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[hillsbororiver]

Hi Everyone,

As some of you know I am very interested in ancient history and science and I know that there are others here who find these things fascinating as well.

Tonight at 10PM (EST) there is a program on the History Channel about the size and strength of ancient navies that we probably did not learn about in school

Here is the lead in from the website;

What you thought was modern may in fact be ancient...

Ancient Discoveries.

Robots and helicopters, trains and cars, cranes and machines for building the mammoth structures that mark our largest cities. All testaments to our modern intelligence and ingenuity, right? Maybe not. Perhaps all these inventions, and many more, were conceived thousands of years ago in places like ancient Egypt, Greece, and the Far East. Go back millennia to see how our ancestors’ grandest ideas mirror those of modern society in the series ANCIENT DISCOVERIES.

Ancient Super Navies

Using the latest scientific techniques to solve the greatest mysteries of the ancient world's naval technology, our team of modelmakers, underwater detectives and elite naval commandos are investigating legends that speak of lethal, high explosive grenades... covert underwater attack equipment... and highly toxic biological warfare. Their life-threatening experiments will forever transform our understanding of antiquity's greatest naval inventions.

Rating: TVPG

Running Time: 60 minutes

Genre:Mysteries of History

http://www.history.com/minisite.do?mini_id=52979

Enjoy!

[hillsbororiver]

Ecc 1:9  The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
 
Ecc 1:10  Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. 

Peace,

Joe

                                                                     

[Matt]

I will mark my calender!  Fortunately for me, most of the programs here are recorded in the US and broadcast 1 week later for the military on the Armed Forces Network. 
I especially love these topics mentioned.  My dad used to read me bedtime stories from the encyclopedia, so I was the only kid in 2nd grade who knew strange topics like the speed of light, the accomplishments of Archimedes, black holes, etc...  Other kids watched Sesame Street, I had to watch Cosmos!

Great Scriptures too!
 
Matt

[hillsbororiver]

  My dad used to read me bedtime stories from the encyclopedia, so I was the only kid in 2nd grade who knew strange topics like the speed of light, the accomplishments of Archimedes, black holes, etc...  Other kids watched Sesame Street, I had to watch Cosmos!

Great Scriptures too!
 
Matt

 

Hi Matt,

We have a similar background in regard to the bedtime stories of our youth, I am a few (well,maybe more than a few) years older than you (53 currently) and as a 7-8-9 year old television was not quite what it is today (both good and bad there for sure). We had only 2 channels (CBS & NBC) until 1961 when ABC was added, a year later we got our first UHF channel, needless to say without computers, the Internet, cable TV, etc. books were more than paperweights and decorations on bookshelves for most everyone I knew but especially my Mom who always had a book or two going and the local librarians all knew her on a first name basis.

At that time (early 60's) A&P grocery as well as Loblaw's (another grocery chain) had hardcover children's encyclopedias where a new edition would be released every month, all that was needed was to buy a certain amount of groceries (maybe $20 worth) and you get a free book, these books were great and opened up the world of science, astronomy and history to me and I read and reread them all cover to cover at night in bed, sometimes under the covers with a flashlight if it were past "lights out" time.

You gave me a laugh as I remembered the looks from classmates when I would speak of Ptolemy, Aristotle, Galileo, Peter the Great, and a host of other things, it would surprise me when they did not know of this stuff, I thought everybody read those books!

I am looking forward to that program in a couple hours and I hope you enjoy it too.

His Peace to you,

Joe
 
 

[Arthyron]

A friend of mine linked me to an interesting website (not all the information there is valid, but there are some gems of truth there) called http://s8int.com that just has a lot of historical and scientific anomalies discovered through time that are grounds to re-consider what we know as "history."  Many of them seem to be Biblically related.  Again, take it with a grain of salt, but it reminds me very much of this history channel documentary.

[gmik]

Thanks for the link.  Looks like plenty of info.  I bookmarked it so I can take the time to peruse.

[hillsbororiver]

We (I mean society not us as individuals) have a tendency to believe that we are smarter and more proficient in things than our previous generations were, the advances in technologies I do not think give us a true picture of how adept we are in utilizing our own or how our children use basic brain power in problem solving and understanding the physical sciences, language, mathematics, etc.

The advent of calculators, word processors, computers, the Internet, etc. give us access to artificial intelligence that enhances our own capabilities, what would happen if the plug was pulled? If we were to find ourselves in a world where these appliances were no longer available?

For some reason I started thinking about these things today so I searched the internet and found a test I had read about years ago in regard to grammar school tests of 110 years ago, so I used the spellchecker on this computer to write a post to deliver to you folks who are scattered about the planet.

