The days are long and the years are short

We took Emily to the zoo. It was pretty cold, but we had some fun. We said goodbye to Tai Shan, the baby (who's more of a teenager) panda who will be traveling to China to see if he can meet a nice girl panda. We met up with a family that we had met once before at the zoo. I know the mom from the Internets.

I made a soup of orange vegetables. It's pretty good in a creamy soup way.

We told Emily about 9/11 today in terms of major events of the decade. It may take her a while to ask her questions about the event. We compared it to Mr. 'Splody Pants, just that they involved airplanes and bracketed the 'Naughties in terms of time. We've mentioned the war in Afghanistan a few times. She may have made more sense of it this time, since we put 9/11 as the cause of it and since the father of the family has been in Afghanistan. She may also remember that the father of her school friend has also been in Afghanistan.

Anyway, we're trying to give her the view of history without depressing her or frightening her. She is pretty sensitive to these things. She often has questions about things like that.

The "Shot heard 'round the world" is a phrase that has come to represent several historical incidents throughout world history. The line is originally from the opening stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Concord Hymn" (1837), and referred to the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. Later, in Europe and the Commonwealth of Nations, the phrase became synonymous with the shot that killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and plunged Europe into World War I.

From Wikipedia.

There is a also a reference to the shot from the cruiser Aurora that started the October revolution in Russia in 1917.

My take: all the other references occurred after the poem was written. So Concord and the American Revolution have the rights to the name.
 
The October Revolution already gets a catchphrase anyway: "Ten Days that Shook the World" from a book by John Reed.

In Spanish class, we are studying the history of Mexico. We're still knee-deep in the Conquest. We've been learning about the translators, La Malinche and a certain priest. La Malinche translated between two native languages (and was a native of Mexico).

We are all confused how the priest (who arrived with Cortes) learned Mayan so quickly. Prior education in Latin and Greek would only help a tiny bit. Maybe he was highly gifted at languages.

I really don't know, since my TV and radio diet has decreased so much over the years. As far as I am concerned, the last campaign ads I saw, good or bad, were made in the Clinton era, Bill not Hillary!

I just listened to the "I Have a Dream" speech on Great Speeches in History. I think I will reload it for Emily at some point before we go to the Inauguration. Of course, there isn't a Disney movie about the civil rights movement, so I don't think she will get it. :-/