To be called the king of something, you have to be really good at it. You have to spend a lot of time and effort trying to be the best at it. Michael Jackson did exactly that.

He did have a little bit of a head start on other musicians. Before he was the King of Pop, he grew up performing with his talented family. Michael was born in Indiana in 1958 to a large musical family. Altogether, he had eight brothers and sisters! This helped give him a lot of practice learning how to compete for the spotlight. 

Michael was only six years old when he and four of his older brothers started singing in a band. They called themselves the Jackson 5. The Jackson 5 signed with a popular record label in 1968. For almost twenty years, Michael took the stage with his brothers. Even though he was the youngest, he was the lead singer. If you’ve never heard the Jackson 5 before, check out two of their most famous songs:  ‘I Want You Back’ and ‘ABC.’ 

A B C, It’s easy as

1 2 3, as simple as

Do re mi, A B C, 1 2 3

Ok, you don’t want to hear me sing, but maybe it will ring a bell now!

While all of the brothers in the Jackson 5 were talented and successful, it was their young lead singer who quickly stole the spotlight. His future as the King of Pop was just beginning. 

Michael was still young when the Jackson 5 was topping the charts and releasing hit albums. His parents had to pull him out of school because he would get mobbed by fans during classes. Can you imagine having to sneak into math class to avoid giving autographs? With this type of fame, it was only a matter of time before young Michael was ready to break out and become a star on his own. 

In 1971, Michael was finally ready to step into his own spotlight. He released his first-ever solo album called Got to Be There. He was only 13 years old! Like many teenagers, he wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted to be when he grew up. For the next few years, he tried a little bit of everything in the entertainment industry. He still sang with his brothers in the Jackson 5. He released five of his own albums. He even did some acting in movies! Michael was good, maybe even great at some of these things. But he still had a long way to go before anybody honored him enough to call him king. 

Working with different people in music and movies helped Michael make connections in the industry. Eventually, he found the type of performer he wanted to be. In the 1980s, he went on his last tour with his brothers. Quitting the band would let him focus more on his solo career. 

It’s a good thing for us that he did. In 1982, Michael Jackson wrote, recorded, and released the best-selling album of all time. Seriously the best album ever! This album, his sixth, was titled Thriller. Thriller is still in the Guinness Book of World Records, even today! This album topped charts, earned many Grammy awards, and even led to a 13-minute long mini-movie for the music video of the song ‘Thriller.’ And, of course, Michael starred in it. It’s one of our family favorites to watch this every Halloween. 

It’s fair to say that by this point, Michael Jackson was on his way to earning the title of King of Pop Music. His beautiful voice and his upbeat songs were wowing fans. But how was Michael going to reign over all other pop singers? He was not just a singer, he was an entire personality. He had moves, music videos, and outfits that were fun to watch! 

Fans all over the world loved his dance moves and his bold clothing choices. He often showed off both in his popular music videos. Maybe you’ve heard of the moonwalk? If not, you should look it up. It’s this famous move where Michael looks like he’s walking forward while he’s really gliding backwards. Cool, right? He was known for doing the moonwalk onstage, often wearing a single sequined glove and cropped pants to show off his white socks. Michael stood out with his sparkling gloves, bright-colored shirts, and jackets and pants made entirely of leather. 

One of Michael’s most iconic looks was his red leather pants and matching jacket that he wore in the music video for Thriller. Before Thriller, music videos usually featured musicians singing their songs. But Michael wanted to tell a story. He popularized the entertaining, movie-like videos that music artists are still making today.  

With this kind of success though comes pressure. Could the King of Pop make another album just as good and just as flashy as Thriller? Michael Jackson answered that question five years later with the album Bad. This album added another five number-one hits to his growing list of achievements. This time, he made a music video with an award-winning movie director named Martin Scorsese. 

At the time, Michael was considered the biggest musician in the world. He had money and fame that most people could only dream of. He had famous friends and a huge mansion. But this rockstar lifestyle came with challenges. 

People wanted to know everything about Michael’s life. From the way he designed his home to the shape of his nose – every part of Michael Jackson was questioned by the public. That can be a lot of stress for one guy, even for a king.

Michael was in the spotlight for more than 40 years. His fame meant that his name frequently appeared in newspapers, magazines, and television stories. Some of his actions caused the public to question him as a role model. Some people stopped supporting him, but others continued to appreciate and love his music.

Still, Michael continued to make music. While none of his new albums were as big as Thriller, they were still popular. Michael stayed busy making music that people loved and entertaining crowds, and he took the time to help others. He was often considered a philanthropist. A philanthropist is someone who donates a lot of their money to help other people. 

In the 1980s, Michael worked with another musician named Lionel Richie. Together, the two wrote the song ‘We Are the World.’ The song was recorded by many famous musicians like Stevie Wonder and Tina Turner. It raised over $60 million to help fight poverty and hunger in Africa. Michael became well-known for his generosity and gave away lots of the money he earned to different charities. 

He also used his music to discuss things that he thought were important. The lyrics from his 1991 hit ‘Heal the World’ ask listeners to be kind to each other and take care of the planet. In his song ‘Black or White’ from the same year, Michael speaks against the hate that he faced because of his appearance and the color of his skin. These songs promoted racial tolerance and acceptance, something that was personal to him. 

In June 2009, Michael Jackson unexpectedly died in Los Angeles. He was only 50 years old. Much of the world mourned. He left behind a legacy of accomplishments and accolades. But mostly, he left the world his incredible music.

In his lifetime, Michael was nominated for 38 Grammy Awards and ended up winning 13 of them. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice – once with the Jackson 5 and once as a solo artist. He also has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He still holds the title for having the best-selling album of all time with Thriller. 

It’s pretty easy to see why Michael Jackson became the King of Pop. He did so much for the world of music. Like all kings, he wasn’t perfect. He made mistakes. He was criticized. Still, his music is sure to be enjoyed and rediscovered by new fans for years to come. Long live the extraordinary music from the King of Pop.

Sources:

https://www.biography.com/musicians/michael-jackson

https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/Michael-Jackson/487595

https://www.ducksters.com/biography/entertainers/michael_jackson.php

https://kids.kiddle.co/Michael_Jackson#1986-1990

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michael-Jackson

https://www.grammy.com/news/michael-jackson-10-achievements-that-made-him-the-king-of-pop

https://www.michaeljacksonslegacy.org/michael/about-michael/

https://www.grammy.com/artists/michael-jackson/13202

https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/michael-jackson-60th-birthday

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

With a deep breath, Jackie leaps off the building, defying gravity as he soars through the air. Time seems to slow down as he executes a flip and slides down a rooftop.

As Jackie lands safely on the top of a moving truck. The satisfaction of nailing the stunt fills his veins, reminding him why he has dedicated his life to this craft. But there is no time to rest, the movie demands more. He swings himself into the front seat of the truck and continues a thrilling car chase through a narrow alleyway the final climactic fight scene against his most dangerous enemy.

With unwavering determination, Jackie embraces each challenge, pushing himself to the limit. He throws himself into fight scenes with unmatched energy, combining his martial arts skills with a touch of humor that makes audiences fall in love with him. Every punch, every kick is meticulously executed, leaving no room for error.

Being Jackie Chan in a blockbuster movie means embracing fear, defying gravity, and giving everything for the sake of entertainment. It is a journey filled with adrenaline, skill, and an unwavering dedication to creating movie magic. And for Jackie, there is no greater reward than seeing his hard work and breathtaking stunts come to life on the big screen, inspiring generations to chase their dreams, just as he has.

Kong-sang Chan, later known as Jackie Chan, was born on April 7, 1954,  in Hong Kong, China to Charles and Lee-Lee. At the time his parents were a cook and a housekeeper. They were poor at the time and worked for a French diplomat and lived in a small house in the back of his house. From a young age, Kong-sang’s father taught him to exercise and practice martial arts. Kung Fu was the popular martial arts style where he lived and used lots of kicks and acrobatic movements. Because they were poor, Kong-sang and his father had to find simple ways to exercise rather than going to a typical dojo.

Kong-sang struggled in school. He didn’t like to sit still and often got in trouble when he got restless. He often got into fights in his neighborhood and at school. Instead, he wanted to be outside and play which is natural for children! Fortunately, Kong-sang’s parents were attentive to his needs and started looking at other options for his school. They found a nearby school called The Chinese Drama Academy, which prepared students for Chinese opera and might be a good fit for a more active child like Kong-sang.