This increase of knowledge we read about in scripture (Daniel 12:4) I believe pertains more (although there is a physical shadow in earthly cumulative knowledge) to spiritual understanding as we approach the Day of the Lord rather than the fact that we are smarter or more knowledgeable than previous generations.

Yes, we can manufacture complex machines but can we be sure that this technology is not in fact inferior than what may have been before the flood or even directly after? One day we will know.

One thing I do know is that I could not pass the following grammar school test from 1895; 
 
8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, Kansas - 1895

This is the eighth-grade final exam* from 1895 from Salina, Kansas. It was taken
from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley Genealogical Society
and Library in Salina, Kansas and reprinted by the Salina Journal.

Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do, lie, lay and run.
5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
7-10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.


Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts. per bu, deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $.20 per inch?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?
10.Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, and 1865?


Orthography (Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic orthography, etymology, syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u'.
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e'. Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: Bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, super.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: Card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences, Cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10.Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)
1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of N.A.
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10.Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of the earth.

The top of the test states > "EXAMINATION GRADUATION QUESTIONS  OF SALINE COUNTY, KANSAS
April 13, 1895  J.W. Armstrong, County Superintendent.Examinations at Salina, New Cambria, Gypsum City, Assaria, Falun, Bavaria, and District No. 74 (in Glendale Twp.)"

According to the Smoky Valley Genealogy Society, Salina, Kansas "this test is the original eighth-grade final exam for 1895 from Salina, KS. An interesting note is the fact that the county students taking this test were allowed to take the test in the 7th grade, and if they did not pass the test at that time, they were allowed to re-take it again in the 8th grade."

Peace,

Joe

P.S. Where is the aspirin again?

[joyful1]

Hi Joe--
See what people were able to "learn" when the radio, t.v., vcr, camcorder, computer, fax, cell phone, blackberry, pager, satellite dish, dvd player, x-box, and robotic vacuum cleaner  were turned off?    eheheh!

I used to have a copy of some excerpts of one of George Washington's diaries. I really had a good laugh at myself trying to read it! His grammar, spelling, syntax....VOCABULARY...WAY over my head! Actually, come to think of it....a lot of the posts here at BT are way over my head too, but that's another story! hehe

Do you get the emails from beforeus.com ? Cheers.
Joyce

[LittleBear]

Good one Joyce! I would definitely fail that exam, the questions are overloading my brain!

How interesting Joe. I'll have to read up on ancient discoveries.

Ursula

[gmik]

Take it from a teacher--as a society we "be gettin dummer and dummer".

I doubt if a college professor could pass that.

When I visited Gettysburg, these poor ole farmer boys, now soldiers,  would write their mom's or girlfriend/wife....farmers, poor remember.....Their grammar, spelling, syntax, poetry, was beautiful.  THEY WEREN'T LEARN..NED!!!! But they knew how to think and write.

AARRRGGGGHHHHH....don't get me going.....

I haven't been in school the last 5 out of 7 days for weather.  (Just thought I 'd throw that out there )

[musicman]

US History:  An account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
Hey look at all of those savages.  Lets take the strong as slaves and kill the rest.  Let's loot!!


Orthography:  Elementary Sounds:
AAAahhhhh, EEeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,  WWWaaaaaaaaaaaaa, I wanna go to the bathroom!!!   Sit down and shut up you little. . . .!!!!

[hillsbororiver]

Do you get the emails from beforeus.com ? Cheers.

Hi Joyce,

Sorry I missed your post, the answer to your question above;

I didn't, but I do now!

Thank you for the "heads up!"

His Peace to you,

Joe
 

[joyful1]

Some serious food for thought, eh?

Joyce

[jerreye]

Hey Joe, are you suggesting that the ancient Egyptians may have flown around in ancient helicopters or some other form(s) of aircraft?

I like history too

Cheers,
Jeremy

[jerreye]

It looks like that Salina test may just be an urban myth...

For my own sanity's sake, I hope that is the case, cause I would spend all eternity on this thing and STILL not finish it!

http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.asp

[hillsbororiver]

Hi jerreye,

The article does doesn't say definitively that it is a hoax but that it does not prove education standards have declined (my own experience with interviewing young prospects confirms this though).

They do make a good point about the difference in being taught the specific subjects before looking at this test versus looking at it cold. We all have our areas of expertise and when we are familiar with a subject or a process we can look rather brilliant when in fact we are quite ordinary but very experienced. (I am living proof of this statement). 

When I discuss the building process rattling off specs and codes, load bearing joists, trusses, walls, structure envelope, etc. I can sound like a Physical Engineer (for a while) when in fact I have become so familiar with the process and the potential problems if certain criteria is not met that even I have developed a bit of expertise, just a bit.

