We are into fun and frivolous documentaries for December and I will continue the exploration of Asia’s Monarchies.  Monarchy is good fun and frivolous topic to talk about in December!  Today’s documentary will feature the kings of Cambodia.

Cambodia had a royal family, and the monarchy lasted over 1,000 years.  Cambodian monarchs are elected by a National Assembly.  The splendor of Angkor Wat looms over Cambodia.  Both the King and Angkor Wat are the symbol of the nation.  The people also depend on the monarchy.  King Sihanouk has had an interesting life.   He was king, he was prince, he was prime minister, he was a film director and eventually became king again. 

Tradition has it that Cambodia was formed by the marriage between an Indian Brahman and a Cambodian Princess.  The Brahman drained Cambodia and gave it to her as a wedding present.  Cambodians trace their roots to this couple.  This enforced the idea that they were descended from gods.  The King is the god on earth.  They were the fathers of the nation, providing security and prosperity.  The devotion to the king the people gave their lives to building Angkor Wat.  This devotion continued into the 20th Century.

When Cambodia declared its independence, the king declared himself the father of the nation.  However, the King was overthrown in the 1970s, and Cambodia was ruled by a communist dictator.  The Khmer Rouge ruled the country with brutality.  That shifted when the military took power in the 1980s.  Eventually, Cambodia became a constitutional monarchy.

Corruption in the military remained a problem and the prime minister promised to tackle that issue.  Cambodia is ranked at the bottom of the corruption index.  There is no transparency in the country.  The Politicians hope for a better future to put behind the nightmare of the Khmer Rouge.

In 2004, Cambodia’s king abdicated and the prime minister moved to fill the void left behind by the king.  Sihaomi, the king’s son became king and shows the connection between the past.  Even the flag has Angkor Wat on it.  Cambodians have worshiped their kings as gods for thousands of years.  The King represented the god and was considered sacred.  This was rooted in teachings that were imported from India.  The sacred rites that were brought over were the only ones that the King could perform.

In 802 the fusion of Indian and Cambodian cultures came together in one king: Jayavarman II.  This king would unite the nation and created the city of Mahendra.  It was built on one of the highest points in Cambodia.  Every king after him would build bigger and they wanted to honor Javararman.  They also wanted to prove they could control nature as well.  The monarch in Cambodia would-be authoritarian.  The people worked for the king to honor him and the gods.  The view was you worked for the nation and you worked for the gods.

This view-built Angkor Wat.  It took over 40 years to complete.  The temple was a document of the gods and the battles they fought.  Buddhism took hold of Cambodia.  This shifted the belief that the kings were representatives of Buddha.  The first Buddhist king was Javararam VII and he went on a building spree.  It was during this time, that Cambodian civilization was at its most majestic.  How long would this civilization last?  To learn more about his building program continue to watch this documentary. 
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The start of the documentary was a little bit choppy but then eventually came together when the narrator talked about Angkor Wat.  This documentary then turned out to be a fantastic watch and would be an excellent one to show in a history or geography class.

This one is a definite fun and frivolous documentary.  It is also a history meets reality TV documentary.  It is also a History Meets English documentary.  Today I will introduce to you Pride and Prejudice: Having a Ball.

Over 200 years ago, Pride and Prejudice was published.  It was one of Jane Austen’s most beloved novels.  To appreciate and understand the novels in the world Jane Austen lived in, a group will perform an experiment.  They will recreate a regency ball.  What would have really happened at the ball?  This is a way to help understand what Jane Austen was trying to say.  This group will recreate the sites and sound of the ball and will reveal the hierarchies involved in the Regency Era.

The setting for the ball is the home of Jane Austen’s brother Edward Austen and for one night a regency ball will be thrown.  The participants will eat the food Austen would have enjoyed.  Dressed in the way Austen would have dressed and listened to the music from the Austen family music book. 

Elizabeth Bennett is a nobody who is wooed by Mr. Darcy a wealthy owner.  Their love story takes place at a ball.  The experts came together to recreate the regency ball.  No detail is too small to look at.  This helps fill in the details of what Austen would have experienced in a real regency ball.  Jane Austen recreated her world in the novel.  She provides a critique on the world around, a world that the modern mind finds challenging to understand.

