Starting in 500 AD Europe made some major changes. Right after the fall of the Roman Empire Europe was starting to be divided into city states that were almost like country regions. This system wasn’t perfect because the boundaries weren’t fully certain so this left Europe pretty unorganized. Big changes were made 500 years later in 1000 AD when they emerged from what they called the dark ages. Real countries were formed with strong kings but France and England made up the strongest groups in Europe at the time. Now since all of the territory in Europe has been claimed all of the countries resorted to fighting each other for more territory, such as the Muslims in Iberia were pushed back by the Spaniards causing a rivalry. If we skip forward to 1453 AD we will see that the black death as withered into Europe, as well as the hundred years war being fought along with many other small conflicts. A while after all of these conflicts were manly put to rest Sweden gained control of Scandinavia while France, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands have brought wealth to Europe with vast overseas colonies.

Brynn is my best friend, she lives next door to me which means we hang out a lot. I moved in 2022 in April and ever since then we have been best friends. Brynn is one of the funniest people I know and whenever I’m upset or mad I can go to her because she understands. We have sleepovers all the time normally at my house because we both agree my house is funner. At sleep overs we love to get snacks and watch our favorite movies and TV shows as well as playing video games or doing partner tricks. During the summer we would go to the pool almost every weekend we would pack snacks and floaty’s and jump in together. During the fall we like to go for walks and go to the park and when we got home we would make dinner at my house then hangout until she had to go home. When we weren’t hanging out were on the phone or texting, we’ll talk about the most random things but we’re always talking.

Africa is probably the most diverse continent in the world, it has forests, mountains, jungles, deserts, safari plains, lakes, and is home to the Nile River which is the longest river in the world. Ancient Africa was home to many civilizations but the oldest and strongest one is Egypt. The country started as an agricultural society based around the Nile River. Egypt was eventually taken over by the Persians but ended up regaining their freedom for sometime before the Roman Empire conquered them in till the fall of Rome in 476 AD. Egypt adopted the fast growing religion Islam. Small colonies and countries were starting to be established such as Nubia and Ethiopia. Nubia was south of Egypt and mostly known for trading with the Arabia and Mediterranean civilizations. They were pretty much independent of Egypt but lost power around 400 AD. Starting in 500 BC Ethiopia was established by trade along the Red Sea coast. They started as an Arab country but evolved into the Egyptian and Greek cultures. Ethiopia was pretty successful compared to Nubia because they had such a strong line of kings which made them rich and strong. Later on Africa slowly started to develop more tribal nations.

I’ve been to many places in the US like Florida, California, Georgia, New York and many others. Although i went to those places multiple times and they were all with my family, but this time was different. Since me and my brother both do gymnastics we normally have competitions the same weekend which is what happened on that weekend. My mom was taking my brother to a meet so she let me go with my best friend who was on the same team as me and her family to the competition. This meet was out of state and we had to spend the night there which meant that would be the first time i would be far away from my family sleeping in a bed that wasn’t mine. The meet was in Tennessee on Friday so we had to drive a few hours to get there and we ended up having to get ready in the car. After the meet we went to the place we were staying and ate dinner as well as playing a few bored games with her family. When we got ready for bed I was a little scared since I would always get home sick at sleepovers and other places so I ended up calling my mom which made me feel a lot better. After that trip I knew I would be fine away from home.

The Atlantic Slave Trade was a cultural development in Europe and in the New World that started in the 16th century then ended in the 19th century. The slaves were mostly captured from West Africa and then brought all the way over to the New World. The first people to capture slaves from Africa were the Portuguese. The Portuguese colonies in South America would bring the slaves back and have them produce commodity crops that. they were known for such as sugar, cotton, coffee, and tobacco. There were two eras in the Atlantic Slave Trade, the First and Second Atlantic Systems. The first system was the Portuguese would capture slaves and bring them to the Portuguese colonies and this lasted from 1502-1580. The second system would bring the slaves to the Caribbean Islands where the Dutch, English, Portuguese, and French all had some sort of territory this way lasted from 1580 all the way till the 19th century. The English were the biggest traders and abused the lives of approximately 10 million slaves. They did this by using a triangular method. This operated by transporting goods to Africa from Europe then bringing the slaves to the New World.

As Milo and Otis were relaxing at home when Milo starts getting pretty bored and Otis notices so he asks Milo what’s wrong. Nothing I’m just really tired of just always being at home and I want to go on an adventure and do something fun says Milo. Well I mean I guess we could do something fun says Otis. Really are you sure asked Milo. Yeah what do you want to do we could go for a walk or we can go to the park, what do you want to do it asked Otis. No, no those things are boring. We always do those, I want to do something fun something we haven’t done before says Milo. Like what asked Otis. I’m not sure but can we at least go downtown, theres so much to do there said Milo. I guess we could, but we have to be careful, and we have to be back by the end of the day. I don’t want the humans to get worried, said Otis. That works with me. Hurry, let’s go, said Milo! They leave the house and once they finally make it downtown they see there favorite place to eat.

