The True History of the Conquest of Mexico Essay Example for Free

The True History of the Conquest of Mexico Essay The True History of the Conquest of Mexico by Bernel Diaz Castillo started with the events leading to the discovery of the province of Yucatan. Following the coast to the west, they discovered reefs and coves, resulting to the ordering of the governor of Cuba to send out a Navy to investigate.   A series of events followed, from the discovery of one coast to another and finally reaching San Juan de Ulua, a small island. From the Indians, they found out about Mexico, a then undiscovered land. How the formalities went about and finally setting out to discover Mexico. Castillo also talked about the courteous reception they have received from the natives, and how, in the turn of events, the war between them and the Mexicans started. He related what went on in the war, both the battle itself and the legalities. He talked about how, eventually, they were able to conquer Mexico. One of the most important factors in the turn of events was the discovery of the Yucatan province. If it had not been found, everything would not have fallen into place. Don Hernà ¡n Cortà ©s’s letters to King Charles V are also very important in the sense that it was the main source of communication, though vague, and of course, a bit relative as a source. Diego Velasquez, the governor of Cuba, ordered to send a Navy to the new land they discovered.   They arrived at the river of Tabasco where they all got together. They followed the coast ahead, towards the west and arrived at the river of flags, from there arriving at a small islet that is now called San Juan de Ulua. They joined forces with another Navy to discover the new land. Diego Velasquez sent a servant to Gaspar de Garnica with orders and provision, in case they get caught, Don Cortez and the Navy will be taken to him. The Indians not only welcomed them, but treated them like Gods who came from the water and to them; Cortez became the light accompanied by horsemen and soldiers for the island of Cozumel. It was through words that they were able to get their way among the natives, a great communication skill that led them to these success. But the natives had other vicious traditions that had placed the fear of God in them, and circumstances that only God could have saved them from.   Complications arose in relation to the language, resulting to a change in course of actions. They were able to side-step this obstacle for Cortez knew of two Spaniards who were knowledgeable about the ways of Indians in the End of Cotoche and he aided their help. Cortez divided the ships and assigned who will captain in each one of them, also the instructions regarding the signals and other stuff. They got into the Indians small community and tried to befriend them, with the intentions of gaining their trust. Learning their customs, and gaining their friendship, the Spaniards started inserting their own ways, these of course is after gaining alliance with more than 30 communities of the mountain ranges.   They won the favors of the Indians by serving them and showing utmost respect. The Spaniards were all too careful in making their actions, taking every consideration and every possibility they can come up with. A proof of the smooth maneuvering of the Spaniards with careful planning and step by step take over. Hernando Cortez became the Commander in chief and Greater Justice of the small Indian island until the king Henry V gave out his orders. The Spaniards decided to populate Villa Rica with the Side Cross to strengthen and establish their grounds, close to the port where their ships were anchored. They also started integrating their Catholic religion when Cortez ordered the building of an altar with the image Mother Mary, a cross and the baptism of eight Indians, the natives accepting it. They returned to Villa Rica and conflicts gave them reason to set out for Mexico. They were ordered to go to Mexico and by the councils, an encounter forged the gap within their army. Castillo related of the great battle they faced from there and that it was only God’s mercy that lent them strength to overcome it. They had been trying in futility it seems to ask for reinforcement and how Cortez sent him to the King eighty thousand pesos in gold and silver, and sent a shot that was a very rich wrought of many figures, age of shaken gold under with silver, that by name said the Fenix, and also sent to its father, Martin Cortez, on five thousand pesos of gold. And of course, relating to corruption even at the time. In the latter part of their quest to conquer Mexico, the Spaniards branded them by establishing the Catholic religion, emphasizing the strong religious qualities that had been their main stronghold in every facet of their lives. Cortez has clearly dominated the scene and has in a lot ways disregarded the orders of his superiors. Religion is a great way to conquer people because there is no need for so much brute for. The main concern is their psychological aspect. Spaniards showed them the consequences of people without a religion. They introduced a concept of life after death, wherein you have to be a Catholic in order to be saved, to be ensured that you have a wonderful life after death. Throughout the literary piece, Cortez has expressed his side of the story, his views and how he perceived them. He talked about the blind obedience they had to their king and how even when Indians ate their fellow soldiers, they will not back out. He talks about the anomalies inside the church, the indulgences and the gold and all the other violence inflicted, but also his almost acceptance for he says they serve their own way and purposes. He talks about the land they were able to conquer, and the lives they have sacrificed and all for the wishes of their king, and yet bemoans the fact that credit is not given where it should be due. The way he talked about the church and their King relates to the very foundation of their society. It is the church that tells them how to live their lives by the way it dictates their being. What they do and how they do it is for the God above and the King. The implication of their blind obedience to their king is a touch of loyalty but also integrated duty. It is a realization of how the smaller designation of power works, how higher orders are side-stepped and how the one who holds that power can be formidable.

