1In the late eighteenth century, Britain began to change in ways nobody could have imagined.
2New machines powered by steam engines completely transformed how cloth and other goods were made.
3Thousands of families left their villages and crowded into smoky towns to work in the factories.
4Factory shifts often lasted fourteen exhausting hours, and even very young children worked beside the adults.
5The new industrial cities grew so astonishingly quickly that proper housing could never keep pace.
6Railways soon connected distant regions of the country, carrying coal, goods, and passengers at remarkable speed.
7Ordinary people could suddenly travel further in one day than their grandparents had in a lifetime.
8Yet progress came at a heavy price, including badly polluted rivers and extremely dangerous working conditions.
9Reformers eventually pushed reluctant governments to limit child labour and to shorten the working day.
10In time, the Industrial Revolution reshaped not only Britain itself but eventually the entire modern world.