DID YOU KNOW: Star Wars lightsabers

WHAT DO LIGHTSABERS' COLOURS MEAN?

STUDENT´S WRITING

                 In the first six episodes of Star Wars films lightsabers were red, blue and green; and purple only for Mace Windu because the actor asked for it.  On the contrary, in the Expanded Universe there were many different colours. Although now colours are used for decoration, in the past they could have had a meaning.

                 In the original trilogy, the jedis' lightsabers were blue but the Sith´s were red. This could be a simple code, blue for the good ones and red for bad ones. 

Despite Jedis´ lightsabers were blue, Yoda´s and Qui-Gon´s were green and also Luke Skywalker´s was green in episode VI The Return of the Jedi. This was because George Lucas thought that Luke´s lightsaber couldn't be seen clearly in the battle versus Jabba el Hutt over the Sarlacc.


On the other hand, the Imperial ships' lasers were green but the Rebellion ships' lasers were red. So we can´t say that colors are an actual code for the good ones and the bad ones.

                    Actually, the lightsabers´ colour depends on the crystal used to concentrate energy when the lightsaber is built. After the Old Republic, the Lord Siths´ lightsabers used to be red because there were made with artificial crystals. 
On the other hand, the Jedis´ lightsabers used to be green or blue because they were made with Adegan natural crystal form Ilum planet. Padawans performed a ceremony in the ice caverns form this planet, where they found these natural crystals.

                    Finally, we can say that there are many different colours for lightsabers (there was even a black one once) but there is not a simple clear code for them. It depends on the historical moment in the story, the contrast with the setting, directors´ decisions or even actors´choices.

Test: What Colour of Lightsaber Are You?

by Alex Leal

DID YOU KNOW: Video games almost dissapeared?

VIDEO GAMES CRASH '83-'85

or Atari shock

STUDENT´S WRITING

                 In the 80s, video games became very popular and a lot of enterprises begun to create video games. On 21st June 1982, many enterprises went into bankruptcy due to a crisis, a giant recession of the video game industry.

        The crisis started with the loss of customer's confidence as there were an excess of games and consoles in the market. At that moment the consoles were: Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Astrocade Bally, Coleco Vision, Coleco Gemini, Emerson Arcadia 2001, Fairchild Channel F System II, Magnavox Odyssey, Mattel Intellivision, Mattel Intellivision II, Sears Tele-Games systems, TandyvisioN and Vectrex. 

          Another fact that caused the crisis was Atari's promises of disastrous games like E.T.: The extra-terrestial and the adaptation of Pac-Mac from the arcade format. Both games were pitiful. They had all kind of errors you could imagine. 

               
                 The video games' industry almost disappeared but a glorious day Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) went on sale alongside the famous Super Mario. This led to the sale of video games again activated. The success of Nintendo and the settlement of quality standards for developing video  games helped the industry to recover.

                Since that day, all gamers in the world thank Minoru Arakawa, who created Nintendo of América in 1980, for helping video games industry to success. Nowadays,  the industry is so big and earn so much money that nobody could believe that in the 80's video games almost disappeared.

by Aaron Garicano 

DID YOU KNOW: Liquid Paper

STUDENT´S WRITING

Did you know that the first liquid paper was called Mistake Out? And did you know there were different colours?

In 1951, Bette Nesmith Grahm was a secretary and worked writing a lot. She made many mistakes and she was looking for a way to correct them. She invented a kind of tempera paint mixed with her kitchen blender and put it in samll bottles with the name of Mistake Out written on them. She shared this liquid with her partners at work.

Bette used correction liquid for five years and her son´s chemistry teacher helped her to improve the formula. She began to sell it in 1956, then she built her own company and changes the name to Liquid Paper. In 1970 there were different colours of Liquid Paper, like blue or green, to use them in different coloured forms.

Bette offered her product to IBM but they didn´t want it. Bette decided to sell it herself from her home during 17 years. She started to win money and the enterprise grew. Finally, Global Gillette bought it in 1979. Now, 200 people work in it and make 25 milliion bottles of Liquid Paper every year.

I hope you enjoyed it and learned something!


By Sandra Marco Navarro

DID YOU KNOW: Christmas Carols

STUDENT´S WRITING

        The word `carol´comes from the old language from France, Old French, whose word `carole´means dance in a ring accompaied by singers. They were very popular from the 12th century to the 14th century and they were sung during festivals and special moments in sacred services. Some of them were written to accompany mystery plays, which were the earliest plays in Medieval Europe.

     During the Protestant Reformation, the calvinists wanted to erase all elements form Roman Catholicism that weren´t essential, including carols. Despite these calvinist thoughts, many composers wrote songs like motets, that they called carols, and in rural areas traditional carols were still sung. Suprisingly, some of the most popular carols were written in this period. On the 19th century, some carols were adapted by freat musicians and new ones were written.

     As examples, we can take some popular carols that we all already know:

- Good King Wenceslas (12th C.)
- Coventry Carol (16th C. Mystery Play)
- Silent Night (19th C. - 1816 Austria)
- Hark The Herald Angels Sing, Mendelsshon´s (19th C.)

And many other:

- We Wish You a Merry Christmas
- Let It Snow
- White Christmas
- Santa Claus is Coming to Town
- Christmas Tree
- Jingle Bells
- Rudolf was a raindeer
- ...


MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2016 TO ALL!!


By Jorge Lorenz Sánchez

DID YOU KNOW?: Halloween

Hallowe'en, a contraction of "All Hallows´ Evening", is a celebration observed in many countries on 31st October, that is All Saints´ Eve. 

This festival is related with an ancient celtic harvest festival with pagan roots, the Gaelic festival Samhain. Some scholars understand that during the Christianization period many festivals were adapted or influenced by pagan ones in order to make it easier to understand and accept the new faith.

The festivity of All Saints was introduced in the year 609 by the Christian Church but was originally on 13th May, as Lemur, an ancient Roman festival of the dead. Then, in 835, it was switched to 1st November, as Samhain, the Gaelic festival, by Pope Gregory IV. Since the primitive Church, the main feasts have vigils which began the night before. Therefore, All Saints´ Day has its vigil too, and this one coincided with Samhain.

Including All Souls´ Day (2nd Nov.),  All Saints´ Day (1st Nov.) and its eve (31st Oct.), these three days are all known as Allhallowtide. For the Christian Church, this period in the liturgical year is dedicated to remembering the dead, saints (also called hallows), martyrs and departed believers.

Nowadays, activities for celebrating Halloween include wearing costumes, decorating, parades, playing pranks, trick-or-treating, carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, scary games, apple bobbing, telling scary stories, visiting haunted attraction...etc... The Christian religious observances include visiting graveyards and cemeteries, attending church services, lighting candles and putting flowers on the graves of the dead; in some cases even abstinence from meat, as they did in the past which is the origin of many traditional recipes and vegetarian food consumption such as potato pancakes, soul pancakes, bonfire toffee, toffee apple, cider colcannon, barmbrack, monkey nuts, pumpkin pie, roasted pumpkin seeds, roasted sweet corn or candy corn ...etc...

Sadly, we have to admit that consumerism led us to forget about the origins of all these and take part in this big business. In US, $6 billion are spent in costumes and candy in Halloween making it the second most comercial holiday after Christmas.