First serial killer, second century......

Vocal.media

I recently read an article having to do with China, some poor food choices they make, and then I saw something even more interesting to me. 

Turns out the first documented serial killer was from China's Han Dynasty and a prince, no less.  Prince Liu Pengli, the Prince of Jidong, was a blood-thirsty, murder-for-the-fun-of-it type of guy.  Not much else is known about this prince other than he would take slaves out at night to wreak havoc.  It is said that he murdered over 100 people starting in the year 144 B.C. just because he could.

The son of one of the victims exposed the prince for his actions and the court officials asked the Emperor at the time (Pengli's cousin) to execute Liu but instead his cousin stripped him of his royal titles and banished him to the country of Shangyong.

Where in the world is Turkmenistan....

After checking my blog stats the other day, I have discovered there are a lot of people all over the world with a lot of free time on their hands (thanks Coronavirus).  It is nice to see that I have quite a few international readers so I decided to give a few shout outs and learn a few new things myself.

Turkmenistan made it pretty close to the top viewers last week so thanks for that and look at all these amazing facts about Turkmenistan (a sovereign country) I found out.  This would be a great place to visit but apparently, it is very difficult to obtain a Visa to be allowed in.  I guess that is why Turkmenistan is one of the least visited places in the world.

Factoids:
~The capital and largest city is Ashgabat which translates to city of love/devotion.

~Turkmenistan comes from the Persian (Farsi) language and means land of the Turkmen.

~Turkmen is the language of the majority with Russian and Uzbek spoken as well.

~It is bordered on the northwest by Kazakhstan, to the north and east by Uzbekistan, to the southeast by Afghanistan, to the south and southwest by Iran, and the Caspian Sea to the west.

~More than 70% of Turkmenistan is covered by the Karakum Desert (black sand).

~Turkmenistan gained independence from the Soviet Union in October 1991.

~Until 2006, Turkmenistan was ruled by president/dictator, Saparmurat Niyazov (first president).

~Nivazov passed a few questionable laws during his time as president including no spandex, no gold teeth, no opera, no lip syncing at concerts, young men were banned from having long hair or beards, no dogs in the capital, and banning smoking in public places.  He also changed the names of the days of the week to match the names of his family members.

~The next president was Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow (formally a dentist) changed back some of those wacky laws and made a few of his own such as no black cars allowed, favoring white cars instead because white brings good luck.

~Speaking of white, Turkmenistan holds the Guinness World Record for most buildings made of white marble (543).

~Turkmenistan also holds the Guinness World Record for the largest indoor Ferris Wheel and most public pools in one place.

~Turkmenistan is home to Akhal-Teke breed which is one of the purest breeds in the world with a price tag of up to $3,000,000!  The Akhal-Teke horses are a national emblem of  Turkmenistan.

~The final factoid is the Gates to Hell as the locals call the Darvaza Gas Craters.  This is a deep crater fill with huge deposits of natural gas and oil.  In 1971, Soviet engineers lit the crater to burn off the excess gas.  They believed the process would take a few weeks to burn off; however, it is still burning today.

Thanks again to the readers in Turkmenistan!

Halloween triggers my ghoulish spirit.....

I love learning about the hauntings of abandon castles with diabolical dungeons, eerie cemeteries filled with nefarious spirits, and ethereal beings lurking in the shadows of murderous forests but what I love the most are asylums.  I know but there you go.  I also love Italy.  I say that all the time so when I came across an abandon asylum in Milan, I turned on the Italian ghostbuster in me and found a gem of a wicked place full of history dating back all the way to 1863.


If you happen to be heading off to Milan, Italy, you might want to check this place out and please let me tag along.

Lesson in Italian, Manicomio is the Italian word for mental hospital.

The hospital was built in 1863 in Limbiate, Italy, close to Milan.  This place has a rather intriguing past to say the least.  The villa was constructed by the family of Lombard noblemen Pusterla.  The villa changed hands a few more times and became the headquarters of Napoleon Bonaparte (Villa Napoloen) during the French Revolutionary War while he was campaigning in Italy.  I did another post about Napoleon's time in Italy, and you can read that here if you like.

