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Native Americans 2200 B.C. to 1600 A.D: Period Characteristics

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Native Americans 2200 B.C. to 1600 A.D: Period Characteristics

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1. Oral literature: epic narratives, creation myths, stories, poems, songs.

2. Use stories to teach moral lessons and convey practical information about the natural world.

3. Deep respect for nature and animals.

4. Cyclical worldview.

5. Figurative language/parallelism.

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Native American tribes speak a variety of languages. Around 600 different dialects of numerous languages are thought to have been spoken.

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The shaman or medicine man was the head of the religion for each Native American tribe.

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Role of the Shaman

Shamans are notable religious or spiritual figures present in many traditional Indigenous faiths. They function as healers, prophets, diviners and custodians of religious lore. They are also often the coordinators of religious and cultural ceremonies, including the Sun Dance (a world-renewal ceremony performed by First Nations on the Prairies) and the Winter Ceremony of the Kwakwaka'wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth and other Northwest Coast communities. ( See also Northwest Coast Indigenous Peoples in Canada.)

In some societies, all these functions are performed by the same person; in others, shamans are specialists. Healing practitioners may belong to various orders, such as the Midewiwin or Great Medicine Society of the Ojibwe, while other groups have secret or closed societies, such as the Kwakwaka'wakw and Siksika. Members of such societies were not necessarily shamans but did practice religious ceremonies and rituals.

Spiritual and Healing Powers

Shamans were associated with powers generally thought to be beneficial to the community, but were believed in some cases to use their powers for sorcery. Shaman-prophets and diviners were concerned with predicting the outcome of the hunt, relocating lost objects, and determining the root causes of communal discontent and ill will. Siksika, Cree, Ojibwe and other societies had diviners who made their prophecies (perhaps in trance states) in the dramatic Shaking Tent ceremony. Shamans in these societies were custodians of the sacred medicine bundles containing objects and materials endowed with great mystery and power. Innu shamans divined game trails by burning a caribou shoulder blade, then reading the cracks and fissures created by the fire.

Shamans were often consulted at any time of sickness or communal misfortune. Natural causes were recognized for many diseases, especially physically curable ones; others were commonly believed to be the result of intrusion into the body of objects placed there by sorcerers. The shaman-healer's treatment of such diseases was dictated by his guardian spirit, but usually consisted of the shaman ritually sucking the disease agent out of the body, brushing it off with a bird's wing or drawing it out with dramatic gestures. Illness could also result from "spirit loss." The shaman-healer's action was then directed to recovering the patient's spirit (either the soul or guardian spirit power, or both) and reintroducing it to the body.

Banning Shamanistic Rituals

In 1880, the Indian Act was amended to prohibit the organization of, or participation in, certain traditional healing ceremonies, including smudging - a sacred cleansing ceremony that involves the burning of various medicinal plants. Some societies continued to practice their traditions in secret, while others upheld the prohibition in fear of government prosecution.

In the early 1950s, the government lifted bans on traditional healing ceremonies. As Indigenous peoples sought to reclaim traditions, Indigenous medicine began to re-emerge. By the 1980s, various shamanistic rituals and healing ceremonies gained popularity both within and outside Indigenous communities.

Shamanism Today

Many shaman-led healing ceremonies are still performed, including smudging, sharing circles and healing circles. Many modern shamans see themselves as facilitators for healing rather than healers themselves. Shamans offer healing techniques for those suffering from emotional, mental and physical pain. Often, such techniques include connecting with spirit guides, negative energy extraction, holistic remedies, engaging with nature and spiritual cleanses. Similar to their ancestors, modern shamans also perform rites of passage ceremonies, including births, marriages and deaths.

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Shamans are notable religious or spiritual figures present in many traditional Indigenous faiths. They function as healers, prophets, diviners and custodians of religious lore. They are also often the coordinators of religious and cultural ceremonies, including the Sun Dance (a world-renewal ceremony performed by First Nations on the Prairies) and the Winter Ceremony of the Kwakwaka'wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth and other Northwest Coast communities.

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Puritanism and Early Settlement  of First "American" colonies 1600-1800: Period Characteristics

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Puritanism and Early Settlement  of First "American" colonies 1600-1800: Period Characteristics

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1. Wrote mostly diaries and histories, which expressed the connections between God and their everyday lives.
2. South to "purify" the Church of England by reforming to the simpler forms of worship and church organization described in the New Testament.
3. Saw religion as a personal, inner experience.
4. Believed in original sin and "elect" who would be saved.
5. Used a plain style of writing.

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Puritanism and Early Settlement  of First "American" colonies: Authors and Works 

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Puritanism and Early Settlement  of First "American" colonies: Authors and Works 

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William Bradford
-"Of Plymouth Plantation"

Anne Bradstreet (poetry)

John Edwards
-"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"

Edward Taylor
-"Huswifery"

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Puritanism and Early Settlement  of First "American" colonies: Fact 1 

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Puritanism and Early Settlement  of First "American" colonies: Fact 1 

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The Puritans believed in education and founded Harvard in 1636. It is the oldest university in the United States.

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Kids learn about the history of the Puritans in colonial America including their beliefs, the Great Migration, Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

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Puritanism and Early Settlement  of First "American" colonies: Fact 2

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Puritanism and Early Settlement  of First "American" colonies: Fact 2

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Adulterers might have been forced to wear a scarlet "A" if they were lucky.

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1507: Early Settlement of the first American colonies - Jamestown

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1507: Early Settlement of the first American colonies - Jamestown

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1741: Jonathan Edwards "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" 

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1741: Jonathan Edwards "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" 

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1. Mostly comprised of philosophers, scientists, writing speeches and pamphlets

2. Human beings can arrive at truth (God's rules) by using deductive reasoning, rather than relying on the authority of the past, on religious faith, or intuition

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Benjamin Franklin
—Autobiography

Patrick Henry
—"Speech to the Virginia Convention"

Thomas Paine
—"The Crisis"

Phyllis Wheatley
—poetry

The Constitution

The Bill of Rights

The Declaration of Independence

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There were originally 12 amendments to the Constitution, but the first 2 were never ratified.

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There were originally 12 amendments to the Constitution, but the first 2 were never ratified. Amendments 3 through 12 then became the Bill of Rights.

The structure and content of the Bill of Rights was influenced by the Virginia Declaration of Rights drafted in 1776 by George Mason.

The Bill of Rights Day is celebrated on December 15.

The most recent, Amendment XXVII, was ratified on May 2, 1992. It was originally proposed on September 25, 1789, and was one of the two that was not passed in the original Bill of Rights. Amendment XXVII deals with compensation to members of the Senate and House of Representatives.

To learn more, and to read the full text of the Bill of Rights, see the Bill of Rights site at the National Archives.

To read the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was a model for the Bill of Rights and key phrases in the Declaration of Independence, see the Virginia Declaration of Rights site at the National Archives.

Read more and test your knowledge at GPO's Government Book Talk Blog Quiz and History for Bill of Rights Day December 15.

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To learn more, and to read the full text of the Bill of Rights, see the Bill of Rights site at the National Archives.

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AN UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT GOT ONE OF THOSE AXED AMENDMENTS RATIFIED IN 1992.

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December 15 is Bill of Rights Day, so let's celebrate by exploring the amendments that helped shape America.

Some of the sentiments in our bill of rights are at least 800 years old. In 1215, King John of England had a serious uprising on his hands. For many years, discontentment festered among his barons, many of whom loathed the King and his sky-high taxes. On May 17, a rebellious faction led by Robert Fitzwalter captured London, forcing John to negotiate.

Their talks produced one of the most significant legal documents ever written. The King and his barons composed a 63-clause agreement which would-ostensibly-impose certain limits on royal rule. Among these laws, the best-known gave English noblemen the right to a fair trial. They called their groundbreaking peace treaty Magna Carta, or "The Great Charter."

The original version didn't last long, though. John persuaded Pope Innocent III to invalidate the document and, within three months, His Holiness did just that. The next year, King John's 9-year-old son, King Henry III, issued an abridged version of Magna Carta to appease the barons, and in 1225 enforced a new and revised Magna Carta. Today, citizens of the U.K. are protected by three of the 1225 version's clauses, such as the aforementioned right to a trial by jury.

