To learn more about this unique city called Venice, let’s journey to the top of a country known today as Italy. To really understand the history of this city, we have to travel back in time about 500 years to a period known as the Renaissance. 

The Renaissance

The word “renaissance” comes from a French word that means rebirth. So, what exactly was being born again, and what did it have to do with a floating town?

Before the Renaissance, most people who lived in Europe had difficult lives. There were many attacks by Vikings and other invaders, and it was hard for rulers to keep power and maintain order. People were also battling a horrible disease called the Black Death that spread throughout Europe making a lot of people sick. Tragically, about one-third of the population of Europe actually died. Today, we call this period in history before the Renaissance the Middle Ages or Medieval Times. It lasted for about one thousand years.

Eventually, the rulers of Spain, England, and France had enough power to bring back some good old-fashioned order and control. At about the same time, an important new invention came along: the printing press. The printing press meant that books could be printed more easily, allowing more people to read and share them. And guess what? As more people learned to read, they discovered that learning new stuff was actually quite fun. And then, voila! A “rebirth” of learning took place, which we now call the Renaissance.

When the Renaissance first started, people in Europe were happy that their lives were better than they had been during the Middle Ages. They no longer had to fight against the Black Death plague or even each other! They had extra time to read books and think. Pretty soon, people were inspired to come up with new ideas. They began to paint and draw, write music, invent new technology, and discover new ways of doing things.  

Many of the most famous thinkers and creators of the Renaissance–like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo–were from Italy. Italian cities were filled with people just like these two guys, people creating art, writing poetry, and thinking up new stories. More importantly, they were filled with wealthy people who were paying for these pieces.

Venice Gets Its Start

One of these bustling Italian cities was Venice. Venice had already been around for more than one thousand years. There is evidence that people had been living on the islands that make up Venice since ancient times. However, it was not until nearly the end of the Roman Empire that Venice started really earning a name for itself, thanks to some unwelcome invaders.

In about 500 A.D., a bunch of power-hungry invaders swarmed into southern Italy causing chaos and terror. Many people escaped by fleeing to the north. Some of them discovered a shallow lagoon and a bunch of islands – 118 of them to be exact – in the northern part of the Adriatic Sea. It seemed like a pretty good place to wait out the chaos happening down south.

There was one big problem. It was basically a big old swampy marsh. How were they supposed to build anything in all that mud and muck?

These ambitious settlers came up with a plan. They would build the city on top of thick wooden pole sunk deep into the mud and sand of the lagoon. It seemed like a great idea–they would be protected and isolated by the surrounding water. However, as it turns out, mud was not a very  stable foundation to build on. And the city flooded. A lot. And it still does today!

Despite the soggy living conditions, people quickly figured out how to make Venice a flourishing city anyway. Not only was it a great place to hide from nasty invaders, but it was also an ideal location to set up a center of trade. 

The Perfect Location

Why was Venice a great place to trade goods? Well, first, ships sailing in from the Mediterranean Sea could easily reach the ports of Venice. Second, all of Europe was just a quick boat ride to the north. And third, traders from Asia were regularly stopping by having just made a long trek across the desert on a well-known route called the Silk Road. They brought with them unusual spices and beautiful silks carried on the lumpy backs of camels. Cool, right?

Venetians had a brilliant idea. If they could control the trade of things like spices, silk, silver, copper, and cloth, they could make a lot of money. They were right. By the 15^th century, Venice was both very rich and very powerful. I guess it was worth all of that building on top of the water!

And the people who lived there wanted it to stay that way. So, they declared themselves their own city-state and set up a government ruled by a series of leadersdukes called doges. Doges were supposed to be elected officials who could rule until they died. In reality, like most things related to government, it was a little more complicated. When the people in Venice–mostly the rich and powerful ones–decided that they weren’t happy with the job a doge was doing, they forced him to resign or quit. Then, they made him go live all by himself in a church to think about how badly he had failed. Not the best way to build a political career.

Despite the ups and downs of the doge system, Venice had some really cool stuff going on within its constantly-flooded buildings. The city became home to some of the world’s best, most skilled glassmakers. But what Venice really became known for were its gondolas. 

Banana-Shaped Boats?

Not surprisingly, Venice didn’t have roads like we know them today. It would have been pretty hard to build roads in a floating city, right? The buildings of Venice were close together, separated by weaving, narrow alleys, broken up only by the occasional courtyard called a piazza.  Instead of roads, Venice had a maze of shallow waterways called canals.

Today, Venice has more than 150 canals with over 400 bridges crossing them. Can you believe that!? When the city was first built, the canals were just sort of there: natural waterways between all of those squishy, marshy islands in the lagoon. Over time, more canals have been dug out and added to the city’s maps of water and land. And the canals have been strengthened through the addition of bricks and stone.

With all this water weaving in and out of buildings, it’s not surprising that flooding is common. But the Venetians figured they might as well make use of all the water. Who needed roads when you could sail everywhere instead? What they needed was a shallow, narrow boat that could easily maneuver through the canals. So, according to most historical evidence, they invented the gondola. 

A gondola is a boat with a flat bottom that is shaped sort of like a banana. During the Renaissance, thousands of gondolas could be seen sailing along the canals of Venice. The early gondolas had a small cabin called a felze (fel-zey) where people could ride and be protected from wind, rain, and sun. Each gondola had a person, known as a gondolier, who stood up to row it using a single oar. 

For a while, gondolas came in all sorts of colors. In fact, rich Venetians competed with each other by making gondolas in bold colors and adding expensive gold-plated siding and decorations to “show off” their wealth. Then, the doge passed a law that required all gondolas – except for his own massive golden one – to be painted black. Not a bad plan to make sure he stood out in the crowded canals!

Each gondola took about 500 hours to build. That’s almost 21 straight days of work! Master boat builders would build and repair these wooden boats in a boatyard called a squero. There were strict rules to follow regarding the boat’s design and size. In fact, there were rules governing everything about gondolas and gondoliers, such as how much money a gondolier could charge a passenger and how gondolas had to be passed down from father to son. Venetians back then–much like Venetians today–took their gondolas very seriously. 

When in Venice

Gondola-making wasn’t the only thing that the people of Venice took seriously. By the 1200s, the city’s top industry was glassmaking. And much like gondola-building, Venetians had strict rules about this art form, too.  First, the glassmakers in Venice had to keep their processes of making glass a secret. Another important rule required that the extremely hot furnaces that glassmakers used be moved out of Venice to the nearby island called Murano. This was probably a smart idea since nearly all of the buildings in Venice were made of wood. And as you probably already know, wood burns pretty quickly! If you’re going to have fires, better keep them separate, on an island, from the rest of the city!

Besides gondolas and glass, there was one final thing that made Venice a good place to visit, even 500 years ago: the food. 

Since they are surrounded by water, you might think that Venetians would make use of the sea’s large selection of tasty fish. And you’d be right. In fact, a modern-day Italian writer even noted that, when seen from above, Venice is shaped sort of like a fish!

But what could possibly be so great about eating fish all the time? Actually, it wasn’t the fish that made Venetian food so tasty. It was the spices used to cook the fish. Remember that whole thing about Venice being a center of trade? This meant that new and delicious spices were always passing through the city. Cinnamon from Ceylon, cumin from North Africa, and pepper from India were all benefits of being a port city. Plus, there were raisins, pistachios, walnuts, almonds, and dates from Asia. That may not sound super exciting today when you can pop on over to a grocery store or order takeout anytime you want to. But in the 1500s? These foods were luxuries!

Because of the appreciation for art and literature during the Renaissance, Venice today is a popular place for tourists who want to view beautiful artifacts of the past. Much like 500 years ago, you can still take a ride through the canals on one of the roughly 400 gondolas in operation.  A few years ago, my wife and I had the opportunity to visit Venice. We rode on a gondola, visited the beautiful cathedral, and tasted its delicious food. And yes, by midday they had to lay boards out because the piazza was starting to take on water! If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend the visit to one of the most fascinating cities in the world.You can still buy some of the most beautiful glass in the world in Venice. And if you get hungry, you only need to pop into a bacaro, or small tavern, and order ciccetti, a bite-sized piece of bread, often served with a bit of salted cod fish on top.  

But if you are planning a trip to this amazing city, you may want to bring some waterproof shoes. Just in case. 

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So, let’s learn more about the 7 wonders of the natural world – and do it in alphabetical order!  

