TOTEMO KAWAII U GUYS (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ HAVE SOME SPARKLES XDDD

OMG THIS LESSON IS GONNA BE SO TOTEMO KAWAII DESU NE YOU GUYS HAVE NO IDEA

BECAUSE JAPAN MAKES MY KOKORO GO DOKI DOKI DOKI DESU X333

erwait.

wait.

hang on.

what was that.

NO.

no way.

Japan kinda blocked off everyone from the everything.

Meaning they became isolationists. like, they closed off the entire country from the rest of the world.

JUSTLIKEHOMESCHOOLERS

wait, what was that?

I think it was the wind.

ANYWAYS SO I GUESS JAPAN WAS KINDA DANDERE FOR A LITTLE BIT TOTALLY NOT SUGOI GUYS (┛◉Д◉)┛彡┻━┻

and that is really really important. Because they didn’t have a Protestant Reformation like EVERYONE ELSE. Because they didn’t know. Because bluh.

BUT WHAT WENT ON WITH JAPAN BEFORE THIS?!?!??!!?!1?

Who remembers who inhabitied Japan in the ancient times?

Ok good because I sure don’t.

THE AINU.

i nu that.

BA DUM TSS.

Then the first emperor!

Then the Yamato clan took over!

Then there was a big war. Until Prince Shotoku kinda took over and he kinda fixed some stuff.

And then Shoguns and Samurai. There was an emperor but he didn’t realy do anything. He just kinda was there. He didn’t do anything.

LOL BAKA GAIJIN ¬_¬

But so now we’re after that part.

WHY DID THEY STOP THE EVERYTHING THOUGH?

Because there was this guy. Named Tokugawa. Well he was actually Ieyasu. His name was Tokugawa Ieyasu, but it was like a regular name but flipped around. So his last name was actually Tokugawa but it came first.

PERFECT SENSE DESU THATS TOTEMO KAWAII I UNDERSTAND BECAUSE I LIKE TO PRETEND I'M JAPANESE WHEN I'M ACTUALLY AMERICAN BUT SHHHH DON'T TELL ANYONE XDDD

But this little kawai desu suteki moe shota lolli boy man girl child lived his life in captivity.

No man I’m serious this is like the saddest story everr ಥnಥ

He was in captivity until he was 15. Like, from 6 to 15. THAT’S LIKE FOREVERR.

Anyway he pretty much took over Japan. tee hee omg yandere bishies make my kokoro go doki doki no lie you guys (☉‿☉✿)

AND HE GOT TO BE A SHOGUN!

But he was 60. And he was nasty and old. And nobody really liked him but they respected him. And he sloooowlyyyy kinda cloooosed the couuuntryyy. Because he was afraid of westerners, apparently.

herpderpderp.

He was also scared that their class system would unravel.

andloosinghispowerbuthekindahidthatpart.

AND THEN HE MADE IT ILLEGAL TO MAKE IT CHRISTIAN IN JAPAN.

And what happens when you’re a Christian and it’s illegal?

YOU DIE.

THAT’S WHAT.

And a lot did die. And some where just shooshed. And the spread of Christianity was stopped. Only one port was open to outside traders, but then it got closed. And then they banned books from the outside.

THE HECK.

Basically, the islands started kinda competing against each other to be better. Not like war stuffs, but like “WE HAVE TO BETTER ANIMUUUU” “NO WE HAVE THE BETTER.” “NO WE DO.” “NO NO NO” and basically there was a really big middle class because no more export no more import. Economy awesome. Everyone is happy. And do you know what happens when everyone is happy, has money, and they get bigger and better stuff?

THEY HAVE BABY.

they all have baby.

the baby triple the population.

the baby crowded the population.

the population cannot feed the baby.

ALL OF THE RICE. ALL OF IT. And what do you need for rice? FARMERS. And even though they were poor, they were second to nobility.

ha ha ha wat.

WELL LET’S SAY YOU KNOW YOU ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE SUCCESS OF THE COUNTRY. However, you are rice dirt poor. YOU’RE GONNA WANT SOME MORE MONEY, WILL YOU NOT?

Anyway, so basically the working class was frowned upon, which is really sad because they were the majority.

IN OTHER NEWS, THIS WAS ALSO KINDA A GOLDEN AGE.

kinda i guess.