The villa was ultimately abandoned and was purchased by the Municipality of Milan (a fancy way of saying city council).  They decided to reconstruct the villa and transform it into a psychiatric hospital (Mombello di Limbiate).  In 1879, the Ospedale Psichiatrico Giuseppe Antonini was opened as the psychiatric hospital of Milan.

This new hospital could accommodate up to 900 patients but when they opened were already overcrowded and had upwards of 1200 patients.  There were only six doctors so you can do the math on that one and to complicate matters further, during the First World War, there were 3,500 patients.  This was the largest psychiatric hospital in Italy during the twentieth century.  They divided the patients up by degree of illness and severity of their disease.

There is documented proof that the earliest forms of electroshock therapy, a.k.a. electroconvulsive therapy, a.k.a. ECT, was developed by Dr. Ugo Cerletti, an Italian neurologist.  It is said he had this idea when he was at a slaughterhouse in Rome.  He observed the responses of pigs being electrically shocked prior to slaughter which cause them to convulse and become docile which in turn made it easier to kill them.  I guess he just thought, hey, lets electrocute humans to induce convulsions and see how it goes, which he did.

Those lucky patients with schizophrenia and depression were shocked to the point of convulsion repeatedly.  And while there were improvements, 80+ years later, psychiatrists will admit they are unclear how this technique actually works.  A few believe that this procedure causes a "good kind of brain damage" what ever that is.  Someone should have tested out this method on the good doctor himself.

In 1978, the asylum was shut down due to the Basaglia Law (Italian Mental Health Act of 1978).  The property was neglected and abandoned.  The buildings became dilapidated and were vandalized.  A few buildings were spared and are in use by a high school and a smaller healthcare facility but they are on borrowed time and will most likely be shut down in the near future.

I also found two random factoids that I thought were interesting, for example, did you know it is illegal for anyone to name a pig Napoleon in France.

I know, this is not really relevant but since Napoleon once resided here, I just thought I would throw that in here.  I do what I want to do.

Here is a better one.  The hospital (Mombello di Limbiate) hosted the illegitimate son of deadbeat dictator, Benito Mussolini.  (You can learn more about him here if you like but FYI, he is a total douche bag).

Yeah, so, it turns out that Mussolini attempted to arrange the death of Ida Dasler (his first wife) and his son with her, Benito, Jr.  Mussolini sent a couple of his fascist thugs to erase all evidence that either of them existed and kill them both.  Not only had the thugs failed to kill them, they missed a very important piece of information, a marriage certificate.  Oh, and there was also a document ordering Mussolini to pay child support (poor guy, he did not realize he was actually supposed to support his own children).

Mussolini eventually forced Ida Dasler into a mental hospital to silence her, and she was told her that her son was dead, which in reality he was not.  She ended up dying of a brain hemorrhage in 1937.  (They called it a brain hemorrhage but I am pretty sure a bullet in the brain can cause a brain hemorrhage but what do I know).  Benito, Jr., was kidnapped and imprisoned at Mombello di Limbiate.  In 1940, he tried to escape but that did not go so well.  He was captured and eventually died in 1942 under "mysterious circumstances."  That story is mentale, right?  I get on a roll and literally cannot stop.

If you are ready to head out and take a tour, click here for info.


I found this great video on YouTube if you want to take a look inside.

In bocco al lupo and Ciao!

Plate tectonics continued. Volcanoes. Apologia Physical Science.

My last post was about plate tectonics.  You can find that here.  I wanted to break the topics included with plate tectonics because there is a lot to learn and/or review.  So first up is volcanoes.

Quick review of the plates.  The idea of plate tectonics is the idea that the continents drifted from place to place breaking apart from each other, grinding against each other, and colliding with each other with resultant mountains, earthquakes, and volcanoes.