Aurora Borealis

First on our list is the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights.  This is a fancy name for a beautiful light show in the sky.  In very cold places like Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Canada, Alaska, Russia, and other places, the night sky can be lit up by beautiful waves of flowing green, pink, red, and yellow colors.  Think of an ocean wave and how it ripples with different colors of blue, green, turquoise, and tan when you look at it.  Well, that’s what it looks like in the sky, but with bright colors!  And you may wonder what causes these amazing ripples of color across the sky.  Well, the sun spits out these little particles, called ions.  It’s like the sun spitting out little peas.  The ions then travel on waves of gas – like spitting peas into the wind! When these little ions (or peas) come near the Earth and our magnetic field, they start to jiggle and shake and glow – causing a glowing light show in the sky!  Pretty neat, huh?  And these lights can happen all year long in some places.  In other places, like Alaska, where they get daylight for 24 hours a day during the summer, it can be hard to see the lights.  I have never seen these lights before, but maybe one of our listeners has.  I would love to hear from you and learn what you think about them!

The Grand Canyon

The Second wonder of the natural world is the Grand Canyon in the state of Arizona in the United States.  You have probably seen pictures of it!  It looks like huge, rust-colored mountains with their tops cut off.  Everything is flat on top, but the mountains go down deep into a canyon, so deep it is hard to see the bottom! To me, it looks like a giant rock maze from above.  The Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, 18 miles wide, and over a mile deep! That’s a long way down.  Scientists estimate that it is about 5-6 million years old and was carved by the Colorado River running through it.  Millions and millions of years of flowing water washed away pieces of the rock and cut pathways through the Canyon.  During the ice age, there was a lot of rain in this area and the water rushed through the canyon even quicker, cutting away larger pieces of rock and carving caves.  

Through the ages, Native American tribes have made the Grand Canyon their home.  Some still live there today.  These days you can go white water rafting through the canyon, ride a helicopter above it, ride a mule into it, or hike around it.  Just be sure to bring plenty of water and warm clothes if you plan to go to the bottom!  It’s a long hike down and the temperature can change drastically between the top and the bottom where there is less sun.  

The Great Barrier Reef

The third natural wonder is the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia.  It is the world’s largest coral reef stretching over 133,000 miles.  It is home to 900 islands and three thousand different reefs.  It is also home to over 1,500 fish species, 215 bird species, and 134 shark species!  I know I’d much rather meet a clownfish there than a great white shark!  The reef is over 200 feet deep and can even be seen from outer space!  It was created by billions of tiny little coral polyps and is the largest structure in the world built by living organisms.  Think of billions of little minions under the sea making coral apartment buildings!  The Great Barrier Reef is world famous and many people travel to see it.  Unfortunately, it is struggling to survive.  It has lost more than half of its coral since 1985 due to climate change.  The sun heats the water and bleaches the coral, killing it.  It’s like boiling a lobster in hot water.  Also, damage from human dumping and attacks by the Crown-of-Thorns Starfish have also damaged the reef.  The good news is that a certain type of coral, called Acropora coral, is growing quickly on the reef and has regrown large portions of it.  Coral can grow up to 9 inches in height and one inch in width a year – that’s more than you and me! It needs to live at a maximum depth of 490 feet because it needs to be close to the surface – and sunlight- to grow.  It cannot grow above the water line.  I think it would be incredible to take a boat around the Great Barrier Reef or go scuba diving there one day.  What do you think?

Mount Everest

Number four on our list is Mount Everest, which is so big it sits in China and Nepal!  Mount Everest is over 29,000 feet tall, meaning it is as high as the cruising altitude of airplanes.  That’s a LONG way up!  It has other names given to it by the Chinese and Indians, including Sagarmatha and Chomolungma, meaning “Holy Mother.”  It is called “Holy Mother” because it is the largest mountain in the Himalayan Mountain Range – and the world!  Most of the world knows the mountain by the name Mount Everest.  It was named after an early British Surveyor named Sir George Everest, who was surveying – or measuring – mountains in the Himalayans in the 1800s.  He didn’t want the mountain named after him because the native Chinese and Indian people couldn’t write or say the name Everest, but it was done anyway.   Mount Everest is very dangerous – it has deep crevasses or canyons – plus the Khumbu Ice Fall, an area at the base of the mountain filled with large ice blocks that fall over a lot.  It also has a lot of avalanches, which are roaring blasts of falling snow.  At the top, it gets very windy and there is very little oxygen.  Nothing can live at that height, not even birds.  To climb Mount Everest, you need to be in top physical shape, have a lot of climbing equipment, and carry bottles of oxygen to use at the top – similar to what scuba divers do when they go to the bottom of the sea.  Most climbers climb Mount Everest with the assistance of Sherpas – or native Tibetan guides – who carry large loads of equipment up and down the mountain and set ropes for the climbers.  

There is a big mystery on Mount Everest, too.  In 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine from England tried to be the first climbers to summit the mountain.  They were last seen near the top, but then disappeared in the fog.  They were never seen again.  To this day we do not know if they reached the top.  But in 1953, Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary reached the top of Mount Everest and made it back down safely, becoming the first documented climbers to reach the top of the world!  That is truly incredible! 

Paricutin Volcano

Moving on to number five on our list is Paricutin, a volcano in Michoacan, Mexico. It was formed in 1948 after erupting out of a farmer’s cornfield.  You may think, “There are lots of volcanos around the world.  What makes this one so special?”  Well, this was the first volcano that modern scientists could track and study from its start! Most of the volcanos on Earth are under the sea or erupted thousands – or even millions – of years ago.  This volcano erupted fairly recently and continued to grow and spit out lava for 9 years, reaching a height of 1,391 feet and destroying 90 square miles with lava, stone, and ash. Hundreds of people evacuated, two towns were completely buried and three other towns were damaged, but luckily only 3 people were killed.  This volcano sits on the Trans-Mexican belt, a trail of old volcanos running west to east across Mexico.  Today, the crater measures approximately 660 feet across and people can walk around the rim and climb up and down its sides.  Although it is said to be extinct now, or dead, it is still hot and when rainwater hits it, it spews steam into the air.  In 1997, the area experienced 230 earthquakes in quick succession.  In 2006, over 300 more earthquakes rumbled near the volcano.  This does not sound like it is extinct to me.  I think I’ll leave the volcano climbing to others!  I’m not wild about being covered in burning lava, are you?  

Rio Harbour

Number six on our list is Rio Harbour in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is also called Guanabara Bay, which means “Arm of the Sea” and it is the world’s largest bay.  It is over 19 miles long and boasts 130 islands.  Explorer Charles Darwin stated, “It seemed almost unreal” for its natural beauty and stellar surroundings: glistening beaches, granite monoliths, and majestic mountains.  Also visible from this bay is the “Christ the Redeemer” statue on Corcovado Mountain. This statute is on another famous list: the 7 Wonders of the World, meaning things made by man.  Brazil is very lucky to have two wonders in its own backyard!

Victoria Falls

And the 7^th natural wonder of the world is Victoria Falls, located between Zambia and Zimbabwe in Southern Africa.  In its native languages, its name means “The Smoke that Thunders,” “Boiling Water,” or “The Place of the Rainbow.”  The falls are so big and so vast that the water roaring over them sounds like thunder and throws billowing clouds of mist into the air – and even makes rainbows.  It is one of the largest waterfalls on Earth and measures over 5,604 feet across, and 354 feet tall, and the spray can rise 1,300 feet or more.  The spray can even be seen from 30 miles away.  So why is it named Victoria Falls?  Well, a Scottish missionary and explorer named David Livingstone came across it in 1855 and named it after England’s Queen Victoria.  Just like with Mount Everest, early explorers found amazing places and renamed them, instead of keeping their native names.  

And where does all the water go after it tumbles over the falls?  It tumbles through a series of gorges making various turns and zig-zags while tumbling downstream.  At the second gorge, there is a deep pool of water called the Boiling Pot.  It measures 500 feet across and at times has enormous swirls and a boiling surface like a witch’s cauldron.  Crocodiles, humans, and even hippopotami have been found in these swirling waters or along the Pot’s nearby shores.  My advice to you: stay well away from the edge of the falls!  You don’t want to go over the brink with a Hippo!

Aren’t these seven natural wonders of the world amazing?  Have you seen any of them yet?  Which ones would you like to see?  Maybe you can make a list and plan trips with your family – or visit them when you grow up.  I sure would like to see some of these amazing sites.  I’ve seen The Grand Canyon but I sure would like to see more – and take my family with me.  

Maybe as a fun project, you can make a rhyme about these wonders to remember them.  If you do, I’d like to hear your rhyme.  Feel free to send it to me using the link in the show notes.  Your name and rhyme might be mentioned in a future episode!

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The first group of people believed to live in the Caribbean islands was the Ciboneys, who came there nearly 4 or 5 thousand years ago. 

Later, the Tainos and the Caribs were two groups of people who lived on the islands. They had come from the Americas thousands of years before. The Caribs were a warrior tribe and wore their hair black and long. They dressed in feathers and necklaces made of their victim’s teeth and painted their bodies red. They fished and hunted to eat and lived in thatched shelters. At one point the Caribs began forcing the Tainos off of the islands.

The Carib people were generally more peaceful and were farmers who cultivated “yucca” and sweet potatoes. They were also excellent hunters using bows and arrows to shoot their prey. 

