Talk:US History/Exploration

Bay Psalm Book
In 1640, The whole Booke of Psalms Faithfully Translated into English Metre, commonly known as the Bay Psalm Book was printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was the first book written in the new world. A psalter is a book of psalms. The Bay Psalm Book was the first metrical English translation of the psalms. The book was in use for nearly a century and numerous editions of the book were produced. There are still eleven known copies of the original book in existence, quartered throughout various libraries.

(Inserted, in part, in the Colonial chapter.) Pittsburgh Poet (discuss • contribs) 00:28, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Judaism During the 16th and 18th Centuries
During the 16th and 18th centuries, European countries such as the Netherlands, Italy, France, England, and Poland had a large population of Jews. Except, Western Europe was much different than other parts of Europe, like Poland. In parts of Western Europe, Jews were extremely prosperous and were enhancing the economy, but in Poland, it was a different story, Jews were earning a meager pay and were denied equal rights. Western Jews were given the same rights as any other European. Jews at the time in Poland were also being poorly educated. Also, during the 17th century, since Amsterdam allowed Jews to equally participate in trade, their economy flourished. Amsterdam was trading diamonds and Jews grew an expertise for that area by being able to trade raw diamonds, as well as cutting and polishing these precious stones. Another area where they allowed Jews to have equal rights was the Netherlands. Jew’s came to the Netherlands and were able to become doctors, writers, scientists, and lawyers. During the 16th century, both the Jewish community and the Dutch community prospered (Charing pg. 20). Charing, Douglas. Judaism. New York, NY: DK Pub., 2003. Print.

Ann Hutchinson
Ann Hutchinson was a pioneer settler in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. She was also an unofficial minister of a dissent church (Christians who broke away from the Church of England) discussion group. The Bible studies that Ann held appealed to both men and women. Her own interpretations of the sermons caused much controversy. By 1637 Ann was brought to a civil trial By the General Court of Massachusetts on the charge of "traducing the ministers". She was found guilty and was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Education
During the Middle Ages Western society and education were heavily shaped by Christianity, particularly the Roman Catholic Church. The Church operated monastery schools at the elementary level. Schools in monasteries and cathedrals offered secondary education. Much of the teaching in these schools was directed at learning Latin, the old Roman language used by the church in its ceremonies and teachings. The church provided some limited opportunities for the education of women in religious communities or convents. Convents had libraries and schools to help prepare nuns to follow the religious rules of their communities. Merchant and craft guilds also maintained some schools that provided basic education and training in specific crafts. Knights received training in military tactics and the code of chivalry. As in the Greek and Roman eras, only a minority of people went to school during the medieval period. Schools were attended primarily by persons planning to enter religious life such as priests, monks, or nuns. The vast majority of people were serfs who served as agricultural workers on the estates of feudal lords. The serfs, who did not attend school, were generally illiterate.

In the 11th century medieval scholars developed Scholasticism, a philosophical and educational movement that used both human reason and revelations from the Bible Scholasticism, philosophic and theological movement that attempted to use natural human reason, in particular, the philosophy and science of Aristotle, to understand the supernatural content of Christian revelation. It was dominant in the medieval Christian schools and universities of Europe from about the middle of the 11th century to about the middle of the 15th century. The ultimate ideal of the movement was to integrate into an ordered system both the natural wisdom of Greece and Rome and the religious wisdom of Christianity. Formal education was unusual in the Middle Ages, although by the fifteenth century there were schooling options to prepare a child for his future. Some cities such as London had schools that children of both genders attended during the day. Here they learned to read and write a skill that became a prerequisite for acceptance as an apprentice in many Guilds.

A small percentage of peasant children managed to attend school in order to learn how to read and write and understand basic math; this usually took place at a monastery. For this education, their parents had to pay the lord a fine. Noble girls, and on occasion boys were sometimes sent to live in nunneries in order to receive basic schooling. Nuns would teach them to read (and possibly to write) and make sure they knew their prayers. Girls were very likely taught spinning and needlework and other domestic skills to prepare them for marriage. Occasionally such students would become nuns themselves.

(Inserted in the European Middle Ages.) Pittsburgh Poet (discuss • contribs) 14:15, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Pollution
Before 1492 one of the most common forms of pollution was human and animal waste being tossed into the streets. The reason this was such a problem is because it spread bacteria and attracted rats and fleas that spread disease. Another form of pollution was global warming that was caused from the large amount of fires that were being used throughout Europe, causing the smoke to spew into the atmosphere. Soil pollution was also common because when armies were defeated they would contaminate the soil so that the enemy couldn’t use it to grow their own food. This not only hurt the people during the time period, but for the future generations. What also created a lot of pollution up to 1492 was lack of knowledge. People didn’t know that pollution was unhealthy and therefore did not care about it.

