Nationalism

     Nationalism is where people live in, support, and fight for your country. Most people formed their own country together by breaking away from an empire. Many things are done to keep the country together. 

     In competition, people support their country during a sporting event such as the Olympics. Countries have to win the Olympics by winning as much gold medals as possible or the most amount of medals. If there is a war, then people can defend the country by joining the military. 

     A country can have a culture, religion, language, history, symbols, currency, and connection. It got all that by breaking from a strong empire. It's people got it all by rallying against their enemies. 

Simon Bolivar and Latin American Revolutions

Around the early 19th century, Latin America started to revolt against their Spanish counterparts for independence. They were lead by Simon Bolivar. Bolivar was born in 1783. He traveled through Europe for most of the time. In 1811, Bolivar saw that his home country was gaining independence from Spain. So he became their leader. He lost the first few battles, but then he made surprise battles against the Spanish.
Bolivar got some help from some other countries that had recently won their independence. Soon he was winning battles all around Latin America. He was great as a general, but not as a government leader.
Bolivar died of turberculosis in 1830 at the age of 47. After he died, people thought of him as the Latin American version of George Washington, though not at the same level. But Bolivar did help his native country win independence from Spain.

Copernicus and the trial of Galileo

During the ancient times, Greeks and the Roman Catholic Church believed that the Earth was at the center of the solar system. However this was not true. Aristotle thought that heavy objects fell faster than a small object. That is not true either. Sometime in the 1500's Galileo, according to legend, went up the Leaning Tower. He used a big and small stone. Both stones fell at the same speed. This is true, so Galileo proved Aristotle wrong. The Church eventually accused him of doing that and forced him to say the wrong things. A hundred years later, Isaac Newton proved that the sun was the center of the solar system. That too, is true. We now know that all objects fall at the same speed, no matter the size. We also now know that the sun is at the center of the solar system.

Enlightenment

The Enlightenment is making a science of government. A famous Englishman named
John Locke thought of that. He thought that people could govern themselves instead of having a king or queen tell them what to do. He thought that people also had free and equal rights. If their government did not protect these rights, then people could start rebelling and start their own country and government.Free and equal rights mean a democracy. If someone got accused of a crime, the punishment for that crime would be limited to a number of years in prison.