A usual day on the Trail started very early, just before dawn. Nobody actually rode in the wagons unless they were sick or very young. The ride was too bumpy, too dusty, and added too much work for the oxen. Instead, people walked beside their wagons. Usually, groups traveled almost all day, except for an hour around noon for lunch. Then they kept moving until just before sunset, when they would stop to set up a campsite. Most groups traveled about 15 miles per day, though on the best days they could move 20 miles a day. Since oxen moved at about 2 miles per hour, this meant a day's travel could last up to ten hours.
About 40,000 of the travelers were children. Unless they were babies, they walked alongside the wagons and worked just like adults. Their jobs included herding animals, driving wagons, washing dishes, helping with meals, watching younger children, and collecting firewood and "buffalo chips" (dry buffalo manure, which could be used to start fires if there was no firewood).
At night, the group would move the wagons into a circle ("circle the wagons") and put their animals inside the circle. This kept them from wandering away, or being killed or stolen. If the weather was dry, people slept outside. If it was wet, people slept under their wagons.
Many travelers were very afraid of attacks from Native Americans. However, most Native Americans left the travelers alone, or even helped them by trading with them and helping them cross rivers in canoes. When Native Americans did attack travelers, the stories were told over and over again, which may have made attacks seem more common than they actually were.
Travelers who did reach Oregon looked back on the Trail with different feelings. One man named Loren Hastings said in 1847:
"I look back upon the long, dangerous and precarious emigrant road with a degree of romance and pleasure; but to others it is the graveyard of their friends."
In the 1970s, three student teachers in Minnesota made an educational computer game based on the Oregon Trail. The goal of the game was to successfully travel the trail from Independence, Missouri to Oregon City, Oregon. Dangers of the trail included river crossings, illnesses, sick oxen, and hunger. Over the next two decades, new versions of the game were made that added more options and included better graphics. The second version included zombies and oxen. The goal was to survive as long as you can before you die.
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation was an order by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln to free slaves in 10 states. It applied to slaves in the states still in rebellion in 1863 during the American Civil War. It did not actually immediately free all slaves in those states, because those areas were still controlled by the Confederacy. It did, however, free at least 20,000 slaves immediately, and nearly all 4 million slaves (according to the 1860 United States census) as the Union army advanced into Confederate states. Until the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865, only the states had power to end slavery within their own borders. Thus, Lincoln issued the Proclamation as a war measure in his role as commander-in-chief.
The Proclamation made emancipation a goal of the Civil War. It also weakened efforts within England and France to officially recognize the Confederacy. As Union troops advanced into Rebel (Confederate) territory, they freed thousands of slaves per day. Many did not wait, but fled their owners to claim their freedom.
Five slave states (the Border States) had remained loyal to the Union and were not at war with the federal government. Thus, Lincoln did not have authority to free slaves in those states, and so this Proclamation was not applied in those states. The Proclamation also did not apply to Tennessee, nor to areas within Virginia and Louisiana which Union forces already controlled.
The Proclamation was issued in two parts. On September 22, 1862, Lincoln said that in 100 days, he would free all slaves in areas not then under Union control. On January 1, 1863, he named the ten states in which the proclamation would then apply: Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana. The five border states where slavery was still legal were exempt, and so not named, because they had remained loyal to the Union and were not in rebellion. Tennessee also was not named because Union forces had already regained control there. Several counties of Virginia that were in the process of separating from that state to form the new state of West Virginia were specifically named as exemptions, as were several parishes around New Orleans in Louisiana. The next paragraph is part of a quote from the Emancipation Proclamation.
Only a small number of slaves already behind Union lines were immediately freed. As Union forces advanced, nearly all four million slaves were effectively freed. Some former slaves joined the Union army.
Before the war was over, some of the exempted border states ended slavery within their own borders. While the Proclamation had freed slaves, it had not made slavery illegal. Thus, Lincoln sponsored a constitutional amendment to ban slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment, which made slavery illegal everywhere in the United States, was passed late in 1865, eight months after Lincoln was killed.
Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. It is long. The bridge goes over the East River. It connects the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. It is one of the leading landmarks of New York City.
The bridge was built from 1869 to 1883. It was the first fixed crossing of the East River. It was designed by John Roebling. The construction was directed by his son Washington Roebling and Washington's wife, Emily. When it was finished, it was the tallest structure in North America.
The bridge is an official landmark. It has been a National Historic Landmark since 1964. It became a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1972.
Notes
Shelf life
Shelf life is length of time that food can be stored safely. Food cannot be kept forever. After a certain time it will go bad. After this time it is no longer safe to eat it. Shelf life is also used for drugs, drinks and other things that can go bad.
In some countries, a "best before", "use by" or "freshness date" must be put on packaged foods.
During this time, if the food is kept under proper conditions the quality of the food does not change. Frozen food that does not remain frozen will go bad earlier, for example. Most of these labels do not guarantee the safety of food. They should only be used as a guide.
Shelf life is different from "expiration date". Shelf life is linked to food quality, expiration date to food safety. A product that has passed its shelf life might still be safe, but quality is no longer guaranteed. In most food stores, shelf life is controlled by using stock rotation. This means moving products with the earliest sell by date to the front of the shelf, so that most shoppers will pick them up first and take them out of the store. This is important, as stores can be fined for selling out of date products. Most shops, if not all, will have to mark such products down as wasted, leading to a loss of profit.
Shelf life is can be changed by many things: exposure to light and heat, transmission of gases (including humidity), mechanical stresses, and contamination by things such as micro-organisms.
Mathematically, product quality is often modelled using only one parameter, for example the concetration of a chemical substance, a microbiological index, or a physical parameter. Sometimes, the parameter picked is irrelevant.