Short answers, pulled from the story.
The First Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain in the year 1750. This period marked a quiet turning point in human history where the air in Great Britain began to taste different before the first steam engine roared to life.
The transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy quickly spread to Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, and France after starting in Great Britain. This early phase eventually reached North America and defined the technological progress that replaced the rhythm of nature with the machine.
The Four Asian Tigers comprise Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. These regions underwent rapid industrialization between the early 1960s and 1990s, maintaining exceptionally high growth rates that mirrored the earlier European experience.
Industrialization shattered the extended family structure and replaced it with the nuclear family consisting only of parents and their growing children. Families and children reaching adulthood became more mobile, relocating to where jobs existed and leaving behind the support networks of their ancestors.
More than 40 percent of the world's employees were working poor whose incomes failed to keep themselves and their families above the 2-a-day poverty line. This statistic highlights the complex relationships among economic growth, employment, and poverty reduction during the industrial era.