Kong-sang was surprised when he visited the school. Rather than sitting at desks and doing traditional school work, children at this school were doing kung fu and dancing around during the day. Kong-sang thought it looked like a pretty good school and his parents decided to enroll him for ten years! Little did Kong-sang know, what a challenge the Chinese Drama Academy would be! The masters of the school were very strict. Some of the kids made fun of him. He had to sleep on the floor at night and during the day they worked his body very hard. Every minute of the day they were busy running, kicking, punching, doing handstands, and cleaning. When students misbehaved, they got hit with a stick. And to Kong-sang’s surprise, he still had to do schoolwork on top of it all! 

Kong-sang missed his parents and only saw his mother once a week. Life at the Chinese Drama Academy was very hard, but he was determined to stick it out. When he saw other children performing on stage and being applauded, he wanted to work hard, be just like them, and get the same attention. Eventually, he got to perform on a stage and received his first role in a film called Big and Little Wong Tin Bar. 

By the time Kong-sang graduated from The Chinese Drama Academy, the opera wasn’t as popular so he knew his best would be to find a job in the movie industry. He auditioned to be a stuntman and got his first job. A stuntman is used in movies to do the dangerous work that actors avoid so they don’t get hurt. They might jump out of moving cars, off tall buildings, or take a punch to make the action look more realistic. Over time, Kong-sang got better and better at being a stuntman, but his real dream was to be a movie star not just someone who did the difficult work but that no one recognized. His next job was a stunt coordinator who helped direct all of the stunts. 

Finally, he got his first chance and was given a small role in a movie called Hand of Death. It wasn’t a big role, but it gave him hope that someday he might be a big star. He dreamed that he might be as popular as Bruce Lee, the most famous Chinese kung fu movie star. Unfortunately, movies weren’t as popular at that time in China and Kong-sang had to move to Australia where his parents now lived. He worked many different jobs to support himself. At one job, instead of using his real name, he introduced Kong-sang as “Jack.” His co-workers started calling him “Jackie.” 

Around this time – we’ll call him Jackie now – got a message from Hong Kong asking him to come back and star in a new movie, a remake of Bruce Lee’s Fists of Fury. He would be paid well and best of all, he’d be a star and be acting! Jackie hurried back to Hong Kong and starred in the new movie. Jackie had all of the moves and could do all of the stunts, but he was different than Bruce Lee. He liked being funnier rather than serious. At this time, he wrote his own movie and starred in it. It was called Half a Load of Kung Fu. Rather than trying to be just like Bruce Lee, Jackie wanted to be his own kind of action hero: a funny one who the audience would be impressed by but also laugh at.

Jackie Chan’s first big movie using his own style was Snake in Eagle’s Shadow about a kung fu student who is better than his own master and learns his moves from an old man on the street. The movie was a huge hit! Jackie was happy to know audiences enjoyed his funny action-hero persona. Drunken Master was his next big hit turned him into a popular movie star all over China. 

Jackie’s next job took him to the United States, to film a new movie in Texas. Unfortunately, Jackie struggled with English and didn’t feel as comfortable acting because of the language and the style that which U.S. films were shot. Next, he returned to Hong Kong and was able to continue his acting as a celebrity there. 

In Hong Kong, Jackie continued acting and doing dangerous stunts. It was one of his favorite parts of the job even though it was very dangerous. During one stunt he fell from a 50-foot-tall clock tower, through two cloth awnings, and to the ground. Another time, he slid down a 21-story building. A few times he was hurt very badly, but Jackie continued acting and doing stunts because it was his passion and he didn’t care about the risks.

In 1995, Jackie took another shot at filming in Hollywood and his first breakout American film was Rumble in the Bronx. He did some dangerous stunts and plenty of kung fu, and the film became a big hit. His next big film was a buddy-cop movie starring alongside comedian Chris Tucker. The name of the film was Rush Hour and ended up being a huge hit earning over $140 million dollars. Jackie was finally a star in the United States as well as Asia. 

For the next several years, Jackie continued to film hits in Hollywood including a second and third Rush Hour movies, Shanghai Noon and Shanghai Knights with Owen Wilson, The Tuxedo, Around the World in 80 Days, a new Karate Kid film, and also did the voice for Master Monkey in Kung Fu Panda. 

Later, he also started a stunt school for aspiring young actors and started his own coffee shops, restaurants, theaters, clothing lines, and other businesses across Asia. 

Not only has Jackie become known for his acting, kung fu, and stunts, but also for his charitable donations around the world. He’s taken his success and with gratitude used it to help others in need, which includes building schools and curing illnesses.

Like Jackie, you can remember the importance of physical exercise. Even when Jackie was poor and didn’t have access to a real gym or sports clubs, he ran through the neighborhoods near his home, used heavy objects to strengthen his muscles, kicked, and practiced his acrobatics. You can work through hard things even when they are difficult and continue to practice whatever it is you are passionate about. Jackie of often turned to humor when life was hard and even though everyone wanted him to be like Bruce Lee, he found his own way in the world, a unique way of acting that he made his own. 

Take a moment and think about how you can apply what you’ve learned about Jackie Chan to your own life.

Jackie once said, “If everyone does some good, think of what a good world this will be.”

When asked how he accomplished great things, Jackie said, “I do small things. I try to do good things every day.”

And finally, “Do not let circumstances control you. You [can] change your circumstances.”

The post Jackie Chan Story for Kids appeared first on Bedtime History: Podcast and Videos For Kids.

Imagine you’re in a painting studio. You take a deep breath and smell the sweet smell of the oil paints and the crisp air within the painting studio. You look around and see many paintings on the walls, each one telling a different story.

But your attention quickly turns back to the canvas in front of you, which seems to be calling out for your attention. You dip your paintbrush into a palette of different colors and then put it on the canvas. You feel happy and excited when you see the brush moving so easily on the canvas. You create a beautiful picture of a world you want to see, and it makes you feel calm and happy.

You continue to work, feeling the warmth of the paint beneath your brush, and the gentle strokes of color as you add dimension and texture to your creation. As you paint, you feel a sense of peace and contentment that comes from being fully immersed in the creative process.

You continue to work, feeling the warmth of the paint beneath your brush and you see how the colors mix together, creating something new and unique. You love how it feels to make something special with your hands.

When you’re done painting, you step back and admire your work. You feel so proud of what you made and can’t wait to share it with others. You know that it will make people happy and inspire them to look at the world in a different way.

This is what it’s like to be like Bob Ross, a painter who made people happy by showing them how to paint and see the world in a new way.

Bob Ross was born on October 29, 1942, in Daytona Beach, Florida. He grew up in a town called Orlando, where he spent a lot of time exploring the beautiful landscapes around him.

His dad was a carpenter named Jack, and his mom, Ollie, was a waitress. As a child, Bob loved to take care of injured animals which sometimes made his parents unhappy because they never knew what kind of animal they would find in the house! They might see a hurt alligator in their bathtub or an armadillo running around Bob’s room. 

Later, Bob didn’t finish high school. Instead, he left after 9th grade to work as a carpenter with his dad. One day, Bob had a terrible accident that injured his left index finger. He lost the tip of it! Even though he was hurt, Bob didn’t let that stop him. It was an injury he later hid from TV viewers most of the time with his paint palette.

When Bob turned 18, he joined the Air Force which he soon didn’t enjoy. He said that he had to be “mean” sometimes, and that made him unhappy. When he was in the Air Force, he was known for being tough on his fellow airmen, and they even gave him the nickname “Bust ’em up Bobby.”

Although he had a tough exterior, Bob Ross also had a softer side. He discovered his love for painting while attending an art class in Alaska during his time in the Air Force. Many of his painting instructors at the time were more interested in abstract art, but Bob was fascinated by nature and the beauty of the world around him. He found that painting allowed him to capture that beauty and share it with others.

After attending many art classes that focused on abstract painting, Ross found his passion for painting returned through a television show he found called The “Magic of Oil Painting”. The show was hosted by artist Bill Alexander Bill introduced Ross to an old painting technique known as “alla prima” which means “first attempt” in Italian. Ross was fascinated by “alla prima” because it allowed Alexander to finish a painting in just 30 minutes. Alla prima is also known as “wet-on-wet” painting, which means that wet layers of paint are added to paper to create an image. Bob loved this new technique and decided to master it himself.

Bob Ross started earning money by painting Alaskan mountainsides on the inside of gold pans, after observing Alexander’s Wet on Wet technique. He soon became well-known among the local Alaskan people for his artistic abilities and often taught children and the elderly how to paint, too. Eventually, Ross began making more money from selling paintings and offering art lessons than from his day job in the military. After serving in the Air Force for twenty years, Ross left the military and said that he would never yell or raise his voice again, he was known from then on to have a very soft and calming presence. 