Edgar Allen Poe Essay -- Essays Papers

Edgar Allen Poe Edgar Allen Poe, an America writer, was known as a poet and critic but was most famous as the master of short stories, particularly tales of the mysterious and the macrabe. The literary merits of Poe’s writings have been debated since his death, but his works have continued to be popular and many American and European writers have declared their artistic debt to him. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Poe was orphaned in his early childhood and was raised by John Allen, a successful business man of Richmond, Virginia. Taken by the Allen family to England at the age of six, Poe was placed in a private school. Upon returning to the United States in 1820, he continued to study in private schools. He attended the University of Virginia for a year, but in 1827 his foster father, angry by the young man’s drinking and gambling, refused to pay his debts and forced him to work as a clerk. Poe, disliking his new duties violently, he quit the job as a clerk, thus estranging Allen, and went to Boston. There his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), was published anonymously. Shortly afterward Poe enlisted in the United States Army and served a two-year term. In 1829 his second volume of verse, Al Aaraaf, was published, and he completed a agreement with Allen, who secured him an appointment to the United States Military Academy. After only a few months at the Military Academy Poe was dismissed for neglect of duty, and his foster father disowned him permanently. Poe...

Restrictive health, safety and technical standards Essay

Technical Standards: Standards and standards-related technical regulations are pervasive features of global commerce, affecting an estimated 80 percent of world commodity trade. These technical specifications make up much of the vocabulary in the exacting language of industry, consumer protection, and government regulation. As such, foreign standards and methods used to assess conformity to standards can either facilitate efficient international trade and its resultant benefits, or they can impede access to export markets. Divergent standards peculiar to a nation or region, redundant testing and compliance procedures, unilateral and non-transparent standard setting exercises, and a confusing thicket of other standards-related problems are now recognized as major impediments to free trade. For example: Vietnam’s Ministry of Science and Technology publishes a list of imports and exports requiring mandatory quality inspection. Importers and exporters of the products on the list must subject their products to inspection and obtain a permit from the relevant government agencies (such as the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Fishery, and the Ministry of Science and Technology) at the time they go through customs. In the inspection, some products are subject to national standards, some are subject to regulations of the functional agencies, and some are subject to both. China is very concerned with the transparency of Vietnam’s mandatory quality inspection system. Language Barrier: Communication is the key to building successful business relationships. However, communication becomes complex when more than one language is involved. Interpreters and translators can play a critical role assisting exporters with the delivery of key information to prospective customers and clients. Interpreters and translators fulfill different roles in different cultures. For example, an interpreter in North America or Europe is expected to relay an unbiased account of the information to the audience. In Japan, however, an interpreter will translate the language and quite likely interpret gestures, context and meanings for those in attendance. Exporters should enlist the services of an experienced, fluent translator or interpreter who is also immersed in the culture of the target market. Working as a team, the exporter and the interpreter can review the text, presentation or other materials together to ensure that there will be no difficulties with background information, technical terms or potentially ambiguous messages. Non-tariff Barriers. Non-tariff barriers (NTBs) refer to the wide range of policy interventions other than border tariffs that affect trade of goods, services, and factors of production. Most taxonomies of NTBs include market-specific trade and domestic policies affecting trade in that market. Extended taxonomies include macro-economic policies affecting trade. NTBs have gained importance