Magna Carta's influence has also extended far beyond Britain. Across the Atlantic, its language flows through the U.S. Constitution. Over half of the articles in America's Bill of Rights are directly or indirectly descended from clauses in said charter. For instance, the Fifth Amendment guarantees that "private property shall not be taken for public use, without just compensation." Article 28 of Magna Carta makes a similar statement about the seizure of "corn or other goods."

Issued in 1689, this Parliamentary Act made several guarantees that were later echoed by the first 10 U.S. constitutional amendments. For instance, the English Bill of Rights forbids "cruel and unusual punishments" while ensuring the "right of the subjects to petition the king."

There's a decent chance that you've never heard of George Mason. By founding father standards, this Virginian has been largely overlooked. But if it weren't for Mason, the Constitution might have never been given its venerated Bill of Rights.

Back in 1776, Mason was part of a committee that drafted Virginia's Declaration of Rights. "[All] men," the finished product said, "are by nature free and independent, and have certain inherent rights ... namely the enjoyment of life and liberty." Sound familiar? It should. As everybody knows, Thomas Jefferson would write another, more famous declaration that year. When he did so, he was heavily influenced by the document Mason spearheaded.

Fast-forward to 1787. With the Constitutional Convention wrapping up in Philadelphia, Mason argued that a bill of inalienable rights should be added. This idea was flatly rejected by the State Delegates. So, in protest, Mason refused to sign the completed Constitution.

At the convention, the motion to include a bill of rights wasn't made by Mason, although he seconded it. Instead, credit belongs to one Elbridge Gerry, who had also withheld his signature from the Constitution. He'd go on to become a notorious figure during his tenure as the governor of Massachusetts. A staunch Democratic-Republican, Gerry was governor during the blatantly partisan re-drawing of the Bay State's congressional districts. These days, we call this unfair political maneuver "gerrymandering."

The Sage of Monticello sided with Mason. Following the Constitution's approval, Jefferson offered a few comments to his friend James Madison (whom history has called its father). "I do not like ... the omission of a bill of rights," he wrote. "Let me add that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth."

Adams was away in Great Britain when the Constitution was being created. Upon reading its contents, he proclaimed that "A Declaration of Rights I Wish to see with all my heart, though I am sensible of the Difficulty in framing one, in which all the States can agree."

From the onset, this future president admired the principle behind a bill of rights. Still, he initially saw no point in creating one. Madison explained his position to Jefferson in October 1788, writing, "My own opinion has always been in favor of a bill of rights ... At the same time, I have never thought [its] omission a material defect." But Madison eventually changed his tune. After becoming a congressman in 1789, he formally introduced the amendments that would comprise the current bill of rights.

Madison won his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives after running against the man who would become his Oval Office successor. Both candidates acted with civility: While on the campaign trail, they regularly dined together and even shared sleeping quarters.

Originally, Representative Madison presented 19 amendments. On August 24, 1789, the House green-lit 17 of them. That September, the Senate made some heavy edits, trimming these down to an even dozen, which the states then looked over. In the end, numbers three through 12 were approved and collectively became our Bill of Rights on December 15, 1791.

Better late than never. The second proposed amendment would have restricted Congress' ability to give itself a pay raise or cut. No law that tweaked the salaries of its members would take effect until after the next Congress had begun. Sensible as this idea sounds, the amendment wasn't ratified by the required three-fourths majority of U.S. states. So, for 202 years, it was stuck in limbo.

Enter Gregory Watson. His rollercoaster-like journey with the dormant proposal began in 1982. Then a student at the University of Texas, Watson was researching a term paper when he discovered this Congressional Pay Amendment. As he dug deeper, the undergrad found that it was still "technically pending before state legislatures."

So Watson mounted an aggressive letter-writing campaign. Thanks to his urging, state after state finally ratified the amendment until, at last, over 38 had done so. After a bit of legal wrangling with Congress, on May 20, 1992, the constitution was updated to include it as the 27th (and most recent) amendment. (Watson, by the way, got a C on that term paper.)

During his first term, President Washington and Congress had 14 official handwritten replicas of the Bill of Rights made. At present, two are conspicuously unaccounted for.

One copy was retained by the federal government while the rest were sent off to the 11 states as well as Rhode Island and North Carolina, which had yet to ratify. Subsequently, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, and Georgia all lost theirs somehow. It's believed that the Empire State's was burned in a 1911 fire while Georgia's likely went up in smoke during the Civil War.

In 1945, a long-lost original copy-experts aren't sure which-was gifted to the Library of Congress. Forty-nine years earlier, the New York Public Library had obtained another. Because it's widely believed that this one originally belonged to Pennsylvania, the document is currently being shared between the Keystone State and the NYPL until 2020, when New York will have it for 60 percent of the time and Pennsylvania for the rest.

During the spring of 1865, Raleigh was firmly under the control of pro-Union troops. According to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney's office in that city, "Sometime during the occupation, a soldier in Gen. William Sherman's army allegedly took North Carolina's copy of the Bill of rights [from the state capitol] and carried it away."

Afterward, it changed hands several times and eventually came into antique dealer Wayne Pratt's possession. When the FBI learned of his plan to sell the priceless parchment, operatives seized it. In 2007, the copy went on a well-publicized tour of North Carolina before returning to Raleigh-hopefully for good.

To celebrate the Constitution's 150th anniversary, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Georgia formally gave the Bill of Rights the approval they'd withheld for well over a century.

Thanks to this one, soldiers cannot legally be quartered inside your home without your consent. Since colonial Americans had lived in fear of being suddenly forced to house and feed British troops, the amendment was warmly received during the late 1700s. Today, however, it's rarely invoked. As of this writing, the Supreme Court has never based a decision upon it, so the American Bar Association once called this amendment the " runt piglet" of the constitution.

On November 27, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt urged America's citizenry to celebrate December 15 as "Bill of Rights Day" in honor of its anniversary:

"I call upon the officials of the Government, and upon the people of the United States, to observe the day by displaying the flag of the United States on public buildings and by meeting together for such prayers and such ceremonies as may seem to them appropriate."

"It is especially fitting," he added, "that this anniversary should be remembered and observed by those institutions of a democratic people which owe their very existence to the guarantees of the Bill of Rights: the free schools, the free churches, the labor unions, the religious and educational and civic organizations of all kinds which, without the guarantee of the Bill of Rights, could never have existed; which sicken and disappear whenever, in any country, these rights are curtailed or withdrawn."
This story first ran in 2015.

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December 15 is Bill of Rights Day, so let's celebrate by exploring the amendments that helped shape America. Some of the sentiments in our bill of rights are at least 800 years old. In 1215, King John of England had a serious uprising on his hands.

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The European cultural revolution known as the Age of Enlightenment occurred in the 18th century.

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Age Of Enlightenment Facts To Improve Your Historical Knowledge | Kidadl

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The Age of Enlightenment is a philosophical movement that dominated European thought in the 18th century. Enjoy some Age of Enlightenment facts with us!

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The concept “American Enlightenment” was not used in the 18th century, but rather it was coined after the Second World War. During the 18th century, English speakers commonly referred to the period as a process of becoming enlightened.

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The Enlightenment

The American Enlightenment was an intellectual movement in the 13 American colonies from the 17th to 18th centuries, which emphasized science and reason over blind faith and superstition. It was also during this period that the American Revolution took place, which eventually led to the creation of the United States of America.

Using press freedom, enlightenment thinkers criticized common knowledge and established innovative ideas about religious tolerance, investigation, and openness throughout the Americas. More often than not, experts consider the Enlightenment period as a significant turning point in the age of Western civilization as it replaced the age of darkness with a generation of light.

Besides the enlightenment thinkers mentioned above, many American figures were also associated with this period. This includes Roger Williams, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. Together with Franklin, Madison, and Jefferson, George Washington fought for and eventually gained religious freedom for minority denominations.

Several philosophical beliefs that dominated the Enlightenment period included cosmopolitanism, progressivism, empiricism, and rationalism. Primarily, these beliefs endeavor with reason and science instead of prejudice and biases.

Individuals who follow the cosmopolitanism philosophy view themselves as citizens that are actively engaged. At the same time, progressivism is the belief that through the powers of observation and reason, humans can make linear and unlimited progress over time. Progressivism also played a significant role in response to the upheaval and carnage of the English Civil Wars during the 17th century.

On the other hand, rationalism is the belief that humans can use their faculty of reason to learn. This was a significant turn away from the prevailing idea that individuals needed to depend on church authorities or scripture for knowledge. Empiricism, meanwhile, promotes the belief that knowledge comes from observation and the experience of the world.

