North, the Underground railroad was invented for people who were slaves to escape their owners. The slaves followed the Big Dipper(pointing north) to get there
Rubber is coagulated sap; the French word for it, Cãoutchouc, comes from a South American Indian word meaning "the wood that weeps." The wood that weeps in the Congo was a long spongy vine of the Landolphia genus.
Well, I think that in principle, every war is inevitable until it happens - perhaps, if the fall of the Iron Curtain had resulted in war we'd be calling it "inevitable" now. The war was however very predictable at the time, indeed due to the alliances. In fact, Otto von Bismark had long before seen the potential for war in Europe, due to the national conflicts and strong alliances, as seen in his quote: "One day great war will come out of some foolish thing in the Balkans"
American isolationist sentiment actually began immediately following the Revolutionary War and then increased drastically after WWI, when many American troops died for a war overseas.
