10
Jan, 2025

8G History Lesson 40 Assignment

In this assignment, I will be summarizing the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark’s expedition.

The Louisiana Purchase was about 828,000 square miles of land that was purchased from France by the U.S. It is regarded as the largest land purchase in history. It was quite a bargain too, at less than 3 cents per acre! The average price of an acre of land in Pennsylvania today is over 40,000 dollars!

The Louisiana purchase doubled the size of the U.S! It also added more natural resources, and overall helped strengthen the country. The treaty was signed on May 2, 1803. The total cost of the purchase was 27,267,622 dollars!

Lewis and Clark’s Expedition

The Lewis and Clark Expedition was an important expedition when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were commisioned by Thomas Jefferson to explore the other side of the continent. Meriwether Lewis was a leiutenant in the army, and he was also a politician. William Clark was a captain in the army also.

They set out on May 14, 1804. During their journey they traveled over 8,000 miles across forests, plains, rivers and mountains. They encountered many Native American settlements and traded with them. They also identified a lot of new species.

When they returned, they were greeted as heroes. Their actions and bravery inspire people today.

8G History Lesson 35 Assignment

In this assignment, I will be summarizing two of the cultural events that were discussed this week: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Mozart was a famous Austrian composer who lived in the 18th century. He is regarded as one of the best composers ever. Let’s dive in to his life and his works:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria. His father, Leopold Mozart was a famous violinist, and his mother played the harpsichord, so his musical talent clearly ran in his blood!

Mozart was a musician even in his toddler years! At the age of three, he was playing chords on his family’s harpsichord. At four, he started playing short pieces, and at five he was already composing music! He was described as being very gentle and kind yet also outgoing.

Mozart’s father started taking him on tours around the country, where he played for nobility. His sister, Nannerl Mozart was a very talented musician also, and she sometimes went on tours with him.

Mozart continued composing pieces throughout his life. He wrote over 600 pieces in his lifetime, including ones for Benjamin Franklin’s glass harmonica! He married Constanze Weber in 1782. He had six children, but only two survived to adulthood.

Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin

Eli Whitney was an American inventor best known for inventing the Cotton Gin, although he contributed in other ways to technology.

Eli Whitney was born on December 8, 1765. His father was a farmer who served as justice of the peace. He went to Yale college, where he learned many of his engineering skills.

In the south at that time, there were two types of cotton: green-seed and black-seed. The black-seeded one was easy to clean and separate the seeds, but it could only be grown on the coast, so it wasn’t very popular. The green-seeded variety could grow more widely in the south, but it was very hard to separate the seeds. Whitney noticed this, and he realized that if someone could invent a machine to separate the seeds, they would become very rich.

He started to make a model that had cylinders with nails and brushes on them, so when it was turned, it cleaned the seeds. (This is a simplification, the exact machine is more complex.) He further refined his design, then patented it. This helped revolutionize the cotton plantations, and made work easier for the slaves.

Eli Whitney also invented other things, like a milling machine, but he is best known for the Cotton Gin.