THE FEUDAL SYSTEM

The feudal system was made up of lords who would reward their vassals with land in exchange of military service, also there were knights who fought for the king that developed a code of conduct knows as chivalry.

BEOWULF

The only long literary text in Old English is the epic poem Beowulf, that recounts the deeds of the Scandinavian prince Beowulf. During the story, the protagonist comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, to defeat Grendel, that is a monster. Subsequently, he kills Grendel with his bare hands and also his mother with a giant sword that he finds in her lair. Then Beowulf becomes the king of the Geats and finds his realm terrorized by a dragon. After that, the protagonist attacks the dragon, but he doesn't succed, for this reason he follows him in his lair. In the last battle, Beowulf finally slays the dragon, but he is mortally wounded. The poem ends with the funeral of Beowulf.
In this epic poem the character called Beowulf represents the braveness, the goodness and the salvation for the society. Instead, the Dragon represents the fear of the people during that time. 

   

THE CELTS began to arrive to England's coasts to colonize the territory from Germany around the 700 BC. They practised agriculture, fishing and hunting and they were orginised in tribes. Moreover, Celts worked iron and worshipped natural elements such as the sun, the moon and everything could be a symbol of something supernatural.

THE ROMANS arrived in the 43 AD, when the Emperor Claudius decided to invade Britain. Furthermore, Romans built different forts, walls, roads and bridges in order to make easier to travel around England. Some of this constructions, still exist nowadays.                                            

THE ANGLO-SAXONS the roman occupancy in England continued until Germanic tribes decided to invade the island. These tribes were the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes who, subsequently, merged into the Anglo-Saxons. Moreover, most of them were fishermen and farmers and they were organised in groupes called clans.

THE VIKINGS lived over one thousand years ago and they came from three countries of Scandinavia: Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Furthermore, they first invaded England in 793 AD and last invaded in 1066.

THE NORMANS conquest of England happened in 1066. In fact led by William the Conqueror, the Normans won the battle of Hastings and took over the Kingdom of England. In addition, they brought french language and culture.


                                                                                                                                                                  

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Geoffrey Chaucer was a professional courtier. He was born into a wealthy family of wine traders and he was from the class of the new wealthy city gentleman. For much of his life he served as a soldier and a diplomat during during the Hundred Years' War, since he was fluent in French, Italian, Latin and other languages. After his retirement from his job, he worked primarly on his masterpiece namely "The Canterbury Tales".






                                                       THE CANTERBURY TALES
                                                
The Canterbury Tales is a long narrative poem, set in spring, that tells the story of thirty people and Chaucer himself, who are going on a pilgrimage. They are travelling to Canterbury in Kent, to the shrine of Thomas Becket. Moreover, every pilgrim have to tell two stories while going to Canterbury and two while coming back, in addition, there will be a prize for the best story and a penalty for the ones who gives up. The birth of this poem is due to the fact that Chaucer wanted to give a portrait of English society.

Thomas Becket was a saint that fought against his best friend called Henri II, the king of England and there he was killed.

Also, the pilgrimage was famous because it was the only way to travel for normal people but also to save their souls. The principal destinations of pilgrimage were Rome, Canterbury and Santiago de Compostela.

                                                         THE PRIORESS

The Prioress is one of "The Canterbury Tales", that tells the story of a nun prioress, namely, the abbess of a convent. It might well be understood that the protagonist is very rich and she really cares for her dogs by giving them food that even normal people can't afford. This factor is emphasized by the author to highlight the corruption of the church throughout this period.

                                                        THE WIFE OF BATH
The Wife of Bath is a storyteller who recites her autobiography of her travelling around the world as a pilgrim. Furthermore, she confesses that she got married five times and she had many lovers when she was young. Nevertheless, she seems proud of it and she resembles the typical wicked woman of that period.

THE MIDDLE AGES

The Middle Ages is the period that is situated between the fallen of the Roman empire and the beginning of the Renaissance. It is divided in three parts: Early, High and Low Middle Age.

This is also known as the Dark Ages of humanity's history. Throughout this period the religion is the main thing and it is divided in two faiths: Christianity and Muslim. The Church was corrupted, but then later there will be the Reform. In addition to this, the Pope was being accused of nepotism and also they thought of translating the Bible in order to let other people being able to read it. So, because of the religion there was a sort of regression, people stopped studying Science and started to think that natural events were in consequence of God's punishment.

Furthermore, the theater dies, and the coins disappeared making barter to be practicable again. The main building was the castle and it was made of deep ditches and large walls. They started to live in this building in order to be protected by other populations' invasions.

Globalization

Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations. Globalization is grounded in the theory of comparative advantage, which states that countries that are good at producing a particular product, are better off exporting it to countries that are less efficient at producing that good. One of the most important factors that contributed to the globalization were the e-commerce that is the activity of buying or selling of products on online services. This is an important factor, because for thousand years, people had to wait long time for the arrival of specific products, instead with the e-commerce, the products arrive also in two or three days. The most important e-commerce in the world is Amazon. The globalization has also speeded the development of multinational companies, for exemple the most famous fast food in the world, that is the McDonald or the famous american coffee company Starbucks. Nevertheless the globalization has some negative aspects, in particular the exploitation of workers. For exemple the Apple, The Samsung and the other major phone companies, use a ore called "Coltan" to make smartphones,computers etc. This mineral is situated in the caves of African countries, where people work all the day and their salary is very low.

