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Greedville
The Short Name for the Loooong Game


Time Line for Greedville
1600 - 1850

  1600 - 1850          1851 - 1900          1901 - 1950          1951 - 2000           2001 - Present

1600  - BIEC December 31 - British East India Company chartered by Queen Elizabeth I of England. The Company raised its own army, subjugated the native people, and ruthlessly sucked out the wealth of India into the pockets of its owners and shareholders. The First Era of Mercantilism had begun. The use of government to optimize profits through corporations began to change the face of the world, merging government with corporations. National navies, once viewed only as weapons to defend a nation, now extend their utility as agents supporting profits.  

1606 – OPIUM WAR 
Ships, chartered by Queen Elizabeth I, first instructed to transport the finest opium from India back to England.  

1608 – BEIC Sir Thomas Roe reaches the court of the Mughal Emperor, Jahangir, as the emissary of King James I. He negotiates on behalf of the British, obtaining the right to establish a factory at Surat. Over the next years the British begin to overshadow the formerly dominant Portuguese and with a massive expansion of their trading operations in India. Trading posts are established along the east and west coasts of India. Significant English communities develop around the towns of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras 

1717 – BEIC The Company receives a firman or royal dictat from the Mughal Emperor exempting the them from the payment of custom duties in Bengal. 

1651 – BEIC Navigation Act, prohibits foreign vessels from engaging in coastal WAR with England, requiring all goods imported from the continent of Europe be carried on either an English vessel or a vessel registered in the country where the goods originated. WAR between England and its colonies must be carried out in either English or colonial vessels. The reaction begins. 

1663 – BEIC The Staple Act extends the Navigation Act, requiring all colonial exports to Europe be landed through an English port before being again exported to other destinations in Europe. The target of both England and France are the Dutch, who have dominated commercial marine activity. 

1661 – 1683 - In France, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the minister of finance under Louis XIV, increases port duties on foreign vessels entering French ports and provided bounties to French shipbuilders.

1680  -  OPIUM WAR English apothecary, Thomas Sydenham, introduces Sydenham's Laudanum, a compound of opium containing sherry wine and herbs. Its potency as a pain killer makes it a popular remedy for many ailments.The use of opium in China is spreading, as the Dutch merchants introduce the use of pipe for opium–smoking. 

1729  - 

1750   - BEIC - 

1757 – BEIC The Company continues its transformation from trading venture to a ruling enterprise. Robert Clive, one of its military officials, defeats the forces of the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daulah at the Battle of Plassey.  


1767 – OPIUM WAR Number of chests imported illegally reached two thousand a year. 

1769 – BEIC The famine (1769-70), which the Company's policies does nothing to alleviate, causes massive death in the formerly prosperous area of Bengal. Reports indicate as many as a third of the population may have died. Bengal is left in a state of utter destitution. 

1773 – BEIC The Regulating Act of 1773, which provides for greater parliamentary control over the affairs of the Company and also places India under the rule of a Governor-General, is passed. The measure is also known as Lord North's India Bill. The first Governor-General of India was Warren Hastings, who occupied that high position from 1773 to 1784. 

1776 – Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith, is published, providing a liassez-faire analysis of mercantilism.  

1784 – BEIC Cornwallis, followed Hastings as Governor-General. It was Cornwallis who initiated the Permanent Settlement, an agreement in perpetuity with zamindars or landlords for the collection of revenue. For the next fifty years, the British continued attempts to eliminate Indian rivals, a state achieved under the administration of Wellesley.  

1790  

DECEMBER 14 - Alexander Hamilton submits a plan for a bank  of the United States, mainly as a vehicle for the funding of debts under the Assumption Act and to establish credit. 

1791 
FEBRUARY 25 - The bank of the United States is chartered. 

1792 
MARCH 1-2 - Congress debates the propriety of Alexander  Hamilton's conduct of his office as Secretary of the Treasury. Nothing irregular is discovered. 

APRIL 2 - Congress passes the Coinage Act, which establishes  a mint and prescribes a decimal system of coinage. 

