h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is very good, and very well researched!! The only problem I see is in the opening paragraph. The American Civil War was not started over slavery. The Confederate states seceded from the Union because they felt that they were not getting fair representation in Congress. The wealthier northern states were voting to tax the imports/exports that went out of the south and since there were more northern states than southern, the taxes were going through Congress and the southern states were losing money when the northern states weren't. This is kind of over-simplified, but that's the gist of it. The slavery issue was actually a side issue. Of course, it was an important one, but it was certainly not the cause of the American Civil War. Many believe that Lincoln actually issued the Emancipation Proclamation as kind of a propaganda to get the former slaves to fight on the Union side. Many blacks fought on the Confederate side, also, though. Slavery had been an issue in the US since the writing of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wanted to include it, but the rest of the committee felt that including that, would take the Declaration too far. It was brought up many times throughout the writing of the Constitution, and then in Congress probably at least once a year. Slavery was a crucial issue in early US history, but it was not the cause of the American Civil War.