When the plates move, it causes friction which in turn cause volcanoes near the edge of the plates. Volcanoes are mountains.  A volcano is formed from magma from within the earth's upper mantle. Volcanoes open downward into a pool of molten rock which is below the earth's surface.  The pressure builds up thus causing an eruption.  Rock fragments and gases are forced up through the opening and spill over and/or fill the air with lava fragments.  As time goes by and a volcano continues to erupt, the volcano increases in size.

Active, dormant, and extinct are the three categories scientist use to categorize volcanoes.

Active volcano in Hawaii.

Active means the volcano has recently erupted and may erupt again soon.

Mauna Kea in Hawaii-dormant. 
Last eruption 2460 BCE

Dormant means the volcano has not erupted in an extended period of time but has the potential to erupt again in the future.

Malheur Butte in Oregon-extinct.

Extinct means the volcano erupted thousands of years ago and will most likely never erupt again.






The extinct volcano (pictured above) named Malbeur Butte in Oregon is rumored to be haunted.  According to the legends, this volcano was once a spot where witches met secretly.  It is said that all kinds of shadowy figures appear at the site of the volcano after dark.  These figures make strange noises to scare visitors away.

Other cool facts you may not know.

There are approximately 1500 active volcanoes with over 80 of those being under the oceans.  These active volcanoes are mostly found in Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, and Hawaii.

Mauna Lao in Hawaii is currently the world's largest active volcano on earth.

Have you ever heard of the volcano bird?
This is a highly endangered bird known as the Maleo.  The Maleo bird depends on the geothermal energy to help incubate its massively large eggs.  These eggs are approximately five times larger than that of a regular chicken egg.  The female Maleo bird approximately the same size as a duck which makes seeking out volcanic areas to assist in incubating the eggs necessary.

image source

Did you know that the tallest volcano in our solar system is not even on earth?  It is on Mars, of course!  Olympus Mons is a volcano that rises 27 km and measures 550 across.

A volcanic eruption can also trigger a tsunami (a large ocean wave caused by an underwater earthquake/volcanic explosion), earthquakes, rockfalls, mudslides, and flash floods.

Next up: Earthquakes.

Find out more:
Khan Academy has a great collection of videos.
Dynamic earth.
How volcanoes work.
How stuff works, volcanoes and plate tectonics.
Pangaea video
National Geographic

Apologia Physical science module 6 continued. Plate tectonics.

Plate tectonics, what are they?

from Enchanted Learning

If you have studied earth or physical science before, you will most likely have heard of plate tectonics, if not, here is what we learned about plate tectonics.

Plate tectonics is also related to the last lesson about the asthenosphere which you can read here on my blog, Horsing Around At Home.

A little background first.  The common theory is that all continents used to be one super landmass called a Pangaea (Greek for all land) and that over time, they have drifted apart.  This is known as the continental drift and was suggested by a German climatologist, Alfred Wegener, in the early 1990s.

~Earth is in constant motion.  You may not realize it because the movements are so slow.

~Earth moves between one to six inches every year but it takes millions of years to move a significant amount.

~The lithosphere is the part of land that is moving Earth (the crust and upper mantle).

~Plate tectonics are moved by the lithosphere.

PNSN

~There are seven major plates on Earth which include Africa, Antarctic, Eurasia, North America, South America, India-Australian, and the Pacific plates.

~There are around eight smaller plates which include Arabian, Caribbean, Nazca, and Scotia.

~There are two main types of lithospheric plates which are oceanic and continental.

~Oceanic plates form on the ocean floor and are thin and made from basalt.

~Continental plates are thick and made of semi-dense granite.

From Enchanted Learning

~The tectonic plates have three main boundaries:

 *convergent-is where two plates push together.  Occasionally one plate will move under the other which is known as subduction.  The Mariana Trench is the deepest part of the ocean and was formed between the Pacific Plate and the Mariana Plate.  The Pacific Plate is subducted under the Mariana Plate.  Another example of a convergent boundary is the Himalayan Mountains, boundaries of the Indian Plate and the Eurasian Plate.

 *divergent-are found in the ocean as mid-ocean ridges and in rift valleys when a rift valley forms on land.