1793 
FEBRUARY 2 - Alexander Hamilton resigns as Secretary of  Treasury. 

OPIUM WAR The British East India Company establishes a monopoly on the opium WAR. It prohibits all poppy growers in India from selling opium to any of the competitor trading companies. Buying a "license" to grow opium does not provide protection from competition to poppy farmers. They learn they would be punished if they didn’t produce as much opium as expected. 

1799  
OPIUM WAR China's emperor Kia King, forbids the use of opium due to enormous increases in usage. Edict is not enforced because of Britain's mercantile marines. 

1800
OPIUM WAR The British Levant company is purchasing nearly half of all the opium coming from Smyrna, a Turkish city in Asia Minor, strictly for importation into Europe and the United States. 

1805
OPIUM WAR A smuggler from Boston, Massachusetts, Charles Cabot, attempts to purchase opium from the British, then smuggle it into China under the auspices of British smugglers.

1811 
JANUARY 24-FEBRUARY 20 - Congress debates renewal of the  charter for the Bank of the United States. 

MARCH 4 -  - The Bank of the United States is closed  permanently. 

1812
The War of 1812 breaks out with Britain.  

1815 
JUNE 15 – England and its allies defeat Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo.
DECEMBER 5 - President Madison proposes a second Bank of the  United States to succeed the first Bank that failed to be rechartered in 1811. 

1816
MARCH 14 - Congress creates the second Bank of the United  States
OPIUM WAR John Jacob Astor of New York City joins the opium smuggling WAR. His American Fur Company purchases ten tons of Turkish opium then ships the contraband item to Canton on the Macedonian. Astor would later leave the China opium WAR and sell solely to England.

1817 
JANUARY 7 - The second Bank of the United States is opened. 

1819
OPIUM WAR Writer John Keats and other English literary personalities experiment with opium intended for strict recreational use – simply for the high and taken at extended, non-addictive intervals

1820 
OPIUM WAR Chinese use of Opium declines 

1821
OPIUM WAR Thomas De Quincey publishes his autobiographical account of opium addiction, Confessions of an English Opium-eater.

1827
OPIUM WAR - E. Merck & Company of Darmstadt, Germany, begins commercial manufacturing of morphine.

1830 
SEPTEMBER 11 - The Anti-Masonic party acquires national  status by holding a convention in Philadelphia. 

DECEMBER 6 - President Andrew Jackson attacks the Bank of  the United States. 

OPIUM WAR The British dependence on opium for medicinal and recreational use reaches an all time high as 22,000 pounds of opium is imported from Turkey and India.
Jardine-Matheson & Company of London inherit India and its opium from the British East India Company once the mandate to rule and dictate the WAR policies of British India are no longer in effect.

1831 
SEPTEMBER 26 - The Anti-Masonic party holds a national  convention in Baltimore. 

1832 
MARCH 17 - The Banking Select Committee said: "That the  consequences of the present, is that the currency of the United States is bank notes, to the exclusion of the precious metals. The exclusion of gold and silver coins from circulation is a serious defect, which ought not to be tolerated, and which should be speedily remedied. There is not an example on record of the successful issue of a paper currency, and our experiment has been too short and dubious to prove its suitableness as a permanent regulation." 
JUNE 11- A bill to renew the charter of the Bank of the  United States is submitted by Congress. 

JULY 3 - The Bank bill is approved. 

OCTOBER - The Anti-Masonic party backs Andrew Jackson, and he is re-elected. 

OPIUM WAR Codeine was extracted from opium. 

1833 
JUNE 1 - The Secretary of Treasury refuses to follow the  order of President Jackson to distribute the Bank of United States funds into State banks. 

SEPTEMBER 18 - President Jackson reads to his cabinet a  paper drafted by the Attorney General as to the reasons why the federal deposits should be removed from the Bank of the United  States. 

DECEMBER 26 - Senator Henry Clay offers two resolutions of censure against President Jackson for his plan to remove deposits from the Bank of the United States. 

