For those that like digging up the past, history is on your side, do not give up digging because its through uncovering our past experiences that we manage to handle the hardships we go through today. Well documented history can become a great tool to be used as a guide that will help the modern day humans overcome the challenges they are facing at present. Prepare for the future but never forget about the past” is the common phrase motivational speakers bombard us every single day
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In the mid-1800s, much of the continent of Africa was still completely unknown to Europeans. Despite a history of European contact and involvement in Africa that dated back to Roman times and even earlier, European maps showed the interior of Africa as a blank space-unexplored territory. Trading posts and a few colonies located on […]
When Europeans decided to divide up Africa like a piece of Cake Read More »
West Africa had been a major center of the slave trade. First the Portuguese and Dutch and later the British and French had established trading posts along the coast. When most European countries abolished the slave trade in the early 1800s, these former slaving centers turned to other types of commerce. They traded in
European Colonization of West Africa Read More »
Henry Stanley’s successful search for Dr. David Livingstone did much to publicize the possibilities for imperialistic development in central Africa. Stanley tried but failed to interest the British government in . the vast area that he had explored. He then turned to King Leopold II of Belgium, who did want the region. After much national
European Colonization of Central Africa Read More »
On the east coast of Africa, Portugal strengthened and extended its control over Mozambique. To the north of Mozambique, Great Britain and Germany Competed For territorial domination. The slave trade had been only marginally active in East Africa before the late 1700s, but it began to increase after about 1780. During this period of more active
European Colonization of East Africa Read More »
European settlement in South Africa began in 1652, when Dutch settlers founded Cape Town as a resupplying station for ships sailing to the East Indies. The Dutch settlement grew into a large colony called Cape Colony. During the Napoleonic Wars of the early 1800s, the British seized Cape Colony, which then became a British possession.
European Colonization of Southern Africa Read More »
One of the most wrenching changes of the 1800s was not the result of a reform movement. A terrible famine devastated Ireland in the 1840s. Millions left the country, an emigration that changed the social fabric of Ireland and the United States forever. In 1845 a previously unknown fungus struck the potato crop, the
Who or What is really to blame for the Irish Potato Famine of the Mid 1800s? Read More »
Storytellers since the time of the ancient Greeks have enjoyed imagining that people are capable of breaking the laws of nature and gaining fantastic strength or powers. They have also imagined amazing machines and mythical figures with magical abilities. In a sense, the spirit of discovery expressed in the scientific and industrial ages-and in new
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Petroleum-crude oil-and its products have been in use for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians used pitch, a thick, sticky form of petroleum, to coat mummies as they prepared them for burial. Ancient Babylonians used pitch to build walls and pave streets. Yet it took two inventions of the 1800s-the kerosene lamp and, to a much
How Petroleum made our modern world Read More »
Michael Thonet, a German cabinetmaker living in Austria, invented a process that revolutionized furniture making. He used this process in the mid-1860s to craft the bentwood rocker. Thonet’s patent consisted of bending solid wood by steaming it and then clamping a thin strip of steel along one side. The process eliminated complex jointing and carving.
Incredible History behind the Thonet Rocker Read More »
Historians consider the Industrial Revolution to be one of the two most important changes that have taken place in the history of the world. Just as the start of agriculture did 10,000 years ago, the Industrial Revolution marks a turning point in history. The Industrial Revolution is, of course, a more recent change. Just 300
How the industrial revolution made our modern World Read More »