NINJAS.

NINJAS.

NINNNNJASSS.

NINJAS ARE THE BEST THEY ARE BETTER THAN PIRATES AND WE WIN U BAKA GAIJIN OK WE ARE SO MUCH BETTER AND NINJAS RULE AND PIRATES STINK NO SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS NEED TO TAKE A BATH

They were hired to do ninjas stuff. like spy and fight and assassinate stuff.

AND YES THERE WERE GIRL NINJAS AND I AM ONE I’M LIVING PROOF.

And in the day there were totally normal people.

EXCEPT THEY HAD STUFF LIKE IRON SPIKES AND KATANAS AND STARS AND OTHER SMALL AWESOME OBJECTS UNDER THEIR CLOTHES ALL THE TIME JUST LIKE ME BECAUSE THEY'RE JUST THAT SUGIO DESU

Anyway.

Ninjas may still actually exist today. I mean pirates do too but those don’t count.

Now in this period, Japan also developed ORIGAMI.

which is impossible.

They also had big giant puppets.

Giant.

Puppets.

o(≧▽≦)o OMG I HOPE THEY HAD KAWAII NEKO ONES THATD BE SO SUGIO DESU!!!!

And kites. Big giant kites. Which is better and less scary than big giant puppets.

AND THEY ALSO HAD LITERATURE.

There was a poet. Named Matsuo Basho. AND HE WROTE HAIKUS.

Some Haikus make sense. This one does not make any sense. Refridgerator.

BUT.

BASICALLY JAPAN HAD IT’S OWN CHIBI KAWAII RENNIASANCE DESU.

SO WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED HERE?

1: I SPEND TOO MUCH TIME AROUND WEEABOOS, EVEN THOUGH I AM NOT ONE MYSELF I PROMISE (☉‿☉✿)

2: ISOLATION IS A GOOD THING.

3: I AM NOT A POET.

4: I AM ALSO REALLY REALLY BAD AT ENDINGS.

and also if this offends any japanese or otaku or weeaboo or whatever the heck you call yourself uhm sorry no offence?

Actually yeah i really meant to offend weeaboos and otaku is kinda derogatory anyway so uhm. yeah.~END OWARI.~

INTO. YOUR. SOUUUUL.

So I have a cousin.

His name is Ivan.

THIS IS NOT THAT IVAN. Because that Ivan is not really terrible. Most of the time.

BUT THIS IVAN IS PRETTY TERRIBLE.

The last time we looked at Russia, it was pretty happy. Their king was a good guy. In fact, he was Great. But that’s not this story.

WE’RE TALKING ABOUT IVAN THE TERRIBLE.

You see, Ivan’s childhood was pretty sad. He was clothed in rags and barely fed. Until the important people came over, in which he was dressed in beautiful clothing and fed like a king. Yeeeeah. His mother was also murdered when he was about 7 or 8. Which made this all worse. He also had his favourite nanny person thing taken away.

He also abused animals. Now I’m not exactly PETA or anything, but when people purposefully go and hurt animals it’s pretty sad. Like... seriously? Bah. So he took to throwing cats and dogs out the window. Like4srs.

And when when as about 13, he threw the next in line to a pack of wild dogs. Which meant he was Czar. And his first duty as czar was to find himself a wife. And out of a lot of women, he picked a woman named Anastasia. And it appeared that he did have a heart ,and it was for her.

Next, he decided he was going to conquer a country city thing. So how it looked on paper was something like he’d march on in to this meeting and help the people make decisions.

It was just a little more forceful than that. He pretty much became a dictator.

Now his laws weren’t to terrible at first. In fact, there were pretty good. He expanded the kingdom, and pretty much got rid of all the Muslim Tatars. This also helped a lot with trade.

And when he conquered a city full of them, he cried because of all the dead. And he felt bad, and he had pity on them.

But that flew right out the window. Like cats and dogs.

“Hey! You’re getting your blog in my judgement!”
“Hey! You’re getting your judgement in my blog!”

Because three years later, he had a celebration. And he built a church. “HEY! YEAH! WE KILLED A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE! LET’S BUILD A CHURCH!”

And it looks like onions.