 *transform-a boundary where two plates slide past each other.  This forms a fault, earthquakes occur frequently at this type of boundary.  San Andreas Fault is a good example of this boundary.  The transform boundary here is located between the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate.

This is the point I am breaking this topic into another blog post about earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain formation.

Geography 4 Kids

Plate tectonics on Pinterest

A great printable can be found here.
Science Clarified 

The final journey with Marco Polo.

We are the majority of the way through our Bob Jones University World History study and that lead us back to studying the explorers one last time.

First up, Marco Polo.

We have learned quite a bit already and you can find my blog post from 2011 is here.  I cannot believe that was four years ago.

Factoids about Marco Polo:

~Marco was born in Venice, Italy around 1254.  His exact day of birth has never been confirmed.  Some historians are still debating the location he was born.

~His mother died when Marco was young, and his father was Niccolo Polo.

~His father and uncle, Maffeo, were jewel merchants.  They sailed all the way to China in 1266 to set up a trading business.  They were among the first ever explorers to travel to Mongolia and China.

~Niccolo and Maffeo met Kublai Khan, the Mongol prince.  Khan wanted the Pope to send 100 European priests to come to China and teach Christianity.

~Marco Polo accompanied his father and uncle to Asia around 1271 when he was 17 years old.  Their journey took four years just to get to Asia.  They ended up staying for 17 years.

~When Marco returned to Venice, he was thrown in jail by the people living in Genoa siting conflict between Genoa and Venice.  He was  44 years old at that time.

~Lucky for history that Marco was in jail.  It lead to the creation of his book called The Travels of Marco Polo.  This book was dictated by Marco and transcribed by a prisoner named Rustichello da Pisa.

~Marco was declared one of the greatest storytellers of his time because he would describe a million things about his adventures.  People called him Il Milione which loosely translates to one million lies.

~Marco described what would be sheep in his book and in later years, one species of sheep would be named the Marco Polo sheep.  

~Marco told many stories about the Silk Road in China.

~This book, amazingly at that time, was printed in Latin, Italian, and French.

~ This book had an impact on Christopher Columbus so much so that when he set out on his journey to Asia, he took the book with him.

~Marco was released from prison around 1299 and in 1300, he married Donata Badoer.  They had three daughters.  (Bellela, Fantina, and Moretta).  I could not find a lot of info on the daughters.

~Marco died on January 8, 1324 at the age of 69 from an illness.  Doctors could not treat his illness.

~He is buried at the Church of San Lorenzo in Venice, Italy.

And with that, we say farewell to Marco Polo!

Biography: Marco Polo - Another great resource for Marco Polo

Marco Polo Explorer-this is a great, quick, resource for Marco Polo.

The Renaissance

Finally out of the dark ages and into the light again.  The Renaissance (14th to 17th centuries).   

The Renaissance worked its way from Italy to northern Europe, Spain, and to the southern France in record time but what was the Renaissance anyway?   First thing first, the word Renaissance is the French word for rebirth.  It is thought that the Renaissance was an attempt at recreation of classical models of Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece.

Mr. Gray History

In the beginning of the Renaissance, Italy became the center of world culture.  Italy also flourished economically and became a leading country for trade.  Italy was divided into independent states at the time with the city of Florence being the European banking center thanks to the Medici Family and their wealth.  I will talked more about them below.

The Renaissance was about knowledge and new ideas in many areas of life.  This was a time of curiosity and exploration.  Most scholars, up until now, had only been allowed to study the teachings of the church but people began to realize there was much more, much, much more.  Artist became obsessed with the human body once the Renaissance began.  They took their art into more of a scientific direction.  Scientists would dissect a body to help artists draw more accurate images of anatomy.  Remember, previously they were limited to religion as a subject matter so this is a completely different dynamic.  Giotto di Bondone was the first Renaissance painter.  He was from Florence, Italy and liked to paint people/objects in nature.  This was called realistic painting and so it began.  

We have studied the Renaissance several times during our 10 years of homeschooling but we learn a few new things each time.  This is probably our last time with a formal study of the Renaissance.

