Opium Wars - Imperialism in China

The Opium war was during the Imperialism in China. The western Europeans were still exploring places, trying to find new resources. In China, they've found their tea and they loved it. The British only had one port in China. The British didn't like it, so they decided to trade Opium to the Chinese people for their tea. The people in China realized that it was a dangerous drug and they make it illegal, and whoever uses it can get killed. 

Film Lesson: " Mountains of the Moon "

For the past 2 days, we watched a movie called " Mountains of the Moon ". It's an 1990's movie, but the story took place at a time in the 1800's. Its involves around the Imperialism time when the European countries explored around the world to find new resources for their factories, also known at this time " The Industrial Revolution ". The explorers mostly discovered in Africa, since they have many resources there, but other countries in the South America and Asia. 

In this movie, there are two British explorers who came to look for the Nile River because they know there's a lot of resources in there. They had many difficulties during the trip they had. There was a lot of malaria and other diseases, that come from mosquitos and other bugs. Its also dangerous if you forget your Mosquito net when you go to sleep because many bugs or any type of insect can go inside you. Like what happened to the British Explorer, John Hanning Speek, who had a beetle in his ear and Richard Francis Burton who had a leg infection during the trip. There was also many tribes that they may not know and they might come and meet, and who knows, they can get killed since most of those African tribes never seen a white man before and they may think that you're in their territory. Also there are many wild animals you might come across with, and you are doomed if you don't have any weapons to guard yourself. 

You can also have shortage of food and water when you're traveling around Africa. Also you never know if the water you find in Africa are infected with malaria. In the movie, the African people who were helping out the two explorers, died from drinking the water they've found. But throughout their who journey. They found a lake thats connected to the Nile River, and they called it Lake Victoria, after their Queen at that time, which is Queen Victoria.  People nowadays found it unfair that, just because they've found it doesn't mean they can name it after their WHITE Queen. There was people probably already who live there. But the African people had no control or advantage of it, or they can't do anything about it. The Europeans took control over Africa. They were able to conquer them easily because they had more advance weapons that they can kill any African with a Spear.

Imperialism Project.

This beginning of the 3rd Semester, we started working on our Imperialism Project. We got to find countries in the map and label them with the goods they had in their country. We also labeled the European countries and the countries they have colonized in. The reason why the Europeans started exploring and colonizing in different countries around the world because they wanted more resources for their factories. They are still really important since it was still during the Industrial Revolution.