Black Friday used to be a one-day shopping event for many retailers, but over time, with Cyber Monday and Small Business Saturday coming into the mix, it’s become a big weekend-long shopping event.
With so much buzz around this shopping extravaganza, it’s not hard to buy into the circus of it all. You’ll make impulse purchases and fall into every retailers’ trap to get you to spend your small fortune in their stores. They’ll pull out all the stops to get you in their stores and then, well, I’m sure you know the rest.
Don’t be tempted by all the bold colors in the ads that draw you in and especially the low prices that get your attention. During this year’s biggest shopping event, be a smarter shopper by following some of these rules:
Each year, Americans are spending billions in a matter of days: Black Friday weekend. And while the discounts can be pretty great — how much money are shoppers ultimately saving at the end of the day?
Until the coming of the Europeans, the New World was free of smallpox, typhus, cholera, and measles. When Cortez came to invade Mexico, he had with him a silent ally more potent than his small Spanish army. That insidious ally was infectious disease, to which Aztecs and other Native Americans had no immunity.
European colonization of the Americas began as early as the 10th century, when Norse sailors explored and settled limited areas on the shores of present-day Greenland and Canada. According to Norse folklore, violent conflicts with the indigenous population ultimately made the Norse abandon those settlements.
Extensive European colonization began in 1492, when a Spanish expedition headed by Genoese Christopher Columbus sailed west to find a new trade route to the Far East but inadvertently found the Americas. European conquest, large-scale exploration, colonization and industrial development soon followed. Columbus’s first two voyages (1492–93) reached the Bahamas and various Caribbean islands, including Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and Cuba.
~~GRAPHIC SOURCE~~
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The arrival of Europeans ushered in what is termed the Columbian Exchange.
During this period European settlers brought many different technologies and lifestyles with them; arguably the most harmful effect of this exchange was the arrival and spread of disease.
Native Americans, due to the lack of prior contact with Europeans, had not previously been exposed to the diseases that were prevalent on the distant continent. Therefore, they had not built up internal immunity to the diseases or formed any medicines to combat them. Europeans came into the New World bearing various diseases. Those infected with diseases either possessed them in a dormant state or were not quarantined in such a way that distanced them enough from Native Americans not to spread the diseases, allowing them to spread into epidemics.
The diseases brought by Europeans are not easily tracked, since there were numerous outbreaks and all were not equally recorded. The most notable disease brought by Europeans was smallpox.
I used the video presented below in another post today. However, as I listened and watched, I consider this to be such a powerful video that I believe it deserves a post of its own. If the event that any reader or visitor misses the previous post, this post will lead them to this educational and historical video about my country: Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico, officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Spanish: Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, literally the Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a United States territory located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic, and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.
Puerto Rico is an archipelago that includes the main island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller islands, the largest of which are Vieques, Culebra, and Mona. The main island of Puerto Rico is, by land area, the smallest of the Greater Antilles.
With around 3.5 million people, it ranks third in population among that group of four islands, which include Cuba, Hispaniola and Jamaica. The capital and largest city is San Juan. Due to its location, Puerto Rico has a tropical climate with warm weather year-round and does not observe daylight saving time. Its official languages are Spanish, which is prevalent, and English.
Federal employees and military pay taxes to the US government
Call by dialing area code (787) and the phone number
1,150 miles from Florida … not the other side of the world
~~America’s Backyard: Puerto Rico~~
~~Published on Oct 6, 2014~~
In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt declared that the United States had to intervene in the internal affairs of Latin American. In his own words: “if any South American country misbehaves it should be spanked.”All US presidents that succeeded him have, in lesser or greater measure, continued to exercise their perceived right over a region often known as “America’s Backyard”.
After more than 400 years of Spanish colonial domination, in 1897 Puerto Rico was given the right to govern over its affairs. Only five months later, Spain and the US went to war over the last Spanish colonies in the region. American Forces occupied Puerto Rico. The Treaty of Paris clearly established that all Puerto Rican affairs were to be decided by the United States Congress.
President Theodore Roosevelt recommended that Puerto Ricans become U.S. citizens.
Despite the overwhelming opposition from the Puerto Rican legislators, in March 1917 the US Congress decided that all Puerto Ricans were now US citizens; but only to be ruled and not be given the rights. Many Puerto Ricans were forced to fight in the America’s wars and many died.
Up to this day not much has changed, as that Treaty of Paris is still valid.
It Is What It Is 