Early Modern Period

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Early modern period

The early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages of the post-classical era.
Although the chronological limits of the period are open to debate, the timeframe spans the period after
the late portion of the post-classical age (c. 1400-1500), known as the Middle Ages, through the
beginning of the Age of Revolutions (c. 1800) and is variously demarcated by historians as beginning
with the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Renaissance period in Europe and Timurid
Central Asia, the Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent, and the end of the Reconquista and the
Age of Discovery (especially the voyages of Christopher Columbus beginning in 1492 but also with Vasco
da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India in 1498) and ending around the French Revolution in 1789.
Historians in recent decades have argued that from a worldwide standpoint, the most important feature
of the early modern period was its globalizing character.[1] New economies and institutions emerged,
becoming more sophisticated and globally articulated over the course of the period. This process began
in the medieval North Italian city-states, particularly Genoa, Venice, and Milan in the west, and in
India's Bengal in the east. The early modern period also included the rise of the dominance of the
economic theory of mercantilism.
In the Americas, pre-Columbian peoples had built a large and varied civilization, including the Aztec
Empire and alliance, the Inca civilization, the Maya civilization and its cities, and the Chibcha. The
European colonization of the Americas began during the early modern period, as did the establishment
of European trading hubs in Asia and Africa, which contributed to the spread of Christianity around the
world. The rise of sustained contacts between previously isolated parts of the globe, in particular the
Columbian Exchange that linked the Old World and the New World, greatly altered the human
environment. Notably, the Atlantic slave trade and the genocide of Native American peoples began
during this period.[2] Turkey colonized Southeastern Europe, and parts of the West Asia and North
Africa.[3] Russia reached the Pacific coast in 1647 and consolidated its control over the Russian Far East
in the 19th century.
In the Islamic world, after the fall of the Timurid Renaissance, powers such as the Ottoman, Suri,
Safavid, and Mughal empires grew in strength (three of which are known as gunpowder empires for the
military technology that enabled them). Particularly in the Indian subcontinent, Mughal architecture,
culture, and art reached their zenith, while the empire itself is believed to have had the world's largest
economy, bigger than the entirety of Western Europe and worth 25% of global GDP,[4] signalling the
period of proto-industrialization.[5]
Various Chinese dynasties and Japanese shogunates controlled the Asian sphere. In Japan, the Edo
period from 1600 to 1868 is also referred to as the early modern period. In Korea, the early modern
period is considered to have lasted from the rise of the Joseon Dynasty to the enthronement of King
Gojong. By the 16th century, Asian economies under the Ming dynasty and Mughal Bengal were
stimulated by trade with the Portuguese, the Spanish, and the Dutch, while Japan engaged in the
Nanban trade after the arrival of the first European Portuguese during the Azuchi–Momoyama period.
The early modern trends in various regions of the world represented a shift away from medieval modes
of organization, politically and economically. Feudalism declined in Europe, and Christians and
Christendom saw the end of the Crusades and of religious unity under the Roman Catholic Church. The
old order was destabilized by the Protestant Reformation, which caused a backlash that expanded the
Inquisition and sparked the disastrous European Wars of Religion, which included the especially bloody
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_modern_period 1/34
Thirty Years' War and ended with the establishment of the modern international system in the Peace of
Westphalia. Along with the European colonization of the Americas, this period also contained the
Commercial Revolution and the Golden Age of Piracy.
Other notable trends of the early modern period include the development of experimental science,
increasingly rapid technological progress, secularized civic politics, accelerated travel due to
improvements in mapping and ship design, and the emergence of nation states. Historians typically date
the end of the early modern period when the French Revolution of the 1790s began the "late modern"
period.[6]
The Indian Empires and civilizations of Southeast Asia, mainly the major trading nation known as the
Bengal Sultanate, were a vital link in the spice trade. The Mughal Empire was founded by the
descendants of Tamerlane and its architecture has impressed the world. The archipelagic empires, the
Sultanate of Malacca and later the Sultanate of Johor, controlled the southern areas.
Contents
Early modern timeline
Significant events
East Asia
Chinese dynasties
Japanese shogunates
Korean dynasty
Indian Empires
Regional empires
British and Dutch colonization
Southeast Asia
Near East and Afro-Asiatic Africa
Ottoman Empire
North and Northeast Africa
Safavids
Uzbeks and Afghan Pashtuns
Europe
Renaissance vs. early modern period
Gunpowder and firearms
European kingdoms and movements
Notable individuals
Christians and Christendom
End of the Crusades and Unity
Inquisitions and Reformations
Tsardom of Russia
Discovery and trade
Mercantile capitalism
Trade and the new economy
Piracy's Golden Age
European states and politics