as tariff levels have been reduced worldwide. Common measures of NTBs include tariff-equivalents of the NTB policy or policies and count and frequency measures of NTBs. These NTB measures are subsequently used in various trade models, including gravity equations, to assess trade and/or welfare effects of the measured NTBs. Conclusion The world has a long history of international trade. In fact, trading among nations can be traced back to the earliest civilizations. Trading activities are directly related to an improved quality of life for the citizens of nations involved in international trade. It is safe to say that nearly every person on earth has benefited from international trading activities. This may be a good time to reinforce the idea that trade barriers are designed to protect some industries but, in fact they may hurt other industries or even consumers. Economists have found that sanctions don’t often reach their political objectives and they come with high costs. A good example is the steel tariff imposed by the Bush administration, on foreign-made steel. President Bush imposed the tariffs, ranging from 8 percent to 30 percent, on some kinds of foreign steel in March 2002, in order to help the U. S. steel industry compete with foreign steel producers. Many U. S. manufacturing companies that use steel, including manufacturers of auto parts and appliances, say that the steel tariffs have raised costs for manufacturers and caused thousands of manufacturing losses. Also, people who buy cars or appliances may have to pay higher prices because of the steel tariffs. The U. S. International Trade Commission recently concluded that the tariffs have caused a $30 million net loss to the U. S. economy. In addition, the European Union is considering retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. TBR (Trade Barrier Regulation) is Europe’s way of removing obstacles to trade, ensuring that countries abide by the rules of international trade, and providing procedures for resolving international trade disputes. Through the European Commission, its procedures interface directly with WTO dispute resolution procedures, affecting all countries subject to WTO rules and agreements notably the United States and Japan and whose industries have been the subject of recent international decisions. Free trade is usually most strongly supported by the most economically powerful nations in the world, though they often engage in selective protectionism for those industries which are politically important domestically, such as the protective tariffs applied to agriculture and textiles by the United States and Europe. The Netherlands and the United Kingdom were both strong advocates of free trade when they were economically dominant, today the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Japan are its greatest proponents. However, many other countries (such as India, China and Russia) are increasingly becoming advocates of free trade as they become more economically powerful themselves. As tariff levels fall there is also an increasing willingness to negotiate non tariff measures, including foreign direct investment, procurement and trade facilitation. The latter looks at the transaction cost associated with meeting trade and customs procedures. Traditionally agricultural interests are usually in favour of free trade while manufacturing sectors often support protectionism. This has changed somewhat in recent years, however. In fact, agricultural lobbies, particularly in the United States, Europe and Japan, are chiefly responsible for particular rules in the major international trade treaties which allow for more protectionist measures in agriculture than for most other goods and services. During recessions there is often strong domestic pressure to increase tariffs to protect domestic industries. This occurred around the world during the Great Depression leading to a collapse in world trade that many believe seriously deepened the depression. The regulation of international trade is done through the World Trade Organization at the global level, and through several other regional arrangements such as MERCOSUR in South America, NAFTA between the United States, Canada and Mexico, and the European Union between 27 independent states. The 2005 Buenos Aires talks on the planned establishment of the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) failed largely due to opposition from the populations of Latin American nations. Similar agreements such as the MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment) have also failed in recent years. Bibliography 1. Barriers to entry: Coping with protectionism. UK Investment. 