It was said that he hired two Italian artists to build it. And afterwards, he gouged their eyes out so they would never make anything as beautiful. Yeeeeah.

Or maybe it was two Russians. Maybe he took out their eyes. I dunno. It doesn’t say.

So Russia started up a little trade with the rest of Europe. However, this wasn’t a very big trade, because they were kinda like Japan in keeping themselves walled up. This made Ivan really rich, but the rest of Russia was really poor due to the Feudal System. The peasants were poor, the roads were unpaved, and almost everyone was illiterate.

And in 1560, Anastasia died.

Yeeeeah. Ivan believed she was poisoned, and he might have been right. Because some scientists found a LOT of mercury in her corpse’s hair. This made Ivan mad and insane. Which I’m thinking he was also poisoned, but had a higher tolerance. Mercury pretty much makes you insane, so I’m guessing Ivan got a little bit too.

Ivan sent a farewell letter (?) to the public, and sent one to Moscow about his official resignation. Sorta. He said that he was overthrown by some nobles and the church. Herpderp.

The Lower Class missed him SO BAD. So bad. They begged him to return, because they were afraid they’d crumble without him. So he went back to the throne.

WITH AN IRON FIST. A cruel and paranoid iron first. A very scary iron fist. A very insane iron fist.

And with an attempt to protect himself, he created a WHOLE NEW CLASS of citizens. They were basically a lot of bodyguards. Whether out of paranoia or legitamate danger, he had 1,000 at the beginning and it quickly grew to about 6,000. And this was the beginning of the infamous Russian secret police. They had very, very, VERY few laws except for one: PROTECT IVAN.

And there were two classes now: The ones protecting Ivan, and the rest of them. That means everyone was pushed into Serfdom. This RUINED the economy, and everyone was just confused. It was rumoured that there was a revolt brewing, so guess what Ivan did?

KILL THEM ALL.

At least 3,000 were killed. However, some say that up to 30,000 were killed. Some said that 6,000 were tortured to death. I dunno. But bad shtuff went down.

Ivan spent a lot of time praying, though. He drank excessively. He did all he could to instill fear into his people. He dressed his secret police in BLACK ROBES AND SKULL MASKS.

WHAT THE HECK.

They were the first Death Eaters~!

Okbutso. They’re now going to be called Death Eaters, kay?

The Death Eaters had little tortured chambers which resembled Hell where they impaled victims, roasted them, flayed (that’s skinned alive, for those who don’t know), and fried them. Yes, fried. With oil. Ain’t that nice?

So the Death Eaters were now murderous thugs. Yay~!

The thing that put him over the edge was when he hit his pregnant daughter. This caused her to loose the baby, and her husband got in a fight with Ivan. He killed him, and then proceeded to feel really really REALLY bad.

He suffered a ~strange illness~ towards to end of his life, which was probably poisoning. On his death bed, he wanted to make the vows of a monk and be buried as such. Someone thought this was a good idea, and let him be a monk. He was buried like one.

So yeah. He wasn’t really that bad at first, but... Yeeeeah. It got really bad at the end.

Oh, by the way...

Since the beginning on this lesson...

HE’S BEEN STARING INTO YOUR SOUL~!

Witty Title

All homeschoolers love Calvin and Hobbes. Even some Public Schoolers LOVE Calvin and Hobbes. But homeschoolers especially.

And if you don’t know who Calvin and Hobbes are, go find them. Google. Local bookstores (not like Borders or anything. Like, local). Everywhere. Because Calvin and Hobbes are amazing.

And this is the man that Calvin was named after.

John Calvin~!

Skip back about a hundred yours from John Calvin. We have Jan Huss. Who was all “Is Mr. P-to-da-ope good?” And then he got killed. And so did a lot of his peeps. An so did John Wycliffe. And then Martin Luther accidentally the Reformation. And he didn’t like the indulgences, so he wanted to have an argument, but hey. So while Luther was over here in the Germany, Ulrich Zwingli was all up in the Switzerland but he and Luther were like “Well yeah but no.” Because Even though they were both reformists, they still had differing views. And this made a wall between the Lutherans and the other Protestants.

And the other protestants who followed Ulrich disagreed with Baptism and the separation of church and state. Then this dood come up and was named Menno was making the Anabaptists. And while they were all getting together, Henry VIII was like JUST GON MARRY ERRYBODY and to do that he needed to mess with the church a little bit. And he made himself the SUPREME HEAD OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, which left Mr. P-to-da-ope very angry.

