Government leaders carved some of Rome's most important laws into 12 great tablets. The Twelve Tables, as they came to be known, were the first Roman laws put in writing. Although the laws were rather harsh by today's standards, they did guarantee every citizen equal treatment under the law.
From 1750 onwards a new industry emerged in Britain - the production of cotton cloth. Wool production had previously been Britain's major industry, but cotton had one key advantage - machinery could process cotton fibres better than wool.
An engraving showing slaves picking cotton on a plantation in North America
As a result it was in cotton production that the industrial revolution began, particularly in and around Manchester. The cotton used was mostly imported from slave plantations. Slavery provided the raw material for industrial change and growth.
The growth of the Atlantic economy was an integral part of the growth of exports - for example manufactured cotton cloth was exported to Africa.
The Atlantic economy can be seen as the spark for the biggest change in modern economic history. The Atlantic economy in the 1700s was founded on slave labour.
<span>Sir John Major,
KG, CH is a British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United
Kingdom and the Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. He
served as Foreign Secretary and then Chancellor of the Exchequer in the
Thatcher Government from 1989 to 1990, and was the Member of Parliament
for Huntingdon from 1979 to 2001. He is the oldest living former Prime
Minister.
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