The Caribbean was discovered by Europeans when Christopher Columbus was in 1492 in search of a new trade route to the east. He landed in the Bahamas and named the island San Salvador. He thought he had found the spice islands of the West Indies and because of his mistake Spain named them as such and they have the same name today. 

When Christopher Columbus landed in the Bahamas the people living there, also called indigenous peoples, he called “Indians.” They were made up of the Caribs and the Tainos (or Arawaks). Queen Isabella of Spain did not allow the enslavement of these some of these people, but it happened anyway. 

The first settlement by Spain was in Hispaniola in 1493. Their main interest in the islands was gold and mining other precious metals, and here the Spanish built fortresses to protect what they considered to be their property. For this reason, other European countries were not able to settle in these areas, but instead took some of the settlements where the Spanish weren’t as strong. For example, the British colonized Barbados and the French took Martinique and Guadeloupe, and the Dutch controlled Aruban, St. Maarten, and a few other islands in the 1600s. Sadly, most of the native people living on these islands were forced into slavery to work for the settlers and eventually died off because of diseases and how they were treated.

Soon it was found that the Caribbean islands were perfect for farming sugar, so sugar plantations began to be very popular. But because the native people had died off, there were no longer slaves to farm the land. For this reason, slavers moved to Africa and started kidnapping the people there and forcing them into slavery in the Caribbean. Over 10 million African slaves were taken by boat to the Caribbean to be slaves on the sugar plantations! They were packed so tightly into the ships often 12 percent of them died along the way. Once arriving on the islands they were auctioned off and traded. Because of how cruelly they were treated, many of these slaves escaped or led revolts and started their own communities away from the plantations. To this day many of the people living on the islands are descendants of these slaves. In the 1800s slavery was also outlawed by the British and eventually the French and Dutch and Spanish. The cost of producing sugar also grew, so there was a decline in production at this time.

In 1789 slaves led by Toussaint Louverture revolted and took control of their own country of Haiti which later became independent of France in 1804. After Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba also became independent along with Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. 

The Caribbean is also known for its history of pirates. In the early 1600s pirates made their homes on many of the islands. Many of them raised cattle and traded them, which is where the name “buccaneers” comes from because they cured the meat in ovens called “boucans.” They lived in small clans and were made up of many different backgrounds. Many found their home base in Tortuga, off the coast of Haiti. From here they ventured out and attacked ships to steal their goods. 

Today, the Caribbean is more civilized and has become a tourist destination for people all over the world. It has large hotels and caters to visitors who want to come to spend time on the beaches, enjoy the warm, crystal blue water, and do other water activities such as snorkeling and scuba diving. The Caribbean is also known as a prime destination for cruise ships that are constantly docking to unload tourists to enjoy the beautiful tropical weather and scenery of the islands.

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Imagine you are walking along a trail in the desert…

You have been walking for many days and are now holding your mother’s hand. Your dog is trotting along beside you. You are of the Pueblo tribe and every year visit a place that is holy to your people. You have been counting down the days and now the steps and the day has finally come. The air is cool this time of year and the sky is clear and blue as far as you can see. Your father and brother are walking ahead with the others and someone calls out “Kaibab! Kaibab!” You leave your mother’s hand and rush ahead with them, faster and faster, trying to beat your brother to the sight. And then suddenly you stop and gasp! Spread out for miles ahead of you is the beauty of what you call Kaibab, the widest and most beautiful of canyons in the world. You hold your breath and slowly take in the wonder of this place that is holy to you and your people. 

Width, Length, and Depth of the Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon is the widest canyon in the world and is located in Arizona, which also happens to be my home state. It is also considered one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. The Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide, and over 6,000 feet deep in places. It is very colorful, a combination of reds, browns, whites, and many other colors, because each of the different layers, or strata, was formed at different times during the Earth’s history. The Earth is very, very old, so the Grand Canyon is made up of different rocks from its 2 billion-year-old history.

Formation of the Grand Canyon

Early on the Grand Canyon was actually a mountain, which over time sunk down until it was flat. Then as the earth shifted it became a canyon and over a very long period was even underwater. Eventually, a river started flowing through the canyon, which is now known as The Colorado River. The water in the river was full of rocks, so over millions of years, the river acted like sandpaper shaving down the canyon. This is called erosion. Today when you look at the Grand Canyon you can see the different layers in it, similar to a layered cake. Some of the layers are white limestone, other layers are filled with shells from when it was underwater, and the upper layers are darker and were formed by a volcano. 

Ancestral Puebloans

After The Grand Canyon was formed into what it looks like today, around 3000 years ago, native people who we now called the Ancestral Puebloans lived near the Grand Canyon. They build homes out of stone and farmed corn, squash, and beans. They made carvings and paintings on canyon walls, which is one way we know they lived there. Another group who lived there was called the Cohonina, who are the ancestors of the modern Yuma, Havasupai, and Hualapai people, who still live around the Grand Canyon. The native people call The Grand Canyon Kaibab, which means “mountain on its side.” The ancient people believed The Grand Canyon was a holy place and often visited from miles around to experience its wonder.

European Discovery of the Grand Canyon

After Europeans discovered The New World, Francisco Vazquez de Coronado and a group of Spanish explorers were in the area searching for the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola. In 1540 Coronado ordered Captain Garcia Lopez de Cardenas and his soldiers to explore the area. They and their Hopi native guides were the first Europeans to see the wonders of The Grand Canyon. They were amazed at its size and vastness. Two hundred years passed until another European visited the canyon.

In 1776 two Spanish Priests, Francisco Dominguez and Silvestre de Escalante explored southern Utah and the north rim of the Grand Canyon. 

In the 1850s they were followed by Jacob Hamblin, a Mormon explorer sent by Brigham Young to find a way to cross the river. They made friends with the Hualapai tribe and found the crossing discovered by the Spanish Priests, which later became Lees Ferry. A ferry is a place where a flat boat helps wagons and people cross a river. 

John Wesley Powell

Then in 1869, Major John Wesley Powell led the first expedition down into the canyon. He had set out to explore the Colorado River and The Grand Canyon. They rode down the river on a boat and survived the dangerous rapids and finally ended up in what is now known as Moab, Utah. John Wesley Powell later became famous for the founding of the Boy Scouts of America. 

National Park

In 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt visited The Grand Canyon and marveled at its beauty. Teddy Roosevelt was known for his love of nature and spent much of his time outdoors. In awe at the Grand Canyon, he did everything he could to help preserve its natural wonder. They worked to make it a national monument and believed places like The Grand Canyon should be preserved so people all over the world could enjoy it. While Roosevelt was president he formed the National Parks Association to help save places like The Grand Canyon. 

Tourism

Today The Grand Canyon is one of the most famous places to visit in the world with about five million visitors every year who come from all over to see and explore it. Most people just come to look out over the vast canyon. I’ve been there a few times with my family, it’s about a 4-hour drive for us from where we live near Phoenix, Arizona. The last time I went we brought our 4 young kids, who also looked out over it in awe. We had to hold them close to us because the canyon is a very steep drop below, which made us pretty nervous.

Havasupai

When I was in high school our family and a group of other families hiked down into a part of the Grand Canyon known as Havasupai. We drove there early in the morning and had all of our camping gear and food loaded onto the back of mules, then we hiked about 4 hours down into the canyon. At the bottom of the trail are huge, picturesque Havasu Falls. You can swim at the bottom of the falls, jump off cliffs and hike further in to see and swim in the other waterfalls. Our trip was very fun but took a turn for the worse when one of the days I slipped on a rock and twisted my ankle pretty badly. The next day we were supposed to hike out, so my close friend and I got up early and started hiking out. I limped most of the way, even up the steep switchbacks. It was a rough hike out, but the waterfalls and swimming holes made it worth it anyway. 

In addition to hiking, people take helicopter tours over The Grand Canyon and love to raft the wild Colorado River. People also take horseback tours down into the canyon and it’s very popular to hike it from rim to rim — my sisters and their friends did this recently. Another main attraction is the Grand Canyon Skywalk, which lets you walk on a glass-bottomed path out over the canyon, so you can look at the drop far below.

Conclusion

Do you have any natural wonders near you? It may be mountains, a beautiful river, or the ocean. Spending time in nature is good for you. It helps relax your mind and body. I know I always feel better when I spend time outside or on a hike. Just this last week my kids and I spent some time hiking and visiting a stream nearby. Spend time thinking about what places in nature near you you can visit. And if you’re ever in Arizona, definitely be sure to visit the amazing Grand Canyon! 

Recommended Books

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Imagine you are walking through the forest…

Imagine you are walking along a path in the forest.  Around you are beautiful mountains covered with lush green trees.  You see tall bamboo trees and birds in the sky. Nearby is a small mountain village where families are cooking dinner and playing in common areas.  As you walk further along the path toward the mountain range, you suddenly look up and see a gigantic stone wall cutting through the forest. You place your hands on it and look up. It is incredibly high. When you look left and right you see that it stretches in both directions as far as your eye can see.  You are at one of the most famous structures in the world: the Great Wall of China! 