Here is a short list of a few of the key players of the Renaissance.  

The Medici Family.
Walkabout Florence website.

The Medici Family a.k.a. the Godfathers of the Renaissance.
*Giovanni de Medici (1360-1429) was the founder of the Medici Banks.  These banks made the family very wealthy.
*Cosimo de Medici (1389-1464) was the first leader of Florence, Italy.
*Lorenzo Di Medici (1449-1492) ruled Florence through the majority of the Italian Renaissance.  He was knows as Lorenzo the Magnificent.
*Catherine de Medici (1519-1589) married King Henry II of France in 1547.  She became the Queen of France but before all of that happened, Catherine was taken as a hostage  when she was 11 years old.  She convinced her kidnappers to let her go stating she wanted to be a nun.  It worked, they let her go but she never became a nun.
*Marie de Medici (1575-1642) married King Henry IV of France and became the Queen of France.

Renaissance artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo created masterpiece after masterpiece.  

~Leonardo da Vinci was described as a "Renaissance Man."  His most famous paintings are the Last Supper and the "Mona Lisa."  Da Vinci was also one of the greatest inventors of all times as well.

~Michelangelo's most famous work, David, is over 17 feet tall.  Michelangelo's most famous painting is on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

~Raphael was commissioned by Pope Julius II to paint the Sistine Madonna.

Famous writers of the Renaissance include William Shakespeare and Dante Alighieri.  Hamlet is Shakespeare's most famous work.  Dante lived in Florence.  He is known for creating the greatest epic poem ever written in the Italian language, The Divine Comedy. (1300s)

Famous Renaissance explorers such as Vespucci, Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, Ponce de Leon, Francis Drake,  Cabot, and De Soto embarked on many voyages.

Gutenberg press

The invention of the Gutenberg printing press (1450) by Johannes Gutenberg was created during the Renaissance.

The amazing accomplishments, inventions, art, music, scientific discoveries, and literature that emerged as a result of the Renaissance are too numerous to list.  I added a few links if you want to learn more.

Here are a few more random/interesting and somewhat gross facts we came up with.    

~Did you know that in those days, most people got married in June?  Why?  Because they took their yearly baths in May.  They believed that water weakened the body so they rarely bathed.  It is also said that the bride carries flowers to hide body odor.  

~An eclipse was considered bad luck.

~Plato's Academy was in Florence.

~Washing your face with urine was common place during those days.  Most people did this every day.  They are scared of water but wash their faces with urine, seems legit.

~Freckles were considered disgusting so to remedy this, they rubbed their freckles with sulfur.  Ouch! 

~Eagle poo was used to ease childbirth. 

~Toothache?  There were no dentists back then so if you had a toothache, you just pulled your own tooth.

~Everyone had a "poop and pee" pot under their beds.  The thought was that if you had to go to the bathroom at night this would be easier.  Some people would just dump the contents out of their windows the next morning and called it cleaned.  

And with that, The End! 

My other blog posts about the Renaissance are here, here, here, and here. 

You can find more Renaissance artists here.

The Renaissance: Was it a thing? By John Green via Khan Academy.
Short Renaissance trade video.

Renaissance Art History Channel.

Ancient Greece, final study, part 1

Final study of Ancient Greece with Bob Jones University World History.  There is a lot here to go over and learn so I am breaking this up in to several different posts.  There are wars, kings, famous folks, gods and goddesses, myths, and a myriad of other things to cover.

Ancient Greece:

Mycenean

~The first civilization in Greece was the Minoan civilization.  This civilization was formed on the island of Crete around 2000 BC.

~Eventually, the Minoans were conquered by the Myceneans around 1450 BC.

~In the ancient days, countries were divided into city states.

~The largest of these city states were Athens, Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes.  These city states were always at war with each other especially Athens and Sparta.

~In 508 BC, Athens was the most powerful.

Zeus

~The Olympic Games started around 700 BC in the southern city of Olympia.  This was to honor Zeus-the king of the gods.

~Ancient Greece is usually divided into 3 main time periods which include the Archaic Period, the Classical Period, and the Hellenistic Period.

