are all in the same general area, and because they share a lot of similarities and some differences. They are all of Turkish decent. It's a shift in the text because they used to have their own chapter, but we are getting closer to the end of the year so maybe they want to squish everything together to give us a break(?). I hope it stays like this because it's easier, but it should stay the same because the world is getting more connected now rather than empty spaces between empires, they are now filled with kingdoms and places.

Fabian Fucan (awesome name) Rejects Christianity

Fabian Fucan rejects Christianity for several religious, cultural, historical, political, and social reasons. Some religious reasons for why he rejects and attacks Christianity is the fact that Japan was regarded as "The Land of the Gods", meaning they had plural gods...more than one... and Christianity is a monotheistic religion. A cultural reason for why he casts off Christianity is that Buddhism and Confucianism were more normal Japanese philosophical beliefs so he felt that he should be more traditional. The political reason for Fucan's attack on Christianity is that Japan's rulers were seen as heavenly and Christianity looked down on this belief, no sons, or children, or anything like that from God. As a social reason, Fucan rejected because Christianity was looked down upon by many Japanese, they weren't very well liked and weren't really outcast in the sense of being exiled, but no one really wanted to associate with them. Those reasons are why Fucan rejects Christianity, or at least those are what I think they are.

Ming and Qing in China

Reason for Qianlong tone

The point of view of Qianlong in his letter to England is very arrogant and condescending. The reason for this is because Qianlong has no idea what his actions will bring. He's been raised thinking that he's the best and has the best empire in the world. He believe that he needs to help or trade and that everyone else is beneath him. It's just plain old ignorance to the reality of his country and people that makes him write this letter in that tone.

Qianlong response #Qianlongstyle

1. Well someone sounds kinda snarky. He gets stuff from a king then gives the other king stuff. But Qianlong sounds like he's mocking him saying "O King".

2. Wow. This guy thinks he's the sh*t (sorry, pardon my French!). He calls his empire "Celestial" and that ambassador a barbarian. It's kinda funny. He's totally snarky and sassy in the way this letter is written.

3. He insults Englad...he insults the ambassador and everything about England. He talks about the other nations too, he makes it seem like China is the center of the world.

4. Orders England to never come to China. He seems to do showing them "mercy".

Making Predictions off of History: ehhhhh wrong! Don't do it!

History does not help make predictions because some people did make one predictions. It's a 50/50 chance to make a prediction and to get it right. Becki thought that women would have more fits in the future, like many other societies of the time, but they didn't. In fact, they got even less rights and were claimed as property now. She thought that they would get more rights because of trading with the world, but China actually closes itself off in the future and no contact with the outside world. Fm this evidence we can see that using history, you can't make accurate predictions. "Even the smallest person can change the course of the future, no matter how small"-LOTR. History is constantly changing and so is the present, so it's hard to figure out what e future will hold when it hasn't happened yet.

Review Game

So, Becki and I made a review jeopardy game for th chapters and we did I it and finished it and saved it, and we definitely made one since we did it in class....but it says it doesn't exist? So whoever is coming to my blog for the review game, check Beckis to see if she found it.

Slave graphs

For the first graph, it is showing how the growth of slaves increased from 1500 to 1800 and r population doubled. Not really surprised about it. When slaves get taken, the people there have to make more of them to replace the ones lost. It's not exactly a happy thing, but yay for more people?
For the second graph it shows the number of slaves exported by year from the 16th century to the 18th century. This graph isn't very happy either. I'm surprised that from that time, the number of shaves exported is like 10x more from the 16th to 18th century. It's sad. About 55,000 people were taken from their homes and probably never saw their mothers, fathers, siblings, children, or friends ever again :(
For the third graph it just shows the percentage of how many slaves went to the Caribbean, Brazil, Central America, and North America. I'm not surprised that the most amount of slaves went to the Caribbeans and the least amount to North America. The Caribbean was where all the sugar plantations were and in North America, there weren't that many plantations that needed large scale amounts of slaves.