The Great Wall of China was built over 2,000 years ago and runs more than 13,000 miles across northern China.  But why was this wall built?  And how has it lasted so long?

Emperor Chin Shi Huang

The Great Wall of China was constructed by Emperor Chin Shi Huang in the 3rd century B.C.  Well actually, parts of the wall were built earlier than that and it is doubtful that Emperor Chin did any of the actual construction work himself.  

Emperor Chin united a number of different independent states in China and was the first emperor to unite all of these different communities together as one Chinese country.  This happened around 220 B.C.  Before that, there were many different kingdoms throughout China and different groups of people living on their own.  The land that the Chinese people lived on was very fertile. Fertile means the land is good for growing lots of food. Over time, the people that lived in the area started to farm and grow crops.  As more people farmed the land, they needed to create systems of order and government to help manage the land and how it was used.  

Warring States Period

At this time, Chinese people developed and irrigated fields and grew crops near the Yellow River valley. Farming large areas of land required people to work together and form a government to work the land peacefully.  That is why the Chinese formed one empire and also built walls around them to protect their communities against attacks by the nomads.  Nomads mean someone who doesn’t live in one place but moves from place to place. The nomads didn’t farm, but instead moved around and herded animals. They used the food from these animals to survive. They also hunted instead of staying in one place and farming. 

Since the nomads needed to move with the animals, they had a completely different type of society and order. They needed to hunt animals or trade for them.  This led to the nomads trading with the Chinese or in many cases attacking them. 

The nomadic tribes often came into contact with the Chinese farmers.  Sometimes it was friendly and they would trade with each other.  But often, they did not get along.  The nomadic people wanted to use the farmland to hunt and move around, but the farm people wanted more land to farm. This led to battles between the farmers and the nomads.  The farming kingdoms also often fought each other for control of different territories. This is why this period of history in China is known as the “Warring States Period.”

To help avoid attacks, many of the kingdoms built walls to defend themselves.  The walls were made out of rocks and compacted dirt that was tamped very tightly to form the structure.  These walls were shorter versions of the Great Wall of China that were later built.  They stretched between the border of different regions and often included towers, block houses for soldiers, and beacons to send smoke signals.

When Emperor Chin became emperor, he wanted to put a stop to the fighting between different farming kingdoms.  He declared that all of these kingdoms were now part of one country called China.  But the nomadic people that lived outside the area didn’t care about this.  They continued to attack the farming areas. 

Imperial Order

To help stop these attacks and to continue to unite the new country, the Emperor ordered that the walls between different states be removed and that the shorter walls that existed along the northern border of China be joined together to form one long wall.  Emperor Qin thought that this would also help protect them against attacks from the north where China’s biggest enemy lived — Mongolia. The Mongolians were fierce fighters and very dangerous to the Chinese.

Construction

The project of building the Great Wall was a huge task requiring a lot of work.  Emperor Qin ordered his army to work on the wall, so much of it was constructed by soldiers.  But they needed even more workers to get the job done.  So Emperor Qin ordered that prisoners work on the wall as well.  This is called “forced labor,” which is when someone is forced to do a job without getting paid. It was hard work and estimated that around 400,000 workers died while building the wall.  

Conditions were probably very difficult due to the long stretches of mountains and desert where the Wall was built.  Today, there are some areas of the Great Wall where no one lives because the conditions are so difficult and there are some parts where the winters are so cold that no one goes there in the winter.  Can you imagine having to work on building a large wall in those conditions?

Manual Labor

Because much of the wall is built with rammed earth, most of the materials that they used to build the wall could be found right where they were building it.  However, some additional supplies and workers had to travel a far way to get to the wall. This made construction even more difficult. Sometimes the young men that were forced to build the wall had to haul boats loaded with baggage upstream in rivers in order to bring food to the workers.  The work was so hard that many people tried to escape and sneak away back to the city or to their hometowns.  Many individuals died in the wilderness trying to escape because the conditions were hard to survive and the journey home was so long. 

Eventually, people living in the newly united China started to revolt against the Qin dynasty.  To revolt means to fight against and overthrow.  Emperor Qin was a strict ruler and not everyone agreed with his rules. As Emperor Qin lost the support of the Chinese people over time, there were fewer and fewer soldiers that were willing to go out to work on the wall.  They stopped listening to his orders and as a result, the construction of the wall slowed down. 

Construction Continues

Later Chinese rulers carried on the construction and eventually the wall was finished.  This included the Han, Sui, Northern, Jin, and Ming Dynasties.  Each repaired, rebuilt or expanded the wall.  During the Ming Dynasty, major rebuilding work took place and sections of the wall that were originally built with dirt were replaced with bricks and stone instead.  These new materials helped the wall to last longer in good shape. 

One of the first mentions of a wall built against northern invaders is found in a poem, dated the seventh century BC.  It is recorded in the ancient Chinese book of Classic Poetry. 

In 221 BC, when Qin Shi Huang united the Chinese states, the walls were known as “Changcheng” which literally means “long walls”.  The walls were mostly constructed of tamped earth, which some parts built with stones. Where natural barriers, like ravines and rivers, worked enough for defense, the walls were erected sparingly.  Often in addition to the wall, defensive systems like garrisons and beacon towers were built inside the wall, and watchtowers were on the outside at regular intervals. 

Unfortunately the Great Wall never totally prevented invaders from coming into China.  It was a useful way to stop raids.  But at several points throughout its history, the Great Wall failed to stop enemies.  This included in 1644 when the Manchu Qing marched through the gates of Shanhai Pass and replaced the Ming dynasty as the new rulers of China.  But the Great Wall came to be seen as a symbol of the ongoing power and strength of the Chinese civilization. 

Genghis Khan

Eventually, the Chinese were forced to move back from the northern part of China when the Mongolian people attacked the north and conquered and took control of China.  The Mongols were led by Genghis Khan, a famous, violent leader. The Mongols didn’t need the Great Wall as much as the Chinese had in the past, but they assigned soldiers to man the wall in order to protect merchants and travelers traveling along the Silk Road trade routes. 

Eventually, the Ming Dynasty took control of the area again.  During the Ming Dynasty, the Ming rules were very strong leaders, and Chinese culture grew stronger. They built a lot of additional parts of the Great Wall including bridges, temples, and pagodas.  Pagodas are like western gazebos or covered areas that people can sit under.

Conclusion

Between the 18th and 20th centuries, the Great Wall became the most common symbol of China for the Western world. Today, the Great Wall is generally recognized as one of the most impressive building feats in human history. In 1987, UNESCO, an international heritage organization, designated the Great Wall a World Heritage site.  At the time, it was the only man-made structure that could be visible from space!

In modern times, thousands of tourists visit the Great Wall of China.  The most popular part of the wall and the most famous is called Badaling.  It runs 43 miles northwest of Beijing.  Would you like to see the Great Wall of China one day?  If you do, think of all of the people that worked to build and maintain the wall throughout time.  Walking along the Great Wall of China, you will surely be walking along part of history!

Check out these great books!

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Birth

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was born in New York City on October 27th, 1858. At the time New York City was the biggest, busiest city in the United States. His father was named Theodore, too, his mother’s name was Mittie, and he had an older sister named Anna. Later a brother Elliot and then a sister, Corinne, joined their family.

Theodore’s ancestors had lived in America for almost 200 years and over time the Roosevelt Family had become very wealthy. But his father believed in using their money to help people in need. He spent much of his time helping at the many orphanages in New York City. An orphanage is a place where orphans, children who don’t have families, live until they can find a home.

Illness

Theodore is a long name, so his family started calling him “Teedie” for short. Teedie loved to play outside and was very active, but he found out very soon that he had asthma. Asthma is when it’s hard for your lungs to breathe. So when Teedie played too hard, he had to stop and take deep breaths, and often his parents made him stay inside for long periods of time, so he could start breathing again. Often, at night when he struggled to breathe his father scooped him up in his arms and carried him around, trying to soothe him. Sometimes the only thing that helped was to ride him around the city at night in their carriage, so the cold air would make his lungs work again. Theodore loved his father and later wrote that he was was “the best man [he] ever knew.” 

Early Education

Not being able to breathe frustrated Teedie, especially when he had to stay inside while his brother and sisters played outside. But while he was stuck inside, Teedie found his parent’s library and spent the time reading. He spent many hours reading books about far off places and adventures and exotic animal life. He admitted to being nervous and timid as a child, but reading about the heroes of the Revolutionary War and other battles and adventures, made him want to be strong and brave like the people he read about.     

During the summers, the Roosevelt Family moved to their summer home in Oyster Bay, Long Island. There Teedie played outside whenever he could. He loved to learn the names of the different plants and animals and often made notes about them and sometimes took them home. This caused problems when bugs and other creatures ended up inside the house!

