Gottfried Leibniz, a German mathematician - Enlightenment science What set off the Enlightenment? By 1650 AD, Europeans understood Islamic algebra and trigonometry better. Then they combined that with the exciting invention of the telescope and microscope (thanks to [...]
Early modern science: Tycho Brahe (He looks funny because his nose got cut off in a duel and he wore a false one made of brass.) New observatories in Europe [...]
European boys at school in the 1800s More schools and more scientists In the first half of the 1800s AD, countries in northern Europe like France and Britain forced other countries to give them [...]
A Catholic bishop marries Napoleon and Josephine - modern European religion Freedom of religion Even though by 1802 Napoleon had opened up the Catholic churches again, French people kept their freedom of [...]
Jesuits after 1700 : Jesuit teachers in Brazil Jesuits become very powerful By the 1700s AD, the Jesuits owned a lot of farms and mines in countries all over the world. The governments [...]
History of the Jesuits: Ignatius of Loyola, who started the Jesuits Ignatius of Loyola In the early 1500s AD, the Protestants were the new thing in Europe. Protestants were getting more and more popular. [...]
Catholic monks and nuns - European religion Christians, Jews, and Muslims In 1500 AD, most people in Europe were Christians. A fair number of Europeans were Jewish, and some were Muslims, especially in Eastern [...]
René Descartes - Enlightenment philosopher How do we know what is true? All this fighting about religion and new ideas coming from Africa and the Americas, China and India meant that [...]
Mary Wollstonecraft - European philosophy Who was Mary Wollstonecraft? Mary Wollstonecraft was the most famous woman among the Enlightenment philosophers of the 1700s AD. Damaris Masham Mary Astell Enlightenment philosophy All our [...]
Voltaire - a French philosopher Voltaire took ideas about religion, science, and human rights that were just getting started in the 1700s AD, and encouraged new ways of thinking about [...]
