What is an Atom? Suppose we were to take a piece of an element, say iron, and keep dividing it up into smaller and smaller pieces. The smallest bit of iron we could have would he an ‘atom’. Each element has its own atoms. All iron atoms are alike. All oxygen atoms are alike. But iron atoms are different from oxygen atoms. Look at the diagram of an oxygen atom. In...

What are chemical elements and compounds? When Water boils into steam or freezes into ice it looks feels very different. However, if steam is cooled down, or ice is heated, they return to liquid water. Both are really just forms of water. Steam is water as a gas and ice is water as a solid.  If we heat paper instead of water it catches fire and burns into smoke and ash....

Which important discoveries were made in China?   The World owes several important discoveries to the people of China. One is so identified with the country that it is known by its name —that is, china or porcelain. The Chinese discovered how to make this very fine form of pottery more than a thousand years ago. People in Europe prized porcelain very highly  but the Chinese refused to tell others how...

What is the Bayeux Tapestry? The Bayeux Tapestry is a hand of 70 m 1,230 ft) long and 5o cm 20 in N.A. embroidered in wool of different it made up of some 70 scenes, accompanied Latin inscriptions. Along the top and hot tom are decorative borders, depicting strange birds and scenes from fables. No one is quite sure about the origins of the Tapestry, but the evidence suggests that it...

American and German literature  In the middle of the eighteenth century American literature had its beginning. One of the first American writers to be known out-side his own continent was Washington Irving, who lived from 1783-1859. His Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow showed Europe that America already had her own legends and way of life. Fenimore Cooper, at the same time in The Pathfinder and The Last...

William Shakespeare Plays Thirty-eight plays are believed to have been written by William Shakespeare. The range of these plays is enormous and express almost every emotion known to man. Not much is known about the early life of this great playwright except that he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, Eng-land and that he wrote a sequence of beautiful sonnets before going to London to become an actor and writer with one...

Who was the first great English poet?   Geoffrey Chaucer is considered by many to be the first great English poet. He lived from about 1345 to 1400 and his writings were greatly influenced by the work of earlier French and Italian writers. He wrote a number of poems one of which is a romance about the Trojan war called Troilus and Cressida. He also wrote the famous Canterbury Tales. This...

How did literature begin? Literature was created for the amusement of the creator, or an audience, or to please man’s gods. Man has, from very early times, tried to satisfy his gods in order to obtain an abundance of things necessary for a good and happy life. So literature of prayer and praise is probably the oldest of all. Priests became responsible for remembering the proper literature to be used towards...