Absolutism
French power
Early English revolutions
International balance of power
Sub-Saharan Africa
New World and Americas
Exploration and conquest of the Americas
Colonial Latin America
Colonial North America
Atlantic World
Religion, science, philosophy, and education
Eastern philosophies
Muslim world
Protestant Reformation
Counter-Reformation and Jesuits
Scientific Revolution
Technology
Enlightenment and reason
Humanism
Death in the Early Modern Period
Torture
Mortality
European Infant Mortality Rates
Causes of Infant Mortality
End of early period
The French Revolutions
See also
References
Further reading
External links
Early modern timeline
Dates are approximate. Consult particular article for details.

Early modern themes Other
Significant events
The modern era includes the early period, called the early modern period, which lasted from c. 1500 to
around c. 1800 (most often 1815). Particular facets of early modernity include:
The Rise of the Ottoman Empire

The Reformation and Counter Reformation
The Sengoku period
The Spanish Reconquista
The Age of Discovery
The Spread of Islam in Indonesia
The Columbian Exchange and Colonization of the Americas
The Triangular Trade
The rise of mercantilism and capitalism
The Golden Age of Piracy
Important events in the early modern period include:
The spread of the printing press (c. 1440)

The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and the Peace of Westphalia (1648) in Europe
The English Civil War (1642–1651), the Glorious Revolution (1688–1689), and the union of Great
Britain (1707)
The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) in Europe and North America
Development of the Watt steam engine (1763–1775)

The American War of Independence from the British Empire (1775–1783)
The Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic Wars
The French Revolution (1789–1799) and the Napoleonic Wars in Europe (1803–1815)
Latin American wars of independence (c. early 19th century)
Modern Age characteristics
This combination of epoch events totally changed thinking and
thought in the early modern period, and so their dates serve as well as The concept of the modern
any to separate the old from the new modes. world as distinct from an
ancient or medieval world
As an Age of Revolutions dawned, beginning with those revolts in rests on a sense that the
America and France, political changes were then pushed forward in modern world is not just
other countries partly as a result of upheavals of the Napoleonic Wars another era in history, but
and their impact on thought and thinking, from concepts from rather the result of a new type
nationalism to organizing armies.[9][10][11] of change. This is usually
conceived of as progress
The early period ended in a time of political and economic change as a driven by deliberate human
result of mechanization in society, the American Revolution, the first efforts to better their situation.
French Revolution; other factors included the redrawing of the map of
Europe by the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna[12] and the peace Advances in all areas of
established by Second Treaty of Paris which ended the Napoleonic human activity—politics,
Wars.[13] industry, society, economics,
commerce, transport,
East Asia communication,
mechanization, automation,
science, medicine,
In Early Modern times, the major nations of East Asia attempted to
technology, and culture—
pursue a course of Isolationism from the outside world but this policy
appear to have transformed
was not always enforced uniformly or successfully. However, by the
an Old World into the Modern
end of the Early Modern Period, China, Korea and Japan were mostly
or New World.[7][8] In each
closed and disinterested to Europeans, even while trading
case, the identification of the
relationships grew in port cities such as Guangzhou and Dejima.
old Revolutionary change can
be used to demarcate the old
Chinese dynasties and old-fashioned from the
modern.[7][8]
Around the beginning of the ethnically Han Ming dynasty (1368–
1644), China was leading the world in mathematics as well as science. Portions of the Modern world
However, Europe soon caught up to China's scientific and altered its relationship with the
Biblical and Quranic value
mathematical achievements and surpassed them.[14] Many scholars
systems, revalued the
have speculated about the reason behind China's lag in advancement.
monarchical government
A historian named Colin Ronan claims that though there is no one
system, and abolished the
specific answer, there must be a connection between China's urgency
feudal economic system, with
for new discoveries being weaker than Europe's and China's inability to
new democratic and liberal
capitalize on its early advantages. Ronan believes that China's
ideas in the areas of politics,
Confucian bureaucracy and traditions led to China not having a
science, psychology,
scientific revolution, which led China to have fewer scientists to break
sociology, and
the existing orthodoxies, like Galileo Galilei.[15] Despite inventing [7][8]
economics.
gunpowder in the 9th century, it was in Europe that the classic
handheld firearms, matchlocks, were invented, with evidence of use
around the 1480s. China was using the matchlocks by 1540, after the
Portuguese brought their matchlocks to Japan in the early 1500s.[16]

