Oliver Cromwell Wikipedia

The article on Wikipedia about Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector, was a very thorough biography of his life, as well as political and military dealings. There were many sections dealing with his influence on different places in Europe and his posthumous reputation.

1) 14,036 words
2) Search term: Cromwell Actual term: Oliver Cromwell
3)Disambiguation: one Monty Python song about the Lord Protector,
BR standard class 770013 Oliver Cromwell,a locomotive named after the above,

an actor who goes by a different name but whose real name is above.

4) Discussion: the article is classified as one of the History good articles and is in the scope of several religion based wiki projects. The comments on this topic are so vast that the discussion has an outline of context.

5)History: the most current change was done Thursday November 20th 2008 at 9pm

the earliest change was September 30th 2001

3,000+ changes overall (wouldn't load them all)

6) 9 external links

7) 24 references with over 100 footnotes mentioned, 20 biographies of Cromwell, 11 military studies on him, 11 era surveys and 6 other primary sources listed.

8) mentioned in above sections? no specific section for Further Reading

This is the first article I have read on wikipedia that seems complete and citable. This would be quite a good resource to someone interested in his life or accomplishments. This article is thorough and has many reliable resources behind it. Wikipedia has labeled it a good history article and I completely agree. I think it has enough information to be a citable resource itself but if some one has a stigma about the site then it has many many other sources to jump into.

Why not the crown?

While reading this week about the English civil war I found one thing particularly intriging about it. Why when Cromwell took power after King Charles I, did he not accept the crown from parliment? He took all the power of England without the responsibility of the crown. He played by all the same rules of the king so why Lord Protector over King Oliver? He was more militarily minded than thinking for the good of England. He waged several wars and depleated the treasury in the process. I am not familiar with all the rules of a monarchy but it seems to me if he was not the king then he should have had no right to name a sucessor, not that his sucessor did much but regaurdless. Some historians call him a dictator with genocide on his conscience others praise him as a hero of England. He certainly left a reputation with England king or not.

Government for all

The Levellers section was interesting to read. They stood for equalizing the wealth of all the people under their government. They had some of the most unique reasoning I have heard in favor of this socialist type program. This group of people was feeling oppressed and wanted all people to be subject to all the same laws. The foundations make this sound like it will be good for the everyday citizen and eliminate the class system many detested in England. I don't believe what they proposed would have been effective. A class system cannot dissolve just by equalizing the amount of wealth a person has. There will always be people in a society that believe they are better or on a different level than others around them. It would take a cultural miracle to create that kind of equality. Government being involved that much in some one's personal business is unappealing in my opinion.

Bible says...

I think to some extent the way the Church tried to control its patrons by interpreting the Bible for them, continues on to today. Not completely or even in every religion, but I know a number of people that are religious that have never read the whole Bible or other book used by their church. There is still some control that the Church wants to have over people. The citizen is not left to make their own interpretations of the stories, they are always at the mercy of the priest, pastor, bishop, etc. Even if they are aware enough to have read the entire Bible they are usually still under the influence of their church's views because they are exposed to that thinking (presumably) every week. This obviously is a generalization of time now, because a lot more people today have and are able to read their religious books. This also is a reflection of the amount of education that is available compared to early modern times.

100 years war

When reading about the hundred years war I saw a similarity between this and others I have learned about, conflict begining over something fairly insignificant. This was was in part started over a woman. The French King did not want King Edward the third to rule France so he brought back some ancient rule that property(and thrones) can only be passed down through males. This leaves King Edward III out of claim to the throne. This conflict is ovbiously about something bigger than they let on, posession of the throne of France. This important to control but 100 years is a long time to fight. It takes a great amount out of the army of the countries and the citizens living through it.

Creation of University

The section we read about education and universities caught my attention this week partially because I am a education major. I thought it was quite interesting how similar everything has remained since their creation in 1000-1200. All the words have evolved but have very clear Latin roots that are quite recognizeable. Those are things we as university students say every day and somewhat take for granted, not realizing the history behind them. I also thought that the church's influence as an intrical part of the founding of the higher education was unique from the way other schools were founded. The whole point back then was to get people educated that partained to the church in some way. The story of the university after that sounds like it could be happening now nothing is really that different. Maybe the police would do less killing but who knows...

Wikipedia Assignment #2

Viking Wikipedia Article
This article paints a picture of the Viking Age as they call it. Where the vikings were from what that meant, their customs etc. The article goes over what regions the vikings stormed through and the effect they had the people and the country there. And it compares the romanticized version of the viking, horned helmets and all, to the more realistic version that history details. It explained the weaponry as well as viking ships, the most legendary aspect of the vikings.

Word count: 6,833
Term search: vikings Actual title: Viking
Disambiguation: There was a lot in this section- a history part disusing the age of the vikings and other historical references, a section just for viking ships, aerospace, organizations, military, film and music section, sports, names of places that are viking in Canada and Minnesota, companies, and several others.
Discussion: The article had many, many comments and discussion about the actual term 'viking' itself and how the article portrays it and if it is accurate. This article was a former featured article and had B ratings on several wikipedia projects. There was even one comment from someone who discovered their ancestry included viking blood.
History: First change date- March 16th, 2003
Last change date- Oct. 2nd, 2008
Number of changes-just over 1,000
External Links: 6
References: 5
Further Reading: 0

I would recommend this article to most anyone who was interested in the topic. I think Wikipedia is a good tool to use when you know nothing or very little about a topic. It is very good if you are unsure if you are interested or not because it gives you the high lights of the topic, it is almost like cliffs notes for any subject matter. I do think it is a good idea to look at the discussion page to determine how reliable the information written is and if there is a dispute over any of the material.