The enormous empire of the Romans, which made many of the things we still use today, surprisingly originated from humble beginnings. Around the Tiber River, Rome formed from a group of Latin speaking shepherds. The site of Rome was on seven hills around the Tiber River where they could sell and transport goods. Expectantly they joined to form an army. Forming myths and legends, the people realized that the settlement needed a new leader. Two brothers named Romulus and Remus were heirs to the throne of this settlement. They both fought for the throne, and as a result, Remus died. Romulus became the king of Rome. Romulus didn’t know that in time the humble village would become an empire that would engulf the Mediterranean.

      Throughout time, the Ancient Roman government, which many governments are still based upon, slowly advanced. Following Romulus, six kings ruled. In 510 BCE, the renowned Roman Republic began. Whereas during the monarchy only one person held all the power, now two men called consuls shared most of the power. Then a man named Julius Caesar was picked to be a consul. Eventually, Julius Caesar took control of so many things that soon he declared himself a dictator for life, but he was murdered shortly afterwards. After the war that followed Julius Caesar’s death, his son was crowned the emperor of Rome. Emperors would rule until the demise of Rome. Most governments would adopt one of the many stages of Rome’s government.

      Ancient Romans, who pioneered many of the things used today, were extremely talented in the field of engineering. Because they needed to maintain the colossal empire, the Romans constructed a vast road system. About fifty thousand miles of road connected everything from tiny villages to massive cities to Rome itself. Needing to supply the empire with water, engineers envisioned a system of aqueducts which would bring fresh water in and sewage out. Luckily, the aqueducts worked, providing millions of people with fresh water. Two additional feats of epic engineering by the Romans were the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus. The Colosseum could hold fifty to eighty thousand people and has been standing for over nineteen hundred years! The Circus Maximus could hold 250,000 people and was fashioned in the shape of a racetrack. The Romans’ advanced engineering started and fueled the empire until the very end.

      Christianity, which was one of the leading faiths after the start of the Common Era (CE), was heavily frowned upon and regularly persecuted in Ancient Rome. In the early 300s, Constantine rose to power. Preparing for an important battle for Rome, Constantine noticed a sign which read, with a Christian cross, “In this sign, you will conquer.” Gleefully celebrating the victory, he built the Arch of Constantine and made Christianity legal in his part of the empire. Soon he took control of all of Rome. Although he wasn’t baptized until his deathbed, Constantine was considered to be the first Christian emperor. This was the first step towards a Christian Rome.

      Two million acres of fertile, prosperous land in the middle of North America lay relatively unsettled, waiting to be developed. It was the Oklahoma Territory. In 1889 President Benjamin Harrison subsequently declared that those acres would be settled and that the land was free, provided that the settler be at least twenty-one years old, pay a fee of eighteen dollars, and live there for at least five years. When the cannons boomed at high noon on April 22, 1889, an onrush of 750,000 settlers on horseback, in covered wagons, or on foot hastily charged toward their quest for free land. Audaciously, some settlers, nicknamed “the Sooners,” traveled to Oklahoma before the U.S. Government let them because they were afraid that the greatest land for farming would be already taken. The people who stuck to the rules were called the Boomers because they were booming with impatience about reaching the Oklahoma Territory. Oklahoma became the forty-sixth U.S. state in 1907, and its state nickname is not so surprisingly “The Sooner State.”

*Editor's note: Unit 6 assignments can be any number of paragraphs as long as they are using multiple sources. This assignment required only one paragraph. It allows for flexibility for the student and teacher.

      Russia was the first communist country. In 1917 the communists took control from the tsar at the time. Lenin and his group of communists, called the Bolsheviks, were dubbed the Red Army because their flag was red. The Soviet flag was red and had a hammer for the working class, a sickle for the farmers, and a star as the symbol of communism. The Bolsheviks mercilessly slaughtered the entire royal family. After Lenin died, Stalin rose. Ruthlessly, he executed, exiled, and imprisoned anyone who spoke out against the communists. In November of 1989, half a million emboldened people congregated in East Berlin for a protest, which eventually ended with the Berlin Wall collapsing. Communist governments all over Eastern Europe crumbled after the Berlin Wall fell. On Christmas Day 1991, the USSR broke apart, and the world was mostly free from communism.

