THE 12 SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC 🌠🔯

What am I learning?
I am learning about the different traits and dates of the twelve signs of the Zodiac - it's something I'm very genuinely interested in and believe in.

How does this show my learning?
This shows what I know about the personalities of these Zodiac signs and what I can learn from people who have them.

What am I wondering?
Who came up with the philosophy of Zodiac signs, and when? 

ALIENS IN FAMOUS LITERATURE 👽

Aliens: Creatures from planets other than Earth (extraterrestrials). 

Aliens have been included in the 20th century works of Ender's Game, when they were portrayed as 'The Formics/Buggers and The Midwich Cuckoos, as The Children, to modern movies such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Martian. 

But when did the idea of alien-life originate from?

After a 1894 French newspaper first explored the very idea of it all, it was the 1897 literary work of H.G Wells that popularised and documented the idea of extra-terrestrial life through the science-fiction novel - going by the name of The War of The Worlds. 

The Martians

The novel vastly surrounds the idea of martians (extra-terrestrials) attacking planet Earth. Based in the late 1890's, the book is based in South-East England and is narrated by an unnamed male narrator. Martians, which once inhabited the planet Mars, arrived on Earth via metal cylinders that land in a Surrey common. The Martians are portrayed as 'the size of a bear, grey in colour, with brown, oily skin, two large dark eyes, and lip-less mouths shaped like V's. The British Army become heavily involved at the arrival of these foreign objects, and the first sighting of the aliens, unfamiliar to Earth's gravity and atmospheric conditions, that emerge from the cylinders.

The Tripods

The Martians bring giant fighting machines (tripods). They are provided with heat-guns and toxic weaponry which shoot poisonous black smoke. These destructive tripods are responsible for the obliteration of a town (Woking) and seizing humans by claws into an enormous metallic attachment to the tripods; its purpose is to carry the humans.

Alongside the tripods and martian's presence, is the 'martian web' which can be described as a prickly red herbage that occupies any abundant water. 

When the narrator begins to go mental due to the trauma and resorts to suicide by approaching a tripod; it is discovered that the martians and everything they have brought have been destroyed by the action of a microscopic bacterial virus. 

War Of The Worlds has come to be known as the earliest literary work that explores the idea of alien invasions and war between the human and an extra-terrestrial race in detail. It has influenced the invention of rockets; one of which is liquid-propelled, and both of which had effects on the Apollo 11 Space mission 71 years later. A 1978 Jeff Wayne orchestra recording was also an adaption of the novel. 

Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.— H. G. Wells (1898), The War of the Worlds

LAVEYAN SATANISM 🔥

It was 1966 in California when Anton Szandor LaVey established a religion, going by the name of LaVayan Satanism; a religion which would soon become one of the most well-known of several Satanist movements in history.

Gathering inspiration from the literary works of Friedrich Nietzsche and Avyn Rand, the beliefs and doctrines of LaVeyay Satanism are documented in The Satanic Bible. The contents of this book, first published in 1969, include rituals, observations, and beliefs outlining Modern Satanism. 

The Satanic Bible has been entitled as the most important document in the influence of modern Satanism, due to it's philosophical and structural content that presented a profound understanding on the basic laws, rules, and beliefs of Anton LaVey's religion. 

Before the publishing of The Satanic Bible, Anton LaVey identified as an atheist and lacked belief of God, which contributed to LaVey Satanism's belief that Satan does not literally exist. Instead, LaVeyan Satanism criticises against the belief of a higher being's existence that Christians and Super naturalists hold, their argument justified by the evidence of biology and natural phenomena contributing to the creation of planet Earth. LaVey did not identify as religious.

Instead of worshipping a higher being, LaVeyan Satanism, their perspective of Satan revolved around rebellion and refusal of society's systems. Their religion emphasised freedom and rights, and Anton defined the exemplary Satanist as someone who was non-conforming to social systems, laws; a person who praised individual pride, respect, and a higher ego than what a mainstream citizen would possess. 

The with-standing belief Anton LaVey held surrounding the advantages of self-indulgence, ego, and rebellion would lead him, now the leader of  to document The Eleven Satanic Rules of The Earth. 

1. Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked.
2. Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them.
3. When in another’s lair, show him respect or else do not go there.
4. If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.
5. Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal.
6. Do not take that which does not belong to you unless it is a burden to the other person and he cries out to be relieved.
7. Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained.
8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.
9. Do not harm little children.
10. Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked or for your food.
11. When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.

THE ANCIENT ROMAN CALENDAR ✨

This is a project I completed after reading the English textbook 'In Perspective'. I was genuinely interested in where the names of our months originated from because as a kid I was super confused as to who named everything on the planet. Turns out most of it derived from Latin, a now-abandoned language ancient Romans used millions of decades ago.