From 1492 to 1690 the story hadn’t changed much. Except for the fact that now there was a significant increase in water pollution due to Christopher Columbus and the exploration of the America’s. An example of this would be the crew members tossing waste and unnecessary items overboard into the water hurting the Ocean’s eco-systems. Also, the many sea battles that occurred caused more pollution when the ships would sink and the waste that was on the ships would damage the ocean floor. Between these time periods there was also a lot of technological advancement (especially during the renaissance), and with new technology, usually comes different forms of pollution to go along with it. An example of this would be the printing press that was developed during the renaissance by Gutenberg around 1440. The printing press did revolutionize how people were able to access learning material. But, because of the increase demand for books, came the increase demand for paper. At this time they used both cloth and paper for the printing press. But, because of the increase demand for paper they started cutting down more trees for the paper. In doing so, they damaged the surrounding woodland because they didn’t know how to re-plant trees so that nature could recover. They also needed the wood for the actual printing presses themselves. There were also improvements on previous inventions that created more pollution such as the blast furnace. What this did was shoot more greenhouse gases into the air damaging the ozone. This was essential for metallurgy though which provided the people with their tools and weapons.

Another common form of pollution during this time period was mining. Now mining was an important part of the economy during this time period because it provided jobs and precious metals. But it was a very crude form of mining and was not the most eco-friendly. At first they just used open pit mining that extracted ore from shallow depths as oppose to digging deep mine shafts which became more popular later on. Then in 1627 they started using black powder to start blasting rock to create ore veins in the Earth which was a lot faster than fire setting. This was a problem because when you blast holes into the Earth it leaves scars on the Earth’s crust that are hard to recover from. The reason this was a problem is because not only did this damage the interior of the Earth, but it also created more air pollution as well. Plus, when the miners were down in the shafts they were breathing heavily polluted air from the black powder and soot which caused them to become sick easily and die younger than they should have.

Probably the most significant form of pollution was within the cities that the people lived in. Major cities Europe such as London, Paris, and Rome are good examples of cities with poor hygiene. Many of these cities and towns did not have toilets, garbage disposals, or sewage systems. What this did was create ample opportunities for people to catch diseases and spread them amongst each other at a rapidly dangerous pace. The people would also dump their waste and garbage into their major water supply (if they had one) which would contaminate it and make people extremely sick. What this also did was poison the water supply, damaging whatever wild life was in the water. Along with all of this pollution came rats and fleas who were the disease carriers. An example of this would be the black plague. Rats that were on ships would travel from city to city spreading the disease which resulted in one third of Europe’s population being depleted.

A kind of smaller form of pollution was people’s own personal hygiene. During this time period, the average person would be lucky to bathe once a month. What this did was make people more susceptible to bacteria and sickness and all the other pollution around them. Not only did their personal hygiene affect the individuals and the others around them, but the environment as well. Since the people didn’t know how to take care of themselves, they didn’t know how to take care of the environment that surrounded them.

Blast furnaces were also a big polluter again using coal as a catalyst. Carbon monoxide would be emitted heavily from these devices. These devices would have been around in the 1600s way before the industrial age and it proves that pollution has been around for a long time. Chemicals were also invented in 1791 to create glass vessels and other things cheaper and more effectively. Such chemicals included sulphuric acid which can be harmful to humans. Many things invented in these time periods were to boost the speed in which goods were created and to line the pockets of the inventors and factory owners. What cost was this to human lives then and now, most cases prove to be disastrous to people from ingesting air, land and water pollutants from emissions from factories and chemicals spilled into water and land.

May I eliminate sections?
You have two sections on the Vikings, in the previous chapter and here. You have two sections on Columbus, in the previous chapter and here. I'd like to eliminate this chapter's section on Vikings, putting the pertinent information into the previous chapter, and only discuss Columbus in this chapter. The Vikings belong to a previous era than Columbus. The latter's explorations, as vile as they may be, exemplify the national interest in discovery, rather than expanding of _ethos_ or of city. Pittsburgh Poet (discuss • contribs) 23:19, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I would say go ahead and make your changes. This page and others in the book haven't been edited by other users for some time so feel free to make changes as you see fit.  Explain any changes in the Edit Summary just so others can see what you are doing.  Of course in the future somebody may well want to add the sections back but I can't see why given your explanations above.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Estonia.svg|15px]]talk 23:27, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

French Catholic missionaries
I feel there needs to be a mention of French Catholic missionaries among the Indians, even if it is only parenthetical. Pittsburgh Poet (discuss • contribs) 14:13, 24 May 2014 (UTC)