Did these graphs help my understanding?
Yes, yes they did. It's one thing to read about something and then to see it mathematically. Sometimes words don't cut it, but numbers on a graph that compare the words appear more clearer and easier to understand.

Social Heirarchies

For the record: I hate flow charts.

Explanation of differences between the political and economic changes in Spanish and Portuguese colonies

There were really a lot of differences, but one would be how Spain wanted colonies from the start. They went out to the new lands and made colonies. Portugal, however, only made colonies when he realized other people were starting the eye the land that he had found. For economics, it seems that Spain was the first to do something and then Portugal would try and follow, like the cash crops. Politics were almost the same, but later in the development of the colonies,vs pain had to make viceroys and such to help keep the power in the colonies in check, and Portugal didn't have that.

Voice thread rating

I gave it a 1 star and this is my review that I posted:

I didn't really like this app because I had to figure out how to use it on my own and it was very confusing. Maybe a quick tutorial at the beginning would be nice. I also didn't like how the comments were constructed. It was hard to figure out who said what and it was actually kind of annoying. A name of who said the comment before the comment would be great! Sharing the voice thread was difficult also. I don't plan on using this app ever again either because of these problems.

Christopher Columbus and essay response

1. Why is Christopher Columbus mythologized?
I think back when the North America was being populated by the Europeans, they had to praise someone for discovering the new land, and Christopher Columbus was the only one who sailed anywhere near there. They had to give the credit to someone and back then, they didn't have extensive history records to know who went where. Now, in present times, it's too late to change the name. It has to stay the same. So now they glorify his story to make him look good because they can't change anything now. And it's not that "important" either to change it when historians know the truth.

2. In this period, the origin of global independence, something new that comes about would be the discovery of sea lanes. They are waterways for traders to use to made trade by water easier to be done. Anther new thing was printing and gunpowder and we'll see how they affected the societies. Trading by land and sea stays the same and the communication is the same in that they communicate, but different in that they communicate with new regions now that are farther away. Diseases still spread thanks to trading with other merchants from one region to another.

Voice thread

Not sure if the link will work, but I did it on the app
voicethread://voicethread.com/share/4093631
Email me if it doesn't work and I'll email it to you.

Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta

Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta are not typical people form their time, or so I assume. Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta (especially him) travelled all over Asia, parts of Europe, and parts of Africa. Most people did trade, but it wasn't all over the place like how they did. They just went to one place then back, not everywhere in the world.

For our time, however, Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta's travels would be considered normal. People today can go wherever they want, no matter how far, and it doesn't look suspicious; it's normal to travel everywhere. Buisness people have to travel for work, and many other people travel for work, for pleasure, and for a vacation.

Societies of Oceania

Crusades Project!

Finally finished the project and here is the link to the showme:
http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=cCh3h7A

(Warning: it is long...like 7 minutes...there wasn't a time limit specified in the directions soo....)
In order for this to work, you need to have the showme app. It should work if you use the link anyways  though, but if that fails, here is plan B:
1. Go to the showme site on the internet (google showme...it's showme.com)
2. log in (make an account if you don't have one)
3. you have two options:
        a. search my name (Sam Hovasse) then click on crusades project
        b. search crusades project and click the one that is by Sam Hovasse
and that would be plan B, but the link should work so don't worry.

My scipt and bibliography are below:

the script:

Hey, this is Sam…Sam Hovasse if you’re wondering and for this project I’m going to be explaining the Third Crusade, the Fourth Crusade, and the Children’s Crusade, along with picture that I think would represent the Muslims reactions to each of the crusades.

So let’s start with the Third Crusade shall we?