Other than its productive philosophical beliefs, the American Enlightenment period also saw the rise of the Federal-style of American Architecture. European architecture styles like Georgian and Gothic emerged and became a uniquely American genre.

From 1813 to 1816, American architect Ithiel Town built the Trinity Church on the Green in New Haven, which was the first gothic church in North America. Some nascent artistic attempts were also made in the fields of drama, music, poetry, and literature in pre-war Philadelphia. Still, American influence within these fields was largely imitative of the British culture.

Facts about the American Enlightenment Period

Deism was a popular philosophical position in the Enlightenment period. It is a belief in a deity based on reason instead of religious dogma or revelation. These beliefs were mainly influenced by the ideas of Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Jefferson.

The concept "American Enlightenment" was not used in the 18th century, but rather it was coined after the Second World War. During the 18th century, English speakers commonly referred to the period as a process of becoming enlightened.

The Connecticut Constitution was passed late in the American Enlightenment period, which guaranteed everyone with the freedom of religion and disestablished the Congregational Church.

The six critical ideas of the Enlightenment period included Deism, Liberalism, Conservatism, Toleration, Scientific Progress, and Republicanism.

Many of the six ideas of the American Enlightenment period were shared with European Enlightenment thinkers but, in some instances, took a distinctly American form.

During the American Enlightenment period, the society also started to reject several Puritan ideals which created the basis of culture until that time.

English-born American writer Thomas Paine was among the famous figures of the Enlightenment period. His book entitled The Age of Reason argued the philosophical position of Deism.

Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams are considered as the founding fathers of the American Enlightenment.

The pamphlet of Thomas Paine entitled Common Sense was published in 1776. It encouraged American colonists to rise against the English.

Q & A:

Who are the founding fathers of the American Enlightenment?
The founding fathers of the American Enlightenment period were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson.

What are the six key ideas of the American Enlightenment period?
The six key ideas were Republicanism, Deism, Scientific Progress, Toleration, Liberalism, and Conservatism.

Who wrote The Age of Reason and Common Sense?
Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense and The Age of Reason, which was integral in the American Enlightenment.

What are the popular philosophical beliefs of the American Enlightenment?
Rationalism, cosmopolitanism, empiricism, and progressivism were the dominant beliefs of this period.

What was the first gothic church in North America?
The Trinity Church on the Green in New Haven was the first gothic church in North America.

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The American Enlightenment was an intellectual movement in the 13 American colonies from the 17th to 18th centuries, which emphasized science and reason over blind faith and superstition. It was also during this period that the American Revolution took place, which eventually led to the creation of the United States of America.

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1. Everything in the world, including human beings, is a reflection of the Divine Soul.

2. People can use their intuition to behold God's spirit revealed in nature or in their own souls.

3. Self-reliance and individualism must outweigh external authority and link conformity to tradition.

4. Important social and political movements include the Abolitionist, Utopian, and Women's Suffrage Movements

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Ralph Waldo Emerson
—Nature
—"Self-Reliance"

Henry David Thoreau
—Walden
—Life in the Woods

Louisa May Alcott
—Little Women

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"Transcendentalists didn’t believe in organized religion, but they were very spiritual. Instead of believing in the divinity of religious figures, they saw nature as sacred and divine. They believed it was crucial for humans to have a close relationship with nature, the same way religious leaders preach about the importance of having a close relationship with God. Transcendentalists saw nature as perfect as it was; humans shouldn’t try to change or improve it."

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What Is Transcendentalism? Understanding the Movement

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Curious about the transcendentalism movement? We explain the transcendentalism definition, outline core beliefs, and discuss key people and works.

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It is a loose collection of eclectic ideas about literature, philosophy, religion, social

reform, and the general state of American culture

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25 facts on transcendentalism - Aaron Alexander ENG 2333 American Transcendentalism Facts 1 It is a loose collection of eclectic ideas about literature | Course Hero

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Aaron Alexander ENG 2333 American Transcendentalism Facts 1. It is a loose collection of eclectic ideas about literature, philosophy, religion, social reform, and the general state of American culture 2. Flourished in Concord and Boston, MA and also Vermont. 3. Began as a dispute with the Unitarian church 4.

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Week 7 | Elon Taking over Twitter and Standing up for Free speech NOVEMBER 18, 2022

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Week 7 | Elon Taking over Twitter and Standing up for Free speech NOVEMBER 18, 2022

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Elon musk is taking a stand for free speech by reinstating all the banned people on twitter who were removed for their views, peticulary regarding political views.

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Right Wingers Fume After Musk Announces Shadowbanning Policy

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Conservatives are watching their dreams of a libertarian, moderation-free utopia crushed, one Musk tweet at a time

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1. Valued feeling, intuition, idealism, and inductive reasoning.

2. Placed faith in inner experience and the power of the imagination.

3. Shunned the artificiality of civilization and sought unspoiled nature as a path to spirituality.

4. Championed individual freedom and the worth of the individual

5. Saw poetry as the highest expression of the imagination

6. Dark Romantics: used dark and supernatural themes/settings (Gothic style)

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Romanticism and Industrialization Famous Authors and Works

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Romanticism and Industrialization Famous Authors and Works

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Washington Irving
—"Rip van Winkle"

Emily Dickinson
—poetry

Walt Whitman
—Leaves of Grass

Edgar Allan Poe
—"The Raven"

Nathaniel Hawthorne
—The Scarlet Letter

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It began in Britain
The Industrial Revolution is commonly seen as starting in Britain before spreading to other parts of the world. Already the world’s leading commercial nation at the time, Britain’s head start in the Industrial Revolution further fuelled its imperialist ambitions and led to it becoming the most powerful country in the world. By the 20th century, the British Empire was the biggest in history.

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This educational video is a visual version of the article 10 Key Inventions During the Industrial Revolution and presented by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Please see our AI ethics and diversity policy for more information on how we use AI and select presenters on our website.
Beginning in the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution was a defining period of western history. Although we commonly think of it as being the evolution from economies based on agriculture and handicrafts to ones primarily based on industry and machine manufacturing, it was in fact so much more than that.

The process affected almost every aspect of life, with profound social and cultural changes taking place alongside the economic and technological changes. Here are 10 facts about the Industrial Revolution.

1. It began in Britain

The Industrial Revolution is commonly seen as starting in Britain before spreading to other parts of the world. Already the world's leading commercial nation at the time, Britain's head start in the Industrial Revolution further fuelled its imperialist ambitions and led to it becoming the most powerful country in the world. By the 20th century, the British Empire was the biggest in history.

2. It all started with coal

Britain sits on a lot of coal. But until the 18th century, wood had been the primary source of energy in the country. Coal, however, could produce up to three times more energy than timber, and as Britain's population grew and the demand for fuel increased so too did the demand for coal.

As coal mines grew deeper, they were at increased risk of flooding and people began to search for an effective way of pumping this water out. A steam engine was developed that could pump water from hundreds of metres below ground. Though highly inefficient fuel-wise, this machine enabled Britain to dig deeper and deeper for coal, giving it access to a seemingly endless supply of cheap energy.

3. But coal wasn't the only factor

After all, Britain had had coal for millions of years. The unique intellectual climate in 18th century Britain was also an important factor. Unlike in many European countries, scientific ideas were not subject to censorship and the exchange of such ideas between thinkers enabled inventions like the steam engine to come about.

4. The term "Industrial Revolution" was popularised by an English economic historian

Mention of the term can be traced back to 1799 and it was even used by the co-founder of Marxist theory Friedrich Engels in his book The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. But it wasn't until 1881 that the term was popularised by the English economic historian Arnold Toynbee, who used it to refer to the economic development of Britain between 1750 and 1830 in lectures he gave that year.

Many historians now challenge Toynbee's ideas, however, putting the start of the Industrial Revolution much earlier and arguing that the change was more gradual than he suggested.

5. The first modern factory was a water-powered cotton spinning mill

Established by a man named Richard Arkwright in 1771, the mill was located in the village of Cromford in Derbyshire. It initially employed 200 workers and ran day and night with two 12-hour shifts.

Many of the mill's workers were migrant labourers and the local area did not have enough housing to home them. To resolve this issue, Arkwright built housing for the workers nearby, becoming one of the first manufacturers to do so.

Today, the mill is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and open to the public.