18 April 2007 2. Boone, L. , and Kurtz, D. Contemporary Marketing. New York: Dryden Press. 2003 3. Brue, S. , and McConnell, C. Economics. New York: McGraw-Hill. 2003 4. Churchill, G. , and Peter, P. Marketing: Creating Value for Customers. Austen Press. 2004 5. Czinkota, M. R. , and Ronkainen, I. A. International Marketing. New York: Dryden Press. 2005 6. Competition and Market Power. Econoclass – Sources for Economics Teachers. 18 April 2007 7. Deardorff, Alan V. , and Robert M. Stern. Measurement of Nontariff Barriers: Studies in International Economics. 2005 8. Debra Ann Skaradzinski. Testing chaotic dynamics via Lyapunov exponents. Journal of Applied Econometrics 20:7, (2003): 911. 9. Fisher, Ronald, and Pablo Serra. â€Å"Standards and Protection. † Journal of International Economics 52 (2004): 377-400. 10. Farese, L. , Kimbrell, G. , and Woloszyk, C. Marketing Essentials. Mission Hills, CA: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill. 2003 11. Henson, Spencer, and John S. Wilson, eds. The WTO and Technical Barriers toTrade, in the Critical Perspectives on the Global Trading System and the WTO series, Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. 2005 12. Impact of Standards and Technical Regulations on Trade. Press Release from Commerce Ministry (2003). 18 April 2007 13. Journal of Behavioral Finance, Vol. 4, No. 2, (2003): Pages 65-70 14. Kee, Hiau Looi, Alessandro Nicita, and Marcelo Olarreaga. Estimating Trade Restrictiveness Indices, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper # 3840.2006 15. Kotler, P. , and Armstrong, G. Marketing: An Introduction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. 2004 16. â€Å"Methodologies, Classifications, Quantification and Development Impacts of Non-Tariff Barriers: Note by the UNCTAD Secretariat,† Document TD/B/COM. 1/EM. 27/2. (2004). 18 April 2007 17. Non-tariff Barriers Centre for Rural & Agricultural Development (2003). 18 April 2007 18. RSIE Working Papers. University of Michigan.(2005). 18 April 2007 < http://www. fordschool. umich. edu/rsie/workingpapers/wp. html> 19. The Impact of Regulations on Agricultural Trade. Working Paper, Centre d’Etudes Prospectives et d’Informations Internationales, Paris. (2003). 18 April 2007 20. Trade, Environment and Development. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). (2005). 18 April 2007 21. Vousden, Neil. The Economics of Trade Protection. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 2005.

The Evolution of the First Mammals

Ask the average person on the street, and he or she might guess that the first mammals didnt appear on the scene until after the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, and, moreover, that the last dinosaurs evolved into the first mammals. The truth, though, is very different. In fact, the first mammals evolved from a population of vertebrates called  therapsids (mammal-like reptiles) at the end of the Triassic period and coexisted with dinosaurs throughout the Mesozoic Era. But part of this folktale has a grain of truth. It was only after the dinosaurs went kaput that mammals were able to evolve beyond their tiny, quivering, mouselike forms into the widely specialized species that populate the world today. These popular misconceptions about the mammals of the Mesozoic Era are easy to explain. Scientifically speaking, dinosaurs tended to be very, very big and early mammals tended to be very, very small. With a couple of exceptions, the first mammals were tiny, inoffensive creatures, rarely more than a few inches long and a few ounces in weight, about on a par with modern shrews. Thanks to their low profiles, these hard-to-see critters could feed on insects and small reptiles (which bigger ​raptors and tyrannosaurs tended to ignore), and they could also scurry up trees or dig into burrows to avoid getting stomped on by larger ornithopods and sauropods. The Evolution of the First Mammals Before discussing how the first mammals evolved, its helpful to define what distinguishes mammals from other animals, especially reptiles. Female mammals possess milk-producing mammary glands with which they suckle their young. All mammals have hair or fur during at least some stage of their life cycles, and all are endowed with warm-blooded (endothermic) metabolisms. Regarding the fossil record, paleontologists can distinguish ancestral mammals from ancestral reptiles by the shape of their skull and