China during the Ming Dynasty established a bureau to maintain its
calendar. The bureau was necessary because the calendars were
linked to celestial phenomena and that needs regular maintenance
because twelve lunar months have 344 or 355 days, so occasional
leap months have to be added in order to maintain 365 days per
year.[17]
In the early Ming dynasty, urbanization increased as the population

grew and as the division of labor grew more complex. Large urban
centers, such as Nanjing and Beijing, also contributed to the growth
of private industry. In particular, small-scale industries grew up,
often specializing in paper, silk, cotton, and porcelain goods. For the
most part, however, relatively small urban centers with markets
proliferated around the country. Town markets mainly traded food,
with some necessary manufactures such as pins or oil.
Cishou Temple Pagoda, built in
In the 16th century the Ming dynasty flourished over maritime trade 1576: the Chinese believed that
with the Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch Empires. The trade brought building pagodas on certain sites
in a massive amount of silver, which China at the time needed according to geomantic principles
desperately. Prior to China's global trade, its economy ran on a brought about auspicious events;
paper money. However, in the 14th century, China's paper money merchant-funding for such projects
system suffered a crisis, and by the mid-15th century, crashed.[18] was needed by the late Ming period.
The silver imports helped fill the void left by the broken paper
money system, which helps explain why the value of silver in China
was twice as high as the value of silver in Spain during the end of the
16th century.[19]
With the xenophobia and intellectual introspection characteristic of

the increasingly popular new school of neo-Confucianism, China
under the later Ming Dynasty became isolated, prohibiting the
construction of ocean going sea vessels.[20] Despite isolationist
policies the Ming Economy still suffered from an inflation due to an
A painting depecting the Qing
overabundance of Spanish New World silver entering its economy Chinese celebrating a victory over
through new European colonies such as Macau.[21] Ming China was the Kingdom of Tungning in Taiwan.
further strained by victorious but costly wars to protect Korea from This work was a collaboration
Japanese Invasion.[22] The European trade depression of the 1620s between Chinese and European
also hurt the Chinese economy, which sunk to the point where all of painters.
China's trading partners cut ties with them: Philip IV restricted
shipments of exports from Acapulco, the Japanese cut off all trade
with Macau, and the Dutch severed connections between Gao and Macau.[23]
The damage to the economy was compounded by the effects on agriculture of the incipient Little Ice Age,
natural calamities, crop failure and sudden epidemics. The ensuing breakdown of authority and people's
livelihoods allowed rebel leaders, such as Li Zicheng, to challenge Ming authority.
The Ming dynasty fell around 1644 to the ethnically Manchu Qing dynasty, which would be the last
dynasty of China. The Qing ruled from 1644 to 1912, with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. During its
reign, the Qing dynasty adopted many of the outward features of Chinese culture in establishing its rule,
but did not necessarily "assimilate", instead adopting a more universalist style of governance.[24] The
Manchus were formerly known as the Jurchens. When Beijing was captured by Li Zicheng's peasant
rebels in 1644, the Chongzhen Emperor, the last Ming emperor, committed suicide. The Manchus then
allied with former Ming general Wu Sangui and seized control of Beijing, which became the new capital
of the Qing dynasty. The Manchus adopted the Confucian norms of traditional Chinese government in
their rule of China proper. Schoppa, the editor of The Columbia Guide to Modern Chinese History
argues,
"A date around 1780 as the beginning of modern China is thus closer to what we know today
as historical 'reality'. It also allows us to have a better baseline to understand the precipitous
decline of the Chinese polity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries."[25]
Japanese shogunates
The Sengoku period that began around 1467 and lasted until around
1600 consisted of several continually "warring states".
Following contact with the Portuguese on Tanegashima Isle in 1543,

