Do the land areas around the North and South Poles appear smaller or larger in size than they really are?

It is a fun fact that most countries around the North & South pole simply appear to be larger than other equatorial countries on the map.

It is due to a form of distortion named the Mercator Projector. Back in the day, it was tough to draw a map of a 3D world on a piece of paper.

Since explorers only had compass and pole star navigation at hand, they had to draw maps that could be carried around easily.

These maps were not accurate, and to change this, Dutch navigator Gerardus Mercator came up with a solution in 1569. He drew a map that was an accurate representation of the countries.

However, the size of the countries away from the equator became distorted as he was drawing countries in respect to their distance from the equator.

Because of this, the landmass around the North pole (like Greenland) and South Pole (Antarctica), look much larger on a map than they actually are.

link

In the Mercator projection, the areas around the poles appear much larger than they are in proportion to areas around the equator.

Explanation:

1. read the following excerpt from franklin d. roosevelt's "fireside chat 19":

on the other side of the picture, we must learn also to know that guerilla warfare against the germans in, let us say serbia or norway, us; that a successful russian offensive against the germans us; and that british successes on land or sea in any part of the world strengthen our hands.

remember always that germany and italy, regardless of any formal declaration of war, consider themselves at war with the united states at this moment just as much as they consider themselves at war with britain or russia. and germany puts all the other republics of the americas into the same category of enemies. the people of our sister republics of this hemisphere can be honored by that fact.  

the true goal we seek is far above and beyond the ugly field of battle. when we resort to force, as now we must, we are determined that this force shall be directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. we americans are not destroyers — we are builders.

analyze the effectiveness of this excerpt. how does it function within the speech as a whole? how does the structure of the excerpt to convey the speech's purpose and key points? support your argument with evidence from the speech. (10 points)