Friday, October 9, 2009

Double Ten Day

For your reading enjoyment today - a short history lesson. I won't be offended if you stop reading now, I might too if I were you, for 2 reasons: 1) as I proclaimed in 12th grade history class "I hate history" (ok, maybe I don't hate it, but it's far from my favorite subject) and 2) I know very little about Taiwanese history so I may not have my facts straight. Are you now asking yourself "why isn't Jeremiah, the history major, and social studies teacher, writing this blog post"? Good question - he seems to have taken a blog posting hiatus even though it is his turn.

This weekend marks Double Ten Day, Oct. 10th, also called National Day of the Republic of China (commonly called Taiwan). This date is the anniversary of the start of the Wuchang Uprising in 1911. This uprising in mainland China eventually caused the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China. After WWII in 1945 the Republic of China gained control of Taiwan. Then, in the Chinese Civil War the Republic of China lost control of mainland China and withdrew to Taiwan while the People's Republic of China was established in mainland China.

Hmmm, I guess that explanation, minus any political commentary (this is not the forum for political discussions and we will not judge or align with any political goings on this blog), is not much longer than my introduction. In an even shorter version: the uprising in 1911 led Taiwan to where it is today. For a longer version I encourage you to google some of Taiwan's history. It's interesting, even to me, self-proclaimed history hater.

2 comments:

  1. History is completely fascinating if it's presented the right way! I too hated history until I had a fabulous professor for my World Civ class. The next term I declared history as my major! Who knows, maybe your lesson inspired a future history buff...

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  2. And next year is another 10; 10/10/10; and barb will be 50 years old.

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