So look at this picture. LOOK AT IT. You see how stuff is screwing all the way up? While humanism was all big, God was also working on His stuff too. England and the west-ish area of Europe was being reformed.

JOHN CALVIN.

More than the rest before him, he solidified the rest of the movement. He was HUGE GIANT THING PERSON THING. He worked really hard at preaching, teaching, and writing. He was born in Northern France (Onhonhonhon~) and he was pushed to be a thriving member of the church. And at just 11, he went to college in Paris. Now I don’t know if that’s some sort of normal thing like if college was different or something, but that’s just impressive. But he got his masters at about 17, which is pretty impressive no matter what. He studied things like theology and law and shtuff, and he was pretty eloquent. And when he was in his young twenties, he converted to Christianity. He was teaching Protestant shtuffs in France. And France was not very kind to Protestants. And one of Calvin’s closest friends had to leave France, and Calvin joined him. And while John was running through Switzerland, he met this guy named Will Farrel William Farel. He wanted him to stay in Switzerland. And he did, but he didn’t really want to. But still, Will and John started up a church. But Jon started to pass up Will, but he was never jealous.

John was all humble and nice and stuff, and he didn’t get paid a lot because he didn’t want to, and he was all small and tiny and shtuff. But he was a strong preacher and everyone loved him. So that was good. He preached messages starting in Romans. However, Will and John weren’t perfect either. They set out to convert EVERYONE. Forcefully. And you know how that turns out.

After three years, John and Will got kicked out of the city. Will kept preaching and john settled down and married a nice old widow. However, the people who were hired to replace Will and John were really bad at preaching, so some people starting begging John to come back. So he didn’t really want to go, but he did anyways. So he went back ad kept preaching on the letters of Paul. So he started a very strict moral code, and made gambling, drinking, dancing, swearing, etc. etc. Adultery, Idolatry, and blasphemy were punishable by death. The others were just punishable by, you know, torture and imprisonment.

John did believe in separation of Church and state, but not too much. If that makes sense. It doesn’t really. So he created a group called a consistory. It had members from both the church and the state. They were basically churchy policemen, and they made sure everyone followed the moral code. For those who believed in Biblical teachings, then it was a wonderful place to live. There was a huge drop in crime, and everyone was happy. Sorta. You see, sometimes people took it a little too far. Three men were imprisoned for laughing at church. Some children were punished for eating cake during church. They were not allowed to have more than a certain number of plates on a diner table. Someone who wrote a bad note about John Calvin was tortured twice a day for a month, and then executed.

And there was this guy.

His name was Micheal, and he was one of the many executed. However, he was a true heretic. He was confusing many Europeans with Christ’s Deity, which is a fundamental belief of the Christian faith. And while Micheal was just passing through the city, And John saw him in the streets, so was captured and executed. He was put on trial, but no lawyer or means to defend himself. And he was proven guilty and set to burn. However, John didn’t want him to burn, and just wanted to behead him. Because burning hurts a lot worse than having a quick, clean beheading. Also, Micheal had to burn in green wood, which burns a lot slower and produces a lot of smoke and is worse in every single way.

This left a dark cloud over John’s conscience and name.



*cough*

Anyway.

He preached almost every day of the week, and he set up a university, and wrote a lot. However, he also got only four hours of sleep and ate once a day. So he wasn’t exactly healthy. He also grieved a lot when his wifeh died, which made it worse. He wrote another book called “Institutes of the Christian Religion.” He started it when he was in France, and dedicated it to Francis I.

So John Calvin fathered ANOTHER branch of Protestantism. Calvinism! The Pilgrims actually were Calvinists, also.

And er uh.

Soyeahtheend.