Pride and Prejudice kick off with the arrival of Bingley.  Bingley brought his friend Mr. Darcy and, in their world, they were young men looking for young women who could bear them sons.  However, contact with the opposite sex was strictly controlled, except on the floors of the ballroom.  Dancing provided the ritual of courtship.  The first ball of the book was held in the assembly rooms which would have been a more public event, where anyone could come.  The Netherfield ball was a more private thus a more exclusive event.  In a public ball, a lady could dance with anyone.  The Netherfield ball however was very different because only the higher classes were invited to those balls.

Dancing was central to the ball.  The dancers would have been very well trained in dancing, something that would not have crossed the modern mind.  A dancing master would have given Elizabeth Bennett and her sisters a few dancing lessons.  Dancing was central to the courtship of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy.  In the novel, Mr. Lucas commented that the pair were well matched because of how well they danced together.  If you refused a dance that meant you were not dancing at all that night.

Not only did Austen write about the world of dancing, and she also wrote about the clothing of this world.  Clothing dictated people’s social class.  In the countryside, the women would have made or altered their own clothes.  The cut of your cloth indicated who you were in society.  Darcy would have been dressed in more expensive fabrics and his clothing was tailored to his specifications.  Clothes were expensive, so they were altered over the years and passed down to a younger family member.

The conditions of a regency ball will be recreated at Edward Austen’s house.  Edward Austen was Jane Austen’s brother and he had money.  He had a grand house called Chawton House and this house had a ballroom.  Mr. Bingley would have had a similar ballroom in his house at Netherfield and he would have lit his room with thousands of candles and mirrors to reflect the light.  The ball would have been a place where conspicuous consumption could be displayed.  The candles alone would have been expensive, which would have caused Mr. Bennett fits.

What can this recreation tell us about Jane Austen’s world?  How can a recreation give us additional insight into Pride and Prejudice?  Watch the rest of this episode to find out more about a regency ball and the world of Jane Austen.
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This would be a good episode to show in an English literature class to help students understand Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice.

Let's continue with a Fun and Frivolous December with Time Walks!  Tony Robinson has another series Time Walks.  He walks and explores the history of a particular area.  This is different from Time Travels and its search for hidden history.  This series happened over two series and explores the cities of Australia and New Zealand.  Tony brings his storytelling style to this series.  The series kicks off with Freemantle and ends with Alice Springs.  What will Tony Robinson learn about Australia?
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Tony highlights the isolation of Australia.  Why would you put a colony in Australia?  You could not grow anything there.  The limestone crumbles easily.  It was only when the British Empire decided to dump convicts in Australia, there was enough labor to turn Australia into a country.  Tony starts his travel in Freemantle, Australia.

He kicks off his walk in the roundhouse.  It was the oldest building in Australia.  It was a prison at one time.  It was built in the round to help the prison guards watch their charges.  Even though it is no longer a prison, there is a particular time-keeping method still kept.  An important person would shoot a cannon and one o’clock, a ball would drop, and the ships in the harbor would set their chronometers.  Tony is invited to shoot the cannon.  The cannon is loud.

Tony then continues onto fishing boat harbor.  Freemantle was a rough place and then America’s Cup came into town.  Tony explores this with a tourist promoter.  This brought a higher class of people and it became the center of the Yachting world.  Freemantle’s residents rose against the developers to prevent them from tearing down their history.  The residents won.  He then heads on to the Maritime Museum for murder and mayhem. 

He tells the story of Batavia.  The Batavia was looking for spices but it was grounded.  Tony tells Batavia’s stories with the tourists in the museum.  The Batavia was hijacked and sailed away.  One hundred and twenty-five people were murdered.  The ringleader was executed.  This was a delightful section in Tony’s Time walk.

In the 1880s gold was discovered again in Australia.  People started flooding into Freemantle to find gold.  Gold flooded into the economy and new buildings were built.  Freemantle was the only city with a city square, only it is not in the center of the city.  Toney then makes it to the wharf.  The dockworkers were treated badly and there was a strike.  In 1919, an event called Bloody Sunday happened.  The dockworkers and the scabs, people were killed during this event.

