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Economic History: fun facts and quiz
The essentials in 7 ideas, with fun facts, an illustrated story and a quiz to see how much you know.
The essentials
The Farming Revolution
About 12,000 years ago, people began farming. Growing food let villages and then cities form, and some people could do other jobs.
Key fact
Farming began in several places, including the Fertile Crescent.
Early Trade
Ancient traders swapped goods across huge distances: Phoenician ships crossed the Mediterranean, and the Silk Roads linked China with Europe.
Key fact
The Phoenicians’ alphabet spread through trade.
The Great Depression
After the 1929 Wall Street Crash, the world fell into the Great Depression. In the US, about a quarter of workers lost their jobs.
Key fact
It lasted through most of the 1930s.
The Gold Standard
Many currencies were once tied to gold. The US ended the link between the dollar and gold in 1971.
Key fact
Most money today is “fiat”: valuable because people trust it.
The Post-War Boom
From about 1950 to 1973, many countries grew fast, with rising wages and new homes, cars and TVs. Germany and Japan rebuilt remarkably quickly.
Key fact
Germany’s recovery was called the “economic miracle”.
The 2008 Crisis
In 2008, risky home loans in the US triggered a global financial crisis. Banks failed or were rescued, and many countries fell into recession.
Key fact
Lehman Brothers’ collapse was the largest bankruptcy in US history.
The Rise of China
Since market reforms began in 1978, China’s economy has grown into the world’s second largest, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
Key fact
China is the world’s biggest manufacturer.
Fun facts
Early farmers were often shorter and less healthy than the hunter-gatherers who came before them.
Over 10,000 years ago, obsidian, a volcanic glass, was already traded hundreds of kilometres across the Near East.
In the 1930s, huge dust storms stripped farmland across the US plains, a disaster called the Dust Bowl.
All the gold ever mined would fit in a cube about 22 m on each side.
The Volkswagen Beetle became a symbol of West Germany’s economic miracle, selling millions around the world.
Many bundles of risky mortgages were rated a safe “AAA” before the 2008 crash, and turned out to be anything but.
China’s economy grew by around 10% a year for three decades after 1978.
Story: Twenty Miles Back
Twenty Miles Back
March 1936, California. Photographer Dorothea Lange, driving home in the rain, passes a sign for a pea-pickers’ camp. Twenty miles on, she turns back.
She finds a mother of seven by a tent and takes six photos in about ten minutes. Frost had ruined the pea crop, leaving the pickers with no work.
The pictures ran in newspapers, and the government rushed food to the camp. “Migrant Mother” became the face of the Great Depression.
True or false?
Tap your answer to see if you got it, and why.
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Question 1 of 10
Farming let some people do jobs other than growing food.
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True. Like crafts, trade and building.
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Question 2 of 10
The Phoenicians were seafaring traders.
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True. All around the Mediterranean.
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Question 3 of 10
The Great Depression followed the 1929 stock market crash.
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True. Starting with Wall Street.
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Question 4 of 10
Most money today is “fiat” money.
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True. Valued because people trust it.
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Question 5 of 10
Many economies grew fast after the Second World War.
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True. For more than two decades.
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Question 6 of 10
The 2008 crisis began with risky US home loans.
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True. Known as subprime mortgages.
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Question 7 of 10
China’s economy is the world’s second largest.
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True. After the United States.
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Question 8 of 10
Humans have always lived in cities.
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False. Cities came thousands of years after farming.
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Question 9 of 10
Long-distance trade only began in the 20th century.
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False. It’s thousands of years old.
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Question 10 of 10
The Great Depression happened in the 1990s.
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False. In the 1930s.
Keep going in the app
KnowSoda learns what you know and brings back what you’re about to forget. Economic History has 6 more ideas at the Advanced and Expert levels.
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Neolithic Revolution, Great Depression, gold standard, Wirtschaftswunder
- Federal Reserve History — The Great Depression and the end of Bretton Woods
- World Bank — China overview
- Rijksmuseum — The Dutch East India Company (VOC)
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — South Sea Bubble, Bretton Woods, Hanseatic League, stagflation
- World Bank — GDP per capita data
