Most historians agree that the middle-class and some highly skilled workers whose jobs were not eliminated by the new machines were the real gainers in the early industrial revolution. <span>While the industrial workers had to wait until the second half of the nineteenth century to reap the benefits of industrialization, they did it in the very beginning of the Revolution.</span>
The European explorers were looking for resources and trade routes, more specifically a quick and easy water route to the East Indies since the muslim Ottoman empire blocked the middle east.