Look Otis it’s the pizza place we can get so much food there. Can we please please go there said Milo. I guess we could but let’s try not to get in trouble said Otis. They walk around the pizza place and see a ton of people eating outside. Oh what a cute dogs here you can have my crust from my pizza says a lady. Wow we already got food Otis this is so nice said Milo. That lady was pretty nice and I hope we can get some more food said Otis. Wait do you see that? I think there’s some ice cream we could get said Otis. Oh yay I love ice cream. Can we please go get it said Milo. We can try, but we have to be really sneaky so we don’t get caught said Otis. So they walk in the pizza place through the back door and see the ice cream. They hop up onto the counter right where the ice cream was but then they heard loud scream. They turn around and see workers screaming at them and saying to call animal control. Oh no run Milo run said Otis. They run out of the pizza place running as fast as they can to try and get back home. Milo go down the alley. We should be safe there said Otis. They stop to try and catch their breath and look back at the pizza place to see if anyone was chasing them. When they looked back at the pizza place, they saw an animal control van. Otis look animal control, said Milo in fear. Oh no, we better hurry home before they catch us said Otis. So they ran home hoping no one chased them which thankfully know one did. That was stressful and really scary said Milo. I know were never doing that again.

Growing up in the colonies was similar to how kids are today although we have evolved we still have some things in common. In the colonies you were considered a baby until age 6 which is when you would start going to school and doing chores. When you turned 6 you would start going to what was called a dame school which is where there was one women where she taught all of the students how to read all in one classroom. To graduate all you needed was that you knew how to read. After dame school most boys and girls would go on to learn other subjects like writing and math. The boys were also expected to learn to trade. They learned this by them or their father signing a contract stating that the boy would have an apprenticeship with a tradesman and in return the tradesman would get a room.

For the adults and parents in the colony they obviously needed jobs so they could provide for their family’s. There were a good amount of options to choose from which were:

• Barber
• Blacksmith
• Cabinetmaker
• Clockmaker
• Cobbler
• Cooper
• Doctor
• Farmer
• Grocer
• Hatter
• Miller
• Sailor
• Sliversmith
• Tailor
• Tanner
• Wigmaker

Whitefield was born in 1714 and grew up in a poor household. This meant he couldn’t really afford to pay for college so as a result he would work as a server at Oxford to pay for his tuition. During his time Oxford he met the Wesley brothers who later on founded the Methodist church. Whitefield was at first intimated by christianity but one day he had a conversion experience and cried out to God in prayer. Soon later he became very passionate about the things of God and started preaching. After he started preaching he visited the colonies and while he was there he saw an orphanage in great need so he decided to make this his life’s work along with preaching. So he returned back to England so he could raise money for the orphanage which he did. Whitefield visited the colonies a total of 7 times and was even buried there when he died. He continued to travel so he could keep preaching because he was never assigned to one church. When preaching Whitefield was mainly known for how loud his voice could be. Some people would claim you could hear him from 5 miles away which allowed him to preach to thousands of people at a time without any amplification. A story is told that his preachings even convinced Benjamin Franklin to donate to his orphanage. Although Whitefield had some haters he still converted many people to christianity with his preachings. George Whitefield died in 1770 and is remembered for being the best man during the Great Awakening.

Virginia

Virginia was the first colony and began with the colony Jamestown in 1607. Jamestown used to be the capitol of Virginia until 1699 when it switched to Williamsburg. In its later years it was nicknamed ” The Old Dominion” because of its loyalty to the crown during the Commonwealth of England. The different parts of Virginia led to Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Illinois.

Massachusetts

The Plymouth Colony and the Massachusetts Bay Colony combined to make the colony of Massachusetts. There was many leaders for this colony and most of them were Puritans which is the religion most of the people who lived there would go by but a few other religions were tolerated. In 1636 a war broke out called the Pequot War because the had some trouble with the natives after arriving.

New Hampshire

New Hampshire was first apart of Massachusetts and ruled under their government until Charles II issued a colonial charter and appointed John Cutt as the president of New Hampshire. It was named after the Hampshire colony in England. During this time there was a movement for independence which at first they didn’t agree with but it moved through the colony and spread its spirts enough for them to hop on board.

William was the prince of Orange in the 16th century and is known for the Dutch revolution against the Spanish which led to the 80 years war. He was born in 1522 in what is now Germany. He was the oldest of 12 children and at the age of 11 he inherited the position of the Prince of Orange. This caused him to change his religion to Catholic and since he was to young for the crown the holy Roman Emperor took over until he was of age. He got married in 1551 and also got appointed captain of the cavalry. This impressed Emperor Charles so at age 22 he was a commander of one of the kings armies.

By this time the Netherlands were ruled by the Spanish and so William joined an opposition group who claimed that the Spanish were to controlling. William also wanted religious freedom so he started speaking out and caused several revolts. The Spanish called a council to punish the criminals which William didn’t show for and by doing this William became a outlaw. He didn’t give up so he gathered an army to go against the Spanish. This started the 80 years war which ended in the Dutch gaining their independence.