copper with a small amount of tin around 3300 BCE – creating bronze – this greatly enhanced the properties of the material. Copper mining on Cyprus reached a large, quasi-industrial scale around 2300 BCE: [...] shipped the ore to all the important peoples of the Mediterranean. This trade was so profitable that the great powers of antiquity continually strove for domination of rich Cyprus. The boom continued even when [...] century. But by the end of the 16th century, the production centres of Kouklia, Kolossi and Episkopi were no longer able to withstand the competition from the New World. The occupation of this strategically
demand also drove mechanisation of the textile industry, particularly in the region centred on Borås and the expanding industrial city of Norrköping. Towards the end of the century, Sweden profited greatly [...] ON THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF SWEDEN Listen Sweden’s long road to becoming an industrial nation followed a familiar path in that the process began with agricultural surpluses and a consequent population [...] state intervention and large-scale exports of the plentiful raw materials of iron ore and wood. By contrast, Sweden has very few coal deposits. Until the end of the 17th century, copper from the long-established
ON THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF POLAND Listen Industrialisation within the territory of today’s Poland was extremely disparate as repeated partitioning of this nation occurred during the decisive 150 years [...] Congress of 1815 and subject to the Czar of Russia. As in many European nations, population growth generated a large reservoir of labour here. However, even after the changes following the liberation of the [...] the deposits of zinc ore around Katowice were quite significant. During the 19th century the output of zinc from Upper Silesia exceeded that of all other European regions. Even the amount of sulphuric acid
ON THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF ICELAND Listen For a long time, this volcanic island was one of Europe’s poorest countries, as only a small portion of the land is suitable for agricultural use and Iceland [...] proliferation of firearms starting in the 14th century, as sulphur is a key ingredient in gunpowder. The sulphur trade illustrates the dominance of foreign powers over Iceland: the kings of Norway controlled [...] took it over, before the merchants of the Hanseatic League acquired the business toward the end of the 15th century. Sulphur was mined primarily in the vicinity of Lake Mývatn and in Krýsuvίk on the Reykjanes
ON THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED KINGDOM Listen The Industrial Revolution began in the fields of British farmers. Thanks to new cultivation methods, they were able to increase their yields in the [...] up-and-down motion of the steam engine into rotation so that it could set tens of thousands of spindles in motion on a single spinning machine. The spinning rooms and dust towers of the "spinning mills" [...] Isambard Kingdom Brunel, one of the most colourful personalities of the era. Around the middle of the 19th century, full industrialisation was achieved when cheap mass production of iron and steel began and
on of canals – an important transport mode in the “land of a thousand lakes”. However, 1856 saw the opening of the Saimaa Canal, which linked the extensive watershed of Lake Saimaa with the Gulf of Finland [...] serfs, the handful of owners of large, profitable estates long dominated an overwhelming majority of day labourers and small tenants subsisting on the bare minimum. A modest tradition of iron-working emerged [...] ON THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF FINLAND Listen Finland’s rise as a prosperous industrial nation, which started in the mid-20th century, is due primarily to two very different factors: its extensive forests
