I live in Southern Illinois. These are three varieties of Roses that grow well where I live: Tea Rose bushes, the Texas Rose, and Long Stemmed Rose. Tea rose bushes produce small pink roses. The Texas Rose is yellow. Also, the long-stemmed rose comes in a variety of colors. Roses need direct morning sunlight but indirect afternoon sunlight. Roses also need water but not enough to soak them. Roses need to be trimmed two-three times per year. They need to be covered to protect them from frost and snow. Some people use bug preventer so that they will thrive and bloom. Aphids and Japanese beetles are the main enemies of roses here in Southern Illinois. Roses are the most recognizable flowers ever known to man. There are over three hundred species of roses. My Mom had black and white roses at her wedding. I love roses.
Nehemiah was a Jew. Nehemiah was alive when King Artaxerxes ruled. Nehemiah served King Artaxerxes as a cupbearer. A cupbearer tests the king’s drink to see if it is poison or not.
One day, another Jew came to the temple and told Nehemiah about the wall of Jerusalem. Nehemiah was sad. The king asked him why. Nehemiah was afraid what the king’s answer might be, but he asked the king if he could go to Jerusalem and the king’s answer was yes!
Nehemiah returned to his home and saw that it hadn’t been rebuilt. He gathered up all the people and rebuilt the wall in 52 days. They did it so quickly because they each worked on the section their home was at. While the wall was being rebuilt, other cities heard of it and tried to attack, but Nehemiah told everyone to defend their part of the wall and they defeated the other cities and were successful with rebuilding the wall. The wall stood until 70 A.D.
Plato was a great Greek philosopher. His teacher was named Socrates. Socrates was also a philosopher. Plato owned an academy and called it Plato’s academy. His most famous work was called The Republic.
Archimedes was the most famous Greek scientist and mathematician. Archimedes created a number system called exponents. He counted all the sand in our solar system and created pullies and levers.
There were other philosophers that thought the world was flat, or everything was made of fire, or everything was made of water. They also thought the world was a cone or the earth was at the center of the solar system. Archimedes was my most favorite person to learn about.
Perseus was a prince. His uncle was afraid Perseus would take the throne from him, so he put Perseus and his mother in a box and threw the box into the river. Later a fisherman found the box and saved Perseus and his mother.
At the fisherman’s island, the king loved Perseus’s mother but hated Perseus. Some days the king tried to marry her, but Perseus always stopped him. Perseus wanted to stop him, so he went to kill Medusa.
Medusa was a gorgon. A gorgon was a woman with a really beautiful face that was cursed by the gods and anyone who looked on its face turned to stone. Medusa was mortal so Perseus could kill her. The gods gave him a knapsack, a sword, darkness to hide in, winged sandals, and a polished shield. Perseus beheaded Medusa and went to the kingdom where the king was trying to marry his mother again. Perseus was mad, so he closed his eyes and pulled out Medusa’s head and every wicked person who looked on it turned to stone. Later the fisherman and Perseus’s mother got married and Perseus became king.
Sparta families were thought to make the State weaker. The only reason people could get married is so that the boys had to go to the military. The boys have to be at age 7 to go to the military. The only way to get food is to steal it, but if you get caught, you get a really bad consequence.
Married couples could not be seen together, they could not eat together, and the woman could not be with their husband ever. Unwanted children in Sparta were either put outside to die or adopted by other families to be slaves.
Life in Sparta sounds bad to me. I wouldn’t like to live in Sparta. Probably you too. If I lived in Sparta, I would not like to be in the military.
Once there were twin baby princes named Romulus and Remus. Their uncle who was king did not want them to take over the kingdom, so he threw them into a river to drown. Once he left, a she-wolf found them and rescued them. She fed them like they were her cubs. Days later, a farmer and his wife found them and raised them until they grew up. When they were grown up, they found out they were princes. Once they found out, they were princes, they started looking for a place to build their cities. They each prayed to their gods to show them a sight. They each found a mountain and the next day they each came down and said they each saw a sign. They began to argue and in that argument, Romulus killed Remus. He went up his hill which was the Palatine hill and named his city Rome.
A couple weeks after he finished Rome, he realized they didn’t have women and without women, Rome would not last long. He invited neighboring cities for a feast in honor of Neptune. When they were eating, Rome kidnapped the men’s daughters and married them. Once the men saw that they kidnapped their daughters, they called a fight. When they were about to start the fight, the woman ran between them and told them to stop for they were happy with their new husbands.