Tony makes his way to one last prison.  This newer prison had 125 cells.  This prison held a special prisoner.  This prisoner drew the artwork on his cell.  This prison was also the site of a great escape.  It is 1972 and a man pranked the prison to make his escape.  This escape involved the prison radio and a man who was good at electronic repairs.  The guards asked this man to repair the electronics in the prison hospital.  He did more than that and was able to make calls outside the prison.  The man escapes and goes into a getaway car.  The men were caught again three months later. 

Tony concludes his walk with Freemantle is not another suburb of Perth.  It is a city that continually reinvents itself.

Time Walks is a short show with a run time of about twenty-six minutes.  This would be a good series to show for a geography class or independent study geography students.  If you are a geography teacher and have a substitute teacher in the classroom then you can go ahead and show this series.

Good morning, for December we will continue with some fun and frivolous documentaries will look at a royal documentary about the Kingdom of Bhutan.  This could be a potential documentary to show in a geography class.
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In Asia’s Monarchies: Bhutan, is the land of the thunder dragon.  It is the symbol of Bhutan and is a Buddhist monarchy.  Both the past and future come together.  The King had given up absolute power and gave the people democracy.  Each king had a crisis that they navigated carefully.   Bhutan is ruled by the Wangchuck dynasty.  It is an isolated kingdom known as the last Shangri-la. 

The first king united Bhutan and the second king established the dynasty.  The Wangchuck dynasty carefully negotiated politics and the lessons were learned from father to son.  Michael Rutland was the former tutor of the Crown Prince.  He was treated like an ordinary student.  Part of the future king’s upbringing included learning lessons about monarchy from his father.  The Crown Prince would stay with his father, the King, and was not isolated from his father.  This means that the future kings were taught Kingship from a previous king.
The Fourth King made a momentous decision: he gave up absolute power.  The people were shocked at the change and voted to remain an absolute monarchy.  The feeling of the people is that the politicians cannot replace a king.  They love their king and consider him the second buddha. 

Buddhism is seen throughout Bhutan.  It is difficult to separate Buddhism from Bhutan.  An eclipse brings religion and superstition together.  Rituals are performed to stop the moon from eating the sun and prayers are said for the royal family.  Shrines are common in the homes of the Bhutanese.  Wangchuck’s used religion to unite the people of the country.  This link is a key to understanding the history of the Bhutanese royal family. 

However, these were not the only rulers who ruled in Bhutan.  Bhutan was home to priest-kings and monks.  Buddhism was introduced to Bhutan through exiles of India, Tibet, and China.  Buddhism is the most dominant religion in the country.  A monk fled to Bhutan and became a political leader.  He established fortified monasteries at strategic points.  The monk believed that he could rule forever and would be reincarnated into the next king.  However, the problem was finding the reincarnated leader.  This could potentially lead to civil war in Bhutan.

Eventually, one of the lords’ monasteries-forts grew in wealth and power.  It was though this lord the Wangchuk’s arose.  It was an outside empire that finally turned its attention to Bhutan.  The British wanted to end Russian dominance in the north and turned to Bhutan for help.  Wangchuk acted as a guide for the British.  He was knighted and then selected the first King of Bhutan in 1907.  The new king was a political genius and united the crown with Buddhism.  He adopted the raven as the symbol of his monarchy.  It united the spiritual lineage of the monks with the political power of the king.

Wangchuk dedicated the rest of his life to uniting Bhutan and the second king finished the job.  The second king started to win the hearts and minds of his subjects.  He built new palaces and would travel to them to keep in touch with his people.  However, there were challenges to the throne by other claims to the throne.  They challenged the right of the Wangchuks’ to rule.  The challenge was dealt with and the Wangchuk continued to rule.

If you would like to know more about Bhutan continue to watch this documentary.  This would be a good documentary to show in both a history and geography class.

