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Gke Task 1

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GKE 1 Task 1

One of the significant geographic factors that contributed to the development of early human society was Mesopotamia (Mark,J.M. 2009). This area is now known as Iraq. Mesopotamia means “between two rivers”; the Euphrates, and the Tigris Rivers. There are human settlements there that date back to 10,000 BCE. This land was known as the Fertile Crescent. This made it possible for nomadic peoples to settle the land, domesticate animals, and start agriculture. Mesopotamia was mainly an agrarian society. The main jobs were crops and livestock. The soil of the Fertile Crescent made it possible to raise crops. From 10,000 BCE- the 7th CE, there were several periods of development. Once the Muslim conquest took place in the late 7th Century, the ancient Mesopotamia ends.

One product that was diffused throughout the globe is tea. In early times, tea was only used for medicine. After many centuries, tea became a popular drink in China (Columbia University, 2015). Tea slowly spread through Tibet, Mongolia, Korea and Japan. In the seventeenth, tea started to expand into the western world. During the following century, tea was common place in England. From the UK, tea was brought to the colonies in America. In 1773, the colonists threw tea into the Boston Harbor, in protest of high taxes the British imposed on tea. This was one of the major events that lead to the American Revolution.

When James M. Marshall discovered a gold nugget at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, the California Gold Rush began (Harvard University, 2015). This brought thousands of immigrants from other countries, and Americans from the eastern United States. This event caused the population in the west to increase dramatically. The population in San Francisco grew from One Thousand people in 1848, to twenty thousand in just two years. California was difficult to reach from the east. One of the ways was by covered wagon through rough terrain, and hostile territories. The Sierra-Nevada Mountains made the journey close to impossible, and took around six months to complete. This lead to the construction of the Panama Railway. The railway was the world’s first transcontinental railroad. Now Americans were able to travel from east to west much faster than before.

One of the events in American History that contributed to American expansion was the Louisiana Purchase (U.S. Department of State, 2015). When Napoleon rose to power during the French Revolution, he threatened to block access to the Port of New Orleans. President Jefferson sent diplomats to France to bargain for trade along the Mississippi. Napoleon needed money for his war against England, so he offered all of the Louisiana Territory for fifteen million dollars. This territory stretched from the Mississippi River, to the Rocky Mountains; doubling the size of the United States. In time, this would add 13 states to the Union.

Mark,J.M. (2009) Mesopotamia. Retrieved January 22, 2015 from http://www.ancient.eu/Mesopotamia/ Tea (2015). China’s gifts to the West. Retrieved January 22 from http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/song/readings/inventions_gifts.htm Immigration to the United States (2015). California Gold Rush. Retrieved January 22, 2015 from http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/goldrush.html

Office of the Historian (2015). The Louisiana Purchase. Retrieved January 22, 2015 from
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1801-1829/louisiana-purchase

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