As a child he worked at odd jobs and sang in a boys’ quartet. In 1913 he was sent to the Colored Waifs Home as a juvenile delinquent. There he learned to play cornet in the home’s band, and playing music quickly became a passion; in his teens he learned music by listening to the pioneer jazz artists of the day, including the leading New Orleans cornetist, King Oliver. Armstrong developed rapidly: he played in marching and jazz bands, becoming skillful enough to replace Oliver in the important Kid Ory band about 1918, and in the early 1920s he played in Mississippi riverboat dance bands.
A feature of the reduction in death rates has been the increased excess mortality of males. There have also been big and rapid reductions in death rates in many developing countries, even in the absence of important improvements in living standards. Antibiotics and insecticides have made a major contribution to this movement in the last twenty years. It is unlikely that death rates will fall as rapidly in the next few decades as in the recent past in either developed or developing countries.
Towns grew up along the rivers which had access to the sea. Rivers also provided protection from invaders. Farmers grew crops in the fertile fields that surrounded the towns. The lack of mountains was good for farming, but it made the towns easier to be invaded by enemies.