the Japanese adopted several of the technologies and cultural
practices of their visitors, whether in the military area (the arquebus,
European-style cuirasses, European ships), religion (Christianity),
decorative art, language (integration to Japanese of a Western
The Great Wave off Kanagawa, c. vocabulary) and culinary: the Portuguese introduced tempura and
1830 by Hokusai, an example of art valuable refined sugar.
flourishing in the Edo Period
Central government was largely reestablished by Oda Nobunaga and
Toyotomi Hideyoshi during the Azuchi–Momoyama period.
Although a start date of 1573 is often given, in more broad terms, the period begins with Oda Nobunaga's
entry into Kyoto in 1568, when he led his army to the imperial capital in order to install Ashikaga
Yoshiaki as the 15th, and ultimately final, shōgun of the Ashikaga shogunate, and it lasts until the
coming to power of Tokugawa Ieyasu after his victory over supporters of the Toyotomi clan at the Battle
of Sekigahara in 1600.[26] Tokugawa received the title of shōgun in 1603, establishing the Tokugawa
shogunate.
The Edo period from 1600 to 1868 characterized early modern Japan. The Tokugawa shogunate was a
feudalist regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shōguns of the Tokugawa
clan. The period gets its name from the capital city, Edo, now called Tokyo. The Tokugawa shogunate
ruled from Edo Castle from 1603 until 1868, when it was abolished during the Meiji Restoration in the
late Edo period (often called the Late Tokugawa shogunate).
Society in the Japanese "Tokugawa period" (Edo society), unlike the shogunates before it, was based on
the strict class hierarchy originally established by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The daimyōs (feudal lords) were
at the top, followed by the warrior-caste of samurai, with the farmers, artisans, and traders ranking
below. The country was strictly closed to foreigners with few exceptions with the Sakoku policy.[27]
Literacy among the Japanese people rose in the two centuries of isolation.[27]
In some parts of the country, particularly smaller regions, daimyōs and samurai were more or less
identical, since daimyōs might be trained as samurai, and samurai might act as local lords. Otherwise,
the largely inflexible nature of this social stratification system unleashed disruptive forces over time.
Taxes on the peasantry were set at fixed amounts which did not account for inflation or other changes in
monetary value. As a result, the tax revenues collected by the samurai landowners were worth less and
less over time. This often led to numerous confrontations between noble but impoverished samurai and
well-to-do peasants. None, however, proved compelling enough to seriously challenge the established
order until the arrival of foreign powers.
Korean dynasty
In 1392, General Yi Seong-gye established the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) with a largely bloodless coup.
Yi Seong-gye moved the capital of Korea to the location of modern-day Seoul.[28] The dynasty was
heavily influenced by Confucianism, which also played a large role to shaping Korea's strong cultural
identity.[29][30] King Sejong the Great (1418–1450), one of the only two kings in Korea's history to earn
the title of great in their posthumous titles, reclaimed Korean territory to the north and created the
Korean alphabet.
During the end of the 16th century, Korea was invaded twice by Japan, first in 1592 and again in 1597.
Japan failed both times due to Admiral Yi Sun-sin, Korea's revered naval genius, who lead the Korean
Navy using advanced metal clad ships called turtle ships. Because the ships were armed with cannons,
Admiral Yi's navy was able to demolish the Japanese invading fleets, destroying hundreds of ships in
Japan's second invasion.[30] During the 17th century, Korea was invaded again, this time by
Manchurians, who would later take over China as the Qing Dynasty. In 1637, King Injo was forced to
surrender to the Qing forces, and was ordered to send princesses as concubines to the Qing Prince
Dorgon.[31]
After invasions from Manchuria, Joseon experienced nearly 200 years of peace. However, whatever
power the kingdom recovered during its isolation further waned as the 18th century came to a close, and
Korea was faced with internal strife, power struggles, international pressure and rebellions at home. The
Joseon dynasty declined rapidly in the late 19th century.
Indian Empires
Regional empires
On the Indian subcontinent, the Lodi dynasty ruled over the Delhi
Sultanate during its last phase. The dynasty founded by Bahlul Lodi
ruled from 1451 to 1526. The dynasty's last ruler, Ibrahim Lodhi, was
defeated and killed by Babur in the first Battle of Panipat.
Map of the Islamic Gunpowders, the
The Vijayanagara Empire was based in the Deccan Plateau, but its Mughal Empire being the orange
power was diminished after a major military defeat in 1565 by the one.
Deccan sultanates. The empire is named after its capital city of
Vijayanagara.
The rise of the Great Mughal Empire is usually dated from 1526, around the end of the Middle Ages. It
was an Islamic Persianate[32] imperial power that ruled most of the area as Hindustan by the late 17th
and the early 18th centuries.[33] The empire dominated South and Southwestern Asia,[34] becoming the
biggest global economy and manufacturing power,[35] with a nominal GDP that valued a quarter of world
GDP, superior than the combination of Europe's GDP.[4][36] The "classic period" ended with the death of
Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb,[37] although the dynasty continued for another 150 years. During this
period, the Empire was marked by a highly centralized administration connecting the different regions.
All the significant monuments of the Mughals, their most visible legacy, date to this period which was
characterised by the expansion of Persian cultural influence in the

