For example, they say:

Percent has been used since the end of the fifteenth century in business problems such as computing interest, profit and loss, and taxes. However, the idea had its origin much earlier. When the Roman emperor Augustus levied a tax on all goods sold at auction, centesima rerum venalium, the rate was 1/100. Other Roman taxes were 1/20 on every freed slave and 1/25 on every slave sold. Without recognising percentages as such, they used fractions easily reduced to hundredths.

In the Middle Ages, as large denominations of money came to be used, 100 became a common base for computation. Italian manuscripts of the fifteenth century contained such expressions as “20 p 100″ and “x p cento” to indicate 20 percent and 10 percent. When commercial arithmetics appeared near the end of that century, use of percent was well estasblished. For example, Giorgio Chiarino (1481) used “xx. per .c.” for 20 percent and “viii in x perceto” for 8 to 10 percent. During the sixteenth and seventeenth century, percent was used freely for computing profit and loss and interest. (NCTM p146,147}

Many high school seniors may be old enough to vote, but just one-quarter of them demonstrate at least a “proficient” level of civics knowledge and skills, based on the latest results from a prominent national exam.
…
“Knowledge of our system of government is not handed down through the gene pool,” retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said in a statement. “The habits of citizenship must be learned. … But we have neglected civic education for the past several decades, and the results are predictably dismal,” said Justice O’Connor, who has been promoting civics instruction in the United States.

© 2011 Editorial Projects in Education

The consequences of this will be (and are!) profound: the loss of the concept of freedom. Thank goodness for professors and private schools (e.g., the LePorte Schools, the VanDamme Academy, HistoryAtOurHouse) who still teach the American Revolution: those people and schools will be our saving grace.

An example answer:

9. Use the following correctly in sentences, Cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
•    a.) The cite which was given as a source for the quote was incorrect.
•    b.) The site was surveyed yesterday.
•    c.) My rifle has a front and a rear sight.
•    d.) We celebrated the re-birth at fane.
•    f.) She would fain stay with her husband.
•    g.) Can she feign surprise and excitement?
•    h.) The vanes on the windmill are broken.
•    i.) It is vain to think you are better than others.
•    j.) Mother has a varicose vein in her leg.
•    k.) Tomorrow they will raze the old barn.
•    l.) Today they started to raise a new barn.
•    m.) The rays of the sun feel good in the spring.

HT: Patrick D.

Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1705[1]] – April 17, 1790) was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and printer, satirist, political theorist, politician, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, soldier,[2] and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass ‘armonica’. He formed both the first public lending library in America and the first fire department in Pennsylvania. He was an early proponent of colonial unity, and as a political writer and activist, he supported the idea of an American nation.[3] As a diplomat during the American Revolution, he secured the French alliance that helped to make independence of the United States possible.

PBS has information about him, and you can read about him on Answers.com.

Image from Wikipedia.

The first seven arithmetic textbooks published in the Americas were in Spanish, four in Mexico and three in Lima, Peru. The first mathematics textbook was the Sumario Compendioso (1556) written by Juan Diez Freyle, and the first separate arithmetic was the Arte Para Aprender Todo El Menor Del Arithmetica by Pedro de Paz (1623), both published in Mexico. Incidentally, the first university in America was founded in Mexico by 1554, in which later the first lecturer in mathematics was Juan Negrete.

Wow. Fascinating.

John Kessell writes, in his Spain in the Southwest (Copyright © 2003 by John L. Kessell, Published by University of Oklahoma Press, ISBN10:  0806134844, ISBN13:  9780806134840), that the horses were Andalusian barbs (at least, that is how I interpret this excerpt from his Chapter 1):

The domesticated animals they brought, especially spirited Andalusian barb horses and snarling greyhound and mastiff attack dogs, astonished the Tainos. Cows, pigs, goats, and chickens also came ashore and multiplied. When allowed access, Natives took readily to this tamed and assorted meat supply, as they did to material items like candles or scissors that proved more efficient than their own.

