The illegal smuggling caused economic hardship in the Portuguese empire. During the 8th and 9th Centuries, tobacco became the major product in the Portugal. Tobacco’s importance as a commercial product had in fact grown steadily after 1620, and by the early 1700s, the monopoly on its sale had become one of the country’s most precious sources of income.
Together with spices, tobacco became the principle item of exchange for products from the Far East and for slaves taken from the coast from the West Africa.
Answer:
The Third Estate was a political and social group made up of the vast majority of the population of France, at the time of the Old Regime prior to the French Revolution. Although this group had minimal political representation, they lacked all kinds of political weight in the monarchical courts and the limited legislatures of the time.
Therefore, the members of the Third Estate looked for an equal representation in front of the government, as well as a greater political participation and a greater amount of civil and social rights recognized in their favor.
No. Individuals choosing their own wife is a concept that recently was introduced to first world countries. Many people in third world countries and a few in first world countries still have arranged marriages.
Many thousands of years ago, not a single human being lived in the Americas.
This only changed during the last Ice Age. It was a time when most of North America was covered with a thick sheet of ice, which made the Americas difficult to inhabit.
But at some point during this time, adventurous humans started their journey into a new world.
They probably came on foot from Siberia across the Bering Land Bridge, which existed between Alaska and Eurasia from the end of the last Ice Age until about 10,000 years ago. The area is now submerged by water.
There is still debate about when these first Americans actually arrived and where they came from. But we are now getting closer to uncovering the original narrative, and finding out who these first Americans really were. During the peak of the last Ice Age about 20,000 years ago, a journey from Asia into the Americas would not have been particularly desirable. North America was covered in icy permafrost and tall glaciers. But, paradoxically, the presence of so much ice meant that the journey was, in a way, easier than it would be today.
The abundance of ice meant that sea levels were much lower than they are now, and a stretch of land emerged between Siberia and Alaska. Humans and animals could simply walk from Asia to North America. The land bridge was called Beringia.