      After World War II, Eastern Europe converted to communism. Stalin joined the allies to take down Hitler. Many of the Eastern European countries were distraught. Predictably, Stalin took this chance to persuade them to communism. He thought that Eastern Europe would shield the Soviet Union from invasion from the West. Winston Churchill, who was the Prime Minister of Great Britain, called these states “the Iron Curtain.” The Soviet states were called “People’s Republics.” However, this name was deceiving since the communist government did not allow freedom of religion or freedom of speech. The secret police were everywhere. They detained anyone who could challenge the government. Communist Eastern Europe was an incredibly unstable place after World War II.

      China is one of the few countries that is still communist to this day. Millions of peasants saw Mao Zedong as a leader. Mao was a devious man. He was called “the true man of the people,” and his supporters were called “the People's Liberation Army.” He fought the nationalist government and heroically prevailed. On October 1, 1949, China became the People's Republic of China, which was a communist state. Mao's policies were dreadful because they killed millions of people. Regrettably, there are four other communist countries. There is Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, and North Korea. China, however, is still the largest of all the communist countries of today.

      Patiently Gene Stratton-Porter waited for the perfect opportunities to capture nature in magnificent ways within her photographs. Preferring to study nature through photography and observation, Stratton-Porter disapproved of scientists who killed their subjects. In 1895 her husband and daughter thoughtfully gifted her a camera for Christmas. Photography required patience. When a pleasing scene or subject was revealed to her, she carefully would set her camera and focus it. In order to acquire a shot, she concealed her camera from view and waited until her subjects behaved naturally. In place of a professional studio, her bathroom doubled as her darkroom for developing pictures whereas the kitchen transformed into an operation for washing negatives and prints. Stratton-Porter’s love for nature strengthened her endurance and resolve to wait for that perfect moment to capture a photo.

      Putting her photography skills to use fruitfully, Stratton-Porter explored the Limberlost with a keen mind and heart. At first, exploring the Limberlost seemed out of reach because the swamp was full of dangers. However, when Stratton-Porter heard about a black vulture chick in the swamp and excitedly recounted to her husband about it, he agreed that she must proceed despite the challenges. Unless he was accompanying her, he insisted that she would not be allowed in the Limberlost. Because of this for three months on every third day, Stratton-Porter and her husband made the trip into the Limberlost to watch the black vulture grow up. In case of encountering poisonous snakes, they carried a gun with them. Persistently she studied the alluring moths, butterflies, birds, and wildflowers there. Nature always amazed her. Stratton-Porter eagerly dived head first into the wonders of the Limberlost, which inspired some of her fictional novels.

      When assessing Stratton-Porter's novels, critics routinely expressed mixed emotions. Some believed, including her publishers, that the indulgent nature aspects included in her novels were a detriment even though in many cases that was what gave her books their unique charm. Additionally, they complained that a moral man was a figment of the imagination and that her novels were too sentimental and idealized. Today’s critics would likely point out that Her Father’s Daughter has a racist theme as one of the characters, Linda, lampooned a Japanese student who was on track to becoming the valedictorian. Today, however, is not 1921. In general Stratton-Porter did not care about the critiques on her novels since one critic would rave about her work, and another would downplay it. She was satisfied to base her characters on Indiana folks from where she lived. Even if the critics did not agree on her novels, all did concur that she was a compelling, sincere storyteller. In the end, critics respected Stratton-Porter’s nature-filled novels, despite disagreeing with some of her style techniques.


 

Bibliography
 

Aalto, Kathryn. “The Legend of Limberlost: Despite Her Fame, You Wouldn’t Know
      about Gene Stratton-Porter Unless You Visit the Vanishing Midwestern Landscape
      She Helped Save.” Smithsonian Magazine, Mar. 2020,
      www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/gene-stratton-porter-americas-fading-
      natural-beauty-180974161.

“Gene Stratton-Porter.” Indiana Historical Society, 2018,
      indianahistory.org/education/educator-resources/famous-hoosiers/gene-stratton-porter.

“Gene Stratton-Porter: A Little Story of the Life and Work and Ideals of ‘The Bird Woman’.”
      A Celebration of Women Writers, Doubleday Page & Co., 1926,
      digital.library.upenn.edu/women/stratton/gene/gene.html.

Richards, Bertrand Field. Gene Stratton Porter. Twayne Publishers, 1980.