8G History Lesson 45 Assignment

In this assignment, I will be summarizing the founding and early history of Washington D.C.

Washington D.C. was founded on July 16, 1790. Congress had signed the Residence Act a year before, which made it possible to set up a new capitol. Before Washington D.C., Philadelphia and New York City had served as the capitol. George Washington chose the site, between Georgetown and Alexandria. Maryland and Virginia both gave of some of their land to make room for the capitol. The territory around Washington was named the District of Columbia to honor Christopher Columbus.

George Washington appointed Pierre L’Enfant, a French designer, to plan the layout of the city, and Andrew Ellicott surveyed the area. Thomas Johnson, Daniel Carroll, and David Stuart were chosen by Congress to oversee the work.

The design of Washington D.C. has influences from Greek and Roman architecture. The city was laid out like a grid, and it had big buildings for all the main branches of government. L’Enfant brought some of his French style into the mix, with some parts similar to Paris.

In 1800, Washington D.C. became the official capitol of the United States. The Capitol and the President’s house (now the White House) were finished soon after. There wasn’t much housing and the people who lived there were miserable in the early years.

Most of D.C. was destroyed in 1814, during the War of 1812, when the British invaded the city and burned it. The city slowly recovered, and in 1817 the new White House was built, and in 1819, the new Capitol was built.

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/place/Washington-DC/History

https://www.ronpaulcurriculum.com/public/13146.cfm?cid=BBCEE3A7-D848-9838-A6FB082D7BCC375D

https://washington.org/DC-information/washington-dc-history

PF Lesson 50 Assignment

In this assignment, I will explain why interest rates are different for different kinds of loans.

Loan prices are always different for different loans. There are many reasons why they are different. Here are some:

The risk of a loan can impact the interest rate because if there is higher risk, the lender wants to be sure they can make their money out of it. High-risk loans include personal loans, and credit card loans. These are riskier, because the lender doesn’t know if the person receiving the money will pay it back. If you have a credit card, you are probably very well aware of the high interest rates.

Time can also affect the interest rate. Short-term loans might have lower interest rates because the lender’s money is not away for as long, which means that longer-term loans would have higher interest rates because the lenders money would be away for longer. An example of a long-term loan would be a mortgage.

Other reasons:

If the lender thinks the loan is going to be used to make more money, or increase the borrower’s productivity, then the lender might give a lower interest rate, because it is more likely that the loan will be payed back.

The credit score of the borrower can also impact the interest rate.

In short, the main reasons that make interest rates different are time, risk, credit score, and what the loan will be used for.

PF Lesson 55 Assignment

The assignment for this week had two parts:

Part One:

Find the daily average interest rate for all variable rate credit cards: 20.15%. Then calculate the interest you would have to pay on a $600 credit card balance compounded monthly over six months: $105.96

Part Two:

Write 300 words on a government regulation that affects interest rates, then give your opinion on that regulation:

I did have some trouble with this one, but here is my effort: (more like 200 words)

The Federal Deposit Insurance Act is a law that establishes the FDIC. The FDIC stands for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The FDIC insures bank deposits of up to 250,000 dollars. The FDIC sets limits on the interest rates that banks can set.

One of the problems with the FDIC is that it discourages banks from having better security. The banks don’t care about their security as much because if their money is stolen, the government will bail them out. It also discourages the people from pushing the banks to be better, because they know that their money will be safe. The banks could have had better insurance or their own policies about this issue, but the FDIC restricts that too.

The FDIC only insures deposits of up to 250,000 dollars, which would discourage people from saving their money in banks.

In summary, the FDIC is an unnecessary government agency that restricts banks and the people that use them.

10
Jan, 2025

8G History Lesson 40 Assignment

In this assignment, I will be summarizing the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark’s expedition.

The Louisiana Purchase was about 828,000 square miles of land that was purchased from France by the U.S. It is regarded as the largest land purchase in history. It was quite a bargain too, at less than 3 cents per acre! The average price of an acre of land in Pennsylvania today is over 40,000 dollars!

The Louisiana purchase doubled the size of the U.S! It also added more natural resources, and overall helped strengthen the country. The treaty was signed on May 2, 1803. The total cost of the purchase was 27,267,622 dollars!

Lewis and Clark’s Expedition

The Lewis and Clark Expedition was an important expedition when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were commisioned by Thomas Jefferson to explore the other side of the continent. Meriwether Lewis was a leiutenant in the army, and he was also a politician. William Clark was a captain in the army also.

They set out on May 14, 1804. During their journey they traveled over 8,000 miles across forests, plains, rivers and mountains. They encountered many Native American settlements and traded with them. They also identified a lot of new species.

When they returned, they were greeted as heroes. Their actions and bravery inspire people today.

8G History Lesson 35 Assignment

In this assignment, I will be summarizing two of the cultural events that were discussed this week: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Mozart was a famous Austrian composer who lived in the 18th century. He is regarded as one of the best composers ever. Let’s dive in to his life and his works:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria. His father, Leopold Mozart was a famous violinist, and his mother played the harpsichord, so his musical talent clearly ran in his blood!

Mozart was a musician even in his toddler years! At the age of three, he was playing chords on his family’s harpsichord. At four, he started playing short pieces, and at five he was already composing music! He was described as being very gentle and kind yet also outgoing.

Mozart’s father started taking him on tours around the country, where he played for nobility. His sister, Nannerl Mozart was a very talented musician also, and she sometimes went on tours with him.

Mozart continued composing pieces throughout his life. He wrote over 600 pieces in his lifetime, including ones for Benjamin Franklin’s glass harmonica! He married Constanze Weber in 1782. He had six children, but only two survived to adulthood.

Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin

Eli Whitney was an American inventor best known for inventing the Cotton Gin, although he contributed in other ways to technology.

Eli Whitney was born on December 8, 1765. His father was a farmer who served as justice of the peace. He went to Yale college, where he learned many of his engineering skills.

In the south at that time, there were two types of cotton: green-seed and black-seed. The black-seeded one was easy to clean and separate the seeds, but it could only be grown on the coast, so it wasn’t very popular. The green-seeded variety could grow more widely in the south, but it was very hard to separate the seeds. Whitney noticed this, and he realized that if someone could invent a machine to separate the seeds, they would become very rich.

He started to make a model that had cylinders with nails and brushes on them, so when it was turned, it cleaned the seeds. (This is a simplification, the exact machine is more complex.) He further refined his design, then patented it. This helped revolutionize the cotton plantations, and made work easier for the slaves.

Eli Whitney also invented other things, like a milling machine, but he is best known for the Cotton Gin.