Great question! Democracy was established in Ancient Greece, specifically Athens. In Athens, they had a few different forms of government. FIrst, it was monarchy. The monarch inherited power, and their word was law. Second was oligarchy, a government type in which the rulers are aristrocrats, and the trend was that the rich got richer, and the poor got poorer. Finally, there were tyrants. Not all tyrants in Greece were bad, they just got their power from military support, and their decisions were usually in the people's best interest. Finally, one tyrant named Cleisthenes came along (he's known as Father Of Democracy) and created a type of government in which all citizens (free males over the age of 18 born in Athens) could participate in the assembly and government. Every issue was voted on, and all citizens were expected to attend the assembly. Athens had a direct democracy, the decision of the voting directly affected the outcome. Here in the US, we have a representative democracy, a type of government where we elect people who represent us as (usually states) and make as well as vote on laws for us.
Hopefully this helped you, please feel free to contact me if you need help with anything pertaining to this topic or any other.