~The Archaic Period (the Greek dark ages) is the time when the Greek government began to form city-states like Athens and Sparta.  The Greeks were also interested in theater and philosophy during this time period.

~During the Classical Period, democracy was introduced in Athens.  This is also the time period that the Athenians and the Spartans fought in the Peloponnesian Wars and Alexander the Great conquered most of Europe and Western Asia.

~The Hellenistic Period (323 BC) began after the death of Alexander the Great.  Greece began to lose power and was conquered by Rome (146 BC).

~Athens: 

495 BC-429 BC

*Athens is one of the oldest cities in the world and also one of the greatest cities in the world, present day.

*Athens is the capital city of Greece today with about 40% of the population living there.

*The Democratic systems was developed in Athens under the leadership of Pericles.  He was the greatest leader in Athens during the Golden Age (The Age of Pericles).

Parthenon

*Athens is named after Athena, the Greek goddess.  Athena was the goddess of war, wisdom, and civilization.

*The Parthenon is a shrine built for her on the top of a hill in the center of Athens.

~Sparta:
*Sparta was the most powerful city-state in Ancient Greece.

*Sparta was known as a warrior society.  The men of Sparta spent all of their time training to become warriors which began at the age of 7 and lasting until they were age 60.  They believed they were all descendants of Hercules.  This was a pretty intense group.

*The females from Sparta spend all of their time training in athletics and exercise starting at age 7 as well.

*The Spartan society was divided by class, the Spartans (the citizens-just the men), the Perioikoi (the free people), and the Helots (the slaves).

*The Spartans led the Greeks in the war against Persia and then went on to start a war against Athens in the Peloponnesian War (Greeks versus Greeks).  Sparta was the stronger of these two city states so the Athenians lost the war.

Here, here, and here you can find our previous Ancient Greek studies from a few years ago.
John Green Crash Course Greeks and Persians-Khan Academy
Mr. Donn
The British Museum 
BBC
BBC Ancient Greece interactive for the younger kiddos

"Happiness depends upon ourselves" - Aristotle-Famous Greek

East Africa, Uganda.

East Africa.
~The territories:  Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

We have covered Tanzania and Kenya so now we will take a trip to Uganda.

~Uganda:

-Capital city is Kampala.

-There are over 30 million people living in Uganda.

-They speak Arabic, Swahili, Nilo-Saharan, Ganda, Luganda, and English.

-Their religions vary from Roman Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, and other beliefs.

-Uganda has a tropical climate with two seasons, the wet season and the dry season.

-Half of Uganda can survive on less than $1 a day.

-The main source of transportation is a bicycle.

-In Uganda, they love meat stew which can include a variety of animal parts such as the tongue, liver, intestines, and stomach.

-Uganda has a variety of birds such as pelicans, darters, flamingos,

image from wiki-Jacanas.

Jacanas, Turacos, Nightjars, Swallows, Bulbuls, Drongos, Jays, Starlings, and Siskins.

You can also find Mountain Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla beringei) in Uganda. Sadly, there are only 880 mountain gorillas left in the world.  They grow to be up to 6 feet tall and weigh in between 300 to 400 pounds.  These amazing gorillas can live to be up to 50 years old while in captivity.  They are shy, vegetarian, forest-loving creatures who have to watch out for humans, crocodiles, and leopards as they tend to prey upon the gorillas.


*****You have to watch this amazing, amazing Youtube video called Touched by a Mountain Gorilla.  You can help save these awesome creature with the Wildlife Conservation Society.

If you plan on visiting Uganda, you can check out their specials to Trek Uganda here.  October through November 2014.

East Africa, Kenya.

image from the web

~The territories:  Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

Image from Pinterest.

~Kenya:

-Current president is Uhuru Kenyatta (2013)

-The capitol is Nairobi.

-Around 39 million people call Kenya home.

Blue Monkey-Kenya

-Kenya has only two seasons, the rainy season and the dry season.

-It is believed by paleontologists that the first inhabitants arrived in Kenya around 2 million years ago.

