Britain outlawed slavery in 1833 and agreed to pay slave owners for the loss of their property. Not everyone as happy because you had to go to London to get paid for your freed slaves and not everyone could afford to do that.
(The Great Courses – The Rise and Fall of the British Empire)
Ancient History is divided by terms that refer to materials being used at the time. The Stone Age was followed by the Bronze Age and then the Iron Age. The Bronze Age is divided into the Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age. The division of the Bronze Age is actually a division based on the Egyptian dynasties. The Early Bronze Age occurs during the Early Kingdom, the Middle Bronze Age to the Middle Kingdom and the Late Bronze Age to the Late Kingdom.
(The Great Courses – The Holy Land Revealed)
Captain Cook was known as a famous explorer but he is also famous for protecting the health of his crew. While the causes of scurvy were still being tested he required all his crew to take lime juice everyday and the result was an unprecedented survival rate from diseases among his ship crews. This also caused others to use the term ‘limeys’ to refer to British seamen.
(Book – The Discoverers : A History of Man’s Search to Know His World and Himself – Daniel J. Boorstin)
The mounds that are found in the Near East which are the result of prior cities built upon each other are called tells. Tells are only found in the the Near East during the Bronze Age when a certain type of defensive system was used. This defense was called a glacis and was common during that period of time. It consisted of digging a moat around the town and using the dirt to make a hill around the town or using it for the foundation of the town. it was the use of this system which allowed the layers of civilization to be built into the mounds we see today. When new offensive forms of warfare were used this defense no longer worked and the tells cease to exist after this time period.
(The Great Courses – The Holy land Revealed)
Alexander MacKenzie was the first European to traverse the North American continent to the Pacific Ocean. In 1789 he followed the MacKenzie River to the Arctic Ocean and in 1792-1793 he crossed the Rockies Mountains to the Pacific Ccean. This was 12 years before Lewis and Clark who knew about his travels and carried copies of his logs.
(The Great Courses – The Rise and Fall of the British Empire)
The Sun is not the actual center of the solar system that the planets orbit around. The planets…and the Sun…actually orbit around the center of mass of the solar system. Since the Sun is by far the most massive object in the solar system the center of mass of the solar system is usually very near the sun and might be located around the surface of the Sun. Because of this the sun appears to wobble as it moves in its orbit and this phenomena can be used to help detect planets orbiting around others stars that we can see.
(The Great Courses – The Search of Exoplanets: What Astronomers Know)
Sleeping consists of two types, REM sleep and non-REM sleep. REM sleep actually starts occurring before we are born. Up through puberty REM sleep is about 50% of sleeping time and then drops to about 20% through until very late in life when it drops further. Dreams can occur during both types of sleep but non-REM sleep is typically hard to remember and is not story driven while REM sleep is more complex and visual. However, nightmares only occur during non-REM sleep.
(The Great Courses – Understanding the Brain)
In England the early Tudor kings established that a furlong would be 220 yards. Queen Elizabeth later decreed that the Roman mile of 5200 feet should instead be 5280 feet which is exactly 8 furlongs.
(Book – The Discoverers : A History of Man’s Search to Know His World and Himself – Daniel J. Boorstin)