6. There was a huge migration of people to towns and cities

In the mid-18th century, about 15 per cent of the English population lived in urban areas; by 1900 this figure had increased to a whopping 85 per cent.

7. Between 1815 and 1914, the production of materials and goods in Britain increased dramatically

During these 100 years, the production of coal increased 20-fold, while the production of "pig" (crude) iron increased 30-fold. The output of textiles, meanwhile, increased by 15-fold.

8. The period of intense canal-building in the 1790s and 1800s is known as "Canal Mania"

During this time, huge sums of money were invested in building canals in Britain, though not all of the waterways proved profitable. By 1850, there were more than 4,000 miles of canals in the country. A similarly intense period of railway-building in the 1840s is known as "Railway Mania".

9. Britain's first railway line opened in 1825

Built by the Stockton and Darlington Railway company, the 25-mile-long railroad connected collieries near the north English town of Shildon with the towns of Stockton-on-Tees and Darlington.

10. There was arguably a Second Industrial Revolution

In the latter part of the 19th century, a new set of innovations led to rapid economic growth - a phase that is often referred to as the "Second Industrial Revolution" or the "Technological Revolution". It followed an economic recession that struck at the end of the original Industrial Revolution in the 1830s and 1840s.

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10 Facts About the Industrial Revolution

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Beginning in the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution was a defining period of western history. Although we commonly think of it as being the...

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Machines Replaced People
The main thing that happened during the Industrial Revolution was that machines were developed that could perform many of the jobs and tasks that had previously been done by people. This had social as well as economic consequences.

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Paul graduated from university in 1987. He has done a variety of jobs, including librarian and teacher. He currently resides in Florida.

The Industrial Revolution is the name given to the enormous changes that took place with technology, farming, mining, manufacturing, and transportation from the middle of the 18 th Century through to the middle of the 19 th Century.

These changes had a massive impact on people's social and cultural life, as well as their economic conditions.

I hope that you enjoy reading my 12 facts on the industrial revolution and find them interesting.

1. The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain. It later spread to Western Europe, North America, and around the world.

2. The main thing that happened during the Industrial Revolution was that machines were developed that could perform many of the jobs and tasks that had previously been done by people (or in some cases, animals, such as horses).

3. Before the Industrial Revolution, societies were largely rural and people made things at home. Industrialization meant that more and more people lived in cities, and goods were mass produced in purpose-built factories.

4. The Industrial Revolution generally brought about much better economic conditions for most people, but the poor and working classes often suffered with grim jobs and terrible living conditions. Dissatisfaction and poverty sometimes resulted in social breakdown, protests, and rioting.

The Luddites

The industrial revolution meant that many artisans saw their traditional livelihoods wiped out by the new machines. The Luddites were a group of English textile artisans who protested against the introduction of labour-replacing machinery from 1811 to 1817 often through sabotage and other forms of resistance. Protests broke out in Nottinghamshire and Northern England and became violent in some instances, with fighting between the protesters and the British Army.

5. There are still some countries in Africa and Asia that have yet to experience industrialization. These countries are sometimes referred to as "Third World" or "Developing" nations.

6. Britain was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution for three main reasons. Firstly, Britain had lots of coal and iron ore, which was needed to power and make the machines that were required by industrialization. Secondly, it helped that Britain was politically stable. Thirdly, Britain was a major colonial power at the time, with the colonies providing both the raw materials for manufacturing and the marketplaces for the manufactured goods to be sold after they had been made.

7. The Industrial Revolution was the most important thing to happen in human history since the time when animals and plants were domesticated.

8. Before the Industrial Revolution happened, each generation of people produced a roughly similar amount of products to their predecessors and overall economic wealth was fairly stagnant. After industrialization, production began to grow quickly and it generally continued to grow each year.

9. The Industrial Revolution effectively created a new economic system, known as: "Capitalism".

10. Although the overall effects of industrialization were positive, there were many bad sides too, including all the pollution and waste that was created as a side effect by the machines. Working practices also became more regimented and many people worked long hours in factories performing repetitive, and sometimes dangerous or unhealthy jobs.

11. The production of textiles was one of the things that was totally transformed by the Industrial Revolution. Before industrialization, people generally made clothes at home. Merchants would often give the clothes makers the raw materials and essential equipment, and then collect and sell the finished products for them.

Industrialization meant that machines took over most of the work, with humans becoming less and less involved. On top of that, those that did work had to go to a factory each day, where their time and effort was closely monitored for efficiency. In effect, production increased, but not everyone's lives got better.

12. The steam engine was one of the most important inventions of the Industrial Revolution. The first practical steam engine was a machine made to pump water out of mines by the English inventor, Thomas Newcomen in 1712. The steam engine design was later improved upon by the Scotsman, James Watt. As well as powering the machines used in factories and mines, steam engines were also used in ships and locomotives, which improved transportation dramatically.

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Paul graduated from university in 1987. He has done a variety of jobs, including librarian and teacher. He currently resides in Florida. The Industrial Revolution is the name given to the enormous changes that took place with technology, farming, mining, manufacturing, and transportation from the middle of the 18 th Century through to the middle of the 19 th Century.

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The Puritans were a religious group that emerged in the late 16th century in England. They believed that the Church of England was too similar to the Roman Catholic Church and sought to "purify" it of its Catholic elements.

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Puritans: A Definition

The roots of Puritanism are to be found in the beginnings of the English Reformation. The name "Puritans" (they were sometimes called "precisionists") was a term of contempt assigned to the movement by its enemies. Although the epithet first emerged in the 1560s, the movement began in the 1530s, when King Henry VIII repudiated papal authority and transformed the Church of Rome into a state Church of England. To Puritans, the Church of England retained too much of the liturgy and ritual of Roman Catholicism.

Did you know? In keeping with their focus on the home, Puritan migration to the New World usually consisted of entire families, rather than the young, single men who comprised many other early European settlements.

Well into the 16th century, many priests were barely literate and often very poor. Employment by more than one parish was common, so they moved often, preventing them from forming deep roots in their communities. Priests were immune to certain penalties of the civil law, further feeding anticlerical hostility and contributing to their isolation from the spiritual needs of the people.

The Church of England

Through the reigns of the Protestant King Edward VI (1547-1553), who introduced the first vernacular prayer book, and the Catholic Mary I (1553-1558), who sent some dissenting clergymen to their deaths and others into exile, the Puritan movement-whether tolerated or suppressed-continued to grow.

Some Puritans favored a presbyterian form of church organization; others, more radical, began to claim autonomy for individual congregations. Still, others were content to remain within the structure of the national church but set themselves against Catholic and episcopal authority.

As they gained strength, Puritans were portrayed by their enemies as hairsplitters who slavishly followed their Bibles as guides to daily life or hypocrites who cheated the very neighbors they judged inadequate Christians.

Yet the Puritan attack on the established church gained popular strength, especially in East Anglia and among the lawyers and merchants of London. The movement found wide support among these new professional classes, who saw in it a mirror for their growing discontent with economic restraints.

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, an uneasy peace prevailed within English religious life, but the struggle over the tone and purpose of the church continued. Many men and women were more and more forced to contend with the dislocations-emotional as well as physical-that accompanied the beginnings of a market economy.

Subsistence farmers were called upon to enter the world of production for profit. Under the rule of primogeniture, younger sons tended to enter the professions (especially the law) with increasing frequency and seek their livelihood in the burgeoning cities. The English countryside was plagued by scavengers, highwaymen and vagabonds-a newly visible class of the poor who strained the ancient charity laws and pressed upon the townsfolk new questions of social responsibility.

Puritans in New England

In the early decades of the 17th century, some groups of worshipers began to separate themselves from the main body of their local parish church where preaching was inadequate and to engage an energetic "lecturer," typically a young man with a fresh Cambridge degree, who was a lively speaker and steeped in reform theology. Some congregations went further, declared themselves separated from the national church, and remade themselves into communities of "visible saints," withdrawn from the English City of Man into a self-proclaimed City of God.

One such faction was a group of separatist believers in the Yorkshire village of Scrooby, who, fearing for their safety, moved to Holland in 1608 and then, in 1620, to the place they called Plymouth in New England. We know them now as the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock.

A decade later, a larger, better-financed group, mostly from East Anglia, migrated to Massachusetts Bay. There, they set up gathered churches on much the same model as the transplanted church at Plymouth (with deacons, preaching elders and, though not right away, a communion restricted to full church members, or "saints").