On December 7th, 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.  This attack caught America off guard.  During this attack the USS Arizona torpedoed and sunk, killing 1,100 sailors on board.  Seventy-five years later a group put together by the National Parks Service is looking to scan the outside and the inside of wreck of the USS Arizona.  This documentary talks about the efforts to document the ship as well as talks with the survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack.
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It is December 7th, 1941, and Pearl Harbor is under attack.  This was an assault nobody saw coming.  Everyone was shocked to see that the Japanese were attacking Pearl Harbor.  It shocked the men on the ground.  Earlier in the day, the Ward had depth-charged a Japanese submarine.  Then there were warnings of planes coming in from the north.  The sailors thought these planes were coming from the United States.  The Japanese also learned that the aircraft carriers were not in Pearl Harbor.  They decided to carry on the attack anyway.  The Japanese retreated back to the aircraft carriers feeling their attack was a success.

Seventy-five years later, divers and researchers look to map the interiors of the USS Arizona.  Before the exploration, little is known about the interiors of the USS Arizona.  It is considered a war grave.  The wreck is scanned externally.  A team works to put together an ROV named the 11th Hour to explore inside the ship.  The National Parks service works with a team of divers to explore the internal corridors of the USS Arizona.

The world is at war during 1941.  Adolph Hitler has torn Europe apart.  While Japan is invading Southeast Asia for materials.  It looked as though the Axis powers are going to win.  The Americans did not want to get involved in another war.  The plumb assignment for the soldier or sailor was Pearl Harbor.  Life was good for the soldier or sailor in Hawaii.  At least until the summer of 1941, when Japanese invaded Indochina.  President Roosevelt ordered an oil embargo against Japan to stop Japanese expansion.  This made Japan even more aggressive.  The Japanese saw the fleet in Pearl Harbor as a threat to their expansion and decided to attack.

Even though the Navy did not believe that the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor they still ran air drills and had the ships practice shooting.  For the sailors it did not make any sense, but they dutifully practiced.  Then the attack on December 7th, 1941 happened and changed this ideal world for the sailors and soldiers.

A group of explorers looks to bring the USS Arizona back to life.  These explorers will look through the ship to try to understand what life was like aboard the ship.  The USS Arizona was the pride of the Naval Fleet.  It was sunk during the attack on Pearl Harbor.  The first initial external scans are produced and a survivor from the USS Arizona takes a look at these first scans.  These scans show a badly damaged ship that was torn apart during the attack.

What will the expedition find?  What will the expedition learn about the USS Arizona?  How does the survivor react to seeing his ship for the first time in seventy-five years?  Continue to watch this documentary to find out.

This is a good documentary to show to a history class.  The survivors tell their stories about Pearl Harbor as well as the attackers tell their stories.  The exploration in the USS Arizona was neat to see.  It did start out slow with the lead up to Pearl Harbor but slowly it gradually built up to both the survivors’ tales and the scanning and the exploration of the wreck.

Good morning to continue with a Fun and Frivolous December, we will continue with Tony Robinson’s Time Travels in History’s Battlers.  Tony looks at History’s underdogs and looks back to his family history.  These are people who never gave up.  Tomorrow in honor of December 7th, I will do a documentary on Pearl Harbor and then I will go back to fun and frivolous for December.

Tony’s first-time travel takes us to Tasmania and a hunting ground for the aboriginal people, where he eats a cooked grub.  He ends up spitting the grub out, but the aftertaste is like a hazelnut.  Tasmania was known as Devil’s Land.  In the early 1800s, Tasmania was the end of the world.  The Aboriginal People of Tasmania were massacred, and their children were enslaved.  There were 500 Aboriginal people in Tasmania and their population went down.  War was declared on the people, and they fought back hard.  Finally, the Tasmania Aboriginals were nearly wiped out.  The present-day Tasmania Aboriginals can trace their descent from twelve women.

Next, Tony goes forward 150 years and to some locals who wanted to save their homes.  In the early 1970s, Sydney was in a building boom.  The old houses were torn down and high rises were put up in their place.  A street fight erupted over the fight over building terraces.  They wanted to preserve and protect the old buildings and have an option for affordable housing.  The builders emerged victorious against the developers and managed to save the old homes.  This group saved many historic buildings throughout Sydney including the largest timber wharf.

