A Ton of Crap (96 page)

The Marshall Plan
Following World War II, Europe was left completely devastated industrially, economically, and agriculturally, and the United States was the only major power that had not been left in ruins. In 1947, the Marshall Plan was created by the U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall to provide aid and restore political and economic stability to the Western countries. Marshall believed this plan could both rebuild the Western countries and blunt the Communist advancements. A total of sixteen nations were involved in the program, and nearly $13 billion dollars was received in financial aid.

BIOGRAPHIES

Into the Wild
Jon Krakauer’s
Into the Wild
tells the story of Chris McCandless, an Honors graduate from Emory University, who traveled across the United States renouncing society and living as a vagabond. McCandless ultimately hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the wilderness. After surviving for two years on his own, McCandless starved to death. Krakauer chronicles, as best he can, McCandless’s journey through interviews with people he met along his journey, his friends and family, and authorities. Though the exact details are unknown, Jon Krakauer goes to great lengths to describe the events that may have led to Chris McCandless’s unfortunate death.

APPLIED MATHEMATICS

Computer Science
Computers are an integral part of society. Computer science is more than being able to build computers or write programs. At its simplest, computer science is about solving problems and understanding how information (which, in its smallest form is known as a bit) is transferred through complex algorithms and algebra, logic, and combinatorics. The field of study began in the 1940s, and since then, has become a fundamental part of everyday life. Computer science can be used to understand the big bang, earthquakes, and even genetics.

BIOMES

Marine
The marine biome includes the oceans, estuaries, and coral reefs. Oceans, which make up 70 percent of the entire planet, are the largest of the ecosystems and have a great variety of wildlife. Estuaries are the locations where the rivers and freshwater streams join the ocean. The ecosystem of estuaries is unique due to the mixtures of the different concentrations of salt. Coral reefs exist around warm and shallow water. These are found along continents and islands, and the most dominant life form is coral, which is comprised of both animal polyp tissues and algae.

MAYAN LANGUAGES

Huasteco
The Huastec (also known as Wastek) language is spoken by 120,000 indigenous people of Mexico located in northern Veracruz, Tamaulipas, and parts of San Luis Potosi. The culture of the indigenous people who spoke Huasteco was not a part of the Classic Maya civilization due to their geographic isolation; the nearest Mayan culture was around 1,000 miles from them. The Chicomuceltec language, a Mayan language that had become extinct in the 1970s and 1980s, is believed to be the closest relative to the Huastec language.

THE COLD WAR

The Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis is considered the closest the United States ever came to a nuclear war. By the 1960s, the United States had missiles that could reach the Soviet Union, while the missiles of the Soviets could only reach as far as Europe. In 1962, the Soviets set their attention on Cuba, and began putting their intermediate-range missiles there. Photographs of the Soviet missiles in Cuba surfaced, and a naval quarantine was deployed around Cuba. Tension grew as communication between the United States and the Soviet Union continued. Finally, the Soviet Union agreed to dismantle the installations in hopes that the United States would not invade Cuba.

BIOGRAPHIES

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
Eric Metaxas’s
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
tells the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor who lived in Germany during the reign of Adolf Hitler. While other churches embraced Hitler’s hatred toward the Jewish people, Bonhoeffer believed the role of the churches was to help the victimized Jewish people. Bonhoeffer created an illegal seminary with the purpose of training pastors, and was involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler. The assassination attempt would ultimately lead to his death only three weeks before Hitler committed suicide. Metaxas’s book focuses on the personal life of Bonhoeffer and his theological ideologies and spirituality.

APPLIED MATHEMATICS

Scientific Computing
Scientific computing, also known as computational science, is different from computer science. Scientific computing involves creating mathematical models and performing quantitative analysis with computers to solve problems. Typically, scientific computing involves computational simulation. Unlike computer science, which studies the processing of information, scientific computing implements models on computers to receive and analyze information. Often, work in scientific computing is done with supercomputers, software, and programs. In scientific computing, numerical analysis is used, which uses algorithms that feature numerical approximations.

BIOMES

Desert
One-fifth of the surface of the planet is comprised of desert, and rainfall is less than 50 centimeters a year at these locations. There are four different types of desert: hot and dry, semiarid, coastal, and cold. Hot and dry deserts feature little humidity, resulting in twice the radiation from the sun. An example of a hot and dry desert would be the Mojave Desert. Cold deserts, which are found in places like Antarctica and Greenland, are on the opposite end of the spectrum, and have cold winters with a lot of snow.

MAYAN LANGUAGES