http://rburensteinq4historybm.weebly.com/

That is a link to my website, you can also get there by clicking the primary source below

My point of divergence was a decision that Franklin Delano Roosevelt made. He knew that he was sick, so instead of focusing on ending the war as quickly as possible, he decided to work on the second bill of rights. He kept this secret so that the citizens of the united states would think he was doing the best for the nation by ending the war. As a result of this, 2012 has much less problems. Our economy is great, we are third in the world for education, and employment never dips under the rates it was at when the bill was passed. This is all because the second bill of rights helped the citizens of the united states with all of these issues.

    I liked being able to choose my own topic for a project. There was a lot of freedom, and I was able to look at something I was interested in. Even though I chose my own topic, there was still a lot of challenging work. Sometimes it was hard to find resources that I could use to know what would happen in the future if this point in time would change. It was also hard to find a topic that could be altered by history, and have some impact on the United States now. It took a lot of work, but I was eventually able to settle on a topic that I found interesting, and could effect American history a lot. The most interesting thing about my topic was the fact that it might have been possible. I had not heard about a plan for the second bill of rights before, and I really liked thinking about how the world would be different if it had been made.

    What if it had been made? The choice that FDR made to focus on the war, and not start creating the second bill of rights could have impacted our country greatly. It could have prolonged the war, but in the end made out country a lot better. The choice that he made effected our whole country. There are also millions of other choices that could have effected history, and we have no idea how much they would change the world had they been made differently. The choice that FDR made surely wasn't his own. It took him and some other people to decide what would be better for the country at that point, and they chose to focus un the war. There is no saying how much their decision, or any other has effected the world. Some decisions may hold no weight in the world, so that if they were changed nothing would be different, while others could look like not important decisions, but really change the world completely.

    My project could have been improved if the created primary sources were more interesting or creative. There could have been a video element to them, or something more exciting than a news article, and 2 dimensional things that can easily be printed out. I would also change my website a little to make it better looking, and possibly have more creative elements. If I could do this project over again, I would like to choose another point around the same time as the one I chose. This would help me see which one was more important to society, and why. If I chose the same topic, then I would make different primary sources as I mentioned above, and change my website or have a different form of presentation, like a magazine.

In 1733, German-American printer named John Peter Zenger accepted an offer from James Alexander to publish his editorials criticizing New York's governor at the time. Alexander founded the New York Weekly Journal and published the first issue in November of 1733. The Governor being criticized went by the name William Cosby. Cosby attempted to have the publication shut down several times with the court's help, but eventually put out a 50 pound reward to the person that could identify the authors of the editorials and order Zenger's papers to be burned publicly. With the help of his attorney general Cosby issued a warrant for Zenger's arrest. Zenger spent 8 months in jail. Cosby attempted to select jurors himself, but that was dismissed and twelve townspeople were picked. 

The trial began in August of 1735 on the terms that the paper was producing "seditious libel". It was true that Andrew Hamilton, of Philadelphia, Zenger's lawyer had no law to support his idea that the truth could be defensive for a libel charge. The trial could be said to have been the most famous 'jury nullification' in history, which means a jury has the power to serve  verdict of 'not guilty' because the disagree with the current law rather than actually believe the person is not guilty. Needless to say, the jury did not make a judgement on the existing law or the facts, but what they thought of the law itself. This is thought to be the building blocks for Free Press in the Bill of Rights.

My point of divergence is that the jury does rule a guilty verdict and the existing British law is not challenged. 

I liked being able to pick something I was interested in. I had the freedom to choose  a topic that conceded my because I am a journalist. The whole project was interesting in that way, but the jury nullification is what I find interesting. As well as the fact that Zenger was just the publisher when we never wrote a single word. He did not set out to be a champion of free speech, but simply a printer doing his thing. 

The individuals in this situation seem to make the impact but it is really the individuals joining together as the jury and as the public in a print protest of the power they disagreed with. Free Press is a systemic change. If this was the only thing to be changed, I believe someone or some people would have eventually made free press happen but countless other things would have been affected in the mean time. 

The resonating changed I thought about was elections. If press were not able to use their privilege of reporting facts, even when unpleasant the results of many elections could have changed. 

If this project could have been improved it would have been to find more sources. It was very difficult to locate primary sources from the 1730's. Honestly, if I had more evidence I could have used more. 

If I could do it over, I would have done even more. I like the idea of the magazine, but there isn't much content. Because I am a journalist I didn't like feeling as if the project was only half done with a single photo, article and cartoon. ​

Video diary by a girl in 2012.

My point of divergence in the US is that Rachel Carson, the biologist whose book, Silent Spring helped push forward the environmental protection effort, and combated the use of a dangerous pesticide DDT, instead never switched her major. From my research, I found that that Carson had originally planned to have an English, but later on switched to biology. Without Carson being the voice against the environmental impact of DDT, I envisioned the future to have all of the results of the use of DDT- but ten-fold. There were 3 major things that I decided would come about from the excessive use of DDT: 1. Malaria would be eradicated. When looking for DDT sources I came across several sources that ask the same question that I pose. Apparently, those sources spoke of a Malaria free world if the pesticide had continued to be in use. I saw a graph that showed a very sharp decline of deaths of malaria, but then an even sharper increase after the brief decline. I concluded that Malaria is directly affected, so Malaria would have to be gone in the world DDT is still used. My second major thing: the prices of fish are sky rocketed. My third major impact is also within my second. The fact that fish prices are so ridiculously high is because their aquatic habits are contaminated with runoff containing DDT. That is explained when the character I portray say that she can't even swim in the ocean. The result from the contaminated water is that the majority of the fish have died off, making them endangered. Yet they are still for sale (greediness of humans anyone?). 

Those were important details in my portrait of the future. I can say that I wish I had made my video journals look more...personal. I wanted them to look plain and seem almost impromptu, because I was supposed to be a random spewing of thoughts. Hence the reason why I didn't add things like transitions and stuff. I wish I could have given my character a more personality of my own- I hope remnants of myself didn't shine through too much. So I think if I were to do it again, I would make a person dramatically different from myself.

Aside from that, from this project I've realized the immense impact that little events have on our world. It makes me think of all of the world's great and evil leaders- how much things would be different if these people took different roads in life. I'm aware that we would would live in an entirely different world. I also realize that our world is the way it is because of the same people stayed tenacious and never let go of the vision that they had in mind. Mind you, that can be good or bad. Though regardless, it teaches the ever-repetitive lesson, "never give up", which mostly lives up to the praise that it receives.