Wikipedia Trails: From the Orlov Diamond to the Catherine Palace

Catherine Palace

I was looking through the class Twitter feed and came across the Orlov diamond, so, I decided to Google it. I found out that this diamond was originally from Andhra Pradesh, India, and it is now a part of the Kremlin in Russia. Due to the fact that I love traveling, I clicked on the hyperlink for St. Petersburg so I could learn a little about the city. According to the Wikipedia page, St. Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia, after Moscow, and was once the capital of imperial Russia. Scrolling through the page, the architecture in St. Petersburg is gorgeous. Naturally, during this process, I started reading about the Winter Palace. I honestly think it would be so cool to live in a palace. There is so much history and culture within the walls and it would be amazing to live within it. As I read about the Winter Palace a little bit, I clicked on the link for the Alexander Palace. This palace was the place that the Romanovs were under house arrest in the early 1900s during World War I, before they were overthrown. Finally, the last link that I went to was the Catherine Palace. This palace happens to be near the Alexander and the pictures from the Wikipedia show it to be just as beautiful. The outside is a light blue and the inside of the palace looks exceptional. I could keep going on the palaces, but I think this is a good stopping place.  

Wikipedia Trail: From the 62 AD Earthquake in Pompeii to the House of Savoy

Margherita Pizza (Wikipedia Commons)

I started off my Wikipedia Trail by reading about the Earthquake in Pompeii in 62 AD. When I was in elementary school, I remember watching a documentary about the volcano in Pompeii and how that destroyed the entire city. I've always been intrigued by history and I've always wanted to visit Pompeii so this Wikipedia article was interesting to read. From that article, I went on to read about Naples. As I mentioned in a few other blog posts, travelling is one of my passions. I dream to travel as much as I possibly can while learning about the cultures of other countries and eating all the delicious food along the way. Also, Naples is essentially the home of pizza so that just makes everything better. If you haven't guessed already, my next link was about Pizza. Honestly, reading about pizza just made me really hungry and I started wanting pizza as soon as I read it. But, it was interesting to read about how different cultures had variations of pizza. For example, during Darius I's empire in Persia, soldiers would cook pizza on their battle shields with flatbread, cheese, and dates. There was also some speculation on the origin of Margherita pizza being named after Princess Margherita of Savoy, however, it could just be a legend. But, that didn't stop me from learning about Princess Margherita. After reading about Margherita of Savoy, I learned that she lived quite an interesting life. She engaged in politics and even lived through World War I. She was a quiet supporter of Mussolini because she disliked democracy and longed to see the monarchy rule. So, once I learned a little bit about Margherita, I wanted to learn a little bit about the House of Savoy. As I mentioned before, I love history. I especially love European history and learning about royalty. I didn't know that Italy took part in the colonialism movement and once ruled over Ethiopia and Libya. I also learned that members of the House of Savoy went into exile due to the rise of fascism in Europe and they were even banned from entering the country of Italy until 2002. I could honestly keep reading about this and go on more Wikipedia Trails but I'm going to save that for the next assignment.