A short Summary of the History of the World – Part VI
Fun Fact: By 1980, Small Box becomes first human disease to be entirely eradicated. It is arguable that no human being in the history of the world has saved more lives than Edward Jenner.
Italy was experiencing a Scientific Revolution in the 1600s thanks to characters such as Galileo Galilei. He hadn’t invented the telescope in 1609, but had rather greatly improved upon the Dutch invention. This shook the notion that the Earth and all of Humankind was at the center of the Universe. It had confirmed what Polish astronomer, Copernicus, had already suggested ages ago– that we were all in fact, revolving around the sun.
This greatly rattled the Catholic Church which had been working for centuries to maintain absolute power and authority. In 1633, they put Galileo on trial for heresy, burn all his research, and throw him in prison for life. He is also forced to denounce that the Earth moved and his life’s work is banned for 200 years. Nevertheless, his ideas manage to spread north into Protestant countries, such as Britain.
ABSOLUTE RULE IN INDA
This was an Age of Absolute Rule by powerful monarchs and emperors. Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan was one who had the Taj Mahal built in 1632. This served not only as a symbol of love for his dead wife, but also a symbol of absolute power.
His one son, Aurangzeb, is impatient to take power, uses his military forces to imprison his father, and have his only brother killed. He rules for 50 years, has Hindu temples destroyed and replaced with Islamic ones, bans the writing of historical documents, and even bans music playing and dancing. He goes to war against his own people in the Hindu South and creates the largest empire in Indian history. This essentially bankrupts the country, making it a perfect moment for the British to strike.
THE AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
Britain had already been busy colonising North America and had established 13 British colonies by 1773 – essentially ruled by a faraway parliament where the Americans had no representation. This leads to a protest by the Boston Tea Party and a fight for Liberty.
Samuel Adams becomes a vocal figure, chanting lines such as “no taxation without representation”. The plan was to send a huge shipment of imported tea back to London in order to be taken seriously, but the British captain refuses. A mob forms and dumps 46 tons of tea, worth more than a million pounds in today’s money, into the ocean.
So begins the American Revolutionary War of Independence, which lasts for 8 years. By 1783, all thirteen colonies had managed to win their independence from Britain and the United States is given the opportunity to form their own society and system of politics. The Declaration of Independence is their crowning achievement – a powerful document based on the ideas of Liberty and Equality, but only for white men, of course.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
King Louie the 16th of France had largely funded America’s revolution against his British rivals, but this almost bankrupt his own country. Ideas of liberty and justice had also reached France, as the divide between the rich and poor continued to grow.
By 1789, full-blown class warfare begins and King Louie flees with his unpopular queen, Marie Antoinette. They get nabbed in 1791 and Louie’s head is chopped off with a guillotine. France declares herself as a Republic in 1793 – slicing away 1,000 years of French Monarchy. The monarchs still ruling other European countries begin to shit themselves.
French politics takes the form of the Moderates (who sat on the right-side of the assembly hall) and the Extremists who sat on the left, hence our use of the terms Left and Right in politics. Different revolutionary factions emerge and denounce one another, and many more heads are chopped off. The French army eventually seizes control of the country in 1799 – led by Napoleon Bonaparte. He requests to be anointed by the Pope and crowns himself as the new Emperor of France.
Meanwhile in the faraway lands of Australia, the native Aborigines had been living rather peacefully for around 50,000 years. By the 18th century there were around 1 million Aborigines who spoke over 200 different languages. They had no clue about the rest of the world, until Captain Cook rocks up in 1770. Australia becomes the new dumping ground for British convicts – a system that only ends in 1850. Captain Arthur Phillip becomes the first governor of Sydney, Australia.
THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE
Also by the 18th century, the African Slave Trade had become an entrenched part of the World’s economic system. Over 12 million African slaves had been crudely transported across the Atlantic – mostly made to work on plantations in the Americas and Caribbean – to feed the insatiable European appetites for things like sugar, coffee and tobacco. Enlightenment ideas around slavery were basically a moral versus economic argument, but Profit is deemed as more important.
African slaves ‘owned’ by the French in current-day Haiti, revolt in 1791. They manage to free themselves from slavery until Napoleon sends the largest fleet to ever leave France, to subdue them. Nonetheless, determined Haiti eventually becomes independent in 1804 and establishes the World’s first ever Black Republic. The World takes notice, and three years later, the British abolish the Slave Trade and other nations begin the follow suit.
VACCINATION
In other news, a doctor was deliberately infecting a young Edward Jenner with Small Pox, which was one of the biggest killers in Europe at the time. Jenner survives this immunity-building experiment and makes it his life mission to find an ultimate cure for this disease. He ends up creating the World’s first Vaccination, which becomes a global best-seller. By 1980, Small Box becomes one of the very few human diseases to be entirely eradicated. It is arguable that no human being in the history of the world has saved more lives than Edward Jenner.
A short Summary of the History of the World – Part V
Disclaimer: This information has been taken from the brilliant Andrew Marr’s History of the World series (2012), which is highly recommended as a good, overall summary of our collective history.