Differences Between Pilgrims and Puritans

The main difference between the Pilgrims and the Puritans is that the Puritans did not consider themselves separatists. They called themselves "nonseparating congregationalists," by which they meant that they had not repudiated the Church of England as a false church. But in practice they acted-from the point of view of Episcopalians and even Presbyterians at home-exactly as the separatists were acting.

By the 1640s, their enterprise at Massachusetts Bay had grown to about 10,000 people. They soon outgrew the bounds of the original settlement and spread into what would become Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Maine, and eventually beyond the limits of New England.

Who Were the Puritans?

The Puritan migration was overwhelmingly a migration of families (unlike other migrations to early America, which were composed largely of young unattached men). The literacy rate was high, and the intensity of devotional life, as recorded in the many surviving diaries, sermon notes, poems and letters, was seldom to be matched in American life.

The Puritans' ecclesiastical order was as intolerant as the one they had fled. Yet, as a loosely confederated collection of gathered churches, Puritanism contained within itself the seed of its own fragmentation. Following hard upon the arrival in New England, dissident groups within the Puritan sect began to proliferate- Quakers, Antinomians, Baptists-fierce believers who carried the essential Puritan idea of the aloneness of each believer with an inscrutable God so far that even the ministry became an obstruction to faith.

Puritanism in American Life

Puritanism gave Americans a sense of history as a progressive drama under the direction of God, in which they played a role akin to, if not prophetically aligned with, that of the Old Testament Jews as a new chosen people.

Perhaps most important, as Max Weber profoundly understood, was the strength of Puritanism as a way of coping with the contradictory requirements of Christian ethics in a world on the verge of modernity. It supplied ethics that somehow balanced charity and self-discipline. It counseled moderation within psychology that saw worldly prosperity as a sign of divine favor. Such ethics were particularly urgent in a New World where opportunity was rich, but the source of moral authority was obscure.

By the beginning of the 18th century, Puritanism had both declined and shown its tenacity. Though "the New England Way" evolved into a relatively minor system of organizing religious experience within the broader American scene, its central themes recur in the related religious communities of Quakers, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists and a whole range of evangelical Protestants.

More recently, the word "Puritan" has once again become a pejorative epithet, meaning prudish, constricted and cold-as in H. L. Mencken's famous remark that a Puritan is one who suspects "somewhere someone is having a good time."

Puritanism, however, had a more significant persistence in American life than as the religion of black-frocked caricatures. It survived, perhaps most conspicuously, in the secular form of self-reliance, moral rigor and political localism that became, by the Age of Enlightenment, virtually the definition of Americanism.

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The Puritans were members of a religious reform movement that arose in the late 16th century and held that the Church of England should eliminate ceremonies and practices not rooted in the Bible.

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Puritans were known for their strict religious beliefs and practices, which included strict codes of personal conduct and the exclusion of religious dissenters. They also had a strong emphasis on individual responsibility, hard work, and self-discipline. Puritans were also known for their strong commitment to education and for setting up schools, colleges and universities in the colonies

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Puritans: A Definition

The roots of Puritanism are to be found in the beginnings of the English Reformation. The name "Puritans" (they were sometimes called "precisionists") was a term of contempt assigned to the movement by its enemies. Although the epithet first emerged in the 1560s, the movement began in the 1530s, when King Henry VIII repudiated papal authority and transformed the Church of Rome into a state Church of England. To Puritans, the Church of England retained too much of the liturgy and ritual of Roman Catholicism.

Did you know? In keeping with their focus on the home, Puritan migration to the New World usually consisted of entire families, rather than the young, single men who comprised many other early European settlements.

Well into the 16th century, many priests were barely literate and often very poor. Employment by more than one parish was common, so they moved often, preventing them from forming deep roots in their communities. Priests were immune to certain penalties of the civil law, further feeding anticlerical hostility and contributing to their isolation from the spiritual needs of the people.

The Church of England

Through the reigns of the Protestant King Edward VI (1547-1553), who introduced the first vernacular prayer book, and the Catholic Mary I (1553-1558), who sent some dissenting clergymen to their deaths and others into exile, the Puritan movement-whether tolerated or suppressed-continued to grow.

Some Puritans favored a presbyterian form of church organization; others, more radical, began to claim autonomy for individual congregations. Still, others were content to remain within the structure of the national church but set themselves against Catholic and episcopal authority.

As they gained strength, Puritans were portrayed by their enemies as hairsplitters who slavishly followed their Bibles as guides to daily life or hypocrites who cheated the very neighbors they judged inadequate Christians.

Yet the Puritan attack on the established church gained popular strength, especially in East Anglia and among the lawyers and merchants of London. The movement found wide support among these new professional classes, who saw in it a mirror for their growing discontent with economic restraints.

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, an uneasy peace prevailed within English religious life, but the struggle over the tone and purpose of the church continued. Many men and women were more and more forced to contend with the dislocations-emotional as well as physical-that accompanied the beginnings of a market economy.

Subsistence farmers were called upon to enter the world of production for profit. Under the rule of primogeniture, younger sons tended to enter the professions (especially the law) with increasing frequency and seek their livelihood in the burgeoning cities. The English countryside was plagued by scavengers, highwaymen and vagabonds-a newly visible class of the poor who strained the ancient charity laws and pressed upon the townsfolk new questions of social responsibility.

Puritans in New England

In the early decades of the 17th century, some groups of worshipers began to separate themselves from the main body of their local parish church where preaching was inadequate and to engage an energetic "lecturer," typically a young man with a fresh Cambridge degree, who was a lively speaker and steeped in reform theology. Some congregations went further, declared themselves separated from the national church, and remade themselves into communities of "visible saints," withdrawn from the English City of Man into a self-proclaimed City of God.

One such faction was a group of separatist believers in the Yorkshire village of Scrooby, who, fearing for their safety, moved to Holland in 1608 and then, in 1620, to the place they called Plymouth in New England. We know them now as the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock.

A decade later, a larger, better-financed group, mostly from East Anglia, migrated to Massachusetts Bay. There, they set up gathered churches on much the same model as the transplanted church at Plymouth (with deacons, preaching elders and, though not right away, a communion restricted to full church members, or "saints").

Differences Between Pilgrims and Puritans

The main difference between the Pilgrims and the Puritans is that the Puritans did not consider themselves separatists. They called themselves "nonseparating congregationalists," by which they meant that they had not repudiated the Church of England as a false church. But in practice they acted-from the point of view of Episcopalians and even Presbyterians at home-exactly as the separatists were acting.

By the 1640s, their enterprise at Massachusetts Bay had grown to about 10,000 people. They soon outgrew the bounds of the original settlement and spread into what would become Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Maine, and eventually beyond the limits of New England.

Who Were the Puritans?

The Puritan migration was overwhelmingly a migration of families (unlike other migrations to early America, which were composed largely of young unattached men). The literacy rate was high, and the intensity of devotional life, as recorded in the many surviving diaries, sermon notes, poems and letters, was seldom to be matched in American life.

The Puritans' ecclesiastical order was as intolerant as the one they had fled. Yet, as a loosely confederated collection of gathered churches, Puritanism contained within itself the seed of its own fragmentation. Following hard upon the arrival in New England, dissident groups within the Puritan sect began to proliferate- Quakers, Antinomians, Baptists-fierce believers who carried the essential Puritan idea of the aloneness of each believer with an inscrutable God so far that even the ministry became an obstruction to faith.

Puritanism in American Life

Puritanism gave Americans a sense of history as a progressive drama under the direction of God, in which they played a role akin to, if not prophetically aligned with, that of the Old Testament Jews as a new chosen people.

Perhaps most important, as Max Weber profoundly understood, was the strength of Puritanism as a way of coping with the contradictory requirements of Christian ethics in a world on the verge of modernity. It supplied ethics that somehow balanced charity and self-discipline. It counseled moderation within psychology that saw worldly prosperity as a sign of divine favor. Such ethics were particularly urgent in a New World where opportunity was rich, but the source of moral authority was obscure.

By the beginning of the 18th century, Puritanism had both declined and shown its tenacity. Though "the New England Way" evolved into a relatively minor system of organizing religious experience within the broader American scene, its central themes recur in the related religious communities of Quakers, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists and a whole range of evangelical Protestants.