Moose and Otter and Moose

So we’re done with CC. Thank goodness. He was getting a bit old, eh?
SO NOW IT’S TIME FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.
Ghana, Mali, and Songhai were three territories in Africa.
REWIND!
*vrrrmp*
Ancient Egyptians. Some people like to forget that Egypt was on the coast of Africa, but it is. There a Pharaoh named Amenhotep, Nefertiti, and Kind Tut. They all believed in one god. The Kushites and the Noks also stood out a little bit, but they weren’t as big as Egypt. They were in the south. Zombabwe came over and was all “HAYY GUYSS~! <333” So what about the rest of Africa? Well, in the west of Africa, there were some men called the Griots. They had to memorize history, and they still do it. Because of the Griots, they pretty much know all the history of all of Africa. Woahdood. So let’s start with the first place. Ghana. There is a legit modern day Ghana, but it’s not the same as this Ghana. The rules charged a lotta taxes on people who were just passing through, but not the people who lived there. You had to pay them in salt or gold. There was a lot of Salt to the north of Ghana, and a lot of gold to the south of Ghana. Now you’d think that gold was a lot more valuable than salt. BUTLOLNOPE. Salt was really expensive because they didn’t have fridgerators. Ok. Hold on. Let me explain. We’ve been over this. Salt + food = preservation. And it also protected peeps from dehydration, because they were reul close to the equator. So Ghana hung out for about 300 years. And then in 1070, the Mooselooms- Wait. What were the Mooselooms?

Plus:

Equals:
MOOSELOOM.
Ok. Butso the Mooselooms decided to trololover.
So then a new empire EMERGED FROM TEH ASHES~
Mali~!
It rose up in about the same Ghana. Mali had a lot of gold. Like, a LOT of gold. The founder of Mali was named Sundiata, pronounced “Soon-da-otta”

Ok but so.
Otter’s legs were kinda really screwed up. He was all gud with the upper body, but he couldn’t walk. And then here comes a blacksmith and he was all “ALL BETTER~!” So he got better. By the age of 10, Otter was an amazing hunter. He defeated some people and the Kingdom of Mali was the Empire of Mali.
And then 75 years later, a new power ROSE TO FAME. His name was Mansamusa. Pronounced... “Man’s-a-moose-uh”

Dude. What is with these names. LIKE REALLY.
AND MOOSE LIKE. LIKE I MEAN WHAT.
Ok.
So.
Mansamusa (i like that more than Moose. It’s fun.) was very impressed with the Mooselooms (I WONDER WHY) so he decided to head over to Meca. So Mansamusa decided to join sum’a his Mooseloom buddies on a pilgrimage to Meca. And to impress others on his journey to Meca, he decided to pass out A LOT OF GOLD. So Europeans decided to pay some attention to Mansamusa. Like, you know how people look at, you know, Brad Pitt and say, “I’m going in to show business.” Or people look at Steve Jobs and say, “LOLNOPE.”
...
Too zune?
“Hey! You got your judgement in my blog!”
“Hey! You got your blog in my judgement!”
Ok.
So.
Mansamusa got Mali put on the map. No4srs. Mali was put on the map with a picture of Mansamusa with a gold nugget. 4tehlulz.
Ok so a buncha tourists decided to make a visit to Mali. They found a buncha gold. AND THEY FOUND TIMBUKTU.
Everyone knows Timbuktu. It’s fun to say. Nobody really knows what is is or where it was. BUT NOW YOU DO. IT WAS IN MALI. IN AFRICA.
So Mansamusa came back from Meca with a buncha Muslims. They had Mosques, courts, schools, and strict laws. An odd thing is that Mansamusa never really took on Islam. He kept his African stuff, and the country is still a blend of religion.
SO NOW LET’S HAVE A SUPER COOL TRANSITION.
Songhai. It was STILL IN THE SAME PLACE. They slowwwlyy took over Mali. Askia Muhammad took over just one year after CC over hurr “found” America.
So Songhai, Mali, and ghana are all the same place.
Okso Askia kept the gold trade amovin’. Askia adopted Islam, and he appointed Mooselooms to some government positions. Even though 97 percent of Songhai was not even Muslim. A lot of the major cities had Mosques, even though ONLY THREE PERCENT OF THE POPULATION WAS MUSLIM.
So they standardized weights and measures. Beacuse what would happen is:
“AY MAN I NEED 5 OUNCES OF GOLD.”
And you give me this much:

And then Someone else gives me this much:

So they fixed that.
There was a big university, it had a lot of hand-written books, and the place was pretty presumptuous.
So EVERYTHING WAS GOOD AND NICE AND AWSUM LIKE THAT THE END?