The Third Crusade was from 1182 and lasted until 1192. The Muslims were in control of Jerusalem at the start with Saladin as their leader. There three other guys that wanted to take over Jerusalem. There was Barbarossa from Germany, Philip Augustus from France, and Richard the Lionheart from England. Does Philip and Richard the Lionheart’s name sound familiar? Well Robin Hood was loosely based off of this crusade…not really, but they have the same people! Anyways, they all wanted Jerusalem and started heading for it. But sadly, Barbarossa was crossing a river and he fell from his horse and drowned and his men all went back to Germany. How sad. Germany was taken down by a river. Then Philip, well Philip hates Richard and so Philip backs out to take over England and Richard goes on. Richard and Saladin fight for a while and when it’s clear that the fighting is useless they draw up a treaty that allows Christians to go into Jerusalem without paying a tribute.

Muslim reactions:

Not too Happy, they have to share.

 

Now we move to the Fourth Crusade. Ok, so this crusade is a bit different. Instead of kings there is a pope in charge of this one. And that pope is Pope Innocent the III. He wanted the crusaders to rid the land of infidels…aka the Muslims. So the Crusaders go south and discover that they needed boats. They go to Venice for help. They say “Sure, if you go take out our competitor you can have all the boats that you want!.” So the crusaders take out the city of Zara…which was a Christian city…Upon hearing this, the pope is furious and excommunicates them. But the Crusaders don’t really care…they use their boats to go to Constantinople and sack the city. The pope is pleased by this act and takes them back in.

Muslims reaction:

What.

Whatever dude

Insert smug face

And the last crusade I will be talking about is the Children’s Crusade. As you can guess, this crusade involves children. It happened in 1212 and according to my sources, they were kids from France, one of them was a boy named Stephan and he was proclaimed “leader”. There were a lot of other kids that decided to follow with him to try and take Jerusalem, but along the way, many of them decided to either stop or go back. Those that moved on had some trouble finding a boat when they stopped in Brindisi, and when they did they found that they were tricked seeing as the boat landed in Africa and the kids were sold into slavery. And that was the end of that Crusade.

Muslim Reactions:

Seriously?

What kind of people are you?!?

 

The bibliogrpahy:

 

Textbook:

Bentley, Jerry H. and Ziegler, Herbert F. Traditions and Encounters: A Global  Perspective on the Past. 3^rd ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2006. Print.

 

The Third Crusade:

Middle Ages: The Third Crusade. 1/10/13. Web. http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/the-third-crusade.htm

 

The Fourth Crusade:

Middle Ages: The Fourth Crusade. 1/10/13. Web. http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/the-fourth-crusade.htm

 

The Children’s Crusade:

Kreis, Steven. The History Guide. A History of the Crusades (Cambridge, 1951), Volume III: The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades, pp.139-144. 2/28/06. 1/10/13. Web. http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/children.html

 

The worksheet Mr. Whitten gave us:

Mr. Whitten. Google docs. 1/7/13. 1/10.13. Web.

https://docs.google.com/a/bps121.org/document/d/1trLgX-JR0X3lhuHQV6yK8WHtMlm3ONXsNEyIUwgC6Zc/edit

 

I included URLs just because two of my sites didn’t give me the information I needed to make a proper citation.

 

Almost forgot to add my comments!

My comments on other classmates' blogs:

Dear Maya,
I'm also doing the Children's Crusade and I believe you are almost finished woth your project, but here's a website that I found interesting, you might like it too!
http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/children.html
I also love your project so far! It's so creative! And extremely good! How on earth did you get your hermit and leader to look so good? What app did you use? Even though you're not in my class, I can't wait to see it!!
~Sam

Dear Dan,
Hey! We're both doing the fourth crusade! Here's a link that I found pretty helpful for my project:
http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/the-fourth-crusade.htm
I'm not sure how you're doing your project, but some suggestions would be a showme, at least that's what I'm doing! It's not boring like a poster and not over the top like a video. I heard that the Prezi Presentations were pretty good too!
~Sam

Hey Becki :)
We're both doing the fourth and third crusade!
Here are some links that I found helpful:
http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/the-fourth-crusade.htm
http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/the-third-crusade.htm
They have some pretty good information that I'm using. Make sure to read some of the third crusade pages really good becasue some of them had some information that was really biased and not good for this project becasuse it was misleading! Anyways, if you need any other help feel free to ask :)
~Sam

