Year 12 Modern - D-Day Landing in Saving Private Ryan

Here is the youtube clip showing the first 20 minutes or so of the D-Day landings in Saving Private Ryan. The action is very realistic, shows the Omaha beach landings in real time, and displays the confusion and horror of warfare during the Normandy landings of 1944.

Year 12 Modern - Battles of WW2

Hi guys. Welcome back to Term 3. I'm sure you're all ready to work super-hard before the Trials in Week 4. We'll be covering the last sections of the Conflict in Europe syllabus in preparation for the assessment, but first, here are some links to webpages about the three major battles we need to know:

Battle of Britain
Battle of Stalingrad
Battle of El Alamein

By the way, the attached image is a map showing the location and range of German aircraft during the Battle of Britain.

Year 12 Ancient - Lives of Eminent Commanders

Welcome back to Term 3, Year 12 Ancient. We have an intensive few weeks coming up, where we will aim to finish the rest of the course, and begin revising for the Trial HSC. Tutorials will start next week, most probably on Monday afternoons at 1.30 or so. I will keep you posted on that.

For now, here are the links to the ancient Roman sources (written by Cornelius Nepos, c.50BC) on some famous ancient commanders:

Miltiades
Themistocles
Aristides the Just
Pausanias
Cimon

Remember, you need to know all five of these guys for the HSC, plus Eurybiades and Leonidas.

Year 12 Ancient/Modern - Poll Results

Hi guys, hope everyone is enjoying their holidays...and studying hard. There are plenty of old exam papers you can be looking at on the BOS website.

meanwhile, the latest poll results (a few days late, I know):

Why did Xerxes leave Greece after Salamis? According to 77% of you, it was because he was so humiliated after the battle.

And why did Hitler invade the USSR? 83% of you believed he wanted more territory (lebensraum), whilst 50% each (you could make mulitple responses) said it was because he hated communism, and because it had been his lifelong obsession. All pretty accurate, I would say - Hitler certainly did see the fight with Russia as an ideological and racial showdown, that was both inevitable, and necessary for Germany's survival.

Year 12 Ancient - Athens Documentary

If you get bored in the holidays...here is the History Channel docco on Ancient Athens. It is in three parts, so link through to the next instalments.

Have a great holiday!

Year 12 Modern - The World At War

The World At War was an incredible documentary series made in the 70s, covering the whole of WW2 in 26 one-hour episodes. You can access pretty much all of it on youtube, though in 10-minute segments. I am embedding the first sections of some of the most relevant episodes below. Just click on them to start watching, and then you can link through to the next instalments via youtube.

Episode 2: A Distant War (Poland - 1939)



Episode 3: France Falls (1940)



Episode 5: Barbarossa (1941)



Episode 8: Desert (North Africa, 1940-43)

Year 12 Ancient - Delian League/Athenian Democracy Powerpoint

Hi folks. Here is the PowerPoint we did last week, outlining the main points for the rest of the Greek World syllabus:

Delian League/Athenian Democracy

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Year 12 Ancient - Delian League Map

Here is a map showing the major Greek alliances in the 5th Century BC - the Delian league (Athena and its allies) and the Peloponnesian League (Sparta and its allies). The Delian League was mainly an anti-Persian grouping, aimed at fostering trade, at freeing the Ionian poleis, and ensuring Athenian supremacy in the Aegean. The Peloponnesian League was mainly a defensive alliance, aimed at controlling the helots, bolstering Sparta's small population, and ensuring Spartan predominance in the Peloponnese. Over the decades following the Persian Wars, the two leagues jostled for power, and eventually conflict broke out between them, culminating in the destructive Second Peoloponnesian War (431-404BC).

Year 12 Modern - Flash Animations of WW2

Hi guys. As those of you who came to class this week may remember, we watched a pretty exhaustive (and exhausting) flash animation of the conflict in the East. You can find this fantastic resource (in English) here.

You can also find a flash animation outlining the course of the whole war here.

There is a whole range of multimedia resources on WW2 on the BBC History wesite. You can also search around on this site for some equally great WW1 movies, galleries, animations, and interactive sites.

Year 12 Ancient/Modern - Poll Results

Hurray! The biggest voting numbers yet! I guess it could have something to do with the assessments last week...(which I hope went well, by the way...)

When it came to Hitler's biggest mistake in WW2 - 69% of you said it was his invasion of the USSR. Certainly, that would be the view of most modern historians.

As for the most interesting battle in the Persian Wars - 71% of you went with Thermopylae. That must be The 300 effect. 19% of you voted for Salamis, and the rest went with Marathon. Surprise, surpise - nobody voted for Artemisium, Plataea, or Mycale.