More recently, the word "Puritan" has once again become a pejorative epithet, meaning prudish, constricted and cold-as in H. L. Mencken's famous remark that a Puritan is one who suspects "somewhere someone is having a good time."

Puritanism, however, had a more significant persistence in American life than as the religion of black-frocked caricatures. It survived, perhaps most conspicuously, in the secular form of self-reliance, moral rigor and political localism that became, by the Age of Enlightenment, virtually the definition of Americanism.

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The Puritans were members of a religious reform movement that arose in the late 16th century and held that the Church of England should eliminate ceremonies and practices not rooted in the Bible.

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In 1947, the United States Air Force conducted the first ever successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), known as the Bumper 8, at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. This marked a significant milestone in the Cold War arms race and in the development of long-range missile technology.

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An arms race occurs when two or more countries increase the size and quality of military resources to gain military and political superiority over one another. The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union is perhaps the largest and most expensive arms race in history; however, others have occurred, often with dire consequences. Whether an arms race increases or decreases the risk of war remains debatable: some analysts agree with Sir Edward Grey, Britain's foreign secretary at the start of World War I, who stated "The moral is obvious; it is that great armaments lead inevitably to war."

Dreadnought Arms Race

With the Industrial Revolution came new weaponry, including vastly improved warships. In the late nineteenth century, France and Russia built powerful armies and challenged the spread of British colonialism. In response, Britain shored up its Royal Navy to control the seas.

Britain managed to work out its arms race with France and Russia with two separate treaties. But Germany had also drastically increased its military budget and might and built a large navy to contest Britain's naval dominance in hopes of becoming a world power.

In turn, Britain further expanded the Royal Navy and built more advanced and powerful battlecruisers, including the 1906 HMS Dreadnought, a technically advanced type of warship that set the standard for naval architecture.

Not to be outdone, Germany produced its own fleet of dreadnought class warships, and the standoff continued with both sides fearing a naval attack from the other and building bigger and better ships.

Germany couldn't keep up, however, and Britain won the so-called Anglo-German Arms Race. The conflict didn't cause World War I, but it did help to increase distrust and tensions between Germany, Britain and other European powers.

Arms Control Efforts Fail

After World War I, many countries showed an interest in arms control. President Woodrow Wilson led the way by making it a key point in his famous 1918 Fourteen Points speech, wherein he laid out his vision for postwar peace.

At the Washington Naval Conference (1921-1922), the United States, Britain and Japan signed a treaty to restrict arms, but in the mid-1930s Japan chose not to renew the agreement. Moreover, Germany violated the Treaty of Versailles and began to rearm.

This started a new arms race in Europe between Germany, France and Britain - and in the Pacific between Japan and the United States - which continued into World War II.

Nuclear Arms Race

Though the United States and the Soviet Union were tentative allies during World War II, their alliance soured after Nazi Germany surrendered in May 1945.

The United States cast a wary eye over the Soviet Union's quest for world dominance as they expanded their power and influence over Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union resented the United States' geopolitical interference and America's own arms buildup.

Further fueling the flame of distrust, the United States didn't tell the Soviet Union they planned to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, although they had told them they had created the bomb.

To help discourage Soviet communist expansion, the United States built more atomic weaponry. But in 1949, the Soviets tested their own atomic bomb, and the Cold War nuclear arms race was on.

The United States responded in 1952 by testing the highly destructive hydrogen "superbomb," and the Soviet Union followed suit in 1953. Four years later, both countries tested their first intercontinental ballistic missiles and the arms race rose to a terrifying new level.

Cold War Arms Race Heads to Space

The Soviet's launch of the first Sputnik satellite on October 4, 1957, stunned and concerned the United States and the rest of the world, as it took the Cold War arms race soon became the Space Race.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower tried to tone down the rhetoric over the success of the launch, while he streamed federal funds into the United States' space program to prevent being left behind.

After a series of mishaps and failures, the United States successfully launched its first satellite into space on January 31, 1958, and the Space Race continued as both countries researched new technology to create more powerful weapons.

Missile Gap

Throughout the 1950s, the United States became convinced that the Soviet Union had better missile capability that, if launched, could not be defended against. This theory, known as the Missile Gap, was eventually disproved by the CIA but not before causing grave concern to U.S. officials.

Many politicians used the Missile Gap as a talking point in the 1960 presidential election. Yet, in fact, U.S. missile power was superior to that of the Soviet Union at the time. Over the next three decades, however, both countries grew their arsenals to well over 10,000 warheads.

Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cold War arms race came to a tipping point in 1962 after the John F. Kennedy administration's failed attempt to overthrow Cuba's premier Fidel Castro, and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev implemented a secret agreement to place Soviet warheads in Cuba to deter future coup attempts.

After U.S. intelligence observed missile bases under construction in Cuba, they enforced a blockade on the country and demanded the Soviet Union demolish the bases and remove any nuclear weapons. The tense Cuban Missile Crisis standoff ensued and came to a head as Kennedy and Khrushchev exchanged letters and made demands.

The crisis ended peacefully; however, both sides and the American public had fearfully braced for nuclear war and began to question the need for weapons that guaranteed "mutually assured destruction."

Arms Races Continue

The Cold War ended in 1991; however, in 1987, the United States and the Soviet Union had signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) to limit the scope and reach of all types of missiles.

Other treaties such as the START 1 treaty in 1991 and the New START treaty in 2011 aimed to further reduce both nations' ballistic weapons capabilities.

The United States withdrew from the INF treaty in 2019, however, believing that Russia was noncompliant. Though the Cold War between the United States and Russia is over, many argue the arms race is not.

Other countries have beefed up their military might and are in a modern-day arms race or poised to enter one, including India and Pakistan, North Korea and South Korea, Iran and China.

Sources

Herman, Steve. US Leaves INF Treaty, Says Russia 'Solely Responsible.' VOA.
Hundley, Tom. Pakistan and India: The Real Nuclear Challenge. Pulitzer Center.
Sputnik, 1957. Office of the Historian.
The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
What Was the Missile Gap? Central Intelligence Agency.

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An arms race occurs when two or more countries increase the size and quality of military resources to gain military and political superiority over one another. The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union is perhaps the largest and most expensive arms race in history; however, others have occurred, often with dire consequences.

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In 1991, the Soviet Union officially dissolved, marking the end of the Cold War. This event marked the end of the bipolar world order that had existed since the end of World War II, and set the stage for a new era of international relations.

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Why was the Cuban missile crisis such an important event in the Cold War?

Cold War, the open yet restricted rivalry that developed after World War II between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. The Cold War was waged on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and had only limited recourse to weapons. The term was first used by the English writer George Orwell in an article published in 1945 to refer to what he predicted would be a nuclear stalemate between "two or three monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds." It was first used in the United States by the American financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch in a speech at the State House in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1947.

A brief treatment of the Cold War follows. For full treatment, see international relations.

Origins of the Cold War

Following the surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945 near the close of World War II, the uneasy wartime alliance between the United States and Great Britain on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other began to unravel. By 1948 the Soviets had installed left-wing governments in the countries of eastern Europe that had been liberated by the Red Army. The Americans and the British feared the permanent Soviet domination of eastern Europe and the threat of Soviet-influenced communist parties coming to power in the democracies of western Europe. The Soviets, on the other hand, were determined to maintain control of eastern Europe in order to safeguard against any possible renewed threat from Germany, and they were intent on spreading communism worldwide, largely for ideological reasons. The Cold War had solidified by 1947-48, when U.S. aid provided under the Marshall Plan to western Europe had brought those countries under American influence and the Soviets had installed openly communist regimes in eastern Europe.

The struggle between superpowers

The Cold War reached its peak in 1948-53. In this period the Soviets unsuccessfully blockaded the Western-held sectors of West Berlin (1948-49); the United States and its European allies formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a unified military command to resist the Soviet presence in Europe (1949); the Soviets exploded their first atomic warhead (1949), thus ending the American monopoly on the atomic bomb; the Chinese communists came to power in mainland China (1949); and the Soviet-supported communist government of North Korea invaded U.S.-supported South Korea in 1950, setting off an indecisive Korean War that lasted until 1953.