neck bones, as well as the presence, in mammals, of two small bones in the inner ear (in reptiles, these bones constitute part of the jaw). As mentioned above, the first mammals evolved toward the end of the Triassic period from a population of therapsids, the mammal-like reptiles that arose in the early Permian period and produced such uncannily mammal-like beasts as Thrinaxodon and Cynognathus. By the time they went extinct in the mid-Jurassic period, some therapsids had evolved proto-mammalian traits (fur, cold noses, warm-blooded metabolisms, and possibly even live birth) that were further elaborated upon by their descendants of the later Mesozoic Era. As you can imagine, paleontologists have a hard time distinguishing between the last, highly evolved therapsids and the first, newly evolved mammals. Late Triassic vertebrates like Eozostrodon, Megazostrodon  and Sinoconodon appear to have been intermediate missing links between therapsids and mammals, and even in the early Jurassic period, Oligokyphus  possessed reptilian ear and jaw bones at the same time as it showed every other sign (rat-like teeth, the habit of suckling its young) of being a mammal. If this seems confusing, bear in mind that the modern-day platypus is classified as a mammal, even though it lays reptilian, soft-shelled eggs rather than giving birth to live young! The Lifestyles of the First Mammals The most distinctive thing about the mammals of the Mesozoic Era is how small they were. Although some of their therapsid ancestors attained respectable sizes. For example, the late Permian Biarmosuchus was about the size of a large dog. Very few early mammals were larger than mice, for a simple reason: dinosaurs had already become the dominant terrestrial animals on earth. The only ecological niches open to the first mammals entailed a) feeding on plants, insects and small lizards, b) hunting at night (when predatory dinosaurs were less active), and c) living high up in trees or underground, in burrows. Eomaia,  from the early Cretaceous period, and Cimolestes,  from the late Cretaceous period, were fairly typical in this regard. This isnt to say that all early mammals pursued identical lifestyles. For example, the North American Fruitafossor  possessed a pointed snout and mole-like claws, which it used to dig for insects. And, the late Jurassic Castorocauda  was built for a semi-marine lifestyle, with its long, beaver-like tail and hydrodynamic arms and legs. Perhaps the most spectacular deviation from the basic Mesozoic mammalian body plan was Repenomamus, a three-foot-long, 25-pound carnivore that is the only mammal known to have fed on dinosaurs (a fossilized specimen of Repenomamus has been found with the remains of a Psittacosaurus in its stomach). Recently, paleontologists discovered conclusive fossil evidence for the first important split in the mammal family tree, the one between placental and marsupial mammals. Technically, the first, marsupial-like mammals of the late Triassic period are known as metatherians. From these evolved the eutherians, which later branched off into placental mammals. The type specimen of Juramaia, the Jurassic mother, dates to about 160 million years ago, and demonstrates that the metatherian/eutherian split occurred at least 35 million years before scientists had previously estimated. The Age of Giant Mammals Ironically, the same characteristics that helped mammals maintain a low profile during the Mesozoic Era also allowed them to survive the K/T Extinction Event that doomed the dinosaurs. As we now know, that giant meteor impact 65 million years ago produced a kind of nuclear winter, destroying most of the vegetation that sustained the herbivorous dinosaurs, which themselves sustained the carnivorous dinosaurs that preyed on them. Because of their tiny size, early mammals could survive on much less food, and their fur coats (and warm-blooded metabolisms) helped keep them warm in an age of plunging global temperatures. With the dinosaurs out of the way, the Cenozoic Era was an object lesson in convergent evolution: mammals were free to radiate into open ecological niches, in many cases taking on the general shape of their dinosaur predecessors. Giraffes, as you may have noticed, are eerily similar in body plan to ancient sauropods like Brachiosaurus, and other mammalian megafauna pursued similar evolutionary paths. Most important, from our perspective, early primates like Purgatorius were free to multiply, populating the branch of the evolutionary tree that led eventually to modern humans.