One of the most important developments in early modern Europe was the invention of a printing press which used movable metal type. This development revolutionized the production of printed materials; facilitated the spread of new ideas, such as those generated as part of the Reformation; and resulted in the emergence of a new facet in written culture, through the increased availability of books.
Printing with movable metal type on paper was the intersection of several sets of cultural and technological developments, including writing systems, paper production, and movable metal type. People began crafting writing systems for their languages more than five thousand years ago, one of the earliest being Cuneiform, created by Sumerians in Mesopotamia about 3100 B.C.E. The Chinese developed a process for manufacturing paper about nineteen hundred years ago. By the eighth century this process had spread to the Middle East, with a paper mill operating in Baghdad in 794. Less than four centuries later, in 1151, the first paper mill in Europe was operating in Spain, knowledge about this manufacturing process having spread from the Middle East. Meanwhile the Chinese developed wood-block printing, the precursor to printing presses with movable metal type, in 932. A century later, movable type was invented in China in 1041. By the early fifteenth century wood-block printing had spread to Europe.
Johannes Gutenberg, a fifteenth-century inventor, printer, and publisher, put together these elements, along with movable metal type in a printing press he developed in his home town of Mainz from 1438 to 1444. He used this first practical printing press with movable metal type in Europe to publish what became known as the Gutenberg Bible. The revolutionary feature of movable metal type was that the individual characters could be quickly and easily repositioned for the production of new individual pages in a book, a considerable advantage over the older block printing technology developed by the Chinese. This new system of printing with movable metal type on paper foreshadowed the subsequent development of other industrialized and mechanized manufacturing processes that would define the Industrial Revolution.
During the latter half of the fifteenth century printing presses spread across western and central Europe, so that by 1500 printing presses were operating in Austria, Denmark, England, France, the Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and Sweden. The impact of this new printing process was far reaching. First of all it made the production of books faster and less expensive, making them available to a much larger audience of people in the middle classes. Accordingly, literacy rates increased across Europe. The greater availability of books was also one market within the developing consumer culture and market economy of early modern Europe. At this time the book most commonly printed across Europe was the Bible. The greater availability of the Bible in European households allowed Europeans to participate more actively in their religious beliefs. Movable metal type printing presses also facilitated the spread of new ideas in mathematics, philosophy, political science, religion, and science, through dialogues, contributing to the progress and success of the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the American and French Revolutions.
On 4 July 1817 construction began on one of the most successful canals in history – the Erie Canal. At that time, however, the so-called “Big Ditch” was considered a gamble on the part of the New York state government. After its completion the Erie Canal would become the most successful canal in U.S. history, impacting not only the state of New York and New York City, but the northern half of the country from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River.
People have been building canals from more than four thousand years. The earliest canals built by the Egyptians and Mesopotamians before 2000 B.C.E. were used primarily for irrigation. The Sui Dynasty of China constructed one of the early canals for commerce, the Grand Canal c. 600 C.E. More recently the Dutch, the French, and the English built canals before 1800.
The Erie Canal was built to link the Atlantic coastal plain with the trans-Appalachian Interior. During the last quarter of the eighteenth century a number of national leaders, including George Washington, advocated such a transportation link across the Appalachians. George Washington feared that without such a link the new American republic would splinter along the Appalachians. The location of the Erie Canal is a function of the geography of the Appalachians. The canal passes through the only significant break in these mountains along the length of this range. As a result over a route of 363 miles the canal rises and falls a total vertical distance of only 688 feet.
The New York state government had to finance the Erie Canal because Presidents Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe would not support the U.S. government financing this project. This refusal on the part of these three successive presidents grew out of concerns about Southern opposition to the U.S. government financing a canal in the north and ideological opposition to the U.S. government assuming the role of financing a sectional project without an explicit endorsement of such a role in the Constitution.
Construction was carried out by a number of companies that contracted for the completion of segments of the Canal. These companies relied on both immigrants and U.S. citizens for construction, numbering more than ten thousand.
When the canal was completed in 1825, it connected the Hudson River to Lake Erie. The New York state legislature selected Lake Erie rather than Lake Ontario as the western terminus because Canadians would have been able to use an “Ontario” Canal to their economic advantage, possibly to the detriment of New York, among other U.S., economic interests. At the time of its completion this 363-mile long waterway was forty feet wide on the surface of the canal, tapering inward to a width of 28 feet at the bottom, which was only four feet below the surface. Along the entire length of the original canal was a ten-foot wide towpath for horses and mules which pulled the canal traffic.
