What did Martin Luther ask for when he was first brought to trial?

Martin Luther was in quite a lot of trouble with the Catholic Church after he made public his Ninety-Five Theses, which criticized a number of practices and beliefs which had become commonplace in Roman Catholicism. His books were burned publicly, and so offensive were his criticisms that he was excommunicated in 1521. A few months later, he was brought to trial at the Diet of Worms. There, he was asked to confirm that several books presented were indeed written by him, and whether he would recant the statements he had made. Luther confirmed that the books were indeed his, but requested that he have some additional time to think over the second question, as his very soul was on the line. He was granted permission to think on it and asked to return the next day.

What are some similarities between Australian and New Zealand society?

Australia and New Zealand share many historical and cultural characteristics due to their heritage as British settler colonies beginning in 1788. Both countries were populated by indigenous people prior to European colonization, with the Maori in New Zealand and indigenous Australians in Australia, and these populations were greatly decreased by the entrance of European settlers and today constitute 8% and 1% of their respective national populations. Relations between indigenous people and European settlers were very tense and resulted in wars in both countries. Each country gained independence from England in the early 20th century, and between 1901 and 1907 they were both considered part of the Commonwealth of Australia. Today, the two countries are separate, but both are part of the Australia New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement, or ANZCERTA, which connects the markets between the countries. Both countries originally used a monetary system based on the British pound and switched to using dollars in the 1960s. Additionally, their governments are similarly structured: they each have a separation of governmental powers, a constitution, and a common law legal system. Indigenous rights are recognized by land titles in both countries that give indigenous people certain self-government and land ownership rights.

How does Atticus demonstrate the following throughout the first eight chapters of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird: "Do unto others as you would...

In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, though Atticus never preaches the Golden Rule stating, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," he does preach his own value that directly relates to the Golden Rule. We see him preach his own value to Scout in the third chapter:

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view-- ... --until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. (Ch. 3)

Atticus's value is directly related to the Golden Rule because we must feel complete, genuine respect for another person to be able to shed our own view long enough to see things from the other person's perspective. In feeling and showing respect for another person, we are following the Golden Rule

One example of Atticus following the Golden Rule within the first eight chapters of the novel can be seen when he treats Walter Cunningham Jr. with complete respect. As recompense for Scout needlessly picking a fight with Walter, Jem invites Walter to the Finches' home for lunch. During lunch, Scout feels surprised by their father's treatment of Walter, as Scout describes in her narration:

Atticus greeted Walter and began a discussion about crops neither Jem nor I could follow. (Ch. 3)

Atticus continues to show the utmost respect to Walter by continuing to converse with him as if he is an adult and forbidding Scout from saying anything rude to him. In treating Walter with the utmost respect, Atticus is following the Golden Rule of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

What is the most significant extract from the poem "The Cry of the Children" by E. B. Browning?

Every part of a poem is highly significant, because every part has the density of meaning that qualifies it as poetry in the first place. Each part of a poem is necessary to the coherency of the poem as a whole.

But often a reader will find that there's an ebb and flow to a poem's meaningful impact. Part of this comes from the author’s craftsmanship, and part of it comes from the particular reader’s own way of encountering the text.

Instead of claiming there’s one line or stanza or sequence that holds the ultimate secret to the poem, let’s look at a few different key moments to see what resonates with us most deeply on a personal level.

Right off the bat, the poem throws us a line from ancient Greece (which the Victorians loved to do). Whenever a poem begins with such an introductory quotation, or an epigraph, we should pay close attention to it. The line goes:

"Pheu pheu, ti prosderkesthe m ommasin, tekna;"
[[Alas, alas, why do you gaze at me with your eyes, my children.]]—Medea.

Medea is a character in Greek mythology. As is usually the case with Greek mythology, there are many versions of her story. But in the one dramatized by Euripides, Medea murders her children (and other people) after her husband, Jason, leaves her for another woman. There are, again, many interpretations about why she decided to do such a horrible thing, but in the climax of Euripides' play, she laments the sight of her children's eyes, and cannot bear the pain.

If nothing else, Browning wanted her poem to force the titans of nineteenth century English industry-- as well as the everyday people of England-- to look for once into the eyes of the child workers they exploited. One could say that the symbolic implication of the allusion to Medea is that English society was spiritually murdering its children.

When we look at the first stanza, the message of the poem is almost entirely given to us:

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,

      Ere the sorrow comes with years ?