Indian subcontinent, with brilliant literary, artistic, and
architectural results. The Maratha Empire was located in the south
west of present-day India and expanded greatly under the rule of the
Peshwas, the prime ministers of the Maratha empire. In 1761, the
Maratha army lost the Third Battle of Panipat which halted imperial
expansion and the empire was then divided into a confederacy of
Maratha states.
British and Dutch colonization
The development of New Imperialism saw the conquest of nearly all

eastern hemisphere territories by colonial powers. The commercial
colonization of India commenced in 1757, after the Battle of Plassey,
when the Nawab of Bengal surrendered his dominions to the British
East India Company,[38] in 1765, when the company was granted the
diwani, or the right to collect revenue, in Bengal and Bihar,[39] or in
1772, when the company established a capital in Calcutta, appointed The Mughal ambassador Khan’Alam
its first Governor-General, Warren Hastings, and became directly in 1618 negotiating with Shah
Abbas the Great of Iran.
involved in governance.[40]
The Maratha states, following

the Anglo-Maratha wars, eventually lost to the British East India
Company in 1818 with the Third Anglo-Maratha War. The rule
lasted until 1858, when, after the Indian rebellion of 1857 and
consequent of the Government of India Act 1858, the British
government assumed the task of directly administering India in the
new British Raj.[41] In 1819 Stamford Raffles established Singapore
as a key trading post for Britain in their rivalry with the Dutch.
However, their rivalry cooled in 1824 when an Anglo-Dutch treaty
demarcated their respective interests in Southeast Asia. From the
Robert Clive and Mir Jafar after the 1850s onwards, the pace of colonization shifted to a significantly
Battle of Plassey, 1757 by Francis
higher gear.
Hayman
The Dutch East India Company (1800) and British East India
Company (1858) were dissolved by their respective governments,
who took over the direct administration of the colonies. Only Thailand was spared the experience of
foreign rule, although, Thailand itself was also greatly affected by the power politics of the Western
powers. Colonial rule had a profound effect on Southeast Asia. While the colonial powers profited much
from the region's vast resources and large market, colonial rule did develop the region to a varying
extent. Commercial agriculture, mining and an export based economy developed rapidly during this
period.
Southeast Asia
At the start of the modern era, the Spice Route between India and China crossed Majapahit,[42] an
archipelagic empire based on the island of Java. It was the last of the major Hindu empires of Maritime
Southeast Asia and is considered one of the greatest states in Indonesian history.[42] Its influence
extended to states in Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, Borneo and eastern Indonesia, but the effectiveness
of the influence is the subject of debate.[43][44] Majapahit found itself unable to control the rising power
of the Sultanate of Malacca, which grew to stretch from Muslim Malay settlements of Bukit (Phuket),
Setol (Satun), Pantai ni (Pattani) bordering Ayutthaya Kingdom of Siam (Thailand) in the north to
Sumatra in the southwest. The Portuguese invaded its capital in 1511 and in 1528 the Sultanate of Johor
was established by a Malaccan prince to succeed Malacca.
Near East and Afro-Asiatic Africa
Ottoman Empire
During the early modern era, the Ottoman state enjoyed an

expansion and consolidation of power, leading to a Pax Ottomana.
This was perhaps the golden age of the Ottoman Empire. The
Ottomans expanded southwest into North Africa while battling with
the re-emergent Persian Shi'a Safavid Empire to the east.
North and Northeast Africa
In the Saracen sphere, the Ottomans seized Egypt in 1517 and

established the regencies of Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripoli (between Ottoman Empire 1481–1683
1519 and 1551), Morocco remaining an independent Arabized Berber
state under the Sharifan dynasty.
In the Ethiopian Highlands, the Solomonic dynasty established itself

