The cotton gin was invented by American inventor Eli Whitney in 1793. The machine allowed cotton to be much more efficiently separated from seeds and dramatically increased the productive capabilities of America’s cotton plantations in the south. It did, however, lead to a massive increase in the demand for slaves in the south of the United States. This is because cotton became immensely profitable in the early nineteenth century.

Labor unions emerged relatively quickly after the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. In many ways they were a continuation of guilds and peasant organizations from the pre-industrial era. However, the change they campaigned for came about very slowly. In the early years the efforts of labor unions were blocked by the government, which was almost exclusively controlled by people who benefited financially from holding unions back. The rate of change accelerated over the course of the nineteenth century and eventually labor unions were able to affect most of the changes they desired - such as child labor laws, limit on working hours, and the two-day weekend.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto, which outlines the key concepts of Marxism. According to Marx and Engels in order for the workers to form a classless society they need to seize control of the means of production from the capitalists. This is what Marx refers to as the Workers Revolution or the Proletarian Revolution.

The emancipation of the serfs in 1861, under Russian Tsar Alexander II had numerous consequences for Russian society. It did not, however, improve agricultural production or cohesion within Russian society. If anything it further fractured Russian society as many interest groups has reason to be disenchanted by the emancipation. The emancipation of the serfs did provide much-needed workers for the blossoming Russian industrial revolution, however.

In the decades prior to the French Revolution, France existed in an ongoing state of severe financial crisis. This economic instability resulted from many factors. First of all, the French monarchy had a long history of excessive spending – epitomized by the Sun King Louis XIV and his lavish lifestyle at Versailles – which the current King and the entire nobility blindly continued. The King, the royal family, his courtiers, and the entire nobility lived in the lap of luxury, entirely insulated from the deprivations and difficulties which the plummeting economy was inflicting on the public. The government was also unable to collect sufficient taxation from the French people, due to interference from the aristocratic members of the local/regional “Parlements,” who had no intention of surrendering any revenue control and so repeatedly blocked collection attempts. Furthermore, the aristocracy refused to pay any taxes themselves, knowing full well that Louis XVI was powerless to respond. To make matters worse, in the years prior to King Louis XVI’s reign, the French government had nearly bankrupted itself in a series of military ventures, such as the disastrous Seven Years’ War against Britain. A desire for revenge against Britain had then led France to give economic and military support to the rebellious American colonists in their war for independence, which drained the national coffers even further. To add insult to injury, several banks refused to grant the French government either a loan or a line of credit; this ended all hope for external rescue.

Jacques Necker served as the Royal Director/General of Finances under King Louis XVI in 1781, for a single year. The short length of his term was directly related to an investigative campaign which Necker conducted into the financial affairs of the French government. As the new chief financial director, he was determined to decipher how exactly the government was spending its money. Necker compiled his findings and released a report not only to the King and his aristocratic and administrative circles, but to the public as well. At first, the report seemed to deliver good news: Necker claimed that the single biggest burden on the French budget was the cost of the nation’s aid to the American revolutionaries. Save for this debt, he explained, the national budget was actually in surplus. Furthermore, he revealed that the national debt was certainly in no way disproportionate to the corresponding debts carried by other major European powers at the time (chiefly England and Spain). While these conclusions were warmly received, Necker’s report also revealed a few unsavory facts about the internal workings of the French court’s expenditures. Especially scandalous was the revelation that the monarchy spent a very hefty portion of its income on aristocratic pensions. These pensions were essentially payments given out to nobles in perpetuity, despite the fact that most aristocrats were certainly not in need of (and likely hadn’t even earned) such compensation. Naturally, the nobility was deeply displeased by Necker’s disclosures and made conditions at court so uncomfortable for the minister that he left office before the year’s end.

Tsar Alexander II reigned from 1855 until 1881. He is most often remembered for the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, and action for which he is often called Alexander the Liberator. He also enacted a series of reforms to try and modernize the Russian state, including the abolition of capital punishment and the promotion of devolution and local government.

The Industrial Revolution began in England in the second-half of the eighteenth century. There are many reasons why the Industrial Revolution began in England. To begin with England had just recently undergone a type of agricultural revolution that greatly increased food productivity and led to a decrease in the proportion of the population needed to work the fields to provide for the rest of the population. As such there was a surplus of available workers, as well as a growing population. Furthermore, England has an abundance of natural resources and relative ease of transportation. Finally, the government of England encouraged capitalism and free market innovation, leading to many industrial innovations. However, England’s public education system was not universally established until well after the Industrial Revolution was underway.

King Leopold was the king of Belgium when he established a personal colony in the Congo in the nineteenth century. Leopold’s Congo colony was extremely profitable due to the production of rubber, which was much in demand throughout the world. Under Belgian control the people of the Congo were heavily exploited and, according to many estimates, tens of millions of people died. The horrors and profits of Leopold’s Congo contributed to the convening of the Berlin Conference and the division of Africa among the various European imperial powers.

According to Karl Marx, in The Communist Manifesto, the primary enemy of the proletariat (workers) is the bourgeoisie (business-owning middle class). In order for the proletariat to improve their condition and form a classless society the bourgeoise needs to be overthrown.