The idea of a canal linking the Mediterranean to the Rea Sea dates back to ancient times.
It was Napoleon’s engineers who, around 1800 AD, revived the idea of a shorter route
to India via the Suez Canal. It was not until 1859 that Egyptian workers started working
on the construction of Canal in conditions, described by historians, as slave labor. The
project was completed around 1867....
In 1870, a movement calling for Home Rule was founded in Ireland. Supporters of Home
Rule wanted a separate parliament to deal with Irish affairs in Dublin. Although the
British government was force to introduce many reforms, two bills to introduce Home
Rule were defeated in parliament in the 1880s and 1980s. William Gladstone was Prime
Minister of Britain four times during the reign...
The 1860s was a time of uncertainty and political unrest in Japan. Finally, in 1868, the
situation became so serious that Emperor Mutsuhito took control from the last shogun
(military dictator). Mutsuhito became known as the Meiji emperor, and this event is
called the ‘Meiji restoration’. Under the emperor’s authority, Japan embarked on a
programmed of modernization. In 1872, a group...
Britain had started her collection of overseas colonies in the reign of Elizabeth I. by 1602,
both England and the Netherlands had founded an ‘East India Company’ on the Indian
coast to trade with the Far East. The first settlements in North America took root and
flourished in early Stuart times. In 1661, Britain gained her first African foothold, seizing
James Island on the Gambia...
One of the biggest changes in the history of the world, the Industrial Revolution, started
in Britain was the first home of new machines, new types of materials and new ways of
making power. This was the age of coal and iron, of gas and electricity, of railways and
factories. These factories created millions of new jobs, so many people began to leave
the countryside to work in towns....
From 1492 onwards, European explores sailed across the Atlantic to what they called the
New World of North, Central and South America. There they discovered a treasure trove
of gold and silver. They also found foods that only grew in the New World, such as sweet
corn, potatoes and plants that could be made into medicines. The people that settled in the
New World were traders rather...
We know very little about the early history of Africa. There must have been great
civilizations there, but very few of them developed writing or left any records. Some
civilization built fine communities, such as the east coast port of Kilwa or the mysterious
stone complex of Great Zimbabwe. After about AD 700, Muslims from the Near East
began to take over many coastal regions and...
The bubonic plague (or ‘Black Death’) was a disease which brought death to most parts
of Asia, North Africa and Europe. The first outbreak was recorded in 1331 in China. The
plague started as a bloody swelling in the armpit or groin and quickly invaded the whole
body. It was highly contagious and killed millions of people. The infection probably
began on the steppes, the grassy plains...
The youngest son of Henry II, John, inherited from his brother Richard the throne of
England, as well as the Plantagenet dominions of France, which he had lost to the French
by 1204. John’s failure to recapture these territories, his dispute with Rome over the
Pope’s choice of a new Archbishop of Canterbury, and a high level of taxation, had the
English nobility up in arms against...
The Byzantine emperor, a Christian monarch who lived in Constantinople, needed help.
He turned to the pope, who in 1095 called for all Christians to start a holy war against the
Suljuk Turks. Thousands rushed to join the Crusader armies. They crossed into Palentine
and recaptured the important cities of Nicaea and Antioch. Jerusalem fell in 1099 after a
desperate siege lasting six...
