Industrial Revolution
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Industrial Revolution is the name historians have given to the period in history when there was a large and rapid change in the way things were made.
It began in England in the middle of the 18th century, and spread to Europe and North America by the early 19th century. It meant that instead of most things being made by hand in small workshops, they began to be made more cheaply in large quantities by powered machines in factories.
New ideas and inventions were also taken up in mining, the working of metals, and in the transportation of goods. The most important new invention of the industrial revolution was the steam engine, used to power the factories, pump out the deeper mines and in railway engines. The heat from burning coal became the main source of power, where before it had been the muscles of humans and animals.
Some historians see the industrial revolution as finishing about 1820, but they agree this was only the start of change in the way we make things, which continues right up to the present time.
People who study history still disagree on why it happened when it did, and why it happened in England first. It built on a new spirit of studying things through science in the 17th century, called by historians the Enlightenment. England also was a politically stable country throughout the 1700s with no wars at home (although it had many abroad).
England was also lucky that it had many of the raw materials needed to make and power the new machines close by within its borders. It also had an overseas empire that would buy the goods it made and provide it with a cheap source of other raw materials such as cotton and sugar. At the time of the industrial revolution slavery was practised in many British empire lands, this supplied a source for some of the money which could be spent on building the new industries.
