Module 7

A pandemic is the global outbreak of a disease. Pandemics are generally classified as epidemics which occur regionally instead of nationally. Pandemics are described by their geographic scale rather than the severity of illness. The smallpox outbreak after Europe's conquest in different parts of the world would therefore make it an epidemic. During the 18th century, smallpox was introduced to Australia by Great Britain. European colonization imports introduced smallpox into North America during the 17th century. The smallpox was brought to the Caribbean and South and Central America through European colonization in the 16th century. Because the spread of this disease was widespread nationally, it can be considered a pandemic. Annual seasonal influenza are epidemics, but pandemic influenza emerges when it spreads around the world and people do not have immunity to the harmful health hazards that come with it. Viruses that only spread in one region are epidemics and cannot be considered pademics. Endemic diseases are more common than pandemics.


There are various pandemics that have occured in the past. HIV and AIDS were first documented in 1981. It first appeared as a rare lung infection that weakens the immune system. HIV is passed through bodily fluids such as blood transfusions, needles, secual contac or from pregnant women to her child. HIV opens the body to infections that would normally not cause problems and AIDS is the final stage of HIV.


Smallpox was one of the biggest killer pandemics that were introduced by the Europeans after 1500. It dropped the Native American population from 100 million to 5 to 10 million. The symptoms of this virus are high fevers, body aches, and a rash. In 1796 a vaccine for the smallpox was created although the diseases continued to spread. The virus killed 2 million people globally.




Malaria was another virus that was introduced more than 4,000 years ago. It was caused by infected mosquitoes that passed down plasmodium microbes to humans. Microbes grow inside red blood cells that destroyed them during the process. During World War I, malaria immobilized various British, German, and French forces for 3 years.





Polio reached a peak in 1952. Over 58,000 cases of polio were reported and caused 3,145 deaths. This virus is caused by poliovirus poliomyelitis, which attacks the nervous system. The symptoms of this are fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness, and limb pain. There is no cure for polio, but the vaccine was perfected in the 1950s and the U.S has been polio-free since 1979.






Tuberculosis is another virus that can be found in Egyptian mummies. Tuberculosis is airborne. It was a constant problem in Colonial America. at the end of the 19th century, 10% of all US deaths were attributed to tuberculosis. It is caused by the bacteria Mycobacteria tuberculosis.






My experience with this pandemic has been pretty hard. It has been very hard for me to get adapted to everything, especially school. My mental health prior to the pandemic was not doing so well, so when this started my health went a little downhill. It has gotten a lot better. It has been hard for me to adapt to being indoors all the time, but it has gotten better due to the amount of sunshine we have been having. Additionally, this pandemic has forced me to get closer to my mother which has been very nice. I never thought I would have to live through something this crazy. It has brought a lot of fear to my town and my surroundings which sucks. It also sucked to not be able to celebrate my friend’s birthdays with them during this time period. This can be compared to the influenza pandemic or the AIDS pandemic. People were scared to get close to each other during the HIV/AIDS pandemic because they did not know the root of this virus. They soon realized that it could only be transmitted through fluids.





Works Cited: 
https://www.onlinemastersinpublichealth.com/epidemics/
https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/history/history.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK525302/

Module 6

What was the role of Gandhi in India’s struggle for independence?
Gandhi was pro non-violence for independence. He applied an approach of periodic mass campaigns that drew support from Indians, peasants, the urban poor, intellectuals and artisans, capitalists and socialists, and Hindus and Muslims. The British lashed back with periodic repression which provided a greater Indian role in politics. He did not fight for social revolution, but instead he wanted moral transformation for individuals. He wanted to raise the status of "India's untouchables". He also helped women in their efforts to mobilize in their struggle against Britain and their standing in marriage and society. He emphasized the unique efforts that women brought into their society by having a capacity for virtue, self-sacrifice, and endurance therefore suited for nonviolent protests. Gandhi rejected modern industrialization.

Why was African rule in South Africa delayed until 1994, when it had occurred decades earlier elsewhere in the colonial world?
South Africa had been independent of great Britain since 1910, but African rule was delayed because independence had been granted to a government controlled entirely by a white settler minority which was 20% of the populations. The black African majority had no political say in the state. The African people's struggles were internal instead of external. These colonizers were permanent residents rather than colonial intruders. For this reason, it was evidently harder for them to receive their independence.  The book specifically says, "The intransigence of this sizable and threatened settler community helps explain why African rule was delayed until 1994, while India, lacking any such community, had achieved independence almost half a century earlier."

How and why did the anticolonial struggles in India and South Africa differ?
the African government developed apartheid that India did not have. Rigid "pass laws" were enforced in attempts to control the movement of Africans into the cities where they were subjected to extreme forms of social segregation. Racism was present in India but nothing of this magnitude developed there. This may have been a result of the there was an extreme dependence of Africans on the white controlled economy. Unlike India, divisions between the people of South Africa had to do more race, ethnicity, and ideology instead of religion.

