Sympathy VS. Empathy

     In class, we learned the differences and the similarities between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy is defined as feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's hardships. To feel bad for them, to put thought and concern into someone else's misfortune. Empathy is defined as the experience of understanding another person's condition from their perspective. To understand what that person is going through, to think about the emotions that they must be going through. Empathy is an essential tool for historians. This is because since all of these occurrences happened in the past, none of us got to experience the actual feel of how this nation came to be. As historians, we have to use our minds, and our knowledge to try to understand and experience what happened before we came around. To try to understand and interpret our past, and why everything that happened in the past, lead to our country today.

United States Timeline

        In 1607, the first permanent English settlement came to be in Jamestown, VA. Then in 1619, the Dutch ship arrives in Virginia with slaves, this was the first earliest documented arrival of a slave ship in the North American colonies. The pilgrims then arrived and the original 13 colonies were established. The United States grew as a nation through 5 different expansions, the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, the Louisiana purchase in 1801, the Missouri Compromise in 1820, the Texas Tensions in 1829, and the Gadsen Purchase in 1853. The biggest challenges faced by the new nation include slavery and health. Slavery was a big problem and there were many disagreements about what to do with these "other persons". The health back then was a very serious problem as well, the colonists did not have the right medicines and ways to treat illnesses that we do today. However, through these big challenges the nation stayed united through compromising. They would agree to disagree at first, then compromise to come to one true resolution.