In the 1980s after leaving the Air Force, Ross had a burning desire to truly master the art of wet-on-wet painting. He found his favorite artist Bill Alexander in Florida. There, Alexander was a part-time art teacher and happily shared all his knowledge with Ross.

Next, Bob Ross got a job as a traveling tutor for the Alexander Magic Art Supplies Company. He had a soothing, gentle voice, and an encouraging teaching style, and said things like “happy accidents” instead of the word “mistakes” to make people feel happier and more positive about painting and being ok with messing up. 

Have you ever made a mistake? Well, in painting it is very easy to make mistakes and Bob was excellent at helping people understand that even when we make mistakes we can turn those mistakes into something good! This idea that he used in his painting lessons caught the attention of a woman named Annette Kowalski. Annette was fascinated by Ross and thought they might find a way to sell the experience of painting with him. She saw potential in Ross’s teaching style and decided to work with him to build a successful business.

After a meeting with Annette Kowalski and her husband, Ross became convinced that he should leave the Alexander Magic Art Supplies Company and start his own teaching business. Kowalski was so confident in their potential for success that she spent all of her life savings on the business. Ross and his wife spent most of their money too! Unfortunately, their high hopes were met with a harsh reality: the business lost $20,000 in its first year open.

Low on money, Bob Ross decided to take a bold step and change his look. Gone were the days of the strict military haircut, and in its place emerged a new and unexpected style: the classic afro that would come to define him. Ross said that he decided to perm his hair and make it curly because then he could save money and he wouldn’t need to pay for haircuts every week. Little did he know that this bold decision to perm his hair would change his appearance forever. Ross’s afro was so different than what his hair used to look like that many of his friends only recognized him by his missing finger that he lost while working as a teenager. 

It is not totally clear how  Bob became a famous painter on TV. There are two stories about how he was able to get onto the PBS channel. One story says that Bob and his former teacher Bill Alexander filmed a commercial for his art classes, which happened to impress someone important. Another version suggests that his partner, Kowalski, took a video of one of Bob Ross’ 30-minute lessons and sent it to the TV station. It is possible that both stories are true. Either way, it is obvious that Bob Ross was so good that he couldn’t be ignored. Before long he was a famous TV star in a new show called “The Joy of Painting”!

While filming “The Joy of Painting,” Bob made it feel like he was talking to his audience one-on-one. Almost like a personal teaching lesson. 

Bob Ross put a lot of thought into every detail of his show. He took great care in selecting his clothes, wearing timeless jeans and casual shirts that wouldn’t look old in the future. He also sanded down his painting palette lightly to keep it from reflecting the studio lights, a trick he figured out over time by switching to a clear painting palette for the first few episodes. 

Bob never received payment for his appearances on the show, nor did he sell any of the paintings he created on air. The show served as a platform to promote his teaching business which grew to include Bob Ross paint brushes, paint, and other supplies, soon making him a millionaire!

Even though being on TV made Bob Ross very successful he remained humble and generous with his artwork. He gave away most of the paintings he created on the show, as well as thousands of others he made throughout his life. Some were donated to charitable causes to be auctioned off, while others were gifted to friends and acquaintances.

Bob Ross taught us that mistakes are not failures, they are just happy accidents. When you make a mistake, don’t give up. Instead, use your creativity and turn it into something beautiful. Just like Bob Ross, you can use your talents to make the world a brighter and more joyful place

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

Imagine you’re starring in a high-stakes action movie. You’re a rugged, charismatic hero who must save the world from a dangerous threat.

As the cameras roll, you leap from a helicopter onto the roof of a skyscraper, gunfire ringing out all around you. You slide down a cable and land gracefully on the ground, knocking out a group of enemies with expert hand-to-hand combat.

As the action intensifies, you find yourself racing through the streets on a high-speed motorcycle, dodging bullets and explosions. You finally make it to the villain’s stronghold and engage in a final, epic battle to save the day.

With the threat eliminated and the world safe once more, you stand victorious as the credits roll. The crowd erupts in applause and you can’t help but feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. Ye this is just another day in the life of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is a household name, known for his incredible career as a professional wrestler and successful acting career. But before he was known as “The People’s Champion” and one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actors, he was simply Dwayne Johnson, a young boy growing up in a humble family.

Dwayne was born in Hayward, California, the son of Ata Johnson and Rocky Johnson. His father was a professional wrestler and his mother was a homemaker. Dwayne’s parents were of Samoan and Black Nova Scotian descent, and his father was one of the first Black wrestlers to break the color barrier in the WWE. The WWE is a big show where strong and very athletic people put on a wrestling-type performance. They dress up in colorful costumes and have cool nicknames like “The Giant” and “The Superstar.” They pretend to fight each other and do cool flips, jumps and lift each other up to show their strength. These wrestlers are not only strong, but they are also great actors, telling stories and playing different characters to entertain the audience. They sometimes play the role of the hero who saves the day or the villain who tries to cause trouble. 

But even before Dwayne Johnson grew to fame in the WWE his parents instilled in him the importance of hard work, perseverance, and dedication, values that would later serve him well in his own career.

As a child, Dwayne was a natural athlete, excelling in football and track. He also loved to read and learn about history. Maybe he would have loved Bedtime History, just like you! Dwayne attended a number of schools, including President William McKinley High School in Honolulu, Hawaii, and Glencliff High School in Nashville, Tennessee.

After high school, Dwayne went to college at the University of Miami on a full football scholarship. This means he agreed to play football for them and they paid for his schooling in exchange. He earned a degree in Criminology and Physiology, and had wanted to become a professional football player. Sadly, while playing football he received many knee and shoulder injuries, but Dwayne refused to give up on his goals. He remembered the lessons his parents taught him about perseverance and determination. They taught him that success comes from hard work, and that the only way to achieve your dreams is to never give up, no matter how difficult the obstacle.

Dwayne put those lessons into practice, refusing to let his injury defeat him. He worked long hours and many days to fix his injury, and eventually, he was able to come back stronger than ever before. But this time he turned to professional wrestling, like his father. His father, Rocky Johnson, was a larger-than-life figure, known for his strength and athleticism in the ring. He was a trailblazer in the world of wrestling, breaking down barriers for black wrestlers and paving the way for future generations. Rocky Johnson not only was a wrestler but also a mentor to Dwayne. He taught him the skills and discipline necessary to succeed in the wrestling ring. He taught him a strong work ethic and a love for entertaining the audience. Dwayne learned from his father the importance of respect, humility and discipline.

Dwayne began his wrestling career in 1996, joining the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and quickly becoming one of the company’s top stars. He was a multiple-time WWF Champion, Intercontinental Champion, and Tag Team Champion, and was known for his iconic catchphrases, such as “If you smell what The Rock is cookin'” and “The People’s Champion.” He also became known for his intense rivalry with fellow wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin.

After leaving the WWF in 2004, Dwayne transitioned into acting, starring in a number of successful films. One of his first big movies was called “The Scorpion King.” In this movie he is a very strong and brave warrior leading an army of scorpions. He is very powerful and can do many amazing things, like jumping high and fight with a sword. In the movie, The Scorpion King goes on a big adventure to save his kingdom and his people from bad guys who want to take over. He has to fight battles and overcome many challenges, but with his strength and bravery, he is able to save his kingdom.

A few years later he was in a movie called Doom about a space marine who fights enemies on a moon near the planet Mars.

Have you seen the movie Moana? It’s a story about a courageous young girl who embarks on an adventure to save her island and her people. Along the way, she meets a demigod named Maui who joins her on her journey and he sings a very memorable song when they first meet call “You’re Welcome”. Maui’s voice is actually Dwayne Johnson and he even sang the song “You’re Welcome”! 

He’s also known for starring in movies like The Fast and The Furious, Jumanji: The Next Level, The Jungle Cruise, and recently Black Adam.

One story that is often shared is when he was filming the movie “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” and he had to film a scene where he had to eat a live insect. He ended up eating it and then acted like it was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted, much to the shock and amusement of his co-stars.

Dwayne has become one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood, and has been nominated for several awards for his performances.