Shortly after completion of the original canal many realized that it was too small. Two measures of this realization were the typical speed on the canal of 4 mph and the typical time required to travel the length of the canal of two weeks. Enlargement began in 1836 and took 26 years. When the first of two enlargements during the nineteenth century was finished, the canal had been widened from forty to seventy feet and deepened from four to seven feet.
The impact of the Erie Canal was evident before its completion. Within four years of the start of construction part of the canal was being used. By 1882 canal revenue from tolls totaled about $121 million, while construction and operating expenses from 1817 to 1882 were $38 million. The Erie Canal contributed to New York City becoming the premier market city in the U.S. during the nineteenth century. The canal also contributed to the growth of communities along the canal, including Schenectady, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo. In addition, the Canal inspired other state governments to gamble on canal construction, often less successfully than New York.
During the early twentieth century the canal became part of the New York state barge canal network. The canal had been supplanted in part by the development of railroads, shortly after the development of the Erie Canal. Ultimately surviving sections of the old canal have become part of the state’s recreational waterways.
On 26 April 1937 two dozen German and Italian bombers bombed the community of Guernica in the Basque region of northern Spain. At the time Guernica was a small town on the northern edge of Spain in the Basque province of Vizcaya, known as the center of Basque liberty in the larger Spanish nation. After the bombing Guernica became a symbol of the horrors of modern aerial warfare, as directed against civilians.
This bombing raid was part of an offensive during the spring of that year conducted by the Nationalists to secure control of northern Spain as part of the Spanish Civil War. The year before, 1936, the Spanish Civil War had begun as a military struggle for control of the country between Republicans and Nationalists. Republicans had controlled the national government since 1931 by creating the Second Spanish Republic that year. They were on the left ideologically and included communists and socialists. Nationalists were on the right ideologically and included fascists. The conflict between Nationalists and Republicans in the Spanish Civil War reflected the larger division between Fascists and their political opponents across Europe. Fascists had already taken control of Italy and Germany.
A New Generation of Bombers
The German and Italian aircraft that bombed Guernica were part of the Condor Legion sent by Hitler’s Nazi government and the Casa Legionara dispatched by Mussolini’s fascist government. Hitler and Mussolini assisted Franco’s forces toward the ends of extending fascist control over another nation in Europe and testing new weapons and tactics. These bombers were part of a new generation of aircraft each of which could carry hundreds of pounds over distances of hundreds of miles at speeds up to two hundred miles per hour. The bombs that these aircraft dropped on Guernica included 250-kg and 50-kg explosive bombs and 1-kg incendiaries. These bombers epitomized the next step in military technology that evolved over the course of the twentieth century.
Considered the first case of saturation bombing of a civilian population, the two dozen German and Italian bombers that carried out this raid dropped about 100,000 pounds on Guernica. Twenty German and Italian fighters followed up the bombing by strafing survivors. This bombing brought about the destruction of Guernica’s town centre. Casualty figures vary from 126 to 1654 killed.
Art in the Aftermath
The bombing of Guernica is most famously commemorated in the painting “Guernica” by Pablo Picasso. Asked to paint a painting for the Spanish exhibition at the arts exhibition in the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris, Picasso determined to depict not a battle, but the destruction in this new era of total warfare. Picasso completed this mural painting, which measures 3.49 m/11’5” by 7.76 m/25’6”, just two months after the bombing, in June 1937. Picasso painted Guernica in the Cubist style, a school of painting that emerged in the aftermath of the First World War.
A New Era of Warfare
Both the bombing of Guernica and Picasso’s painting symbolize this new era in modern warfare in which large portions of cities could be destroyed and hundreds or thousands of people could be killed by aerial bombardment. The destruction done to Guernica foreshadowed larger and more destructive bombing raids later in the Second World War.