Wrap up Blog before Final Post

So this post is going to be long and meaty. This is what I should have been adding along the way but more in detail:

1. I changed from doing a video to showme...I want to have pictures.
I'm just going to talk about the crusades outloud and post pictures and such
2. I'm doing Crusades #4, #5, and #6. They're actually the Third Crusade, Fourth Crusade, and the Children's Crusade.
3. sources:
third crusade: brought to you by google
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_crusade3rd.html
http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/the-third-crusade.htm
fourth crusade: brought to you by bing!
http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/the-fourth-crusade.htm
the children's crusade:
http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/children.html

I also used the book

I personally like google more becasue the search engine I've always used, but any search engine will do.
I've chosen to do a showme becasue I wanted to incorporate pictures, and I can't really do that if I'm video taping myself. The only other problem was that if I did video tape myself I would have to dress up like a Muslim and I didn't want to offend anyone or anything like that so the showme will save me from A. embarrassment and B. being disrespectful. This is going a lot different that I expected. At first it looked really hard and then it got easier..but now it's back to being hard! I hope I'll finish this project soon becasue I have to rewrite my script about the crusades a little bit and then find pictures and then do the showme. Wish me luck and hopefull this will turn out good!

And the pictures are going to show the Muslims' reactions if you're wondering.My voice will just talk about the crusades.

Day 3 and 4

Sorry, my post for Day 3 didn't get posted! Apparently there was an interuption(?).

Anyways, I made my script for what I'm going to say, I'm going to video tape it tomorrow and then upload it to youtube, then tada! The project will be done and I won't have to worry about it ever again.

Day 2 of the Project

So today Mr. Whitten gave us the list of all of the crusades. I know I'm definitely doing the one with Richard the Lion-heart and then I have some others that I would like to do but I just have to narrow down my choices, which I will do tomorrow. We have an in-class essay to do tomorrow so I'm going to prepare for that essay tonight and do most of the project tomorrow so I can devote my time to studying.

Day 1 of the project

Not sure exactly about this project and what to do...
But I know that I'm going to do a video and I'm going to impersonate being a Muslim and rant about each of the crusades. I have not picked out which ones I would like to do yet (that would be tomorrow's homework for me). For sources and finding sources, I know I'm going to use the textbook and google. More to come tomorrow!

Map of Africa

The textbook company omitted a lot of useful information the map. One of the reasons they probably did this was because of the time, money, and effort it would have cost. Textbook companies don't have time, they have so many other things to do and print out so many other textbooks and they only have a certain amount of money to spent on certain textbooks to fit their budget. Another reason would be to make students read the book more carefully. It's a pain for e students, but the information is in the reading so no learning is lost. However, it also gives teachers an activity to do in class, which was the same thing we did today in class, which was making the students read the book and make a new map, which is interactive and helped my understanding of everything going on in Africa with the kingdoms, cities, and trade. The impact of the omissions is that learning is now hard, meaning that Africa is empty. And to get the knowledge of everything else, you have to read rather than see it. But redoing the map impacts the students and people seeing the map better because it shows everything going on helping our understanding and it shows the complexity of Africa.

My Story

I believe that my life's story should be completed in a book or a song. When I mean book, I mean a collection of my diary or something. Anything that I have written myself, and what no one else has touched. I don't want anyone else to have a say in my story becasue no one knows myself better than I do. I mean there could a section on what other people think and could say, but the majority should be me writing about myself and my thoughts for the events that have happened in my life. If a book is impossible to achieve, then a song will do. I love to sing anyways so a song would be pretty good. Songs are more memorable and will last for a long time. Books however,last longer in the sense that they are preserved, but not necessarily known by many people. Songs are more popular in this day and age. But a book and a song about myself doesn't sound to bad either. Have the book about my life and the song about a particular event. However, if someone else wrote a book about me, I would have to read it first before it was ever published or read by any other person. I don't want anyone writing things about me that are not good.