As with just about anything outside the scriptures I take many man made conclusions and statements with a giant grain of salt, virtually both sides of any issue has me a little skeptical.  I am always trying to look beneath the surface for the true motivation of the proponants of anything and everything.

His Peace to you,

Joe   

[hillsbororiver]

Hey Joe, are you suggesting that the ancient Egyptians may have flown around in ancient helicopters or some other form(s) of aircraft?

I like history too

Cheers,
Jeremy

Hello again jerreye,

No sir I would not be that presumptuous, but is it possible they could have had gliders or other crafts we are not aware of as yet. I am not even 100% sure they even built the pyramids or the Sphinx. Could these structures have been built by the antediluvian (people before The Flood) or the first generations after The Flood?

I enjoy speculating and meditating on the mysteries of past civilizations, they certainly left behind many strange and wonderful things to examine as well as histories of incredible brutality, which I do not particularly enjoy thinking too deeply about.

Peace,

Joe

[jerreye]

Hey Joe, ok, I was just curious

I suppose there is a very slight possibility that they had gliders, that would indeed be an amazing discovery!

I did locate a website speaking about those Egyptian carvings that look like they "could" be ancient drawings of helicopters and other aircraft...I believe it gives a good case against the idea.

http://www.catchpenny.org/abydos.html

I know a lot of people think that men are getting "dumber". I personally do not buy into the idea. I believe that what may have been vitally important in ancient times is not as vitally important to US, NOW. Education, I believe has simply shifted to other areas, if you will. I mean, back in the 1800's for example, they wouldn't have access to calculators, which would mean their basic math skills would have to be very sharp in order to do even basic tasks. Today, all we have to do is punch in a few numbers on a computer to get the same results. Does this mean that we are now "dumber"? I wouldn't think so (I might fit into that group, however . We have simply shifted our thoughts to areas that are more important to our modern era, such as building super-computers and space-stations. That doesn't sound "dumb" to me After all, "knowledge shall be INCREASED...".

Cheers,
Jeremy

[hillsbororiver]

Hi jerreye,

You raise valid points to be sure, but (always a but)  as I believe there certainly is truth to "knowledge shall be increased" both physically and spiritually I do believe that our individual knowledge may be more specialized and linear. Yes, our "experts" in most if not all fields (there is no way of knowing about people before The Flood) have access to more information than ever before and the speed of technological advances is incredible to contemplate.

I was alive (although not aware) of the first manned spaceflight, Sputnik in 1957. I was very aware of John Glenn's Mercury capsule's orbit as we were able to watch the launch on TV in my second grade class back in 1962, it was a huge event, the whole country seemed riveted by it, even though the flight was barely outside the earth's atmosphere. The space shuttle flights now are so common that they seem to draw a collective yawn from the public.

Growing up we had 2 then 3 channels for most of my childhood, one 4 party phone in the kitchen, no cable or computer or Internet or MP3's to entertain us so we were much more connected to our natural environment in regard to knowing our neighborhoods, the surrounding woods, parks and being creative enough to entertain ourselves. Some of us even had our own backyard vegetable gardens because growing stuff was "fun."

Going to the library was a treat, organizing pick up baseball, basketball, skating on frozen ponds, all this with little adult supervision, we had to work through difficult situations, arguments, setting up rules and parameters as best we could. Sometimes fights ensued, we learned to not only defend ourselves but also to size up potential dangers and becoming savvy enough to avoid them, well most of the time anyway.

The problem is we have become more and more dependent on the technology, what do we do if and when the plug is pulled, when the batteries run out on our calculators? No one had cell phones in the early 90's (I should say very few, I actually had a company issued one with a huge battery and antennae, when taking it from my car into the office it was like lugging a car battery around) but now most people feel lost without this appliance attached somewhere to their body.

You know I do not look forward to the anarchy that would ensue a few days after the loss of electricity, while no one would care about where their cell phone was after a couple days they certainly would be very aware of where their gun might be or where they might be able to procure one.

Wow, I am really going all over the place here, sorry about that! 

Right now I am able to access a computer that is at least 50 times faster and more powerful than the one that guided the first moon landing, I can carry it in a briefcase rather than that huge behemoth that was used back then, if I want to find out about the life of some historical figure his story is a few clicks away, no painstaking searches in libraries, actually having to read through books to find the information, a few keywords is all that is needed.

We take a few items out of the freezer pop them in the microwave press a few buttons and voila! supper is ready. Want entertainment click on one of the hundreds of channels available on cable TV or pop in a DVD, no need to be bothered by opening up and reading a book.

I am not disparaging this, I really love gadgets and appreciate all the things they do in making us all a bit more comfortable, perhaps too much so.