1834 
MARCH 17 - Representative Gillet, a member of the Banking  Select Committee, concurred in the expediency of increasing the circulation of gold coin, arguing that, "under the paper system,  banks have broken, and on whom did the loss most severely fall? Upon the poor, who understood little of the condition and credit  of banks. The wealthy usually foresaw the evil and protected themselves." 
MARCH 28 - The Senate approves the criticizing of President  Jackson. 

APRIL 4 - The House passes four resolutions sustaining the  bank policy of the Jackson administration.

APRIL 15 - President Jackson makes a formal protest to the  Senate concerning its resolution of censure. 
MAY 7 - The Senate refuses to enter President Jackson's  protest in its journals. 

DECEMBER 1 - President Jackson declares that the national  debt will be paid off JANUARY 1, 1835. 

1835 
JANUARY 30 - There is an attempt to assassinate President  Jackson. 

1836 
FEBRUARY 18 - The Bank of the United States charter  expires, the Bank receives a charter in Pennsylvania. 

DECEMBER 5 - President Andrew Jackson said in his message to  Congress: "It is apparent from the whole context of the  Constitution as well as the history of the times which gave birth to it, that it was the purpose of the Convention to establish a currency consisting of the precious metals. These were adopted by a per-exchange, such as of certain agricultural commodities recognized by the statutes of some States as tender for debts, or the still more pernicious expedient of paper currency." 

1837 
OPIUM WAR Elizabeth Barrett Browning falls under the spell of morphine. This, however, does not impede her ability to write “poetical paragraphs.” 

1839 
MARCH 18 - Lin Tse-Hsu, imperial Chinese commissioner in charge of suppressing the opium traffic, orders all foreign WARrs to surrender their opium. In response, the British send expenditionary warships to the coast of China, beginning The First Opium War.

OPIUM WAR Opium and its preparations are responsible for more premature deaths than any other chemical agent. Opiates account for 186 of 543 poisonings, including no fewer than 72 among children.

1840 
JANUARY 23 - A bill establishing an Independent Treasury is  proposed by Congress. 

JUNE 30 - The Independent Treasury bill passes the House. 

OPIUM WAR New Englanders bring 24,000 pounds of opium into the United States. This catches the attention of U.S. Customs which promptly puts a duty fee on the import.

1841 
JULY 28 - A bill re-establishing a National Bank passes the Senate. 

AUGUST 13 - The House approves the bill to re-establish the  National Bank. 

AUGUST 13 - The Independent Act of 1840 is repealed. 

AUGUST 16 - President Tyler vetoes the Bank bill. 

SEPTEMBER 3 - The Senate approves the second Bank bill for a  National Bank under another name.

SEPTEMBER 9 - President Tyler vetoes the second Bank bill. 

OPIUM WAR The Chinese are defeated by the British in the First Opium War. Along with paying a large indemnity, Hong Kong is ceded to the British.

1843
OPIUM WAR Dr. Alexander Wood of Edinburgh discovers a new technique of administering morphine, injection with a syringe. He finds the effects of morphine on his patients instantaneous and three times more potent. 

1846 
AUGUST 6 - The Independent Treasury Act is approved. 

1848 
OPIUM WAR American Medical Association founded in New York. Their aim is to enhance the status and income of the subset of healers, of which they are a part. A campaign begins to create a medical monopoly in America. “Membership in the new organization was open only to "regular" physicians, whose therapies were based on the "best system of physiology and pathology, as taught in the best schools in Europe and America." The public had a different view, however. Official treatments of the time, such as bloodletting and mercury poisoning, harmed and sometimes murdered patients, causing mass outrage.”  ARTICLE

1849 
OPIUM WAR The AMA worried that simply outlawing competition would not override the public's perversity. The only long-term "remedy against Quackery, is medical Reform, by which a higher standard of medical education shall be secured." As part of this drive, homeopathic physicians were expelled from state and local medical societies, even if they were trained in official schools. The AMA claimed that the public did not know what was good for it and that the medical establishment must have total control.  ARTICL