One day while traveling through the city in a streetcar, Teedie lifted his hat and several frogs lept out of it, frightening the other passengers. Another time, he brought mice home and his mother shrieked and had to send them outside.

A Curious Mind

He wrote in notebooks about all of his findings. He drew pictures of them and labeled them. This included every type of ant, spider, ladybug, firefly, beetle, dragonfly and other specimen he found. With all of the plants, animals, and insects he collected, he started calling the space in his bedroom the Roosevelt Museum of Natural History and dreamed of creating his own science museum someday. 

Teedie also started keeping a journal about his own life. During the summer, he loved exploring, swimming, hiking, and going on long horse rides. He was small and weak and still struggled with his asthma, but didn’t let it stop him from playing as long as his body allowed him to.

Often Teedie noticed his friends and family were able to see things he couldn’t see. When they’d go hunting, they were able to hit targets he wasn’t able to see. One day, his friends were able to read letters on a sign that were just blurry to him. He told his father about this and his father found him a pair of small glasses, called spectacles. When Teedie put on the spectacles, he later wrote “they literally opened an entirely new world to me. I had no idea how beautiful the world was until I got those spectacles.” For the rest of his life, Teedie wore spectacles that clipped to the end of his nose.  

World Traveler

When Theodore was 13, his father decided to take their family on a year-long tour of Europe. He thought it would be good for everyone to get out and learn more about the world outside of the United States. Teedie was sad to leave his friends, but he kept a very detailed journal along the way. First, they visited family in England and toured ancient castles. They sailed down the Thames Rivier and toured London, then moved on to the Netherlands and Germany, where they sailed down the Rhine River. Teedie often wrote about the places they visited, but also that he was very homesick. He also had many asthma attacks and his father did everything to help him feel and breathe better. 

During the trip, they also visited Venice, Italy, the city built on stilts over the water. He was fascinated by the gondolas that transported people from building to building. He also liked visiting the Natural History museums and studying their specimens, similar to the ones he liked to collect at home. They journeyed on to Paris, France, climbed a beautiful mountain there, attended an opera, then traveled to Rome, Italy. There they met the Pope, the leader of the Catholic Church, and Teedie wrote with excitement about meeting him and kissing his hand. 

After a year of traveling, they sailed home and saw a pod of whales along the way. When Theodore saw New York in the distance, he was very excited to finally return home.

“You must make your body”

As a teenager, Teedie grew taller. He began to notice how clumsy he was. His asthma still bothered him and his father and mother continued to worry about his health. One day his father took him aside and said “Theodore, you have the mind [meaning you are very smart], but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should. You must make your body. It is hard work to make one’s body, but I know you will do it.” Basically, his father believed the only way Teedie could work through his health issues, was to exercise and make it stronger. He didn’t know if this would fix all of his health problems but hoped at least it would help.

Teedie agreed to do his best. He started visiting a gym nearby and used weights to strengthen his arms and legs. He worked out every day for many months and noticed his arm and chest muscles growing harder and stronger. His health also began to improve. Teedie also added running and swimming to his daily workout routine. During the summers, he rowed while exploring the rivers.

Boxing

One day, Theodore took a coach ride by himself to a nearby lake. Along the way, he ran into two older boys who teased him and pushed him around. Theodore tried to defend himself, but found out that even though he was stronger, he was not able to defend himself against the bullies. He told his father about it and he gave him the idea to learn how to box. Taking his advice, Theodore added boxing to his daily workout routine, a sport he practiced the rest of his life.

“Egypt, the land of my dreams”

When Theodore was 14, his father decided to take the family on another tour, but this time of the Medeterranean, the Holy Land, and Egypt. This time Teedie was actually excited to go and like the last time, took very detailed notes of their adventures. They sailed across the ocean, then travelled through Europe on a train until they reached Egypt. Teedie wrote, “How I gazed upon it! It was Egypt, the land of my dreams; Egypt the most ancient of all countries! A land that was old when Rome was bright, was old when Troy was taken! It was a sight to awaken a thousand thoughts, and it did.” 

He wrote about the street life of Alexandria, Egypt, and the many ruins of the once powerful civilization. They boarded a boat and sailed down the Nile River. Theodore marveled at the exotic birds and plant life, the zebus, kites, vultures, and zic-zacs, and water buffalo. He treated the trip as a scientific voyage to gather more data and specimens for his own Roosevelt Museum of Natural History at home. His room wherever he went became a laboratory, where he sometimes dissected animals and prepared them for the trip home. He saw himself as a scientist with a mission to know everything about the wildlife of the world around him. 

Sadly, during the trip, he still suffered some asthma attacks, but they weren’t as bad or as frequent as before.

The family ended up in Cairo, Egypt where they vacationed for a while. There he was gifted his first shotgun and spent his free time exploring the area and hunting. From Cairo, they visited Palestine and Syria and then on to Greece. Lastly, they spent time in Dresden, Germany. There they visited relatives and Theodore spent time reading in their library before finally returning home to New York again.

Later Life

Young Theodore would go on to become a senator and eventually the President of the United States with the nickname “Teddy” Roosevelt, one of the most recognized Presidents of U.S. History. But like most people, he started out as an ordinary child. Spend some time thinking about Teddy’s childhood. How is he like you? How is he different than you? Do you struggle with any of the same things as Teddy such as asthma or poor eye-sight or wishing you were stronger? 

How can you be like Teddy?

Like Teddy, you can take an interest in the world around you. He enjoyed time outdoors and investigating the plants, animals, and insects he discovered. If you think about it, the world is a pretty amazing place with all of its diversity! Diversity means difference. Have you seen trees and noticed how each has very different leaves? Have you looked at insects and noticed they each have very different features and bodies and move in very different ways? Teddy liked to collect samples of the different things he found and described them in his notebook. You could do the same! Or you could take pictures of them and create your own catalog or little museum of interesting things you find. When you’re not outside there are many great documentaries about the different plant and animal life spread across the world. 

Also, when Teddy realized he had a problem, that his body wasn’t strong, what did he do? He started exercising. By creating a plan for himself and sticking to it every day, his muscles grew stronger. He was able to run faster and do more because his body improved. What kind of exercises might you do to strengthen your body? 

The post Teddy Roosevelt’s Childhood For Kids appeared first on Bedtime History: Podcast and Videos For Kids.

Today, I’m going to ask you to close your eyes and imagine. But I don’t need you to picture anything in your imagination this time. Instead, just imagine you’re in a dark place. It’s chilly and a little damp. The walls are cold and hard, like they’re made out of rock. You say something, and you hear your voice echo off the walls and back to you. Finally, you find a flashlight in your backpack and turn it on. 

Where are you? 

If you guessed that you’re in a cave, you’re right! If you’ve ever wanted to go spelunking–that’s what it’s called when you explore a cave–then this episode is for you. And we’re not just exploring any old cave. We’re going deep into the history of the longest cave system in the world: Mammoth Cave in the state of Kentucky, in the USA. Mammoth Cave became a National Park in 1941, but it had a long and fascinating history before that.

Caves like Mammoth form when water slowly wears away at the rocks underground, creating underground caverns and tunnels. Mammoth Cave has over 400 miles of tunnels and caverns, and it’s still being mapped. In fact, explorers recently found 8 more miles of passages! The cave is also home to some unique animal life, such as bats, salamanders, and  blind cave fish. Did I mention there are actually rivers inside the cave?!

Not only are there rivers in the cave now, but 300 million years ago, the whole area was a sea! Limestone formed slowly from fine sands at the bottom of the ocean and created fossils of ancient sea creatures. So today, scientists and visitors can find fossils of everything from small shellfish to giant, ancient sharks, even though the oceans are thousands of miles away now! Later on in the cave’s history, other animals were fossilized in the cave as well. 

Mammoth Cave isn’t just interesting for what it can tell us about Earth’s past though. It’s a part of many fascinating stories about human beings too!

The first humans to explore Mammoth cave were Native Americans. Woodland Native Americans explored and used the cave over 4,000 years ago. There’s evidence that they explored at least 19 miles of the cave’s passages. They mined minerals from the cave walls, which they may have used for medicinal or religious purposes, but scientists aren’t really sure. They left many items behind in the cave, like gourd bowls, torches used to light the way, and sandals. They also made artwork by carving into the rock walls or drawing on them using charcoal.  

European Americans discovered Mammoth Cave in the 1790s. They discovered that the cave contained saltpeter, which was used in making gunpowder. They began mining for saltpeter using enslaved laborers. This went on through the war of 1812, but after that, the need for saltpeter for gunpowder decreased. Within a few years, the owners of the cave started giving tours to curious visitors. 