Comprehension Quiz: Cold War

From 1953 to 1957 Cold War tensions relaxed somewhat, largely owing to the death of the longtime Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in 1953; nevertheless, the standoff remained. A unified military organization among the Soviet-bloc countries, the Warsaw Pact, was formed in 1955; and West Germany was admitted into NATO that same year. Another intense stage of the Cold War was in 1958-62. The United States and the Soviet Union began developing intercontinental ballistic missiles, and in 1962 the Soviets began secretly installing missiles in Cuba that could be used to launch nuclear attacks on U.S. cities. This sparked the Cuban missile crisis (1962), a confrontation that brought the two superpowers to the brink of war before an agreement was reached to withdraw the missiles.

The Cuban missile crisis showed that neither the United States nor the Soviet Union were ready to use nuclear weapons for fear of the other's retaliation (and thus of mutual atomic annihilation). The two superpowers soon signed the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty of 1963, which banned aboveground nuclear weapons testing. But the crisis also hardened the Soviets' determination never again to be humiliated by their military inferiority, and they began a buildup of both conventional and strategic forces that the United States was forced to match for the next 25 years.

Throughout the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union avoided direct military confrontation in Europe and engaged in actual combat operations only to keep allies from defecting to the other side or to overthrow them after they had done so. Thus, the Soviet Union sent troops to preserve communist rule in East Germany (1953), Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), and Afghanistan (1979). For its part, the United States helped overthrow a left-wing government in Guatemala (1954), supported an unsuccessful invasion of Cuba (1961), invaded the Dominican Republic (1965) and Grenada (1983), and undertook a long (1964-75) and unsuccessful effort to prevent communist North Vietnam from bringing South Vietnam under its rule ( see Vietnam War).

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Cold War | Summary, Causes, History, Years, Timeline, & Facts

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Cold War, the open yet restricted rivalry that developed after World War II between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. It was waged on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and had only limited recourse to weapons. The term was first used by writer George Orwell.

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Robert Frost was a celebrated American poet, known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his use of traditional forms and meters.

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Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, but his family moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1884 following his father’s death. The move was actually a return, for Frost’s ancestors were originally New Englanders, and Frost became famous for his poetry’s engagement with New England locales,…

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Frost won four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry during his lifetime, and his work is considered some of the most iconic and quintessentially American poetry of the 20th century.

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Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, but his family moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1884 following his father’s death. The move was actually a return, for Frost’s ancestors were originally New Englanders, and Frost became famous for his poetry’s engagement with New England locales,…

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Frost was also a respected and accomplished teacher, and he taught at several universities during his career, including Amherst College and Dartmouth College.

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Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, but his family moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1884 following his father’s death. The move was actually a return, for Frost’s ancestors were originally New Englanders, and Frost became famous for his poetry’s engagement with New England locales,…

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Robert Hayden was the first African American to be appointed as a consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress, a position now known as the Poet Laureate.

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Poet Robert Hayden was born Asa Bundy Sheffey into a poor family in the Paradise Valley neighborhood of Detroit; he had an emotionally traumatic childhood and was raised in part by foster parents. Due to extreme nearsightedness, Hayden turned to books rather than sports in his childhood. After graduating from high school in 1932, he attended Detroit City College (now Wayne State University) on scholarship and later earned a graduate degree in English literature from the University of Michigan. As a teaching fellow, he was the first Black faculty member in Michigan's English department. Hayden eventually became the first African American to be appointed as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. His collections of poetry include Heart-Shape in the Dust (1940), Figure of Time (1955), A Ballad of Remembrance (1962), which won the grand prize at the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal, Selected Poems (1966), Words in the Mourning Time (1970), The Night-Blooming Cereus (1972), Angle of Ascent: New and Selected Poems (1975), and American Journal (1978). Hayden's formal, elegant poems about the Black history and experience earned him a number of other major awards as well. "Robert Hayden is now generally accepted," Frederick Glaysher stated in Hayden's Collected Prose, "as the most outstanding craftsman of Afro-American poetry."

The historical basis for much of Hayden's poetry stemmed from his extensive study of American and African American history. Beginning in the 1930s, when he researched Black history for the Federal Writers' Project in his native Detroit, Hayden studied the story of Black people from their roots in Africa to their present condition in the United States. " History," Charles T. Davis wrote in Black is the Color of the Cosmos: Essays on Afro-American Literature and Culture, 1942-1981, "has haunted Robert Hayden from the beginning of his career as a poet." As he once explained to Glenford E. Mitchell of World Order, Hayden saw history "as a long, tortuous, and often bloody process of becoming, of psychic evolution."

Other early influences on Hayden's development as a poet were W. H. Auden, under whom Hayden studied at the University of Michigan, and Stephen Vincent Benet, particularly Benet's poem "John Brown's Body." That poem describes the Black reaction to General Sherman's march through Georgia during the Civil War and inspired Hayden to also write about that period of history, creating a series of poems on slavery and the Civil War that won him a Hopwood Award in 1942.

Although history played a large role in Hayden's poetry, many of his works were also inspired by the poet's adherence to the Baha'i faith, an Eastern religion that believes in a coming world civilization. Hayden served for many years as the poetry editor of the group's World Order magazine. The universal outlook of the Baha'is also moved Hayden to reject any narrow racial classification for his work.

James Mann of the Dictionary of Literary Biography claimed that Hayden "stands out among poets of his race for his staunch avowal that the work of black writers must be judged wholly in the context of the literary tradition in English, rather than within the confines of the ethnocentrism that is common in contemporary literature written by blacks." As Lewis Turco explained in the Michigan Quarterly Review, "Hayden has always wished to be judged as a poet among poets, not one to whom special rules of criticism ought to be applied in order to make his work acceptable in more than a sociological sense." This stance earned Hayden criticism during the polarized 1960s. He was accused of abandoning his racial heritage to conform to the standards of a white, European literary establishment. "In the 1960s," William Meredith wrote in his foreword to Collected Prose, "Hayden declared himself, at considerable cost in popularity, an American poet rather than a black poet, when for a time there was posited an unreconcilable difference between the two roles... He would not relinquish the title of American writer for any narrower identity."

However, much of Hayden's best poetry is concerned with Black experience and history. "The gift of Robert Hayden's poetry," Vilma Raskin Potter remarked in MELUS, "is his coherent vision of the black experience in this country as a continuing journey both communal and private." Hayden wrote about such historical figures as Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman, and Cinquez. He also wrote poems about the Underground Railroad, the Civil War, and the American slave trade. Edward Hirsch, writing in the Nation, called Hayden "an American poet, deeply engaged by the topography of American myth in his efforts to illuminate the American black experience."

Though Hayden wrote in formal poetic forms, his range of voices and techniques gave his work a rich variety. "Hayden," Robert G. O'Meally wrote in the Washington Post Book World, "is a poet of many voices, using varieties of ironic black folk speech, and a spare, ebullient poetic diction, to grip and chill his readers. He draws characters of stark vividness as he transmutes cardinal points and commonplaces of history into dramatic action and symbol." "His work," Turco wrote, "is unfettered in many ways, not the least of which is in the range of techniques available to him. It gives his imagination wings, allows him to travel throughout human nature." Speaking of Hayden's use of formal verse forms, Mann explained that Hayden's poems were "formal in a nontraditional, original way, strict but not straight-jacketed" and found that they also possessed "a hard-edged precision of line that molds what the imagination wants to release in visually fine-chiseled fragmental stanzas that fit flush together with the rightness of a picture puzzle."

It wasn't until 1966, with the publication of Selected Poems, that Hayden first enjoyed widespread attention from the nation's literary critics. With each succeeding volume of poems his reputation was further enhanced until, in 1976 and his appointment as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, Hayden was generally recognized as one of the country's leading poets. Critics often point to Hayden's unique ability to combine the historical and the personal when speaking of his own life and the lives of his people. Writing in Obsidian: Black Literature in Review, Gary Zebrun argued that "the voice of the speaker in Hayden's best work twists and squirms its way out of anguish in order to tell, or sing, stories of American history-in particular the courageous and plaintive record of Afro-American history-and to chart the thoughts and feelings of the poet's own private space... Hayden is ceaselessly trying to achieve... transcendence, which must not be an escape from the horror of history or from the loneliness of individual mortality, but an ascent that somehow transforms the horror and creates a blessed permanence."

Hayden once said that he considered himself to be "a poet who teaches in order to earn a living so that he can write a poem or two now and then." He taught at Fisk University for more than twenty years, where he rose to become a professor of English. Hayden ended his career with an eleven-year stint at the University of Michigan. His honors and awards included the Academy of American Poets Fellowship. He died in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1980. His Collected Prose (1984) was published posthumously.

