Friday, 20 June 2014

The Boston Tea Party

We're still taking a break from the Bucket List!
And I wanted to present my Culture Project: The Boston Tea Party.

 
In 1773, a major event happened in America leading to two results:
      - the relationship between the British and the Americans became tenser
      - the colonists became more united than ever before

The reason for this was because the Parliament passed several acts, such as the Stamp Act of 1765, which did not appeal to the Americans. The Stamp Act was passed in order to raise money for the military defences of the colonies during the French Indian War and it required a stamp to be affixed on many more documents than before (posters, newspapers...). This lead to riots and protests with the Americans chanting "NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION", fore they were not represented at Parliament. This whole situation was considered as an economic and political failure for the British.

However, Britain led the Americans to organize further colonial protests and helped form a group of protestors called "The Sons of Liberty". This group resisted the Tea Tax of 1773 by dumping secretly £100,000 ($1 million in today's money) worth of tea in the waters of the Boston Harbour. Naturally, they did it disguised as Indians.
The Sons of Liberty was organized by Samuel Adams, who entered politics to coordinate efforts against British-imposed taxes on American colonies. He was considered as a master of propaganda, was an official of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and, most important of all, was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America.

In order for his cause to be carried out, he asked John Adams - his cousin and President of the United States - and John Hancock, who was a wealthy merchant at the time, for help.
Samuel's beliefs in independence and his successful efforts in persuading others earned him great respect. He was given the name of "Father of the American Revolution".

This incident remains one of the iconic events in the history of America, and political protests still refer to it today! It was basically a political protest and an accumulation of a resistance movement against the British. It was a Key event on the growth of the American Revolution.

Thursday, 19 June 2014

Culture Project: My ranking of the Presentations

I choose YOU!
Right, lets take a small break from all the bucket list tasks and become a little more serious.

At the university I go to at the moment, the Karl-Franzens University of Graz, in one of the classes I attend, we had the "Culture Project Day". What it was? A day to present a topic about culture, something to do with the country our teacher comes from. What we had to do? Not only did we have to present our project, but we had to attend 10 other ones aswell! So here is my ranking of the ones I saw:

1st place: The Reinvention of Malcom X
2nd place: American Indian boarding schools
3rd place: Monica Loughman - The ballet dancer
4th place: Homeland
5th place: Oliver Cromwell - Irish vs British perspective6th place: Media violence
7th place: Obama's legacy: drones and secrecy through the eyes of contemporary artists
8th  place: The Role of the US in the Korean War
9th place: Irish Intelligence at its peak
10th place: The Ku Klux Klan