They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, —

      And that cannot stop their tears.

The young lambs are bleating in the meadows ;

   The young birds are chirping in the nest ;

The young fawns are playing with the shadows ;

   The young flowers are blowing toward the west—

But the young, young children, O my brothers,

      They are weeping bitterly !

They are weeping in the playtime of the others,

      In the country of the free.

At a time in their lives when every other living creature is most innocent, impressionable, and purely awake to the sheer experience of life, thousands, hundreds of thousands, practically countless human children were suffering in factories, mills, and mines, working for nothing from sunrise to sunset and more. And their suffering was not simply a numb, stupid ache, but a weeping sorrow that could not be comforted. Browning points out the high irony of this happening in a country that proclaimed itself collectively ‘free’ and Christian.

But then the heart of the poem might be stanza four, where the emotional punch of the poem hits its hardest:

 "True," say the children, "it may happen

      That we die before our time !

Little Alice died last year her grave is shapen

      Like a snowball, in the rime.

We looked into the pit prepared to take her —

   Was no room for any work in the close clay :

From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,

   Crying, 'Get up, little Alice ! it is day.'

If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,

   With your ear down, little Alice never cries ;

Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,

   For the smile has time for growing in her eyes ,—

And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in

      The shroud, by the kirk-chime !

It is good when it happens," say the children,

      "That we die before our time !"

The idea of children saying it would be good to die so they could rest and be free from their constant work is a self-evident proof of the evil and ignorance of the economic order at the time. What argument could a person possibly make in favor of child labor after hearing such a statement from a child?

But we should also look at stanza eight, where Browning momentarily opens into a liberatory and inspiring voice, only to quickly grow dark again, facing the ongoing and culturally- entrenched child exploitation all around her:

Ay ! be silent ! Let them hear each other breathing

      For a moment, mouth to mouth —

Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing

      Of their tender human youth !

Let them feel that this cold metallic motion

   Is not all the life God fashions or reveals —

Let them prove their inward souls against the notion

   That they live in you, or under you, O wheels ! —

Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,

      As if Fate in each were stark ;

And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward,

      Spin on blindly in the dark.

In the last two lines Browning juxtaposes Christianity’s proclaimed love and care for children with the “blind,” subterranean reality God’s soulful creatures are trapped in by humanity’s greed and malice. This moment in the text is powerful enough on its own.

But it's the beginning of the stanza that's the most significant part of the poem for me, especially the idea of the looms and gears falling silent so the children could “hear each other breathing,” so they could feel themselves to be breathing, living beings, and not just servants of the machines. So they could be thankful for their brief, mortal, and beautiful lives, and not look to death as the only hope for peace.

Perhaps for you the most significant part of the poem is something we didn’t touch on here. When you read a new poem, especially a good one, it usually takes at least a few passes through to get an emotional feel for it, and to understand the poem's rhythm. Reading carefully and aloud is often the quickest way to the heart of a poem.

How did the Cold War change Texas from the mid-20th century to TODAY?

Before the Cold War, and particularly before World War Two, the main industries in Texas were oil extraction, refining and transport. Yet even before World War Two, Texas had a relatively large number of airplane repair businesses, and during World War Two, the armed forces built a large number of Texas army bases to station and manufacture aircraft. After the war, once it was clear that future conflicts would be won or lost in the air, Texas benefitted from a surge in growth in defense spending, and because the state had many air bases already, and had already won contracts during the war to build bombers and other military aircraft, a large number of contracts for building next generation military bombers and fighter jets went to companies located in Texas.

By the 1960s, the volume of aircraft manufacturing in North Texas  (Arlington, Forth Worth, et cetera) was second in the nation only to aircraft manufacturing in California. This diversification in industrial priorities in Texas from oil production and support services, to defense contracting, helped turn Texas into a technology and innovation hub. Both the oil and technology sectors benefitted greatly, as did Texas' economy. The large number of army bases in Texas, the amount of cheap land, and the increasingly large number of college graduates from Texas schools who had studied engineering, culminated in a perfect synergy between Texas's burgeoning computing and aerospace engineering companies, and the rapacious appetite of the Defense Department to produce more sophisticated weapons systems to counter the Soviet threat. 

