Historically the particular routes were also shaped by the powerful influence of winds and currents during the age of sail. For example, from the main trading nations of Western Europe, it was much easier to sail westwards after first going south of 30 N latitude and reaching the so-called "trade winds"; thus arriving in the Caribbean rather than going straight west to the North American mainland. Returning from North America, it is easiest to follow the Gulf Stream in a northeasterly direction using the westerlies. A triangle similar to this, called the volta do mar was already being used by the Portuguese, before Christopher Columbus' voyage, to sail to the Canary Islands and the Azores. Columbus simply expanded this triangle outwards, and his route became the main way for Europeans to reach, and return from, the Americas.
Atlantic triangular slave trade
See also: Atlantic slave trade and Slave Coast of West Africa
The best-known triangular trading system is the transatlantic slave trade that operated from Bristol, London, and Liverpool. during the late 16th to early 19th centuries, carrying slaves, cash crops, and manufactured goods between West Africa, Caribbean or American colonies and the European colonial powers, with the northern colonies of British North America, especially New England, sometimes taking over the role of Europe. The use of African slaves was fundamental to growing colonial cash crops, which were exported to Europe. European goods, in turn, were used to purchase African slaves, who were then brought on the sea lane west from Africa to the Americas, the so-called Middle Passage. Despite being driven primarily by economic needs, Europeans sometimes had a religious justification for their actions. In 1452, for instance, Pope Nicholas V, in the Dum Diversas, granted to the kings of Spain and Portugal "full and free permission to invade, search out, capture, and subjugate the Saracens [Muslims] and pagans and any other unbelievers ... and to reduce their persons into perpetual slavery."
In the late 1780's, states were debating whether or not to ratify the Constitution. They were broken into two different state convention groups, those who were for and those who against ratification: the Federalists and the Antifederalists.
Federalists were in favor of a strong government and wanted the constitution passed as it was. The Antifederalists formed as opponents to the Federalists. They thought that the Constitution gave the central government too much power, and left the states with with not enough.
State constitutions usually included a bill of rights, which was missing from the Constitution of the United States. This was the main reason why certain states who were not in favor of ratification.
Eventually, the Federalists promised to add a bill of rights, after ratification. This was the main factor that encouraged many states to vote for ratification in the end.
Sparta had a highly unusual system of government.
Two kings ruled the city, but a 28-member 'council of elders' limited their powers.
These men were recruited from the highest social class, the aristocratic Spartiates. Rather like medieval knights, the Spartiates were a class of military professionals who lived most of their lives in communal barracks. Rarely seeing their wives and children, their lands were farmed by slaves, leaving them free to pursue to the arts of war.
Beneath this highest class was a middle class, called the Perioeci. Made up of a farmers and artisans who were the descendants of those peoples whom the Spartans had first conquered, the Perioeci paid taxes and could serve in the army, but had no real political rights.
At the bottom were the helots: a slave class descended from those peoples who had resisted subjugation by Sparta. Because the helots were constantly rebelling, the Spartans attempted to control them by forming a secret society that annually murdered any helot suspected of encouraging subversion.