In the 1840s, one owner of the property, Dr. John Croghan, built a small hospital for tuberculosis patients inside the cave. He had noticed that logs and artifacts inside the cave didn’t seem to break down like things left outside on the surface. He reasoned that maybe something about the cave had the power to keep things from decaying. Maybe the cave air could help people suffering from the disease to recover. If the cave worked as a treatment, he planned to set up a whole hotel inside for treating sick people. Unfortunately, the cave didn’t turn out to be a magical cure for tuberculosis: his patients got worse instead of better, and he closed it down after a few months.

It wasn’t a total loss for Dr. Croghan though. By this time, the cave had become a very popular tourist destination, and Dr. Croghan, like the previous owner, sold tours of the cave in addition to having his hospital. This was still before the Civil War that ended slavery in America, and sadly, most of the tour guides were enslaved African American men. This brings us to one of the most interesting parts of Mammoth Cave’s history.

The most famous of these tour guides was Stephen Bishop. He explored many new areas of the cave, using ropes to find his way back and torches to light the pitch-black passageways. He built a bridge over one of the caves’ deepest chasms, known as the Bottomless Pit, so that tour groups could see more parts of the cave. He also drew one of the first maps of the system based on his explorations. 

But Stephen Bishop wasn’t just a brave explorer. He had an expert-level knowledge of geology and mineralogy. Professors of geology who visited the cave were astounded by his knowledge. Bishop was famous well beyond Kentucky. Well-known and influential visitors to the cave spread the word about his brilliance and recommended that others request him as their guide should they visit. 

Two other early guides were Nick and Mat Bransford. Nick and Mat weren’t brothers but instead shared the same last name because, sadly, they were both owned by the same man. It was a common practice for enslaved people to be given their owner’s last name. Mat was one of the earliest tour guides. He was eventually freed and continued to work at Mammoth Cave as a guide, but paid. His son Henry and his grandchildren, Louis and Matt also worked as paid tour guides at the cave well into the twentieth century. The family tradition didn’t stop there though: his great-great-great-grandson works there as a park ranger now! 

Nick Bransford was also an enslaved tour guide and may have also done other work above ground on the cave property. Nick didn’t want to wait to be freed: he made a plan to buy his freedom. He asked his master how much it would cost to buy his freedom. When he finished his required tours and other work each day, he went back to the cave and captured eyeless fish from the underground springs. He then sold the unusual fish to tourists to earn extra money. After years of doing this, he was finally able to buy his freedom. He went on to become an important person in his community, donating land for a school. He stayed on at Mammoth Cave as a tour guide for over 50 years! 

Some of the visitors to Mammoth cave were famous and powerful–writers, politicians, even royalty. Though outside the cave, Stephen, Mat, and Nick were viewed as property as slaves, tourists inside the cave relied on them to keep them alive and safe during their visit. The cave could be a dangerous place for people who weren’t familiar with its layout and hazards. There were chasms and underground rivers that tourists could fall into if they weren’t careful. This included dead ends, slippery pathways, and loose rocks that could fall. Lamps and candles could blow out, leaving people in total darkness. Stephen, Mat, and Nick made sure their guests were safe by knowing the routes and the dangers, and being alert and prepared for any accidents. Most visitors respected these men for their bravery, knowledge, and skills because without them, going into the cave would have meant risking their lives. 

Though they all eventually gained their freedom and ended up working at the cave as paid workers, their lives as enslaved workers were unfair and, at times, harsh. Conditions in the cave were dangerous, as we’ve seen. Three of Mat Bransford’s children were sold away from him to different owners. But all three men, as well as other enslaved guides who worked at the cave,  showed that they were brave, capable, and accomplished individuals who deserved respect and admiration.  The same might be said for millions of other people who endured slavery in the United States, but whose stories we don’t know. Stephen, Mat, and Nick all wrote their names on the walls of Mammoth Cave in candle smoke. Even when people are forced into terrible situations, they are still capable of rising up–or going deep in the case of Mammoth Cave–and leaving their mark.

Mammoth Cave is an amazing natural wonder, but people like Stephen Bishop, Mat Bransford, and Nick Bransford give it an important human history as well. The world is full of natural places that also have interesting human stories–stories with twists, turns, and strange surprises, just like Mammoth Cave. So grab your flashlight and go exploring!

Sources

https://www.livescience.com/mammoth-cave-system-kentucky-record

https://www.nps.gov/media/video/view.htm?id=4EF84A9E-54F7-483C-BB54-A940BFAECBB8

https://www.nps.gov/maca/learn/historyculture/native-americans.htm

https://www.nps.gov/people/mat-bransford.htm

https://www.nps.gov/people/nick-bransford.htm

https://www.nps.gov/people/stephen-bishop.htm

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/enslaved-tour-guide-stephen-bishop-made-mammoth-cave-must-see-destination-it-today-180971424/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Bishop_(cave_explorer)

Recommended Reading

Bradbury, Jennifer, 2015. River Runs Deep. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, New York.

Hensen, Heather, 2016. Lift your Light a Little Higher: The story of Stephen Bishop: slave-explorer. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, New York.

The post History of Mammoth Caves for Kids appeared first on Bedtime History: Podcast and Videos For Kids.

Have you ever traveled in an airplane? Imagine if you had to make that same trip in a car. It would have taken a lot longer, right? Even just a hundred years ago most people didn’t have access to airplanes. They had to use horses, trains, or sometimes cars to get around, but for most people getting from here to there in a plane was still a thing of the future. 

Did you know around 100,000 flights happen every day! And around 6 million people fly every day! Those are huge numbers! Aircraft have revolutionized travel across the world. I remember the last flight I went on, and in just a few hours I had gone from Arizona all the way down to Costa Rica. It still blows my mind to think about it! I can still picture my kids’ faces the first time they’ve had the chance to fly. They are nervous when we take off, but then they smile after we are in the air and look out the window at the ground as it grows smaller and smaller below. And then I imagine what the world would be like without airplanes. It makes me very grateful that some very determined people dedicated their lives to figuring out the miracle of flight.

In this episode, we are going to talk about two brothers who invented the first airplane and took humans to the sky — Wilbur and Orville Wright, also known as the Wright Brothers. 

Interestingly, in 1891, the different brothers were putting the final touches on their 15 meters long-winged Glider in Germany.

One brother was named Otto Lilienthal. He was attracted to the sky when he first saw a bird on the shores of the Baltic Sea in northern Germany. Otto’s brother, Gustav Lilienthal’s heart, was on the ground, but his mind was in the sky. Both brothers were engineers and had a strong desire to fly.

Climbing on a high hill, Otto Lilienthal hung himself under the Glider and ran into the wind. Four seconds later, he was floating in the air. He was flying! Little did he know, his glider flight would go down in history as the first recorded year someone flew.

News of these thrilling experiments made it into the newspapers of Europe and America. In those times, the question, “Can a human fly like a bird?” was a matter of great discussion.

Two American brothers, Orville and Wilbur, the Wright brothers, heard about the news of the first glider flight and were very interested. At the time the Wright Brothers were running a bicycle repair shop in Dayton, USA.

One day, Orville Wright fell ill and was still bedridden in the morning. Sunday’s newspaper came with front-page news titled “Glider had suddenly crashed in a strong wind, killing Otto Lilienthal.”

Orville was sad to hear about the inventor who had first flown the glider. Wilbur Wright, three years older than Orville, was also shocked. The hard work and sacrifices of the other brothers in Germany inspired and challenged the Wright Brothers to create their own airplane.

The Wright brothers didn’t want to make any hasty efforts. First, Wilbur Wright wrote a letter to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington asking for materials on aeronautics and mechanics. The institute was collecting research papers as well as books on scientific experiments taking place around the world.

The Smithsonian Institution replied positively. The natural wind that can lift an aerial vehicle can only be found on the coast, so the Wright Brothers left Ohio and moved to the coastal state of North Carolina in 1900, where they camped on a hilly shore called Kitty Hawk.

The Wright Brothers set up a Glider-making workshop there. Next to it, they even built a small house with all basic furnishing. This extended plan was not a hobby; their plan was to stay at the testing ground until they had achieved their goal.

Can you believe that the world’s first self-powered aircraft – which they called Flyer-1, was built in less than two months!? Today, if we looked at the Flyer-1 design, it looked like a dragonfly and was a pretty fragile plane — which means it could break easily. But you can’t help but admire Orville and Wilbur Wright’s intellect and talent after learning about the technology they designed in the Flyer-1’s structure.

The main component of the Flyer-1 was its engine. Since The Wright Brothers couldn’t find the right automobile engine for the Flyer-1, they decided to build a new one. Orville and Wilbur used a four-cylinder gasoline engine after considering the aircraft’s size, weight, and dimension. The Flyer-1 engine weighed 178-pound with 12 horsepower. 

After examining several types of wood, Wilbur and Orville decided to use giant Spruce wood for the Flyer-1. The wood was pretty light yet strong. After forming a skeleton-like framework, they covered it tightly with a muslin cloth.