-Kenya is located on the equator.

-English and Swahili are the official languages of Kenya.

-You can find a lot of buffaloes, leopards, rhinoceroses, elephants, and lions in Kenya.

-Half of Kenya lives in poverty.

white storks-Martin Harvey

-Many Olympic long distance running champions hail from Kenya.

-In 1963, Kenya declared independence
from the United Kingdom.

Golden Jackal

Another very interesting fact is that your good buddy and mine, President Barack Obama's father is from Kenya.

(Swahili) shukrani kwa ajili ya kuacha kwa, Ijayo kuacha, uganda.-Thanks for stopping by next stop is Uganda.

Territories of East Africa. First stop, Tanzania.

East Africa, aka the last true Eden.  I am breaking apart East Africa because there is a lot going on there.

~The territories:  Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

The flag: Green is for the natural resources.
Yellow for mineral deposits.
Black for the skin color of the people.
Blue for the water.
Their flag was designed for unity and togetherness for people.


 ~Tanzania:

image from the web

-The world's earliest human skull was found in Tanzania.
-Tanzania is a little larger than California doubled.
-The president of Tanzania is Jakaya Kikwete.
-In Tanzania alone there are 120 languages.

Coconut crab.

-Coconut crabs-the largest crabs in the world-can be found in Tanzania.
-The most expensive hardwood tree in the world, the Mpingo tree (African blackwood), is found in Tanzania.
-Mt. Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania and is over 19,000 feet above sea level.  This is the largest mountain in Africa.

Grey Crowned Crane in Tanzania.

Jacksons Hartebeest and Burchells zebras.

Next stop is Kenya.

South Africa

Bob Jones University World Geography has now landed us in Africa.  We are taking a look at South Africa first and working our way up north.  This is what we found out.

Factoids:

~South Africa was led by Apartheid leaders before Nelson Mandela became the first democratic leader in South Africa in 1994 after he was released from prison.

~There are about 52 million people living in South Africa.

~The capital is Pretoria.

~South Africa is about five times larger than Japan.

~There are 11 official languages for South Africa that include Tsivenda, Setswana, Ndebele, Sepedi, Tsonga, Sesotho, Siswathis, Xhosa, English, Afrikaans, and Zulu.

~South Africa is a democracy thanks to Mandela.

~Christianity is the main religion but there are a blend of Muslims, Jews, and other faiths as well.

Tugela Falls image from the web

~The Tugela Falls is the second highest waterfall in the world after Angel Falls in Venezuela.  We talked
about Angel Falls during out South America study.

image from the web

~On the west coast near the Cape, you will find a colony of penguins.  They thrive there because of the cold Antarctic currents.







~There are approximately 900 species of birds in South Africa including the beautiful blue crane.

Blue crane image from the web

~The ostrich is the largest bird.

image from the web

~The elephant is the largest land mammal.

image from the web

~The world's biggest frog is from Cameroon.









~In South Africa you will find wetlands, subtropical forests, deserts, mountains, plateaus, bush, and grasslands.

the floral symbol of  South Africa-
Image from the web

~South Africa has the most diverse flora kingdom in the world.









~Table Mountain in Cape Town is thought to be one of the world's oldest mountains in the world.  There are over 1,500 species of plants just in Table Mountain.

image from the web

~Soweto, South Africa has the only street in the world to have two neighbors who were both awarded Nobel Peace prizes, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.







~I had no idea that South Africa is the world's largest producer of macadamia nuts.

image from the web

~The largest diamond in the world came from South Africa.  In 1905, the
Cullinan Diamond was found, weighing in at a whopping 3,106.75 carats uncut.



~Besides diamonds, South Africa also has gold mines.  About 20% of the world's gold comes for South Africa.

~The first heart transplant ever done was done in South Africa in 1967 by Dr. Chris Barnard.  South Africa also gets credit for the CT scan.

Well as you can see, another county with a lot happening.  Too much to take in all at once and this was only South Africa.  Next up, North Africa.

Learn more:

kids world travel guide

National Geographic Kids

science kids