"The Opium Wars"

In the 1830's, the English had become major drug-trafficking criminals. They primarily hit China with the drug Opium. Through merchants the English people smuggled this drug into China to give to all the people, this created a country full of drug-addicts. The Chinese emperor wrote a letter to the queen of England asking her why she was allowing his country to become this way, when frankly she would not tolerate it in her own. The English queen did not respond well, especially after the Chinese choose to block English way ports into their country, this started the Opium wars. In the end the English won, because of their technologically advanced ships and weapons. The Chinese suffered a humiliating defeat and the emperor was forced to sign a treaty legalizing Opium in China.

"The White Man's Burden"

The White Man's Burden" reflects the views in which the white man has duties and responsibilities in his life, relating to the poem, the white man's duty is to convert the Philippines into a civilized democratic place to live which was a difficult task for the white man. The people of this period, especially in the West saw it as poetic representation of the white man's job to enlighten the world. It was his duty to the world to take over other nations and show them the "right" way of rule, as he say it acceptable.

"The Scramble for Africa"

The scramble of Africa is all about the time when different nations and there leaders tried to conquer different countries that where in Africa. In 1400s the Portuguese started to trade at the coastline of Africa. In 1600s the Dutch established trade in the southwestern tip of Africa.

Film Lesson: "Mountains of the Moon"

When Europeans began to explore Africa they faced many challenges. When the Europeans traveled through Africa the natives who were all dark skinned and who had never before seen "white men" were scared and attacked them. The native tribes also did not like the fact that the Europeans were invading there territory. Europeans employed Africans to join them as workers on there expeditions, but soon some of the Africans took there supplies and fled camp, so the European travelers were stranded sometimes without there necessary supplies.

When the discovery of the source of the Nile river was made, the founders were from England, and there queen was named Victoria, so they thought they would honoring her by naming the 3rd largest lake in the world after her.

Europeans were able to take over Africa easily because of there machine guns, the African tribes only had bows and arrows whilst the Europeans had these machine guns that could kill people by the thousands.

The Meiji Restoration of Japan

The Meiji Restoration was a chain of events that occurred and led up to enormous changes in Japan's political and social structure. It happened during the end of the 19Th century. The changes of Japan were a direct response to the witness of the Black Ships Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States Navy.

The Black Ships was the name given to Western ships arriving in Japan, The name refers mainly to Mississippi, Plymouth, Saratoga, and Susquehanna. The word Black was given because it refers to the black color of the sails and the coal emerging from the ships into the sky.

Matthew Perry's military training put him a good position to negotiate a treaty allowing American trade with Japan. People usually refers to his strong negotiation skills toward the Japanese as "bullying" but he was simply verbally aggressive and forward, if you can call that "bullying then he did what he had to do. Before this Japan only traded with a few small groups for about 200 years.

From this exchange Japan realized that things where missing from there economy and they needed to catch up. Japan began by sending statesmen go to other countries such as Europe and north America and learn the views of life and how foreigners look at life and beyond. Japan decided to replace there feudal system with newer and fresher ideas such thus from western countries. An industrial change took place, factories and ships started to flourish and grow into a mass production industry. Japan soon turned into a great and modernized place in which now is the largest mass production country in the world.

Karl Marx and Communism

Communism: the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat. The proletariat is a class in society which lives from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital. The proletariat, or the class of proletarians, is, in a word, the working class of the 19Th century. There was one person who hated the treatment of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie, and his name was Karl Marx.

Karl Marx despised capitalism, he envisioned a world where everyone could be treated equally and without favoritism between anyone. He wanted no social classes to exist, he wanted evey person to have the same amount of money, same amount of everything. Every public building was owned by the state or government, no privet ownership. Karl Marx believed that eventually governments would fade out because of the equal sharing and responsible society. Marx's idea in theory was a great one, but when laid out in plan as a society it failed to accomplish high expectations.

Marx believed that the good guys were communists and the bad ones were the people who wanted capitalism. He thought that his ideas were the ideas of the future, that was true for Russia for about 70 years until it could not keep up with capitalism demands. It was a good idea for a great utopia but laid out it would eventually lead the world into a negative one.

Karl Marx and the Industrial Revolution

Karl Marx was a Political economist and revolutionary. His ideas were radical, they went against the Industrial Revolution for many reasons. He felt that the Industrial Revolution was hazardous and political incorrect. He argued that workers should be in control of farms and mass production factories instead of high society landlords. He once shouted that workers of the world should unite in a "world wide revolution."

Marx believed that wealth should be equally shared between a Communist society, the word communist the abolition of power of people over people, "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs", said Marx.

One of the main things that stands out about the industrial revolution was the extreme poverty and the poor in which people lived. Marx did not like the way the revolution treated people who struggled to work. He wanted to change things for the better. He described Communists as those who best understood the class struggle. Marx thought that the lower class understood pain, struggle, and suffering which would get them united and a revolution unlike no other to cease the new day.