342.WHERE DID POTATOS ORIGINATE?
When you think of the potato, you think of Ireland. There’s a good reason for that. The potato played a very important part in Irish history. More than a hundred years ago the people of Ireland depended upon the potato crop for most of their food. Then, in 1846, the potato blight destroyed that whole year’s crop. More than 600,000 people died of famine!
But the familiar Irish potato did not originate in Ireland. It is a native of the highlands of Ecuador and Peru. Even today it can be found there growing wild. When the Spaniards came to Peru they found the potato and brought it back with them to Spain early in the sixteenth century. From Spain it spread all over Europe and became very popular with the people.
341.WHEN WERE TAXES FIRST STARTED?
There is an expression that “death and taxes are always with us.” In one way or another, people have been paying taxes since very ancient times. But there is a big difference between the taxes of ancient times and the taxes we pay today.
In ancient times people paid a tax on things they consumed, and they had to pay a tax, or duty, on imported articles. These taxes were levied by the rulers on the people, and were usually as high as they could possibly bear. It was the duty of the underprivileged classes— slaves, vassals, peasants, colonists, and conquered peoples — to support the ruling class.
340.WHEN DID INSURANCE BEGIN?
Insurance is protection against financial loss. In order to protect his future, a person may join a group in which each member pays a certain sum of money regularly with the guarantee that the group will pay any loss suffered by any member. This is known as a mutual company. Or, he may pay an organized commercial company which carries a large amount of capital to take the responsibility of any loss that he suffers.
There are many, many kinds of insurance in effect today and we won’t attempt to describe them all. A partial list includes life, fire, health, accident, automobile, title, liability, burglary, and even crop, rain, and earthquake insurance.
