Life in America during the mid 1800's was very complex. On one hand you have free and enslaved blacks constantly facing prejudice and discrimination in American society. Politicians all over the South used their best persuasion skills to convince white Southerners that blacks were inferior to whites as a means to justify the institution of slavery.
Also happening in America during this time was a huge amount of immigration from countries like Ireland. The Great Famine in Ireland that took place during the 1840's resulted in a huge amount of emigrants (people moving to another country to live there permanently) greatly increased the population of the North. Despite this increase in population, there were still many American citizens who were anti-immigration. This group was known as nativists. These nativists feared that immigrants would come into America, take jobs from American citizens, and would try to change the values of America.
The Maya Empire, centered in the tropical lowlands of what is now Guatemala, reached the peak of its power and influence around the sixth century A.D.
The Maya excelled at agriculture,
pottery, hieroglyph writing, calendar-making and mathematics, and left behind an astonishing amount of impressive architecture and symbolic artwork.
Most of the great stone cities of the Maya were abandoned by A.D. 900, however, and since the 19th century scholars have debated what might have caused this dramatic decline.
The Classic Maya built many of their temples and palaces in a stepped pyramid shape, decorating them with elaborate reliefs and inscriptions. These structures have earned the Maya their reputation as the great artists of Mesoamerica.
Guided by their religious ritual, the Maya also made significant advances in mathematics and astronomy, including the use of the zero and the development of complex calendar systems like the Calendar Round, based on 365 days, and later, the Long Count Calendar, designed to last over 5,000 years.
Serious exploration of Classic Maya sites began in the 1830s. By the early to mid-20th century, a small portion of their system of hieroglyph writing had been deciphered, and more about their history and culture became known.
Most of what historians know about the Maya comes from what remains of their architecture and art, including stone carvings and inscriptions on their buildings and monuments.
The Maya also made paper from tree bark and wrote in books made from this paper, known as codices; four of these codices are known to have survived.
They are also credited with some
of the earliest uses of chocolate and of rubber.
Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Romans, among others.
<span>Muhammad was visited by the Archangel Gabriel who was a powerful and loving messenger of God. The first revelation was an event that was to happen in Islam that was going to take place in 610 AD. </span>