Our daughter is very close to her Ph.D. (hopefully this summer) and is an accomplished (National Cable Award Special Ed. Teacher of the Year for 2006) special education teacher, she has been very proficient earned state and national recognition for teaching gifted and special needs kids, she says the interest in reading even with the gifted is very limited for the most part and it reflects in their writing abilities as well, not only spelling and grammar but really getting points across through the written word.

She is also very tech savvy but ask her the last time she read a book herself, ask her a few history or science questions and you will get a sheepish look and a response something like "you know I really need to something about that."

The following are things she has related to me when we discuss education today;

History class? Virtually non existent, except of course for the politically correct swill that is mind numbing and either ignores important historical events or spins them into not much more than fairy tales.

Math, try taking away their calculators.

English? Check reading above.

Self esteem used to be earned, it is now a "right" it seems every dumb thing that is thought or said has to be respected, you have to take into consideration ethnicity, race, background, immigration status, everything but learning and playing by a standard set of rules, the rules change depending on how high up you are in the all important victim status category.

She feels teacher's hands are being tied tighter and tighter behind their backs in regard to actually pushing the class to their full potential, there is that political correctness and the ever present threat of lawsuits to put front and center.

No things were not perfect back in the old days, I am sure though that as a society and as individuals we are more attached to our appliances even to the point of dependence, they think for us, they work for us, they keep us cool in the summer and warm in the winter, I am thankful for that but we are less independant now and critical thinking with raw brain power has suffered as well.

This is even more profound for many minorities who have really been given the short stick in regard to lower expectations by those who feign compassion for them.

From Thomas Sowell's;

 THE EDUCATION OF MINORITY CHILDREN

Will Rogers once said that it was not ignorance that was so bad but, as he put it, "all the things we know that ain't so." Nowhere is that more true than in American education today, where fashions prevail and evidence is seldom asked or given. And nowhere does this do more harm than in the education of minority children.
      The quest for esoteric methods of trying to educate these children proceeds as if such children had never been successfully educated before, when in fact there are concrete examples, both from history and from our own times, of schools that have been sucessful in educating children from low-income families and from minority families.  Yet the educational dogma of the day is that you simply cannot expect children who are not middle-class to do well on standardized tests, for all sorts of sociological and psychological reasons.
      Those who think this way are undeterred by the fact that there are schools where low-income and minority students do in fact score well on standardized tests.  These students are like the bumblebees who supposedly should not be able to fly, according to the theories of aerodynamics, but who fly anyway, in disregard of those theories.
      While there are examples of schools where this happens in our own time-- both public and private, secular and religious-- we can also go back nearly a hundred years and find the same phenomenon.  Back in 1899, in Washington, D. C., there were four academic public high schools-- one black and three white.1  In standardized tests given that year, students in the black high school averaged higher test scores than students in two of the three white high schools.2
      This was not a fluke.  It so happens that I have followed 85 years of the history of this black high school-- from 1870 to 1955 --and found it repeatedly equalling or exceeding national norms on standardized tests.3  In the 1890s, it was called The M Street School and after 1916 it was renamed Dunbar High School but its academic performances on standardized tests remained good on into the mid-1950s.

Read the entire article here; http://www.tsowell.com/speducat.html

For some real eye opening information on education, economics, etc. visit his website @ http://www.tsowell.com/

Peace,

Joe

[joyful1]

Joe--
You may recall how strongly I feel about education in the United States....so much so that I was determined to change the system (single handed if need be) back in the mid 80's-- but at one point I realized that change would probably never come-- that the UN had more to say about curriculum in our schools than the teachers that taught in them-- and so realizing that even if change COULD come at all, it would take many years....and then I knew that my own children would be grown by then and it would be too late for them...so I homeschooled them. Still, I feel great compassion for the parents that have their little ones today....not knowing how to swim against the tide and make a difference and either not in a position to homeschool or not sure that it's God's will for their lives....

You see, I see everyone here is passionate about SOMETHING....home, family, education, medicine, law, whatever......everyone is passionate for the RIGHT thing to be done......it's EVERYWHERE.....and we go on with our lives the best that we can, making whatever changes in the status quot that we can....concentrating mostly on our families immediate needs and our Bible studies....but still, being passionate about SOMETHING! My question to you today is this:
do you believe that our sense of RIGHT and WRONG on various aspects of life; education, medicine, law, whatever....will be utilized in the age to come? Do you believe that there will even be a need for these things in the age to come? And if so, can you explain your answer?

I'm starting to sound like a drill Sargent....good grief, charlie brown! Please don't take it that way, Joe...its just that I am so stirred up by these things...and I can see many others here in the same boat! Just trying to make sense of WHY this is so!

Joyce