Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.

I wanted to know more about the beguiling Nina, and my cousin had plenty of stories to share. He told me that her grandfather was a Russian serf—a farmer who could be bought and sold by the noble who owned his land. Family legend has it that this serf, a remarkable and intelligent man, helped to change the course of the history of sugar. In the early 1800s, the British controlled most of the sugar plantations of the Caribbean and the sea routes to Europe. As a result, their rivals were desperate to find a new way to create sugar. They turned to beets.

We don't know exactly what Nina's grandfather's invention did, but as the story goes, he found a way to give raw beet sugar sparkling hues. People from Russia to the cafés of Vienna could now buy cheap and attractive sugar produced on European soil.

Serfs were much like slaves, since they had no choice about where they lived or worked. Yet Nina's grandfather made so much money from his invention that he was able to buy his freedom from his owner. He went on to become a very rich man—so rich, he not only bought a piece of land on the Volga River but married off his daughter to a noble who owned the next stretch of river lands. Together they could form a kind of mini empire, controlling a large swath of this important waterway, and they became the first family in the area to buy an automobile. . . .

Age of Science

1747 Andraeas Marggraf discovers that beet sugar is identical to cane sugar
1840s Beets become a major crop in Ukraine
1852 Indians begin to arrive in Natal to work in sugar
1861 Czar Alexander II frees Russia’s serfs
How does the timeline support the text?

It emphasizes the problem-solution structure of the passage.
It explains further the connection between the sugar industry and slavery.
It supports the central ideas of the passage with specific dates.
It provides key locations to events described in the passage.