Even with all his success, Dwayne has always remained humble. He is a loving husband and father to his wife Lauren and two daughters, Simone and Jasmine. He is also known for his philanthropy and business ventures, and has been a board member of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Have you heard of the “Make a Wish Foundation?” The Make-A-Wish Foundation is a special organization that helps children who are very sick. Sometimes, when a child is very sick, they might have a dream or a wish that they would like to come true. The Make-A-Wish Foundation is a group of kind and caring people who work hard to make those wishes come true.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation is made up of volunteers and donors who want to help bring joy and happiness to children who are going through a tough time. They work hard to make sure that each child’s wish is special and unique, just like they are.

It is a wonderful organization that brings happiness and hope to children who are facing difficult times. They work to make the child’s dream come true and give them and their families memories that will last a lifetime.

Throughout his career, Dwayne has always taught about hard work and perseverance. He often encourages others to “never give up” and to always strive for their dreams. He has also been known to share a good laugh, with a quick wit and a great sense of humor. 

Like “The Rock”, we can learn that with hard work, perseverance and determination, we can overcome obstacles and reach our goals. He faced many challenges and setbacks in his life, but he never gave up and he kept pushing forward, and that is what led to his success. He also showed that one should never underestimate the power of a positive attitude and the importance of having a good role model and support system in the form of family and friends. He taught that we should never give up on our dreams, no matter how hard the road may be, and that we can achieve great things if we believe in ourselves and never lose sight of our goals.

“The Rock of Hollywood”

A man of muscle, a man of might,

A wrestler turned actor, a true delight.

Dwayne Johnson, known as “The Rock”,

A star in the ring and on the clock.

From football field to wrestling ring,

He’s achieved great success, it’s quite the thing.

Championships won, fans in thrall,

He conquered the WWE, stood tall.

But Hollywood called, and he made the leap,

Starring in films, his talent to keep.

Fast cars and action, a hero to be,

The Rock’s acting career, a thing to see.

He’s not just brawn, but brains as well,

A philanthropist, a man to tell.

Motivating speeches, wisdom to share,

The Rock’s impact, truly rare.

So here’s to Dwayne Johnson, a man of no shame,

A wrestler, actor, and true claim to fame.

The Rock of Hollywood, a shining star,

A legacy built, near and far.

The post Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson Story for Kids appeared first on Bedtime History: Podcast and Videos For Kids.

Early Life

Jim Henson was born in September 1936 in Mississippi. His family loved jokes and laughing. Jim spent a lot of time with his grandparents, who helped him create amazing art projects. He also loved to go to the theater and watch movies – and especially loved Westerns and movies that took place in far-off places. He and his friends would spend their play time dressing up and acting out the movies they saw, using homemade props and their big imaginations. 

Jim also grew up listening to radio broadcast shows, and his favorite performer was Edgar Bergen, a ventriloquist. A ventriloquist is someone who can talk without moving his lips or mouth. Jim saw this and thought it was amazing. Later his family moved to Maryland, and they purchased their first TV when Jim was 13 years old. Jim watched a show called Kukla, Fran and Ollie which featured puppet performers. He loved the way the puppets appeared to be real creatures, that people could laugh with, share stories with, and be friends with. The puppets were alive in a way that was magical. Jim dreamed about being on television himself.

As soon as Jim turned 16, he started looking for a job in television with all the local stations. Sadly they all said no. While this was hard for Jim, he didn’t give up. He later heard that one of the stations was looking for a puppeteer, so he checked out some books on puppetry, built some puppets, and applied for the job. He got the job of building puppets for a Saturday morning children’s program called The Junior Morning Show. With hard work, practice, and determination, he was accomplishing his goal!

College

Jim Henson went to college at the University of Maryland, College Park. In college, he took a puppetry class and produced a puppet show called Sam and Friends for WRC-TV. The puppets in this show were early versions of what would later become the Muppets, including an early prototype (or version) of Kermit the Frog. While Jim worked on the show, he invented new puppetry and filming methods that are still in use today, such as allowing the puppeteer to work off-camera by using the frame defined by the camera shot. At this time, most puppets were made from wood and were not very expressive. Instead, Jim used fabric-covered foam rubber to give his puppets a greater ability to express emotion. Instead of strings, he used rods to manipulate the puppets which also increased the range of expression of the puppets. 

While Jim was working on the Sam and Friends show, he met and worked with Jane Nebel, another student at the University. They would later begin dating and eventually get married in 1959.

First TV Shows

The success of Sam and Friends led to Henson’s puppets appearing on talk shows like The Steve Allen Show, The Jack Paar Program, and The Ed Sullivan Show. These are similar to the Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel Shows in our day. Henson’s puppets also became famous when they were used in TV commercials, such as the Wilkin Coffee Company commercial in Washington, D.C. 

Sesame Street

In 1969, Jim Henson was asked to join the team working on a new children’s program called Sesame Street. On the show, his Muppets would be characters who lived in the neighborhood of Sesame Street and interacted with the human characters. The show was meant to teach children how to read and count, as well as show children how to share, take turns, and get along. One thing kids loved was the variety of the Muppets; each character was a unique individual and represented a different type of personality. There was Big Bird, the eight-foot-tall yellow bird who is innocent and curious like a child; Oscar the Grouch, the monster that lives in the trash can and shows that it’s ok to be grouchy sometimes or have a different opinion; Elmo, the enthusiastic monster who loves to have fun and discover new things; Bert and Ernie, unlikely best friends who are completely opposite in just about every way (Bert loves oatmeal and pigeons while Ernie loves taking baths with is rubber duckie and playing jokes on Bert); Count von Count, the numbers-obsessed vampire; and Cookie Monster, who will do anything for his favorite food: cookies! It was a huge success, and the characters from Sesame Street are loved by many people who grew up with them. If you haven’t seen Sesame Street ask your parents because I’ll bet they have..

Jim Henson designed the puppets but also moved them around and performed them. These puppets included, Rowlf the dog, Ernie, Waldorf, the Swedish Chef, Guy Smiley, Dr. Teeth, Captain Vegetable…and many more!

To reach a wider audience, and bring his stories and characters to all kinds of people (kids and adults), Jim Henson created more Muppets and new shows for them to be the stars in. The Muppet Show was a variety show consisting of many different kinds of Muppets and a weekly guest star working together to put on a show for their television audience. With colorful characters like Miss Piggy (the demanding diva), Fozzie the Bear (the loveable stand-up comedian with the terrible jokes), Animal (the wild drummer for the band Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem), Gonzo (the stunt performer with the chickens), Scooter (the stage manager of the show), and Kermit the Frog (the leader of the whole gang), and superstar guest hosts like Julie Andrews, Elton John, Vincent Price, and Steve Martin, there was something on The Muppet Show for everyone. Although much of the show was chaotic, it showed people everywhere that in spite of the chaos and our differences, the most important thing is to focus on being together and having fun. 

The Muppets

The Muppets went on to star in feature films like The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, and The Muppets Take Manhattan. Jim Henson also created the Henson Foundation to teach puppetry and improve the art and design of puppetry in the United States. Jim Henson combined puppetry and animatronics (puppet-like robots). He was even involved in the creation of one of the most famous puppets of all time- Yoda from the Star Wars movies!

Conclusion

Over the years, Jim Henson never lost sight of his vision of sharing his characters and stories with as many people as possible. He even shared his work with his five children; all of them began working with Muppets at an early age and were able to spend time with their father in this way. 

When asked about his dream Jim Henson said “…it’s about singing and dancing and making people happy. That’s the kind of dream that gets better the more people you share it with.”

Jim Henson started out with a dream of being on television, and throughout his life, he was able to reach people through television and other ways. He is an example of never giving up on a dream, and of helping people to come together and laugh and share the things that they love and enjoy in order to learn and have fun together. 

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

Have you ever noticed how different music can make you feel different things? Some music makes you feel joyful and energetic, like you need to get up and dance. Some can make you feel sad, even make you cry. Other music might make you feel calm or hopeful. Music can remind you of things that happened a long time ago, or of people you love, and make you feel like they’re right there. But for some people, music doesn’t just change the way they feel. It changes their entire life.

Louis Armstrong didn’t start out with many advantages in life. Born in 1901, in New Orleans, Louisiana, his family was extremely poor and their neighborhood was so dangerous, it was nicknamed “the Battlefield.” His father left the family when he was a baby. At different times, Louis lived with his mother and grandmother, and had to support his family by doing odd jobs even as a small child. 

But, Louis did have something special. He had a horn and a voice, and he could make music with both.  He would often hear jazz music coming from the clubs and dance halls of New Orleans. He learned to sing some of the songs that wafted out into the warm night air, and even play some of them on a beat-up old tin horn.

