Context and question: Production capacity in Britain and the United States was improved by the invention of the cotton gin by the American Eli Whitney in 1793. Before the development of cotton gins, the cotton fibers had to be pulled from the seeds tediously by hand. By the late 1700s a number of crude ginning machines had been developed. However, to produce a bale of cotton required over 600 hours of human labor, making large-scale production uneconomical in the United States, even with the use of humans as slave labor. The gin that Whitney manufactured (the Holmes design) reduced the hours down to just a dozen or so per bale. Although Whitney patented his own design for a cotton gin, he manufactured a prior design from Henry Odgen Holmes, for which Holmes filed a patent in 1796. Improving technology and increasing control of world markets allowed British traders to develop a commercial chain in which raw cotton fibers were (at first) purchased from colonial plantations, processed into cotton cloth in the mills of Lancashire, and then exported on British ships to captive colonial markets in West Africa, India, and China (via Shanghai and Hong Kong).
From what source was raw cotton first bought and later resold?
Answer: colonial markets
Context and question: People of German origin are found in various places around the globe. United States is home to approximately 50 million German Americans or one third of the German diaspora, making it the largest centre of German-descended people outside Germany. Brazil is the second largest with 5 million people claiming German ancestry. Other significant centres are Canada, Argentina, South Africa and France each accounting for at least 1 million. While the exact number of German-descended people is difficult to calculate, the available data makes it safe to claim the number is exceeding 100 million people.
How many German speaking people live around the world?
Answer: unanswerable
Context and question: From 1228, after of the Livonian Crusade, through the 1560s, Estonia was part of Terra Mariana, established on 2 February 1207 as a principality of the Holy Roman Empire and proclaimed by Pope Innocent III in 1215 as subject to the Holy See. The southern parts of the country were conquered by Livonian Brothers of the Sword who joined the Teutonic Order in 1237 and became its branch known as the Livonian Order. The Duchy of Estonia was created out of the northern parts of the country and was a direct dominion of the King of Denmark from 1219 until 1346, when it was sold to the Teutonic Order and became part of the Ordenstaat. In 1343, the people of northern Estonia and Saaremaa rebelled against German rule in the St. George's Night Uprising, which was put down by 1345. The unsuccessful rebellion led to a consolidation of power for the Baltic German minority. For the subsequent centuries they remained the ruling elite in both cities and in the countryside.
When was Terra Mariana established?
Answer:
2 February 1207