Tony then goes back to the 1820s and learns more about the nation’s first-ever industrial action and the people who fought for this industrial action are not who you think.  He explores New South Wales, and this place was home to a female factory.  It was built to house the thousands of women who were sent to Australia in chains.  The female factory was divided into three places a meeting room for where men would select wives, a hospital wing, and a dormitory wing.  The beautiful architecture was to inspire orderliness.  However, the women were treated horribly, and this women’s factory was the home of a riot. 

In 1827 the women’s food rations were cut down further.  A riot or a “workers action” was started.  The woman did not like the punishments, work conditions, or the yoking.  The women threw the work matron out and broke out of the prison.  They ran and gathered as much food as they could.  Eventually, a majority of the women came back and when the prison wardens wanted to round up the ring leaders the women refused.

Tony concludes this series with travel back to the 19th Century and a visit with his ancestors.  He goes to London to learn more about his family’s history.  London was growing and they could not handle the increase in population.  Life was grim in London and Tony’s family faced extreme poverty.  The Robinsons ended up in the workhouse where conditions were worse than what they faced on the outside.  Tony’s great-grandfather and great-grandmother both died in the workhouse.  Businesses were booming in London; however, the pay was low, and too many workers to choose from.  Eaton College stepped in to help the poor children get an education to help them get out of poverty.  Clubs were established.  Reforms and improvements in working conditions helped improve life.  Tony’s family moved up in the world and now Tony and his children do not have to struggle to survive anymore.

Tony’s story about his family was touching and the Women’s Prison Riot was fascinating, and that section would be the one section I would show in a history class.

For December, I will do something fun and frivolous to close out the year. 
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In Artistic Forces, leaders thought to leave an impression through Art.  Art has had a huge impact on history.  The first-time travel goes back to the 1940s and to a woman who challenges the status crow. Her name was Nora Heisman and was the first woman to win a prize for art in Australia.  This caused a huge furor in Australia.  The men hated that a woman had won an award.  Nora became the first female war artist.  She was first posted to Melbourne and would paint portraits of the women in charge of the nursing effort.  Eventually, she started painting the men and would pant the nurses dancing with soldiers.  She found ways around the army system to capture war.  Nora was sent back because she had a skin condition and here, she would sketch the doctors working on curing skin diseases.  Her work would not be appreciated until the late 1980s.

Tony then goes back to the 1930s to explore an artist who desired anonymity.  At the height of the Great Depression, everyone was fighting to survive.  That would change with one simple word: Eternity.  This word was showing up on the sidewalks around Sydney.  Who was the artist?  IT would take twenty-three years to solve the mystery.  The man who wrote eternity all over Sydney was Arthur Stace.  He was a man down on his luck and a chance encounter in the church lead him to write eternity on the sidewalks in Australia.  He could not even spell eternity and continued to write out eternity for twenty-three years.  He was eventually caught and at the time he had written it out over half a million times.  This was a piece of art that could make a person think.

Tony goes back further in time to explore a piece of art that caused society to question its conventions.  It is the 1880’s and the population of Melbourne had doubled.  The majority of society clung to their Victorian values.  However, there was a growing progressive population in Melbourne that was willing to put aside their values.  The International Expedition came to town and a prize art exhibition was part of it.  A local doctor purchased one of the paintings and donated it to the local art museum.  The problem was a painting of a naked lady and it was known as Chloe.  The problem came when the museum started opening on Sunday and would be exposed to the working-class people.  The working class could not be allowed to see this painting.  The painting was taken off the wall and hidden.  It remerged in 1901 and was hung on the wall in a pub where it had hung ever since.

Canberra is Tony’s next destination and the year is 1973.  The government started building the National Gallery of Australia and started filling the space with art.  Here Tony looks at the artwork of Jackson Pollock and then gets distracted by a group of school children.  The children will recreate the art that was put up in the Australian gallery.  This piece of work caused a bit of trouble because the price was high and Pollock was criticized.  Jackson Pollock’s piece was a good investment for the museum as many people come to see it.  Canberra became a destination for art because of the fighting.

Where does Tony go last in his Time Travel?  Who does he meet up with to explore this last piece of art?  Continue to watch this episode to find out.

This would be an excellent episode to show in an art history class and could lead to some good discussion about art and its impact on history.