Can you believe that the Flayer-1 had no spark plug, cockpit, no carburetor to pour gasoline into the engine, and no water pump for cooling? Probably, the biggest shocker is that the plane had no wheels!! But Flayer-1 had one thing, that was the genius of two brothers. They overcame every challenge with brilliancy and common sense.

For example, to make up for the lack of wheels, Wright Brothers set up a four-piece wooden plank in a row like a train track. They made a dolly and set the plane on it. The idea was that when the dolly carrying the plane runs on the 18-meter long track, the dolly stays on the ground while the plane shoots into the sky.

After much effort and preparation, the day for realizing the beautiful and thrilling dream came on December 14, 1903. Kitty Hawk Beach in the state of North Carolina was the stage for a dramatic and historic event.

To decide who would fly it first, Orville Wright tossed a coin and Wilbur won. But when the plane’s 12-horsepower engine sped off, Wilbur got too excited and raised the elevator too high, and the lift factor suddenly disappeared. Flyer-1 fell on the ground with some damage. It took them three more days to repair Flyer-1. 

On December 17, the two brothers returned to the seashore. The weather was pleasant. Exactly, at 10.35 a.m., Orville raced down the rail and held his breath as suddenly, Flyer-1 took off and flew through the air! The Age of Flight had begun! 

Orville flew 120 feet for 12 seconds. The history of the world would never be the same! 

Orville and Wilbur Wright were happy to have completed the unfinished work of Otto Lilienthal and to have made the impossible possible with their intelligence. Little did they know that their invention of Flyer-1 would someday lead to huge passenger jets, military aircraft, and all of the other amazing aircraft we know today.

Surprisingly, the flight that took place in Kitty Hawk wasn’t really recognized in the United States. People couldn’t really accept and believe it. So Wilbur Wright went to France the following year and held an air show there. He flew the aircraft at an altitude of 300 feet.

In 1904, Wilbur Wright flew the modified version of Flyer-1 a distance of 2.7 miles. Wilbur proved that planes can be used for travel.

Then in 1908, Wilbur took his friend Charles William Furnas on the plane’s back seat and started the experimental journey. The successful flight made Charles William Furnas the first airplane passenger in the world. 

The journey was short, but the era of air travel really began when Wilbur covered the distance of 41 miles in France a few months later.

After returning to America, he got even more attention when he flew for crowds in New York. People saw it and finally believed human flight could happen.

Since The Wright Brothers’ time, aircraft were created that were bigger and faster and soon could hold many people and fly across the ocean. Aircraft was in the major world wars and in the case of World War II, major battles were won or lost based on airpower. Air travel eventually led to the building of rockets, and Neal Armstrong was a pilot before he went to the moon. Today jets can fly at the speed of sound and even some passenger jets like the Concorde can fly over 1,000 miles per hour and travel from New York to London (across the Atlantic Ocean) in less than an hour. 

Thinking about these advances makes me grateful for bright people like Orville and Wilbur Wright who learned all they could, then put their smarts to work and stuck with their work until they built the first basic airplane. Next time you’re flying on a plane thinking about people like Otto Lilienthal and The Wright Brothers and all of the engineers and pilots who have come after them. Be sure to check out our episodes about Bessie Coleman, Amelia Earhart and Neal Armstrong, all pilots. 

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Take a minute to imagine that you have traveled with your family to Italy.  You visit a popular tourist spot to check out one of the most famous buildings in the world: the leaning Tower of Pisa.  As you approach the tower, you can see that it is leaning over at a strange tilt.  How is this tower even standing?  It has white pillars and arches.  It leans at an angle that is scary, but you can see that it is held up by large metal wires pulling against its weight.  Your family decides that they are going to go inside to explore. It sounds a little risky to go inside a leaning tower.  Will you go inside too?

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is one of the most famous buildings in the world.  It is a freestanding bell tower in the cathedral of the Italian city of Pisa.  A cathedral means a church that has a section where a religious leader, a bishop, lives inside.  The tower is known around the world for its strong lean.  The tower leans at an angle of four-degrees.  The lean is due to a foundation that is not stable.  This means that the base of the tower that holds the tower up is likely to fall.

The Tower of Pisa is 183 feet from the ground on the low side and 186 feet on the high side.  It has 295 steps to the top level. 

The Tower first began to lean during the time it was built in the 12th century.  This happened because the ground that the Tower was built on was soft and could not properly support the weight of the huge tower. Throughout the building of the tower, the leaning only got worse. Oops! And it continued to lean more over the next few hundred years. By 1990, the tilt had reached 5 ½ degrees!  This was so far over that the Italian government decided to add extra support beams to help stabilize the tower.  Their work was successful and after 8 years of extra work the tilt of the building was reduced to 4 degrees. 

There is some mystery around who designed the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  For many years, people thought that the architect was a man named Bonanno Pisano.  This was based on a piece of metal found in the earth at the base of the tower.  But later scientists concluded that a different man named Diotisalvi was that actual architect and that Pisano likely just made the door frame.  This was due to the fact that the tower is very similar to at least two other buildings that Diotisalvi designed in Pisa. 

The Tower of Pisa was built in three stages over almost 200 years. In the year 1172, a woman named Donna Berta di Bernardo inherited a large sum of money from her husband.  She gave some of this money to the local Opera house in Pisa and she used the rest towards buying a few stones that are still part of the base of the bell tower.

One year later, the government had enough money to hire a crew of workers to continue to build the tower.  The government had more money than in recent years due to the fact that the army had successfully taken over some additional areas.  The crews started by building the foundations of the tower.  Later that year, they laid the ground floor of the tower with white marble. This ground floor has a “blind arcade”.  This means that the bottom had columns with classical looking arches but the other side of the arches have no actual openings.  Instead, it is just a hard surface of a wall with arches that are decorative, or there to make it look nice.  

The arches also aren’t “load-bearing”.  This means that they do not support the weight of the structure. 

About 400 years later, a man named Giorgio Vasari wrote that Guglielma together with sculptor Bonanno laid the foundation, or base, of the bell tower in the tower of Pisa.

The tower began to sink after construction had progressed to the second floor in 1178. The reason was because the foundation was not built to be high enough.  It was only three-metres high, which was very low for a tower of that height.  

Unfortunately, the tower was set in weak, unstable soil or dirt.  This was a problem that was there right from the beginning. Because the tower started to sink, the people who were building the tower stopped construction.  The tower then sat there for almost 100 years with nothing being done.  The country that the tower was in was called the Republic of Pisa. The Republic was almost constantly battling with the neighbouring countries of Genoa, Lucca and Florence. 

The 100 years that the tower sat there was actually a good thing.  This allowed time for the soil underneath the tower to settle, or become more stable. If the original construction crew had carried on building the tower, the tower would have almost definitely fallen over.

In the year 1233, a father and son started to do further construction work on the tower to try to finish it.  They eventually had to pass the project on to another builder and then yet another took over.  

In 1264, the tower construction had finally moved along far enough that the main architect at the time, hired 23 workers to go into the mountains close to Pisa and cut marble. After the marble was cut out of the mountain, they used it on the tower. In order to compensate, or counter-balance, for the tilt, the designers build the upper floors of the tower with one side taller than the other.  For this reason, the tower is actually curved today.  

The seventh floor was finished in 1319 and then the bell-chamber was finally added in the year 1372.  The bell-chamber, or room holding the bell, was built by a man named Tommaso di Andrea Pisano. He used Gothic elements and a Romanesque style of the tower. These are different historic styles of buildings that were popular at different times in Europe’s history. There are seven bells in the bell-chamber, one for each note of the musical major scale.  

After the tower of Pisa was finished, the tower was admired by many people and has had some famous visitors.  A famous astronomer _______ dropped cannonballs off of the tower to show the law of free fall, a famous law in physics.  Physics is the study of matter and motion, or things and movement. 

During World War 2, the Allies, Americans and English, thought that the Germans were using the tower of Pisa as a watch post. A U.S. Army sergeant was sent to find out if German troops were in the tower.  He was so impressed by the beauty of the tower, that even though he found that there were Germans in there he held back on ordering an air attack to save the tower from being destroyed.

There have been many attempts to restore the tower to a straight, standing, position or at least keep it from falling over. Unfortunately, most of these efforts failed.  And some of these attempts even made the tower worse.  

In 1964, the Italian government raised money to restore the tower again and stop it from falling over.  The government wanted it to become more stable, but it still wanted the tower to have a tilt. They realized that the tilt was what made it famous! It helped attract tourists, or visitors from other places, to visit Pisa, so why fix it?

The Tower was closed to visitors in January 1990 due to the collapse of another tower nearby.  The collapse scared the Italian government that the same things might happen to the tower of Pisa.  They removed the bells to take some of the weight out of the towers.  They also cinched cables around the third level of the tower and anchored the cables hundreds of metres away. People who lived in home nearby were told to leave to make sure they wouldn’t be hurt if the tower fell over. 