The Iliad was written by a bard named Homer. A bard is a story writer. One day, Paris, the prince of Troy, came to visit Menelaus, king of Sparta, and Helen, queen of Sparta. Helen was considered to be the most beutiful women in all the world. Many men fought to win her hand in marriage. Helen’s father told all the men that if anyone steals her, you all have to team up against him. One night, Paris kidnapped Helen and took her to Troy. King Menelaus went to Troy to rescue Helen. He took with him Agamemnon, the high king Odysseus the wisest, Ajax an impressive warrior, and Achilles, the strongest, along with many other warriors. One day some warriors built a horse called the Trojan horse. It was so big, 20-30 men could fit inside. Also, The inside fo it was hollow. Some of the men hid inside and the others pretended to get away, but they actually went a quarter of a mile away. At night, the men got out of the Trojan horse and opened the gates, and the others came in and destroyed the city. The Trojan war lasted ten years.
There were four kings after Josiah. Their names were Jehoaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. A person named Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon besieged Jerusalem because Jehoiakim refused to pay tribute. His son took over after his father died. His son was Jehoiachin and did evil in the sight of the Lord and surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar deported 10,000 residents including Jehoiachin and his family. Nebuchadnezzar took his uncle and renamed him Zedekiah and made him king.
Jedekiah also refused to pay tribute and Nebuchadnezzar finally destroyed the city. Some ways he did that was destroying all the walls, he killed Zedekiah’s children, he poked Zedekiah’s eyes out, and he took him as prisoner, and one day, he was in prison he died.
Judah was captured 70 years. One night there was a party and a hand appeared writing on the wall. A person named Daniel read the words and then said that the Persians would capture the Babylonians. That night it happened. The new king of Persia let Judah go home.
There were 20 kings of Judah. The first king of Judah who was remembered as a good king was Asa, the third king of Judah. The first kings were Rehoboam and Abijah. Asa made a treaty with Ben-Hadad. Elijah told Asa God was not pleased of him, but Asa threw Elijah in jail. He died for reigning 41 years.
Asa’s son was Jehoshaphat, and his son was Jehoram. Jehoram married Athaliah, who was not a believer. Their son, Ahaziah was a wicked king. His mother Athaliah was the only queen of Judah and killed all her grandchildren, but her youngest grandchild escaped.
His name was Joash. Joash was six years old when he became king. When his grandmother heard the shouting, she rushed into the temple and ordered Joash to be killed. They wouldn’t listen. Joash commanded Athaliah to be stoned, and she was.
Joash’s son, Amaziah was the next king. He started out as a good king like his father. Then he worshiped idols, but soon his people killed him.
His son, Uzziah, was a good king, but he also sinned. God struck him with leprosy. His son reigned with him because his father was sick and so his brothers would not kill him. The other kings of Juday were Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, and Josiah.
David was the youngest son of Jesse. He was a shepherd, and his brothers were in the army of King Saul. While David was a shepherd, he practiced his slingshot. He killed a lion and a bear.
One day, his father asked him to check on his brothers. David went to check on them and he saw a giant saying, “Let your best man come and fight me, and if you win, we will be your servants. If we win, you will become our servants.” David went to Saul and told him he would fight Goliath, and Saul said, “No you are too little. He will slaughter you.” But David said, “The Lord God is with me.” Saul said Okay and let David put on his armor. The armor was too heavy. David took it off. He went to a river and got five smooth stones. The next day, David faced Goliath and Goliath said that David came to him with a stick. David said he came with God, and he swung his slingshot. He hit Goliath in the forehead, and Goliath fell. Just to make sure he was dead, David cut off Goliath’s head with Goliath’s sword. The Philistines fled and Israel’s army ran and killed most of their army.
Samuel, a prophet, told Saul David would be the next king. Saul was selfish and tried to kill David. When David was in the forest, Samuel anointed David. Devid waited until Saul was dead. When he was dead, David came out from hiding, but everyone else wanted Saul’s sone to be king. So David waited two more years then became king. While David was still king, he did sin. One of those sins was he married a woman named Bathsheba who was married to a person named Uriah. One battle, David told his people to kill Uriah, and they did. For David’s punishment, their first son died in childbirth.