In this session we are going to be talking about diplomacy In the aftermath of the War of 1812. After this conflict the United States resolved a number of boundary questions, among other diplomatic issues, through four agreements with British, Russian, and Spanish governments. The ways in which these questions and issues were resolved reflected the nature of the relationship that the U.S. had with each country. The U.S. and the British governments negotiated with each other, more or less as equals. By way of contrast the U.S. negotiated with the Russian and the Spanish governments from a clear position of strength, getting the better end of the deal in each case.
The first issue resolved with the British concerned the naval presence each country had to maintain on the Great Lakes. You can see that your map in the upper left hand corner just under Canada. both governments worried that after the war each would have to maintain an expensive naval presence on the Great Lakes, at the least as a defensive measure. The Great Lakes had been a major theater of war during the war of 1812, And both countries had spent a great deal of money not just building naval craft, small as they may be, on the great lakes, but also moving men and materials to the great lakes. This is not the 21st century great lakes where one can go wherever they want along the shores. Back then it took weeks if not months to go from a major city to the great lakes. And thus, Moving men and materials was an extremely expensive endeavor that was actually more expensive than the battles themselves. The British and the U.S. government’s resolved this question through the 1817 Rush-Bagot Convention. Named after the principal negotiators, British minister to the U.S. Charles Bagot and Acting Secretary of State Richard Rush, this convention limited the number and size of naval vessels that each country could station on the Great Lakes. Specifically this convention limited each nation to one naval vessel displacing no more than one hundred tons and armed with no more than one 18-pounder cannon on Lake Champlain and Lake Ontario. (An 18 pounder cannon is a cannon that fired a shell weighing about 18 pounds) No more than two such vessels on each of the other Great Lakes would be permitted. this was to ensure that neither country had to spend a great deal in terms of arming their naval forces on the great lakes. It benefited britain and the US in this way. It also benefited the British North American province of Upper Canada, today the Canadian province of Ontario, by reducing fears about the possibility of a U.S. invasion of Upper Canada. In this way this convention was also a step toward the demilitarization of the U.S.-Canadian border and, ultimately, the friendship that exists between Canada and the U.S. today.
The following year, 1818, the British and the U.S. government’s resolved the larger question of the boundary between the U.S. and British North America through the Convention of 1818. and you can see that in the slide in front of you. This agreement established the 49th parallel as the boundary from the Great Lakes all the way westward to the Rocky Mountains. The line became the basis of the U.S.-Canadian border and a foundation of friendship between the two nations.
One area that was still in dispute, the Oregon country, would be jointly occupied by both countries until they could resolve their disagreements as to where the boundary lines would be. that is the area in yellow, its an area that was claimed by both countries and that both countries would be able to send their nationals into.
This negotiation of the border between British North America and the U.S. also marked a step in the normalization and standardization of relations between the British and the U.S. government’s. This process continued throughout the nineteenth century with the result that while Great Britain and the U.S. did not become friends, until at least 1914, l the two governments were able to resolve a series of disputes and avoid another self destructive war.
In 1819 U.S. and Spain resolved their own boundary disputes to the advantage of the US by signing the famous Transcontinental Treaty of 1819, although it wouldn’t actually be approved until 1821. This Map shows the transcontinental treaty and the boundaries that it established between spanish and north america. . the Treaty was informally named after the two principal negotiators who worked out the details Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and Spanish Minister to the U.S. Don Luis de Onis. John Quincy adams is famous as out 6th president but he was arguably one of our most if not our most successful secretary of state. Participating in a number of the negotiation of a number of treaties with other nations that greatly advantaged the United states in terms of its territorial expansion. Also he participated in the articulation of the monroe doctrine which I will talk about in a few minutes. The boundary articulated in the Transcontinental Treaty followed a northwesterly direction along first the Red River, then the Arkansas River, and into the Rocky Mountains all the way out to the 42nd Parallel. In this treaty Spain also ceded to the U.S. Florida and the Gulf coast all the way to the mouth of the Mississippi River, this part of the agreement recognized U.S. control over Florida and the gulf coast. The United States had sought florida since at least the late 18th century and was able to secure control over Florida effectively speaking through the first seminole war. In 1821 the United states senate ratified this treaty and that established the new border between the two nations.