Companies such as General Dynamics, Boeing and Texas Instruments won hundreds of millions of dollars in defense contracts to build rockets, research ballistic missile technology, and test new explosive devices. The high paying jobs that these companies created transformed many sleepy towns into affluent cities or suburbs. To ensure that the state could continue to attract these new businesses, Texas put more money into engineering programs at its state schools, and kept its tax rates very low, to encourage more businesses to come to the state. The electronics and computing companies that sprang up in Texas (like Texas Instruments and Dell) needed energy, and Texas oil drillers and refineries (Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Valero et cetera) benefitted greatly from this growing appetite for energy, from both private industry and government defense programs. Chemical companies in Houston also began to find ways of turning oil into plastic, which became a key component of most consumer goods and of many defense and aerospace parts. 

Finally, Lyndon B. Johnson's decision to locate NASA in Houston in the 1960s brought even more jobs, revenue, military and congressional support, as well as prestige to Texas' aerospace and aeronautics industry. It also helped make Texas a hub for major airline carriers, helping to launch American Airlines and Southwest. Yet more than anything else, it was the mission to put a man on the moon that captured the nation's imagination, and the world's attention. The successful 1969 moon landing, broadcast around the world, solidified the state's reputation as a center for innovation, engineering, can do attitude and military prowess. NASA's control center in Houston made the city a household word around the world, one that signified American ingenuity and American might. Many top scientists and engineers from around the country and the world flocked to Texas to be part of the space exploration and aeronautics industries, which remain a major driver of the Texas economy today.

All of this brainpower in one place led to a perfect creative storm, which led to the formation of such Texas based companies as Dell, AT&T, Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, KBR, Kinder Morgan, Halliburton, Baker Hughes, and many other consumer oriented companies (Sysco, Whole Foods, Dr. Pepper-Snapple, et cetera) which catered to the growing middle class with plenty of disposable income. 

To give some context of way that economic growth affected Texas, the population of Houston in 1950 was just under 600,000. By 1970, it had more than doubled to over 1.2 million, and by 1990, the population in Houston was over 1.6 million. Even more dramatic was the growth in Arlington, which became a defense industry and military hub. The population there went from just 7,692 in 1950, to about 90,000 in 1970, and over 261,000 in 1990. This kind of explosive population growth would not have happened without the pull of the aerospace and aeronautics industry, massive defense spending, the decision to base NASA in Houston, and the innovation that resulted from all of the entrepreneurial talent that these companies attracted to the state. In turn, none of this would have happened without the motivation of the Cold War.

In The Outsiders, what does Ponyboy's premontion about the rumble mean? a.) Identify one answer the author hints at. b.) State the evidence that...

When Ponyboy is contemplating the upcoming rumble in Chapter 8 of The Outsiders, he thinks:

"I had a sick feeling in my stomach and it wasn't from being ill...I had the same deathly fear that something was going to happen that none of us could stop."

While Two-Bit is eager to rumble with the Socs, Ponyboy has the ominous feeling that something bad is going to happen--something that he and his friends have not predicted. The author hints that something unpredictable is going to happen--which turns out to be Johnny's and Dally's deaths. 

The rumble goes well, and the greasers kick the Socs out of their territory. However, when Ponyboy and Dally go to the hospital to tell Johnny about the greasers' victory, Johnny responds, "Useless... fighting's no good." This is the evidence that the author suggests that fighting in the rumble is not going to turn out well for Ponyboy and his friends. Johnny dies shortly afterward, and later Dally dies while robbing a store when he feels anguished by Johnny's death. Ponyboy thinks after his friends have died, "Nothing we can do... not for Dally or Johnny ... My stomach gave a violent start and turned into a hunk of ice." These are the unpredictable events that worried Ponyboy before the rumble. He knew that even if the rumble turned out well, other events would not. 

In My Brother Sam Is Dead by Christopher and James L. Collier, what does father die from?

My brother Sam Is Dead is a young adult historical fiction novel that is set during the time of the American Revolution. The main character—Tim Meeker—is a 14-year-old young man who is caught between two other characters with strong opinions about the war.

Tim's brother, Sam, has decided to join the Continental Army in support of secession from the British. Tim's father, Eliphalet, is loyal to Britain. Because of this loyalty, he is accused by the rebels of selling beef to the British and forced onto a prison ship. While on the prison ship, he contracts Cholera and dies from the disease.

As can be assumed from the book title, Sam also dies after he is executed by his own army when he is falsely accused of stealing cattle from his family.