Breaking Bad

My favourite tv series is called Breaking bad. Breaking bad is an action tv series that takes place in Albuquerque, in the State of the New Mexico. The story discuss about a chemistry teacher that after he found out he had a terminal cancer, he started to produce metamphetamine to give money to his family after his death. The main actors of this series are Bryan Cranston, that played the part of Walter White and Aaron Paul, in the role of Jesse Pinkman, which is the assistant of the teacher. Moreover the actors performance is brilliant and the story holds your attention from beginning to end. I think that there aren't other words to describe this masterpiece.

I miss you

The song  that I discuss about is named I miss you, of the band Blink-182. This song is part of the album "Blink-182 and it is, maybe, the most famous song of this band. This song tells about a man, sad and impatient for the return of his woman that probably, never will come back. The sadness of the singer in fact, come from the things that he would do with his girlfriend, but he knows that, they will never happen.                                                                                             https://youtu.be/m2yStD2GWhU

Where the hell is Matt?

Matt Harding is an American guy, video game designer and Internet celebrity also known as dancing Matt. He created an Internet phenomenon, with his videos on Youtube, also known like " Where the hell is Matt?". In this videos he doing a dance "jig" in many different places. About his video game designer's career, he worked as an editor for Game week Magazine and then as a software developer for Activision Santa Monica.

Peppe Nappa

Peppe Nappa is an Italian-Carnival mask, which has Sicilian
 origins. The names derives from Peppi, in Sicilian dialect, the diminutive of Giuseppe and Nappa denotes the darn in his socks. Peppe Nappa is extremely greedy and never stop being in the kitchen to taste his favourite food. He wears a short blue jacket with long sleeves and big buttons, blue trousers, long socks, two loafers, a hat and a neck band. He is often lazy, but he is able to astound the people with his tricks.

Christmas myths

On December 25th is Christmas. Christmas is the festivity when the Christian religion celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. There are many myths about Christmas  and over the most famous about Santa Claus, we know the Befana and Belsnickel. La Befana is an Italian Christmas witch, pictures as an old woman who flies on a broomstick and carries a large bag. According to the legend she visits the children on epiphany eve and if they've been nice she rewards their with gifts and candy, instead if they've been naughty she leaves them coal. Belsinckel instead is a German masked Christmas gifts-bringer, that leaves candy in nice kids houses and leaves the naughty kids houses with a switch.

Hour of code

Michele's code

Describing a photo

In this picture I can see a family: two women and two men. It seems that they are in camping, in fact on the left of the background there are many trees and they have a backpack on their back,instead on the right of the background there is a wood house with some students.

Alessandro Volta

Alessandro Volta was an Italian physicist, chemist, who is known as the inventor of the electrical battery and the discover of methane. He invented the voltaic pile in 1799, and reported results of his experiments in 1800. He also was invited by Napoleon Bonaparte to the institute of France to demonstrate his invention to the members of the Institute. After that, he won the chair of the experimental physics at the university of Pavia. The SI unit of electric potential is named in his honour as the Volt.

My favourite sportsperson

My favourite sportsperson is Diego Milito. He was born in Bernal, in 1979 and he was a football player. He began his career on 2001 at the age of 20 in the Racing club, an Argentinian football team. On 2004, he went to Genoa and he played there for one year, but with his transfer in the F.C. Inter he wrote the history. In that year, he won many trophies, like the Championship, the Cup Italia and the Champions cup, also known like the famous "Treble". One year later, he awarded "The UEFA club footballer of the year". This year he retired from football. I like him because he wrote a page of history of my favourite football team and he remained in the heart of us Inter fans.

Invictus games

The Invictus games are international Paralympics games devoted to the disabled soldiers, organized by prince Harry. The Invictus games includes sports like wheelchair basketball, sitting volleyball etc. The first edition of this games was organized on 2014 in London and this year will be held in Toronto, Canada.

The art of pub quiz

The legendary British tv series "The office", which first aired in 2001, contained many memorable episodes. Yet one of the most memorable was "The pub quizzes", it become popular in Britain in the early 1990s. Yet pub quizzes are still popular. They are held once a week and participants usually pay to enter. The quizzes are usually a combination of written and spoken. In many tv shows, there are different rounds, different subjects, sport or "True or false?

Black

My favourite colour is black. Black is the absorption of all colour and the absence of light. We all use black at various times in the world, in one way or another. On the psychological plain, black has positive and negative traits. This colour gives protection, strenght and it rapresents endings and beginnings; but it also includes depression, pessimism, sadness and negativity.

My surname

The surname "Di Fusco" has his biggest concentration at Falciano del Massico, in the region of Campania. The suffix "Di" means "Son of" and the noun Fusco derives from the Latin "Fuscus" that means "dark,brown etc." to indicate the hair or the skin.                                          

St.Patrick day

Saint Patrick's day is a festivity celebrated by all the Christians churches, on 17th March. Saint Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, in fact Saint Patrick's day is a public holiday in Ireland and this day is celebrated like a national festival. It is also celebrated in Great Britain, Canada, the United States and other countries. Especially this day is celebrated with parades and festivals, like the celebrations of Carnival. Usually the people wear green clothes or shamrock during the celebrations.