In 1824 the U.S. concluded the last of these border agreements with Russia over the question of the location of the southern boundary of Russian North America. and you can see that right there on your map. The 1824 Russo-American Treaty set this boundary at 54o 40’, halting Russian expansion southward and southeastward into areas of North America claimed by the U.S. The U.S. government sought this boundary in response to the establishment of Fort Ross in present-day northern California by the Russian-American Company in 1812 The Establishment of fort Ross was part of a russian program of expansion southward and eastward into north america at the expense of the united states and the Spanish american empire in north america. Czar Alexander I had issued an assertive imperial edict concerning the Russian presence in North America and his own ambitions for Russian expansion into north america. In 1825 the British government negotiated a similar agreement with Russia. While the Russian government would have preferred the 42nd Parallel (Which you can see right there at the southern end of the oregon country), as the southern boundary of Russian North America, did not have the resources to pursue that claim. Because of difficulties that russia was experiencing during the 1820s, and also because of it’s expense of maintaining its presence in North AMerica the russian government reluctantly accepted this boundary of 54o 40’.
Overall the resolution of these boundary questions paved the way for U.S. settlers to move into the trans-Mississippi West, that is the west beyond the Mississippi River, eventually all the way to the Pacific Coast, constituting a series of important steps in the emergence of the U.S. as a continental power. These agreements also reflected the growing respect that the U.S. enjoyed in the international community, which the U.S. government had bolstered with the articulation of one last statement during this period the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. Although the presentation of the Monroe Doctrine preceded the 1824 Russo-American Treaty, this foreign policy statement in which the U.S. guaranteed the independence of the new nations of the Americas represents the culmination of a process by which the the U.S. disentangling itself from European affairs. You can see right here in this rather blurry map of the Americas the United States was promising to guarantee that all of these nations would remain independant regardless of any ambitions of european powers, and this is at the heart of the Monroe Doctrine. This articulation of the Monroe Doctrine, along with these other treaties would allow the United states to pursue its own westward oriented agenda for 99 years until the beginning of world war I. Thank you.
The Second Hundred years war is actually a struggle that gave rise to the united states and shaped the history of the United state and shaped the history of the united states all the way through the early 19th century. First of all, technically it’s the 126 years war. It was a struggle between Britain and france for domination not only in Europe and North America, but in other areas of the world. It consists of not one war but 7 sets of wars, broken up by periods of peace with varying degrees of tension as far as each side being prepared to fight the next war. Each set of wars contained one war in Europe and one war in North America.
First Three Sets of Wars
The first 3 sets of wars began in 1689 and ran through 1748 and in North America include, King William’s War, King Anne’s War, and King George’s war. These were Wars that were fought primarily from the St Lawrence river valley in what is today Canada through to new England and into the eastern part of New York. these were just wars for Territory and did not involve any strategic implications that that. These Wars Resulted in Territorial gain either by Britain or France at the end of each war.
The Fourth Set of Wars
The fourth set of wars, which included the French and Indian war, Changed the Map of North America and is one of the most significant wars in the early history of North America and even the United States. It resulted in Britain taking control of all of the French Colonies and splitting them with Spain.
The Fifth Set of Wars : The American Revolution
This lead to the American Revolutionary War, which was the fifth set of wars. This is a struggle between not only Britain and the 13 Colonies but also involving other nations of Europe including France. France used this war as an opportunity to get back at Britain. The United States did secure its independence through the Revolutionary war, the fifth set in this series of wars between Britain and France, but France did not gain what it sought to regain from Britain after losing their two colonies in the french and Indian War.
The Sixth and Seventh Set of Wars
In the 6th and 7th set of wars the United states played a peripheral role. The 6th set was actually a set of wars revolving around the french revolution, and they ultimately lead to the rise of Napoleon, which was the 7th and concluding set of wars, the Napoleonic wars.
The War of 1812 and the United State’s Destiny of Expansion
The U.S. Counterpart to that was the War of 1812, which was a struggle between
Britain and the United states for territory, for sovereignty, and even for U.S. respect. This war was a draw from the perspective of the united states, but it paved the way for the united states to be able to advance westward and realize it’s destiny of reaching the pacific ocean by the middle of the 19th century. Also, since the Napoleonic wars left Europe free of any general wars till 1914 the united states could concentrate on its own destiny without having to worry about what went on in Europe during that period of time. These wars represent the crucible of the United State and shaped the united states to the nation that it would become. A vast continental power spread across North America.