in the 13th century. Claiming direct descent from the old Axumite
royal house, the Solomonic ruled the region well into modern
history. In the 16th century, Shewa and the rest of Abyssinia were
conquered by the forces of Ahmed Gurey of the Adal Sultanate to the
northwest. The conquest of the area by the Oromo ended in the
contraction of both Adal and Abyssinia, changing regional dynamics
for centuries to come.
The Ajuran Empire, which was one of the largest and strongest
empires in the Horn of Africa, began to decline in the 17th century,
and several powerful successor states came to prominence. The
Geledi Sultanate, established by Ibrahim Adeer, was a notable
The Territory of the Adal Sultanate successor of the Ajuran Sultanate. The Sultanate reached its apex
and its vassal states circa 1500. under the successive reigns of Sultan Yusuf Mahamud Ibrahim
(reigned 1798 to 1848), who successfully consolidated Geledi power
during the Bardera wars, and Sultan Ahmed Yusuf, who forced
regional powers such as the Omani Empire to pay tribute. The Majeerteen Sultanate was a Somali
Sultanate in the Horn of Africa. Ruled by King Osman Mahamuud during its golden age, it controlled
much of northern and central Somalia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The polity had all of the
organs of an integrated modern state and maintained a robust trading network. Along with the Sultanate
of Hobyo ruled by Sultan Yusuf Ali Kenadid, the Majeerteen Sultanate was eventually annexed into
Italian Somaliland in the early 20th century, following the military Campaign of the Sultanates.
Safavids
The Safavid Empire was a great Shia Persianate empire after the Islamic conquest of Persia and
established of Islam, marking an important point in the history of Islam in the east. The Safavid dynasty
was founded about 1501. From their base in Ardabil, the Safavids established control over all of Persia
and reasserted the Iranian identity of the region, thus becoming the first native dynasty since the
Sassanids to establish a unified Iranian state. Problematic for the Safavids was the powerful Ottoman
Empire. The Ottomans, a Sunni dynasty, fought several campaigns against the Safavids.
What fueled the growth of Safavid economy was its position between the burgeoning civilizations of
Europe to its west and Islamic Central Asia to its east and north. The Silk Road, which led from Europe
to East Asia, revived in the 16th century. Leaders also supported direct sea trade with Europe,
particularly England and The Netherlands, which sought Persian carpet, silk, and textiles. Other exports
were horses, goat hair, pearls, and an inedible bitter almond hadam-talka used as a spice in India. The
main imports were spice, textiles (woolens from Europe, cotton from Gujarat), metals, coffee, and sugar.
Despite their demise in 1722, the Safavids left their mark by establishing and spreading Shi'a Islam in
major parts of the Caucasus and West Asia.
Uzbeks and Afghan Pashtuns
In the 16th to early 18th centuries, Central Asia was under the rule of Uzbeks, and the far eastern
portions were ruled by the local Pashtuns. Between the 15th and 16th centuries, various nomadic tribes
arrived from the steppes, including the Kipchaks, Naymans, Kanglis, Khongirad, and Manguds. These
groups were led by Muhammad Shaybani, who was the Khan of the Uzbeks.
The lineage of the Afghan Pashtuns stretches back to the Hotaki dynasty.[45] Following Muslim Arab and
Turkic conquests, Pashtun ghazis (warriors for the faith) invaded and conquered much of northern India
during the Lodhi dynasty and Suri dynasty. Pashtun forces also invaded Persia, and the opposing forces
were defeated in the Battle of Gulnabad. The Pashtuns later formed the Durrani Empire.
Europe
Many major events caused Europe to change around the start of the European events and dates
16th century, starting with the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the fall The beginning of the early