As a child, he organized a quartet with his friends and sang on street corners for coins. Some people think this is how he got the nickname Satchmo, which would stay with him all his life. The story goes that when passersby tossed coins on the sidewalk, Louis would snatch them up and put them in his cheeks so that the older boys couldn’t steal them. He was using his mouth like a satchel or bag, which led his friends to start calling him “Satchel Mouth,” then Satchmo for short. 

There are many stories about how Louis got his first real horn, many of which he told himself! One of the best known involves a family he worked for. At age 7, Louis went to work for the Karofskys, a Jewish family from Lithuania who ran a junkyard. The Karnofsky family treated Louis like family, sharing meals with him and treating him with kindness. Louis helped them deliver coal and collect junk. Sometimes, he would play his tin horn to attract business. Even though Louis managed to get tunes out of this horn, it was really just a toy.  He longed for a real horn.

Knowing how much Louis loved to play, the Karnofskys lent him money to buy his first real cornet, which is like a smaller version of a trumpet. For the rest of his life, Louis wore a Star of David, a Jewish symbol, on a necklace in honor of the family. 

Unfortunately, getting the cornet wasn’t quite a ticket out of Louis’s hard life. When he was 12, Louis took out his stepfather’s gun on New Year’s Eve, and shot it into the air. This was a common thing to do at celebrations in the past. No one was hurt, but Louis was arrested. He was sentenced to spend two years in the Waif’s Home for Boys. “Waif” is an old-fashioned word for a child who was unhealthy or uncared for. But the home was closer to being a prison than a real home. There were no mattresses to sleep on, meals were usually bread and molasses, and discipline was harsh. 

But, there was one good thing. There was music. There was a band, and a music teacher, Peter Davis, who came every week to teach music and conduct rehearsals. Davis taught Louis to play cornet, and then trumpet. Eventually, he made Louis the band’s leader. 

Louis was released from the Waifs’ Home after two years. He could play very well now, and he started performing in clubs and on riverboats as part of a band. He got to meet other musicians, including Joe Oliver, often called “King” Oliver. King Oliver was the best cornet players in New Orleans, and Louis idolized him. He began to take lessons with Oliver.

In 1922, Oliver asked Louis to join his band, the Creole Jazz. Band. They set off for Chicago, where they performed in clubs and made records. By now, Louis was becoming famous in his own right, and left Oliver’s band in 1924 in search of new opportunities. He moved to New York City. There he worked with many of the most famous jazz musicians of the time, and formed his own band, “The Hot Five” within a few years. 

Along the way, Louis developed his own unique style of playing and singing. At the time, most jazz was played in groups, but Louis would improvise amazing solos in the middle of his songs. Improvising means to make up something as you go along, and it isn’t easy to do it well, but Louis was one of the best. This is part of what made his music so new and exciting to listen to, and it would change jazz forever. 

Louis also continued to sing in addition to playing the horn. He became known for his unusual singing voice, which was deep and gravelly.   He was one of first performers to popularize scat singing, in his 1920s hit “Heebie Jeebies.” This technique involved singing improvised made-up syllables, like dee-dop-a-dee-ya, and would become very common in jazz.

In 1943, Louis moved back to New York and settled in Queens with his wife Lucille. He would live there for the rest of his life. But even though he had settled in one city, Louis’s career was far from winding down. He continued recording, performing, and making movies for nearly three more decades. Sometimes, he would play more than 300 shows per year. He was internationally famous by this time, and popular with both black and white audiences at a time when much of the United States was still segregated by race.  

Actually, some civil rights activists were critical of Louis because they thought he wasn’t a strong enough supporter of civil rights for black Americans. Louis didn’t like to get involved in politics though, and tried to keep a positive, happy outlook on life. But he understood that big changes needed to happen. He did eventually speak out against how the government handled school integration, saying that it hadn’t done enough to protect black students trying to go to schools that had previously been all-white. 

Louis’s career kept him busy throughout the 1950s and ‘60s. His single “Hello Dolly”, recorded in 1964, pushed the Beatles out of the number one spot on the Hot 100 chart, where they’d been for weeks. It was the best selling record of his career. He made more than thirty movies, with people like Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Barbara Streisand, and worked with many famous jazz musicians, such as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby. 

Even though he loved playing music, the trumpet can be hard on a player’s mouth. Louis developed health problems, some of which were related to his playing, when he was in his 60s. He had to quit playing altogether at times. He always went back to his horn though. The last time he went against the advice of his doctors, he said, “My whole life, my whole soul, my whole spirit is to blow that horn.” 

That was in 1971, and Louis’s health was deteriorating. He played his last concert just a few months before he passed away peacefully in his sleep.

Louis recorded his last major hit single, “What a Wonderful World,” in 1967. If you know one Louis Armstrong song it’s probably this one. In it, he sings about all the beautiful things in this world: trees of green, rainbows, blue skies, and friends. He ends by singing:

I hear babies cry

I watch them grow

They’ll learn much more

Than I’ll never know

And I think to myself

What a wonderful world 

I don’t know about you, but this song–and Louis’s story–make me feel hopeful. Louis Armstrong started his life having almost nothing, and lived through a lot of hardship early on. But he found something–music–that he excelled at and that he loved doing. Louis shared his gifts with everyone. He entertained the rich and famous, but also played his horn for neighborhood kids on the stoop of his house in New York.  His contributions to jazz changed music forever. Just as important, his music inspired millions of people around the world to see just what a wonderful world it is. 

Sources

https://www.biography.com/musician/louis-armstrong

https://www.commentary.org/articles/terry-teachout/satchmo-and-the-jews/

https://www.larmstrongsoc.org/quotes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Armstrong

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In a previous story, we learned about the ancient Greek poet Homer, and his epic poem The Iliad. The Iliad told the story of the hero Achilles,  and how he had to overcome his anger to help his people win the Trojan War. The Odyssey is a very different story, but just as full of adventure. It tells the story of one of the kings who fought in the Trojan War. His name was Odysseus and the story is about his adventures as he tries to return home. 

What was Homer’s The Odyssey?

The Odyssey starts after the war and is far away from the war and even far from Odysseus himself. It starts in Ithaca, Odysseus’ home island, where he was king before leaving for the Trojan War. There, we meet his son, Telemachus, who was just a baby when Odysseus went off to the fight at Troy, but who is now nearly grown up. Odysseus has been gone almost twenty years – ten years at war, and ten years trying to get home. Telemachus and his mother, Penelope, don’t know whether he survived the war or not. Other men have come to Odysseus’ house, demanding that Penelope choose one of them to marry. They behave very rudely, eating all the food in the house and making messes, and staying even when they’re told to leave. 

Penelope waits on choosing a new husband, hoping Odysseus will return home soon. She tells her suitors that she must weave a funeral blanket for her father-in-law before she can choose a new husband. So every day she weaves the cloth at her loom, and every night she unravels it, so the blanket is never finished. 

Her son, Telemachus decides he must find out whether his father is still alive, so he sets out on his own quest. He learns from one of Odysseus’ friends that his father had been imprisoned by a goddess named Calypso. She wanted to marry him, but Odysseus only wanted to return to Penelope and Telemachus in Ithaca. Finally, after seven years, the other gods convinced Calypso to let Odysseus go.

Odysseus builds a raft and leaves the island. He lands on an island called Phaecia. The king of Phaecia is kind and offers Odysseus food, gifts, and a place to stay. In return, Odysseus tells him the story of the many trials he faced on his quest to return home, and how he ended up alone on Calypso’s island instead. So Odysseus is now the bard, telling his own epic within Homer’s story!

After Odysseus and his crew leave Troy, their ships are quickly thrown off course. 

Buy The Odyssey

Polyphemus, the Cyclops

Soon, they are captured by a one-eyed giant called a cyclops. He plans to eat them! But crafty Odysseus comes up with a plan to trick the monster, whose name is Polyphemus. First, Odysseus talks to Polyphemus, pretending that he’s trying to convince him to let him go free. Polyphemus is not swayed though, and only promises that he’ll eat Odysseus last. While they’re talking, the cyclops asks Odysseus his name. But instead of telling him his real name, Odysseus replies that his name is “Nobody.” 

This is part of Odysseus’ real plan! 

As Polyphemus sleeps that night, Odysseus ties each of his men to the underside of a sheep. Then he takes a stake, and blinds the cyclops, plunging it into his eye. Polyphemus begins to scream, calling out to the other cyclops on the island to help him. But when they come to the cave entrance and ask who is hurting him, he replies “Nobody!” (the pretend name Odysseus gave himself) The other cyclops leave, thinking their friend is just goofing around. At last, Polyphemus calms down and rolls away the stone that covers the door to the cave so his sheep can leave to graze. When the animals leave, they take the men with them, tied to their bellies.  