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Poet Robert Hayden was born Asa Bundy Sheffey into a poor family in the Paradise Valley neighborhood of Detroit; he had an emotionally traumatic childhood and was raised in part by foster parents. Due to extreme nearsightedness, Hayden turned to books rather than sports in his childhood. After...

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Hayden's poem "Those Winter Sundays" is considered one of the most anthologized and studied poems of the 20th century.

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Born Asa Bundy Sheffey on August 4, 1913, Robert Hayden was raised in the Detroit neighborhood Paradise Valley. He had an emotionally tumultuous childhood and lived at times with his parents and with a foster family. In 1932, he graduated from high school and, with the help of a scholarship, attended Detroit City College (later Wayne State University).

Hayden published his first book of poems, Heart-Shape in the Dust, in 1940, at the age of twenty-seven. He enrolled in a graduate English literature program at the University of Michigan, where he studied with W. H. Auden. Auden became an influential critical guide in the development of Hayden's writing. Hayden admired the work of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Elinor Wiley, Carl Sandburg, and Hart Crane, as well as the poets of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Jean Toomer. He had an interest in African American history and explored his concerns about race in his writing.

In 1944, Hayden received his graduate degree from the University of Michigan and remained there for two years as a teaching fellow. He was the first Black member of the English department. He then joined the faculty at Fisk University in Nashville, where he would remain for more than twenty years.

Hayden's poetry gained international recognition in the 1960s and he was awarded the grand prize for poetry at the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal, in 1966 for his book Ballad of Remembrance.

Hayden ultimately authored nine collections of poetry in his lifetime, as well as a collection of essays, and some children's literature.

Explaining the trajectory of Hayden's career, the poet William Meredith wrote: "Hayden declared himself, at considerable cost in popularity, an American poet rather than a Black poet, when for a time there was posited an unreconcilable difference between the two roles. There is scarcely a line of his which is not identifiable as an experience of Black America, but he would not relinquish the title of American writer for any narrower identity."

In 1975, Hayden received the Academy of American Poets Fellowship, and in 1976, he became the first Black American to be appointed as consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress (later called the poet laureate). He died in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on February 25, 1980.

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Born Asa Bundy Sheffey on August 4, 1913, Robert Hayden was raised in the Detroit neighborhood Paradise Valley. He had an emotionally tumultuous childhood and lived at times with his parents and with a foster family. In 1932, he graduated from high school and, with the help of a scholarship, attended Detroit City College (later Wayne State University).

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Hayden was heavily influenced by the Harlem Renaissance and the works of Langston Hughes, and his poetry often dealt with themes of race and identity.

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Born Asa Bundy Sheffey on August 4, 1913, Robert Hayden was raised in the Detroit neighborhood Paradise Valley. He had an emotionally tumultuous childhood and lived at times with his parents and with a foster family. In 1932, he graduated from high school and, with the help of a scholarship, attended Detroit City College (later Wayne State University).

Hayden published his first book of poems, Heart-Shape in the Dust, in 1940, at the age of twenty-seven. He enrolled in a graduate English literature program at the University of Michigan, where he studied with W. H. Auden. Auden became an influential critical guide in the development of Hayden's writing. Hayden admired the work of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Elinor Wiley, Carl Sandburg, and Hart Crane, as well as the poets of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Jean Toomer. He had an interest in African American history and explored his concerns about race in his writing.

In 1944, Hayden received his graduate degree from the University of Michigan and remained there for two years as a teaching fellow. He was the first Black member of the English department. He then joined the faculty at Fisk University in Nashville, where he would remain for more than twenty years.

Hayden's poetry gained international recognition in the 1960s and he was awarded the grand prize for poetry at the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal, in 1966 for his book Ballad of Remembrance.

Hayden ultimately authored nine collections of poetry in his lifetime, as well as a collection of essays, and some children's literature.

Explaining the trajectory of Hayden's career, the poet William Meredith wrote: "Hayden declared himself, at considerable cost in popularity, an American poet rather than a Black poet, when for a time there was posited an unreconcilable difference between the two roles. There is scarcely a line of his which is not identifiable as an experience of Black America, but he would not relinquish the title of American writer for any narrower identity."

In 1975, Hayden received the Academy of American Poets Fellowship, and in 1976, he became the first Black American to be appointed as consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress (later called the poet laureate). He died in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on February 25, 1980.

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Born Asa Bundy Sheffey on August 4, 1913, Robert Hayden was raised in the Detroit neighborhood Paradise Valley. He had an emotionally tumultuous childhood and lived at times with his parents and with a foster family. In 1932, he graduated from high school and, with the help of a scholarship, attended Detroit City College (later Wayne State University).

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Dr. Seuss was born as Theodor Geisel in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1904. He adopted the pen name "Dr. Seuss" as a way to conceal his involvement in a college humor magazine where he had published a number of cartoons.

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Dr. Seuss was a prolific author and illustrator, publishing over 60 books throughout his career. Some of his most popular titles include "The Cat in the Hat," "Green Eggs and Ham," and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."

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Dr. Seuss Quotes (Author of Green Eggs and Ham)

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264 quotes from Dr. Seuss: 'You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.', 'I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.', and 'You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes.

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Dr. Seuss was also a political cartoonist during World War II, where he drew a number of anti-fascist and anti-racist cartoons. He also created a number of propaganda films during the war, including one called "Your Job in Germany" which was aimed at encouraging American soldiers to fight against Nazi Germany.

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What was Dr. Seuss's education?

What made Dr. Seuss famous?

What is Dr. Seuss most famous for?

Which Dr. Seuss books will no longer be published?

Dr. Seuss, pseudonym of Theodor Seuss Geisel, (born March 2, 1904, Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.-died September 24, 1991, La Jolla, California), American writer and illustrator of immensely popular children's books, which were noted for their nonsense words, playful rhymes, and unusual creatures.

Early career and first Dr. Seuss books

After graduating from Dartmouth College (B.A., 1925), Geisel did postgraduate studies at Lincoln College, Oxford, and at the Sorbonne. He subsequently began working for Life, Vanity Fair, and other publications as an illustrator and humorist. In addition, he found success in advertising, providing illustrations for a number of campaigns. Geisel was especially noted for his work on ads for Flit insect repellent. Some of his characters later appeared in his children's works.

After illustrating a series of humour books, Geisel decided to write a children's book, which was reportedly rejected by nearly 30 publishers. After his chance meeting with a friend who was an editor at Vanguard Press, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street was finally released in 1937. The work centres on a young boy who transforms his ordinary walk home from school into a fantastical story. Later, however, he describes only the facts of his walk to his father, who frowns on the boy's imaginative nature. Geisel used the pen name Dr. Seuss, planning to publish novels under his surname; the Dr. was a tongue-in-cheek reference to his uncompleted doctorate degree. However, his first book for adults, The Seven Lady Godivas (1939), fared poorly, and thereafter he focused on children's books, which he preferred. According to Geisel, "Adults are obsolete children, and the hell with them."

After publishing several more children's works, Geisel released Horton Hatches the Egg in 1940. With it, he introduced the features that would come to define his books: a unique brand of humour, playful use of words, and outlandish characters. It centres on an elephant who is duped into sitting on the egg of a bird who goes on vacation. Despite various hardships, Horton refuses to leave: "I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful one hundred percent!" In the end, he is rewarded when the egg hatches, and a creature with bird wings and an elephant's head emerges.

World War II and documentaries

During World War II Geisel's focus shifted to politics. In the early 1940s he was an editorial cartoonist at PM magazine in New York City. He then served (1942-46) in the U.S. Army, where he was assigned to the documentary division. In 1945 he wrote Your Job in Germany, which was directed by Frank Capra; it was later remade as the Academy Award-winning Hitler Lives (1945), though Geisel was not credited. After his service ended, he continued to make films. With his first wife, Helen Palmer Geisel, he wrote the Oscar-winning documentary feature Design for Death (1947). His animated cartoon Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950) also won an Academy Award.

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Dr. Seuss | Biography, Books, Characters, Movies, & Facts

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Dr. Seuss, pseudonym of Theodor Seuss Geisel, (born March 2, 1904, Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.-died September 24, 1991, La Jolla, California), American writer and illustrator of immensely popular children's books, which were noted for their nonsense words, playful rhymes, and unusual creatures.