of Muslim Spain and the discovery of the Americas in 1492, and Martin modern period is not clear-
Luther's Protestant Reformation in 1517. In England the modern cut, but is generally accepted
period is often dated to the start of the Tudor period with the victory of as in the late 15th century or
Henry VII over Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.[46][47] early 16th century. Significant
Early modern European history is usually seen to span from the start dates in this transitional phase
of the 15th century, through the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and from medieval to early
18th centuries, until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the modern Europe can be noted:
late 18th century.
1415 – Conquest of Ceuta
The early modern period is taken to end with the French Revolution, by the Portuguese
the Napoleonic Wars, and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire
1444 – Johannes
at the Congress of Vienna. At the end of the early modern period, the
Gutenberg's Movable type
British and Russian empires had emerged as world powers from the
multipolar contest of colonial empires, while the three great Asian 1453 – Conquest of
empires of the early modern period, Ottoman Turkey, Mughal India Constantinople by the
Ottomans
and Qing China, all entered a period of stagnation or decline.
1485 – England's last
Plantagenet king, Richard
Renaissance vs. early modern period III dies

1486 – Giovanni Pico della
The expression "early modern" is at times used as a substitute for the Mirandola publishes his
term Renaissance. However, "Renaissance" is properly used in relation "900 Theses"
to a diverse series of cultural developments that occurred over several 1492 – Christopher
hundred years in many different parts of Europe—especially central Columbus leads a Spanish
and northern Italy—and it spans the transition from late medieval fleet to America.
civilization to the opening of the early modern period. In the visual arts 1494 – French king
and architecture, the term "early modern" is not a common Charles VIII invaded Italy
designation as the Renaissance period is clearly distinct from what 1498 – A Portuguese fleet,
came later. Only in the study of literature is the early modern period a led by Vasco da Gama,
standard designation. European music of the period is generally arrives in India
divided between Renaissance and Baroque. Similarly, philosophy is 1517 – Reformation
divided between Renaissance philosophy and the Enlightenment. In begins with Martin Luther
other fields, there is far more continuity through the period such as 1519 – First
warfare and science. circumnavigation of the
globe, by the Spanish
explorer Juan Sebastián
Gunpowder and firearms Elcano
1532 – Machiavelli's The
When gunpowder was introduced to Europe, it was immediately used Prince
almost exclusively in weapons and explosives for warfare. Though it
1543 – Nicolaus
was invented in China, gunpowder arrived in Europe already
Copernicus's De
formulated for military use and European countries took advantage of
revolutionibus
it and were the first to create the classic firearms.[16] The advances
1545 – Council of Trent is
made in gunpowder and firearms was directly tied to the decline in the
convened
use of plate armor because of the inability of the armor to protect one
from bullets. 1648 – Peace of
Westphalia ends the Thirty
Years War.
European kingdoms and movements
In the early modern period, the Holy Roman Empire was a union of
territories in Central Europe under a Holy Roman Emperor the first of
which was Otto I. The last was Francis II, who abdicated and dissolved the
Empire in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. Despite its name, for much of
its history the Empire did not include Rome within its borders.
The Renaissance[48] was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the