Poseidon

After escaping the cyclops, Odysseus’ troubles are far from over. You see, Polyphemus came from a powerful family: His father is the sea god Poseidon. Poseidon wasn’t too happy with Odysseus for blinding his son. And, you can probably imagine, it’s not great to have the god of the sea angry with you when you’re trying to sail home in a boat. 

Odysseus finds that, because of Poseidon’s anger, the gods will no longer send helpful winds to blow him back to Ithaca. They wander, and all but one of his ships sinks in a disaster. 

Island of Circe

Finally, he is blown to the island of Circe, the home of a powerful witch. At first, Circe turns Odysseus’ men into pigs. But with some help from the god Hermes, Odysseus is able to steal Circe’s magic wand. He says he will only give it back if she turns his men back. Circe is impressed with Odysseus and agrees. Even better, she offers to help him! 

Circe tells Odysseus of the many dangers they will face sailing back to Ithaca, and how he should deal with each one. The last thing Circe warns Odysseus of is the Island of the Sun God. This island is where the Sun God’s cattle eat grass. If even one cow is eaten by Odysseus or his men, they will be punished severely. Circe tells him not to even stop there. 

So Odysseus and his men set out from Circe’s island. At first, they follow her advice as they pass through each danger. 

But after all these trials and challenges, the men are getting frustrated and tired. They insist on stopping at the Island of the Sun God. You can probably guess what happens next. Despite Odysseus pleading with them not to, his men kill and eat the cattle on the island. Odysseus is angry with them, but it’s too late. As they sail away from the island, the gods send a storm that sinks the ship. 

Only Odysseus survives the shipwreck. He clings to boards from his wrecked ship, drifting for days until he finally comes ashore on the island of Calypso, who of course captures and holds him prisoner.

This is the end of the story that Odysseus tells his new friends the Phaecians, but of course, it’s not the end of the epic. He’s still not home with his family in Ithaca. The Phaecian king helps Odysseus get a new ship and return home to set things straight.

Odysseys Returns to Ithica

Once he reaches his home of Ithaca, the goddess Athena disguises Odysseus as an old beggar. He returns to his house to see what’s been happening. By this time, Telemachus has returned home, and he and Penelope treat him kindly, not realizing he is actually Odysseus in disguise. 

While they are talking, Penelope tells him all about the men trying to marry his wife – how rude, wasteful, and selfish they are. She says that she’s decided to hold a contest. Twelve axes will be set up in a row. The axes each have a hole in their blades. Penelope says she will marry the person who shoots an arrow through the hole in the ax. She knows none of the suitors will be up to the task. Odysseus, still in disguise, encourages her to follow through on this plan. 

The next day, each suitor takes the challenge, stringing an arrow and trying to shoot through all twelve axe heads. Each one fails. When none are left, the old beggar (who is Odysseus in disguise) steps up and asks to try. The gathered suitors all laugh, but they let him try, sure he cannot possibly succeed where they have all failed. But they are wrong: Odysseus strings his bow and shoots. The arrow whistles through all twelve axe heads, sticking in the wall behind them. Everyone is stunned that this old, feeble man has beaten all the young, strong suitors.

At this point, Athena reveals the beggar’s true identity. It is Odysseus! Penelope and Telemachus are overjoyed that not only has Odysseus returned home, but he also beat the suitors in the contest. The suitors are terrified and realize they need to get out of there fast, knowing Odysseus isn’t going to be happy about how they’ve treated his family and home.

Conclusion

Stories like The Odyssey tell us about how the ancient Greeks thought. The poem warns people that they should treat others with respect and honor the gods, or else face terrible consequences. Though the consequences in real life might not be as harsh as they are in the poem, treating others with respect is a good idea no matter when or where you live. That’s another thing about Homer’s epics — they show us that people have always been people, even the ones we think of as heroes. They make mistakes. They might do or believe things we disagree with. But people have always  needed the same things we do now: Respect, the love of family, and a place to come home to after a long, hard journey.

Sources

https://www.worldhistory.org/homer/

https://blog.britishmuseum.org/who-was-homer/

Homer. The Iliad. Translated by Richard Lattimore. University of Chicago Press, 1951

Homer. The Odyssey. Translated by Emily Wilson. Norton & Company, 2020.

The post The Story of The Odyssey by Homer for Kids appeared first on Bedtime History: Podcast and Videos For Kids.

Wait! You’re probably saying: Did I just say poems? I did! Actually superheroes and epics have been around for thousands of years, and the first epics were performed as very long poems! These poems told of dangerous journeys, fantastical monsters, and grand battle scenes. Some of them were as long as chapter books. Heroes had to overcome almost impossible obstacles to fulfill their destinies.

Many cultures, from all over the world, have their own epics. These sagas told people about their history, mythology, and religion in a way that’s exciting and memorable. So memorable in fact, that before there was writing, people would memorize and perform them, and they would be passed down for hundreds of years! Today we’re going to talk about two of the most famous epic poems composed by a poet named Homer.

Homer was a poet and bard in ancient Greece. A bard was a person who recited stories or poems for an audience, often set to music. He composed two of the most famous epic poems in the world: The Iliad and the Odyssey. His life is a bit of a mystery actually. We don’t know exactly when he was born, or exactly where. He was probably born sometime in the 8th century BCE, and somewhere in what is now western Turkey, or a nearby island. At the time, there were many Greek settlements in western Turkey, along the coast of the Mediterranean. 

Both The Iliad and The Odyssey talk about events surrounding an ancient war called the Trojan War. The Trojan War in the poems was probably based on a real war, but as you’ll see in a few minutes, the real war was probably nothing like the one in the stories.  The first poem, the Iliad talks about the war itself. The Odyssey is the story of King Odysseus’ homecoming after the war. Today we’re going to talk about The Iliad, and in the next episode, we’ll talk about The Odyssey.

The Iliad starts out in the tenth year of the Trojan war. The leader of the Greek forces, Agamemnon, and his best fighter, Achilles are arguing. 

You might be wondering, why start the story in the tenth year of the war? Isn’t it important to start at the beginning so people know what’s going on? Well, Homer’s audience, the ancient Greeks, knew these stories. They probably even knew the stories he included in the Iliad, but the excitement would have been in hearing them all put together, maybe with certain details added or certain parts given more attention. But, since you may not know how the war started, I’ll go over that now. 

It all starts with an apple. The gods and goddesses of Ancient Greece were celebrating a wedding, and decided not to invite the goddess, Eris. She was angry and decided to trick the revelers. So she threw a golden apple into the party, and said it was a gift “for the fairest.” The goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite each thought they deserved the apple. After much arguing, they agreed to let a human named Paris judge which of them was the most beautiful and should get the apple. 

All three goddesses tried to gain Paris’s favor by promising him things if he chose them. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, promised him he could marry the most beautiful woman in the world. This was the prize Paris wanted, so Aphrodite won the contest. The most beautiful woman in the world was named Helen. But the BIG problem here was Helen was already married to the king of Sparta. You can imagine how this is going to cause some problems. So Paris and Helen fall in love and when Paris is visiting they escape back to the city of Troy. But Helen’s husband, Menelaus, was very angry that she and Paris left. So what did he do next? He called on all of his friends to help get her back. Many of his friends were powerful kings of other Greek cities and islands. They formed a huge army and headed to Troy to take Helen back from Paris. 

Now, if you’re a bit skeptical about the idea that an apple could cause a war, that’s okay. Remember, these stories weren’t just about telling history, they were also about entertaining people and teaching moral lessons. So gods and magical events would often become part of the story over time. It made things more exciting, just like the powers that the heroes of our day have like superpowers or magic. 

So, the Iliad starts ten years into this war over Helen! But more importantly, it starts with anger. In fact, the first line of the poem talks about anger: 

Sing the anger, oh goddess, of Peleus’ son Achilles.

This story starts with an argument between the hero Achilles and the leader of the Greek forces, Agamemnon, over a servant girl Agamemnon took from him.  Achilles refuses to fight, and also keeps his army, the Myrmidons, on the sidelines. This is a big problem for the Greeks, because there’s a prophecy that says they cannot win the war without Achilles.

Agamemnon tries all sorts of things to try to get Achilles to rejoin the fighting. He even tells everyone they should just pack up and go home. Maybe he thinks if he threatens to leave, Achilles might not like the idea and finally decide to cooperate. (Have your parents ever tried this on you?) But a few of the other leaders convince everyone they should stay and continue the fight.