Image of Andalusian/Iberian from Wikipedia, which attributes this sketch as: “Welbeck Le Superbe Cheval de Spanie,” engraving (reprinted 1743) by C. Caukercken, after Abraham van Diepenbeeck, from the first Duke of Newcastle’s A general system of horsemanship in all its branches (new edition printed for J. Brindley, bookseller to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, in New Bond-street, 1743)

And in the Internet exhibition “No Traveller Remains Untouched” of The Albert B. Alkek Library of Texas State University, San Marcos, TX, they write of the reintroduction of the horse to the Americas:

The horse came to the New World – to Hispaniola – on Christopher Columbus’ second transatlantic voyage, on January 2, 1494. Hernan Cortes brought the first horses to New Spain (current-day Mexico) in 1519.

Update (11:25 AM):  Wikipedia claims:

In 1518 Velázquez put him in command of an expedition to explore and secure the interior of Mexico for colonization. At the last minute, due to the old gripe between Velázquez and Cortés, he changed his mind and revoked his charter. Cortés ignored the orders and went ahead anyway, in February 1519, in an act of open mutiny. Accompanied by about 11 ships, 500 men, 13 horses and a small number of cannons, he landed in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mayan territory.

Image of Barbs from Wikipedia.

In Wikipedia’s article on the Andalusian horse, they say:

Mitochondrial DNA studies of the modern Andalusian horse of the Iberian peninsula and Barb horse [see also Preserving the Rare Beauty of the Abaco Barb on InfoHorse.com] of North Africa, present convincing evidence that both breeds crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and were used for breeding with each other, influencing one another’s bloodlines. Some of the earliest written pedigrees in recorded European history were kept by Carthusian monks, beginning in the 13th century. The Carthusians bred powerful, weight-bearing horses in Andalusia for the Crown of Castile, using the finest Spanish Jennets as foundation bloodstock. Because they could read and write, and were thus able to maintain careful records, monastics were given the responsibility for horse breeding by certain members of the nobility, particularly in Spain. Andalusian stud farms for breeding were formed in the late 1400s in Carthusian monasteries in Jerez, Seville and Cazalla. By the 15th century, the Andalusian had become a distinct breed, and was being used to influence the development of other breeds. They were also noted for their use as cavalry horses.

Image of Andalusian from Wikipedia.

Update (11:30 AM): For information on the evolution of horses, see the page “Horse Evolution Over 55 Millions Years” of Tuft University‘s Department of Chemistry; Wikipedia’s article “The Evolution of the Horse;” Darwiniana.org‘s “Horses, Evolution, and Transitional Forms;” etc.

Answers.com says of Isaac Newton:

Isaac Newton’s discoveries were so numerous and varied that many consider him to be the father of modern science. A graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, Newton developed an intense interest in mathematics and the laws of nature which ultimately led to his two most famous works: Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) and Opticks (1704). Newton helped define the laws of gravity and planetary motion, co-founded the field of calculus, and explained laws of light and color, among many other discoveries.

Copyright © 1998-2008 by Who2, LLC. All rights reserved. See the Sir Isaac Newton biography from Who2.

Amen.

Image from Wikipedia.

A replica of Newton’s second reflecting telescope:

Image from Wikipedia.

HT: Andy C.

Mei Flower thinks the world history curriculum she has to teach moves just a little too quickly:

For example, we are currently studying the Enlightenment, and our most recent section dealt with the Scientific Revolution. In 90 minutes, I had to talk about Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Boyle, Newton, some guy who invented trigonometry, another guy who made advances in anatomy by dissecting human bodies, yet another guy who invented the decimal system, some guy who’s the father of modern chemistry, a woman who wrote a book, Francis Bacon, the scientific method and Descartes. DESCARTES.

Well, good thing the Enlightenment wasn’t all that important. … Seriously, are there people out there running schools or education policy who don’t think this sort of thing is a travesty?

© 2009 Editorial Projects in Education

Antidote: Powell History. He understands history and how to teach it, and puts that understanding into practice.