British cannon from the Hundred Years' War (now at Mont St. Michel) Not long before 1500 AD, everything medieval soldiers did in wars suddenly changed. First, Europeans learned how to make and use gunpowder from Central [...]
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 [...]
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a European philosopher Rousseau was born in 1712 AD into a Protestant family living in Geneva, and his mother died of an infection she caught while he was being born. Like the [...]
Philippe II d'Orleans, regent for Louis XV Philippe d'Orleans rules France When Louis XIV died in 1715 AD, his great-grandson Louis was only five years old. First his uncle Philippe, then his teacher [...]
French Revolution: French women revolutionaries march on the king's palace at Versailles Why did France want a revolution? All through the 1700s, Enlightenment philosophers in France had been figuring out new ways [...]
Barbara of Portugal, Queen of Spain Elizabeth Farnese kept power in Spain until the death of her husband Philip in 1746 AD, but when Philip died power passed from Elizabeth to her [...]
History of Democracy: The Pnyx, where Athenian men debated issues and voted What is democracy? Democracy means the rule of the people (in Greek). That is where each individual person [...]