Module 5

HIV and AIDS was a huge pandemic from 2005 to 2012. It was first identified in Democratic republic of Congo in 1976. It developed from a chimpanzee virus. It has been proven to be a global pandemic that killed more than 36 million people since 1981. At the moment, there are about 31-35 million people living with this virus and the vast majority can be found in Sub Saharan Africa. It was believed to have been a curse from God because gay men that were sexually active were targeted by it from the beginning. People soon became more woke and realized that these were not the only individuals that were targeted by this disease. As awareness grew, new treatments for HIV were developed that made this disease more manageable to live with, but AIDS lacks a cure. HIV/AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease. Although AIDS was first observed in American gay communities and developed from West Africa, people learned that the disease spreads through certain body fluids. The disease is still present and there is still not cure to be found for it yet. Those infected by the virus experience fever, headaches, and enlarged lymph nodes upon infections. When the symptoms cool off,  individuals that are carriers become infections through blood and genital fluid and the diseases destroys t-cells.

Module 4

1) World War I occurred when a Serbian nationalist assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne named Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The rulers of Austro-Hungary saw Serbian Slavs as a threat and decided they would "crush" them. Behind the Austro-Hungarians lay an ally which was Germany and behind Serbia was Russia. The allies of Russia were the French and the British. For the conservative British government, going to war meant uniting their nation that had been facing mounting class- and gender based conflicts within European societies. Europeans used a lot of propaganda ensured that Europeans believe that their national identities were valuable. This public pressure on mass media and schools allowed men little to now compromise and ensured maximum support for war. Although most Europeans believed the war would in by Christmas in the late summer of 1914, the war did not end until the German defeat that ended in November 1914. The aftermath of this war brought social and cultural changes. Following these events was the great depression which resulted in an American Stock Market crash. Many banks closed and various people lost their life savings. Eleven Wall Street financiers committed suicide jumping off of skyscrapers. Fascism was intensely nationalistic, seeking to revitalize and purify nations adn to mobilize people for some grand task. This proposed violence against enemies and was promoted by Hitler. It ultimately lead to World War II.

2) What is Fascism? Self guided research.
I learned that fascism is a "form of political practice distinctive to the 20th century that arouses popular enthusiasm by sophisticated propaganda techniques for an anti-liberal, anti-socialist, violently exclusionary, expansionist nationalist agenda". This was viewed with leaders after World War I that consisted of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. The main goal for fascist leaders is to make a nation stronger, more powerful, and successful. Fascists believe that national strength is the only thing that make a nation good. Fascist reigns are good at exposing propaganda and grand gestures. They also scagoat and demonize other groups. This could be seen by Hitler's aim to get rid of those who were Jewish, gay, and who were born with disabilities. Some of the stages of facism include the following:
1) The primacy of the group
2) Believing that one's group is the victim
3) The belief that individualism and liberalism enable dangerous decadence
3) A strong sense of community or brotherhood
5) Individual self-esteem is tied up in the grandeur of the group


3) Although some may believe that Donald Trump is a fascist, I am not sure if I would go far enough to call him that. I don't like the man, but I honestly think he's only racist. The reason I do not believe Donald Trump is a fascist is because he doesn't romanticize violence itself as a cleansing agent of society. Although Trump has fascist tendencies, we have been seeing these tactics throughout history. For example, we saw them with the confederacy when they established Jim Crow and by the 1924 Immigration Act which were racial based immigration exclusions. Fascism is most successful when the audience that is being convinced is left with a destabilized sense of loss. This loss is what is responsible for their mistrust and anger against another race. 

Module 3 Empires in Collision

What accounts for the massive peasant rebellions of 19th century China?
After China's imperial state collapsed, the country was unable to keep many stable functions such as tax collection, flooding control, and social welfare which made it easier for rebellions to form. Corruption was endemic and harsh treatment of peasants was common. The Taiping Uprising called for the abolition of private property, redistribution of land, end of prostitution and opium smoking, and the organization of society into sexually organized military camps of men and women. The Tapian uprising called for posture towards women and their gender roles.

Read the Zooming in segment titled “Lin Zexu: Confronting the Opium Trade.” How might Lin Zexu have handled his task differently or more successfully? Had he been given an impossible mission?
I don't think Lin Zexu could have handled this task differently. I think maybe he could have made some negotiations with Europeans, but he definitely had to set his foot down in order for them to take him seriously. It was a good idea to explain to the Chinese people the health hazards that resulted from smoking opium, and taking the drugs away as well as the tools to smoke the drugs with was a good way to get rid of the problem. Additionally, he arrested various drug dealers that were Chinese which also helped get rid of the problem. Something he could have changed was the manner in which he tried to get foreigners to stop selling to China. The reason I say this is because Europeans held a lot of power, and it is never good to bite the tail of a superpower because in the end it bit him back. His mission was somewhat impossible especially because he was given a job that called to go against a powerful nation. He attempted to get it done and was successful for a little bit, but the success did not last long.

What lay behind the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century?
To begin with, the invasion that Napoleon undertook was a blow that caused them to lose land. After the French left, independent Egypt pursued a modernizing empire. In addition to this, other parts of this empire that included Greece, Siberia, Bulgaria and Romania obtained their independence due to their increasing yearning for independence and support from Britain and Russia to obtain it. The west potion of the Ottoman Empire had weakened because of its inability to raise revenue because local warlords and provisional authorities had gained more power. The Ottoman Empire lost their financial expertise as Europeans began to dominate the oceanic treasure of Asia. Competition with European goods that were cheaper than what the Ottoman Empire had to offer hit them hard. Additionally, the Ottoman EMpire was in debt which resulted in their reliance on foreign loans to finance efforts at economic development.