In 1993, the Italian government added almost 900 tonnes of lead counterweights, or weights on the other side of the tower to counter-balance the weight of the leaning side.  This helped straighten the tower a bit. They also removed soil underneath the raised side of the tower to help prevent the collapse of the tower. This helped to make the tilt of the tower a safer angle. This method worked!   The tower’s tilt was reduced by almost 18 inches, returning to its 1838 position. 

Finally, after 10 years of work to rebuild the tower and make it more stable, the tower was re-opened to the public in December 2001.  The government declared that it was now stable for at least another 200 years.  

Would you like to visit the leaning tower of Pisa one day?  If you do visit, would you brave enough to go inside?

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One of my favorite places to visit is a chain of islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean called Hawaii. I grew up in Arizona, which is a desert and a very dry place. I love Arizona, but visiting a tropical place like Hawaii was very exciting. I had never seen so much green and so much ocean! And every island on Hawaii has so many different sites to see and adventures to offer. Most of my visits have been to the islands Oahu and Maui. Oahu is home to the beautiful north shore and gigantic waves, a favorite destination for surfers all around the world. It also is home to Pearl Harbor and the big city of Honolulu. In Maui my wife and I drove to the top of a former volcano, up above the cloud, and were able to see the sunrise from very high. We also hiked through jungles and snorkeled in crystal clear, warm water and saw fish of so many different colors. The beaches are beautiful and whales pass by the islands while migrating north and south through the Pacific Ocean. So this week I was very excited to dig into the history of Hawaii and figure out how the beautiful islands came to be and the history and culture of the Hawaiian people.

First, let’s go back 40 million years to when the Hawaiian islands first began form on top of a hot spot. A hot spot is a place where hot molten rock is pushed to the surface of the earth and creates a volcano. But Hawaii was different because its volcanos were coming up from the middle of the ocean. So if you can imagine hot lava pushing up through a hole in the ocean and up to the surface, then cooling and hardening over millions of years, this is how the Hawaiian islands were formed. Magma is the burning hot rock that then turns into lava and then cools and then becomes rock once again. It took a VERY long time for the lava to cool and then harden little by little until these gigantic islands were formed and reached the surface of the water. 

Over millions of years the volcanos and hardening lava became 8 main islands. The biggest islands are named Hawaii, Maui, Oahu, Molokai, and Kauia. In addition to the big islands there are 130 smaller islands that make up the Hawaiian chain of islands! But interestingly, the Hawaiian islands are not done forming. It has 3 active volcanos, which mean volcanos that still have hot lava flowing from them and slowly making the island larger. If you visit these islands today you can see actual lava pouring from their volcanos!

After the lava cooled and became solid ground, eventually seeds drifted to Hawaii on the water and the wind and the soil was very fertile, which means it was good for growing plants. Over time plants sprouted and began to grow across Hawaii making it very lush and green. The climate is tropical, so many places on the islands look like a jungle and some of the islands like Kaui get lots of rainfall and are very wet. Other places on Hawaii are very dry, so it’s geography is very diverse. But one reason Hawaii is such a favorite place to visit is that the weather is usually very nice and cool all year around, perfect for people to visit for a vacation.

Animal life also eventually made its way to Hawaii and over time the species there became very unique. Among the unique species are the monk seal, the nay-nay, also known as the Hawaiian goose, and the hoary bat. Along with these are many birds special to Hawaii, many of which have become endangered.

For thousands and thousands of years the Hawaiian islands only had plants and animals on them, no people, until around 300 AD, about 1700 years ago when people from different islands found it by boat. These people were Polynesian, which means they had lived on islands in the Pacific Ocean for hundreds of years. But the journey from where they probably lived to Hawaii was very far, around 3,000 miles, which you can imagine would take a very long time and be very dangerous in a small boat in the ocean. We’re not exactly sure when more Polyensians arrived in Hawaii, but over time more and more people arrived and settled the many islands. With them they brought new plants and animals, such as chickens and dogs, coconuts and bananas. Over time these groups settled into chiefdoms ruled by local chiefs, which ruled the settlements, created laws, and often competed with each other for food and land. They fished and planted farms and built homes and temples to their gods. They believed the gods gave them power, which they called mana. 

For hundreds of years the tribes of the different islands were divided until the 1780s and 90s when a chief named Kamehameha rose to power. Kamehameha was the son of a chief and at his birth it was said a bright star appeared, a prophesy that he would someday become a great king and rule all of the islands of Hawaii. Many believe this is the same time Haley’s Comet appeared in the sky in 1758. 

With all his heart, Kamehameha believed this prophecy about himself and was determined to defeat all of the other chiefs and rule Hawaii as one nation. Over time Kamehameha built up a strong army and one by one, went about fighting the other chiefs on each of the islands, conquering their tribes and making them his own. With each victory, Kamehameha and his people believed his mana, or divine power, increased. 

During Kamehameha’s rise to power, in 1778, the first known European explorer, Captain James Cook, reached Hawaii. The relationship between Europeans and Hawaiians was off and on, but Kamehameha saw their large ships and powerful weapons, such as cannons and guns that fired using gunpowder and looked for ways to use them in his own quest for power. In 1789 after British ships fired on Hawaiian locals, Kamehameha took two of them captive and gave them the choice to join his kingdom or be executed. They chose to join his kingdom and became his counselors showing his soldiers how to fire a cannon and guns and sail ships. Kamahameha had been using his wealth to buy guns, ships, and gunpowder from the European traders, so he could continue to conquer all of the Hawaiian islands and unite them under one ruler.

In 1795 Kamehemaha set off for the islands of Maui and Oahu with 960 war canoes and 10,000 soldiers. After defeating his final enemies, Kamehameha became supreme ruler of the Hawaiian islands. As king, he changed the laws so they were the same across the islands and did everything he could to keep them united. His wife, Ka-ah-humanoo was one of his advisors and became one of Hawaii’s most powerful leaders. 

After Kamehameha’s death, his son became the new King of Hawaii. During his reign, Christian missionaries began visiting the island and teaching about the religion of Jesus and the Bible. Many Hawaiians took interest in the religion. Eventually the leaders of Hawaii became Christian, too. Over time more and more Europeans and Americans moved to Hawaii. With this came a change in their native Hawaiian culture. The newcomers wanted the native people to speak English and change their traditions. They also were interested in using Hawaiian lands to plant sugar cane and sell it. Sugar cane is used to make sugar, which was a very desirable item across the world, because everyone loves sugar! Soon sugar cane plantations became a major business in Hawaii because of the weather and soil.

The children of the people who moved to Hawaii wanted more control over the government, so they could make decisions that helped their sugar cane businesses. At first they were just advisors to the Kings and Queens of Hawaii, but slowly they took more and more power to themselves. 

In 1891 a woman named Lili-oo-kalani became the first and last queen of Hawaii. She was born in Honololu on the island of Oahu and was raised up to be Hawaiian royalty. She loved the Hawaiian people and wanted them to be in control of their country rather than the foreigners who had come to power through their powerful sugar plantations and other businesses. She spent her time and energy helping to educate her people and feed the hungry. She was a talented songwriter and played the guitar, piano, ukulele (a small Hawaiian guitar) and sang. 

Even though she desperately wanted her people to stay in power, she was forced out of her position as queen by the powerful business people who were also aided by the American military who came to Hawaii with ships to back the powerful businessmen. At the time, the President of the United States and his advisors were interested in growing the United State’s overseas power and didn’t do anything to stop the forceful takeover of the Hawaiian government. The Hawaiian people peacefully protested, but it did little good. Queen Lily-oo-kalani was arrested and forced to stay in her home while she was replaced as ruler of Hawaii. It was there that she wrote the most famous Hawaiian song, “Aloha Oe.” 

Later, Lily-oo-kalani travelled to the United States to speak to the President and demand that her country be in control of the Hawaiian people again. He agreed, but other government leaders did not. Later, Hawaii became a territory of the United States and in 1859 an official state. During the years after Lily-oo-kalani was Queen there was pressure to do away with Hawaiian language and culture, but fortunately, in recent years there has been a return to an appreciation for the beauty of native Hawaiian traditions and many schools teach their native language again.

Today, Hawaii has become one of the top tourist destinations for people all around the world. 10 million people visited Hawaii in 2019 to sightsee, hike, surf, snorkel, whale watch, golf, and relax on its beautiful beaches.

Hawaii has a rich history and culture, and with it the “Aloha Spirit” and these principles: kindness, unity, humility, pleasantness and perseverance. And I wanted to end with these inspiring words by the last Queen of Hawaii, Lily-oo-kalani:  

“Never cease to act because you fear you may fail. The true secret is to know your own worth.” 

To echo her own words, know your own worth as a human being and the unique gifts you bring to the world. You can take courage and act and use your gifts to better the life of others!

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