Opium Wars - Imperialism in China

The Opium War between China and Great Britain was during 1839-1842. Opium is a drug grown in India and is used to make morphine and heroin. It is used to relieve pain, but it can also be harmful. The British decided that they needed to balance their trade so they decided to sell and buy this drug to China. China didn't like that, so they decided to put, whoever is dealing with Opium, to death. The Chinese wanted to stop the growing import trade in Opium. Obviously, the medicine wasn't doing any good, it turned into a drug. The tradings began to flourish. The British Opium trade started in China and began the world's first drug war.
By the middle of 1842, the British had defeated the Chinese at their trade route, the Yangtze, and were occupying Shanghai. The war finally ended in August 1842, with the signing of China's first Unequal Treaty, the Treaty of Nanking.

Film lesson: "Mountains of the Moon"

There were some hardships that Europeans had while traveling through Africa, were traveling by foot. Another was that they were losing some supplies like food and water because of theifs. Also, they had to fight off the natives living in Africa. Some of them didn't survive the exploration. It was pretty strange that the world's largest river in the world, the Nile River, had a lake that was named Lake Victoria, after the British Queen. It was wierd because the europeans did not discover the lake, they just mapped it. They should not have had the right to name it. Europeans were far more advanced than African people. Europeans had better weapons. For example, in the movie, the Africans had never seen a gun. they were stunned. As a result of the high advancement of techology, Africa was easily conquered.