Once the armies reach Troy, The Greeks and the Trojans try to settle their differences by having Paris and Menelaus fight one-to-one. After all, it was their argument over Helen that started the whole war. But when it becomes clear Menelaus is going to win, the goddess Aphrodite saves Paris by carrying him back to his house on a cloud. 

So the two sides just keep fighting. 

Another important character in the Battle for Troy is the warrior, Achilles. A prophecy says that the war can only be won with Achilles help, but Achilles had refused to fight because he was wronged. Eventually, Achilles starts to feel bad about not helping, as he sees his friends struggling and dying around him. So he gives his best friend, Patroclus his armor and tells him to lead his men into battle. Sadly, Patroclus Achilles dies in battle and Achilles regrets his decision to send him instead. Achilles now feels he has no choice but to rejoin the war, that he must avenge his friend’s death. 

So Achilles puts on his armor and in anger, avenges his friend’s death but the Trojan War continues on anyway. This poem, called The Iliad, ends with Achilles overcoming his anger and accepting his responsibilities towards his comrades. Eventually, the Greeks do win the war, and Helen returns home with husband, the King Menelaus, but those events aren’t part of The Iliad or The Odyssey. In a way, The Iliad isn’t about the war – how many years it took, why it was fought, or who won. It was about one person, Achilles, learning to overcome his angry feelings and do what his friends and community needed him to do. This is often what makes someone a hero: overcoming their own anger, pride, or fear in order to serve a bigger purpose.

The next episode, we’ll talk about Homer’s other epic poem, The Odyssey. This story is very different from the Iliad. Instead of talking about the war, it talks about one king’s return home. The king’s name is Odysseus, and he’s known for being very crafty and smart. He actually had the idea that led the Greeks to eventually win the Trojan War.  His idea was to build a giant, wooden horse, as tall as a building. It was also hollow inside so Greek warriors could hide inside. Then the Greeks told the Trojans they wanted to give them the horse as a gift. Once the horse was inside the city and it was night, the soldiers hidden inside climbed out of a trapdoor and took over the city! Pretty tricky right? This is where we get the term “Trojan horse” for something that looks harmless, but hides a nasty surprise.

Thanks for listening to this episode about The Illiad. Be sure to listen next time for the story about The Odyssey. 

Sources

Homer. The Iliad. Translated by Richard Lattimore. University of Chicago Press, 1951

Homer. The Odyssey. Translated by Emily Wilson. Norton & Company, 2020.

The post The Illiad by Homer for Kids appeared first on Bedtime History: Podcast and Videos For Kids.

Imagine that you are living in South America in the 1940s.  Life is fun in Argentina, the country where you live, but also hard for your family and for many people you know.  Most people are poor and cannot find jobs that pay well.  The jobs that your aunts, uncles and parents have don’t pay very much.  And so people are not feeling very hopeful about their futures.  There is a lot of talk in the evenings about what people can do to make life better.  

You listen to what the adults talk about and one day, you go into the city with your mother and hear someone speaking on stage.  It is a famous woman who comes out.  She is dressed well and speaks with great passion about what should be done to make the lives of regular people better.  “Who is that?” you ask your mother.  “It is the president’s wife,” your mother responds.  “Her name is Eva Peron and she is a great saviour of our country, Argentina.”

Eva Peron was the wife of the president of Argentina in the 1940s.  She became very famous because she was good at speaking in public and she was passionate about helping poor people of her country.  People loved her and felt that she played a big role in improving the lives of the people of the time.  But Eva Peron was not always rich and famous.  She was actually born into a poor family, which helped her to understand the struggles of being poor. 

Eva Peron was born in May 1919 in Los Toldos, Argentina.  When she was born, her name was actually Maria Eva Duarte.  She was born to a poor family.  She grew up in poverty, meaning that she didn’t have a lot of money or access to good things in life.  She had three siblings, but her closest was a sister named Erminda and together, the two girls dreamt of becoming famous actresses.  They made up plays together and put them on for their parents and friends. 

Her mother was named Juana Ibaguren and her father was named Juan Duarte.  Unfortunately, when Eva was 7 years old, her dad died suddenly.  Everyone was very upset and their money problems suddenly got much worse.  Eva’s dad had previously been married and when he died, all of his money went to his first wife and children. Juana Ibaguren and her children were now even more poor than before.

Eva and her family struggled to have enough to eat and pay rent for their home.  So the older children had to get jobs to help earn money.  The family moved to Junin, a city in the Province of Buenos Aires in 1930.  The older children took jobs as teachers and cooks.  Eva’s mother also started taking in boarders, or people who pay money to stay at a home and be fed meals.  Eva’s mother also earned money by cooking and sewing clothes.

When Eva was 15 years old, she needed to get a job as well to contribute and bring in money.  But instead of taking one of the jobs that were available in their town, Eva did not lose sight of her dream to become an actress.  She decided to move to the big city of Buenos Aires to become an actress.  She packed her bags and caught a bus into the city.  There she found a cheap boarding house to stay at and she started trying out at various theatre houses for auditions.  

Eva was a talented actress and a beautiful young girl.  She found work at a number of theatre companies and landed roles in plays that they were performing.  While she was a teenager, Eva was in many plays and theatre productions and and even landed her first film role, or role on TV.  She also got a contract, or paid position, performing as a voice actress on the radio. 

Eva made a good amount of money as an actress and when she was about 20 years old, she decided to invest her money in starting a business.  To invest means to use your money to try to make more money.  Eva’s new business was an entertainment business called “the Company of the Theatre of the Air.”  In her new business, Eva produced radio programs like the ones she had acted in. 

At first business was difficult and stressful, but over time Eva had great success: she made a deal to create a special radio series in which she would act like famous women in history.  She was very excited to get the chance to play famous historical figures like Queen Elizabeth I and Catherine the Great.

When Eva was in her early 20s, she met a man that would dramatically change her life.  He was an older man named Juan Peron.  Juan was a colonel in the army and a government official.  They met in Buenos Aires and fell in love.  It wasn’t long before Juan asked Eva to marry him and they got married in 1945.  

Only one year later, Juan became the president of Argentina!  Can you imagine what it would be like to go from being an actress with a radio program to the president’s wife within one year?  That must certainly have been a wild time for Eva.  

Eva became a very powerful influence on Juan’s politics.  Influence means the power to shape how things are. Eva used her position as first lady to fight for causes she believed in.  This included fighting for women to have the right to vote and improving the lives of poor people in her country.  She also had a lot of influence over health andworker’s policies in the government while Juan was president. 

Because Eva was a voice actress on the radio, she was very good at speaking .. and very good at speaking in front of crowds. People who heard her speak liked listening to her a lot.  She spoke about all the ways that she wanted to help poor people make their lives better.  Eva started giving speeches while her husband was president.. And people loved her!  She was very easy to listen to and poor people who heard her speak loved to hear her message about how the president planned to help them.  

Eva became very popular.  Everywhere she went, people knew who she was and were very excited about her messages of hope for the future.  She became even more famous and she used her fame to continue spreading her message around the country of Argentina.  She spent about 5 years doing this and her popularity grew and grew.

Unfortunately, Eva started to experience health problems.  She wanted to continue working to help her fellow people of Argentina and to help poor people.  But unfortunately she got sicker and sicker and soon she was not able to work.  The people of Argentina were very sad when they learned that she was sick.  They brought her flowers and chanted her name.  They knew that she had helped them so much and they wished she would get well and stay with them for years to come. 

Eva made her last appearance in front of a crowd June 1952, when her husband was elected president for a second term.  She passed away the following month from cancer.  She was given a large funeral and millions of people showed up to say farewell.  It showed how much support Eva had from the Argentine people at the time. 

Eva Peron is a famous person in her home country of Argentina and around the world still today.  Many people are fascinated by the story of how a poor girl became a famous political power house.  Her life story has been made into a number of books, films and plays.  This includes a famous play called Evita in 1979. The most famous song is “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” and made her legacy even more known across the world.

Spend some time thinking about Eva and her life. Growing up, her life wasn’t easy but rather than sitting around and feeling sorry for herself, she started working and practicing to become an actress. It took time for her skills to grow and for her business to take off, but she stuck with it until it became successful. And when Eva became successful and the wife of the President, she used her power and influence for good. She spoke out for people who had less people, those who couldn’t vote or who were poor. Even though most of us don’t have the same power as Eva, we can use what we have to help others. This may mean donating clothes or food or money to help those in need. Our family likes to go to a place where we prepare and box food for people in need. Ask your parents if there’s a place like this near you where you can volunteer your time. Every little bit helps and makes the world a better place like Eva Peron strived for herself!

