Civil War Background In the mid-19th century, while the United States was experiencing an era of tremendous growth, a fundamental economic difference existed between the country’s northern and southern regions. While in the North, manufacturing and industry was well established, and agriculture was mostly limited to small-scale farms, the South’s economy was based on a system of large-scale farming that depended on the labor of black slaves to grow certain crops, especially cotton and tobacco. Growing abolitionist sentiment in the North after the 1830s and northern opposition to slavery’s extension into the new western territories led many southerners to fear that the existence of slavery in america–and thus the backbone…

MAY 10, 2011, 3:10 PM ET Federal regulators rarely are remembered for their oratorical prowess—or for that matter, remembered at all.

This Day in African History – Nelson Mandela Released By Alistair Boddy-Evans, About.com Guide February 11, 2010 After imprisonment for 27 years, Nelson Mandela was finally released by South Africa’s Apartheid regime on 11 February 1990. Mandela walked out of the gates of Victor Verster Prison, Paarl, and was whisked away in a silver BMW to Cape Town where he appeared on the balcony of the City Hall. 50,000 people congregated to hear his address:

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922) Shackleton was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer, best known for leading the ‘Endurance’ expedition of 1914-16.

The National Gallery London ~ One Of The Best Collections Of European Art In The World