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Have you ever gone camping? When you camp, you’re usually in a place where there isn’t wifi or cell reception, or even electricity. You have to figure out ways to entertain yourself that don’t involve movies, TV, or the internet. If you haven’t been in that situation, take a moment to imagine what you would do. You could take a walk and explore nature, read a book, or play a board or card game. 

But what about when it gets dark? If you’ve been camping, you know that once it’s dark, you can’t really do any of those things easily. Instead, you might build a fire and take turns telling stories– stories about your past, characters you’ve made up, or even ghost stories. 

If you’ve had this experience, then you know something about the topic of today’s episode. Today, we’re going to talk about how people entertained themselves, and learned, before there was electricity for things like lights, cellphones, and TVs. Before there were many books. And, in some cases, before there was even writing. Although humans have had writing for thousands of years, until the last few hundreds of year, most people in the world couldn’t even read. Books were also expensive and hard to find for a very long time, so even if you could read, you probably wouldn’t own a lot of books. 

Instead, people told each other stories. People have probably been telling stories to each other for as long as they’ve been talking. Since humans have always lived in groups, the really good stories would be told over and over again. They would be passed down from parents or grandparents to children, generation after generation. And over time they would change. Each person who told the story might add their own details, while keeping the basic plot and characters in place. Every culture in the world has stories that are passed down orally, which means they are telling them by speaking and by memory. Some stories are written down later, but many never are.  

Today we call this “oral tradition.” The “oral” part means it’s spoken–not written down– and the “tradition” part means it’s something that people pass down from generation to generation over a long time.  But this is just a modern way of talking about something that people have been doing for tens of thousands of years. 

We also just call it “storytelling.”

As you probably know, people still do this, any time someone tells a story from memory, without reading it from a book. Maybe it’s one that they’ve made up. Maybe they heard someone else tell it. Maybe their great-great-great- grandmother was the first to tell it, and it was so good, the family has been telling it to their children ever since.  

Many religious stories were passed down as oral traditions for hundreds of years before being written down. Many people today still memorize and re-tell them, even though they’re written down. The Christian Bible, the Jewish Torah, the Hindu Vedas – all of these religious teachings were passed down by people who memorized them and re-told them to the young in their families or communities. They wanted to keep the stories about their beliefs and morals alive.   

Families have their own stories as well. Some families have stories about a great-grandparent or aunt or other ancestor who did something exciting or remarkable, and these stories might be passed down orally too. 

Often, traditional stories would start out as real history. Imagine listening to a live Bedtime History podcast while sitting around a campfire!  A war would be fought, or a king would rule wisely and make sacrifices for his people. People who lived through the actual events would tell their families about them. As time went on, the children would grow and tell the stories to their children and grandchildren. 

Different storytellers would add things. They might change things in order to teach a lesson. A god might come into the story to help the wise king, or punish a bad ruler. A war might last ten years instead of two and start because of a quarrel between the gods. Magic and miracles would make their way in.

These stories would grow more exciting and fantastic over the years. There would be arguments between gods and people. Heroes would go on daring voyages and fight evil monsters. They would become stronger or larger than real-life people. They were a lot like the superheroes you find in comics or movies now. In fact, gods and heroes that started out in traditional stories do come up in modern superhero movies – Thor and Loki from the Marvel universe were originally Norse gods! Just like in the Marvel-universe, the same characters would come up again and again. They’d have their own habits and personalities. They would repeat the same mistakes. People would get to know them as if they were real.

But these stories didn’t just talk about history made by humans. Many traditional stories tell about the land and our planet as well. They tell people how to find food or water and survive where they live. Sometimes, stories talk about meteors, floods, and volcanic eruptions. Many of you have probably heard the story of Noah’s ark and the flood in the bible. This isn’t the only story about a flood though. The ancient Mesopotamians, who lived in what is now Iraq, had a story about a giant flood too. It’s part of the story of the hero-king Gilgamesh. The ancient Chinese, Native Americans, Australian Aborigines, and many other cultures also have flood stories.  

Some traditional stories talk about specific natural events in Earth’s past. The Klamath people, a Native American tribe from the northwestern United States, have a story about how a specific mountain lake formed. The story tells about a god who lived under a mountain, who wanted to marry a woman from a nearby village. When she refused him, he began raging, throwing rocks and fire out of the mountain. Finally, another god helped the village people by pushing the mountain god and his fire back down under the ground, leaving a deep crater that became a lake. 

Stories like this give us an idea about how long oral traditions can be passed down. The lake, which is in Oregon, is now called Crater Lake. Scientists have discovered that the eruption that created the lake happened over 7 thousand years ago. It hasn’t erupted again since, which means this story may have been passed down from generation to generation for a very long time!

Often, a person in a community had a job to memorize and tell stories. These storytellers, sometimes called bards or rhapsodes, did their best to make the stories interesting and exciting. Sometimes, they would dance, wear masks, act out the action, or clown around while telling the stories. 

You may be wondering how on earth a storyteller could remember so many stories without writing them down. Today, we are very used to having things written down. Reading and writing are part of school, and we’re told they are very important skills. And they are. But in the past, before writing was invented, and then before most people could read, memory was just as important. People had to be able to remember a lot of information just to be able to survive – to find food and water, and make shelters. Stories helped them do this, and they also helped people learn about their culture’s history and beliefs. 

Still, some stories that were passed down orally were very long! Many of these stories were told as poems. They are often called epic poems. For the most part, the stories that went into these poems weren’t told all at once, and one bard probably wouldn’t memorize all of them. But still, many did memorize poems as long as books. 

Telling the stories as poems made them easier to memorize, because poems have a regular rhythm. Sometimes they were even set to music. They would also repeat certain lines over and over. For example, an epic poem might always describe the sunrise on a new day with a particular line, such as:

  Dawn stretched her rosy fingers over the sea.

A line like this might be in several different stories, and be repeated many times in one story. All this would help others remember as well, so they could go on to tell the stories later. 

Many stories have been collected and written down as epics. A Finnish epic poem called the Kalevala was told for hundreds of years before being written down in the 19th century. It tells the traditional Finnish myth of the creation of the earth and the life of the first man.

The most famous epics are probably the poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, from ancient Greece. The Iliad tells the story of a war the Greeks fought over a woman named Helen, who was said to be the most beautiful in the world. It focuses on the hero Achilles, who must put aside his argument with a friend in order to help win the war. The Odyssey tells the story of the journey another king, Odysseus, took to get home after the war. Both of these poems are hundreds of pages long.

But that’s nothing compared to the longest epic poem! That title goes to the Mahabharata, from India. It tells the story of a war between two royal families that took place in the 8th or 9th century BCE, and was written down in the 4th century BCE. Can you guess how long it was? The length of a poem is usually talked about in terms of number of lines. The Mahabharata is over one hundred thousand lines! As a book, that’s close to one thousand pages.

Every culture on Earth has its own set of stories that has been passed down over hundreds, if not thousands of years. The Australian Indigineous people have traditional stories about their coasts being flooded as the last ice age ended about 10 thousand years ago. Stories of a Swahili hero-king named Liyongo have survived since the middle ages. Many fairy tales that you likely know, like Little Red Riding Hood or Hansel and Gretel come from German stories that were passed down orally for a long time before being written down. These are just a few examples – there are hundreds more!

Take a few minutes to think about someone important to you who’s lived a lot longer than you. Maybe a parent or grandparent, a neighbor or a teacher. Take some time soon to sit down with them and ask them to tell you a story about what things were like when they were young. You might ask about an important event that they lived through, or how they played when they were children, what their house was like or if they had any pets. You never know what you’ll learn! Maybe when you get older, you can tell your children or grandchildren these stories. Or, you might like them so much, you decide to write them down. You will be continuing the oral tradition, but more importantly, you will hear some wonderful stories and be entertained and learn from them, too!

Sources

https://scroll.in/article/806662/the-mahabharata-how-an-oral-narrative-of-the-bards-became-the-didactic-text-of-the-brahmins

https://africanpoems.net/epic/introduction-to-epics/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/oral-tradition

Nunn, Patrick, 2018. The Edge of Memory: Ancient Stories, Oral Tradition and the Post-Glacial World. Bloomsbury Sigma, London. 

https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2015/marchapril/feature/how-the-grimm-brothers-saved-the-fairy-tale

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