14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and
later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to
refer to the historic era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not
uniform across Europe, this is a general use of the term. As a cultural Ferdinand Pauwels – Martin
movement, it encompassed a rebellion of learning based on classical Luther hammers his 95
sources, the development of linear perspective in painting, and gradual but theses to the door
widespread educational reform.
Notable individuals
Johannes Gutenberg is credited as the first European to use movable

type printing, around 1439, and as the global inventor of the
mechanical printing press. Nicolaus Copernicus formulated a
comprehensive heliocentric cosmology (1543), which displaced the
Earth from the center of the universe.[49] His book, De
revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the
Celestial Spheres) began modern astronomy and sparked the
Scientific Revolution. Another notable individual was Machiavelli,
an Italian political philosopher, considered a founder of modern
Gutenberg reviewing a press proof
(a colored engraving created
political science. Machiavelli is most famous for a short political
probably in the 19th century)
treatise, The Prince, a work of realist political theory.
Among the notable royalty of the time, Charles the Bold, known as
Charles the Bold (or Rash) to his enemies,[50] he was the last Valois
Duke of Burgundy, and his early death was a pivotal, if under-recognized, moment in European history.
Charles has often been regarded as the last representative of the feudal spirit—a man who possessed no
other quality than a blind bravery. Upon his death, Charles left an unmarried nineteen-year-old
daughter, Mary of Burgundy, as his heir. Her marriage would have enormous implications for the
political balance of Europe. The Habsburg Emperor secured the match for his son, the future Maximilian
I, Holy Roman Emperor, with the aid of Mary's stepmother, Margaret. In 1477, the territory of the Duchy
of Burgundy was annexed by France. In the same year, Mary married Maximilian, Archduke of Austria,
giving the Habsburgs control of the remainder of the Burgundian Inheritance.
Claude de Lorraine was the first Duke of Guise, from 1528 to his
death. Claude distinguished himself at the battle of Marignano
(1515), and was long in recovering from the twenty-two wounds he
received in the battle. In 1521, he fought at Fuenterrabia, and Louise
of Savoy ascribed the capture of the place to his efforts. In 1523 he
became governor of Champagne and Burgundy, after defeating at
Neufchâteau the imperial troops who had invaded this province. In
1525 he destroyed the Anabaptist peasant army, which was
overrunning Lorraine, at Lupstein, near Saverne (Zabern). On the
return of Francis I from captivity in 1528, Claude was made Duke of
Guise in the peerage of France, though up to this time only princes
of the royal house had held the title of duke and peer of France. The
Guises, as cadets of the sovereign house of Lorraine and descendants
of the house of Anjou, claimed precedence of the Bourbon princes of
Condé and Conti.
The 3rd Duke of Alba was a nobleman of importance in the early 15th century Hanging Houses in
modern period, nicknamed the "Iron Duke" by the Protestants of the Cuenca, Spain from the Early
Low Countries because of his harsh rule and cruelty. Tales of Renaissance, and the Early modern
atrocities committed during his military operations in Flanders period.
became part of Dutch and English folklore, forming a central
component of the Spanish Black Legend.
In England, Henry VIII was the King of England and a significant figure in the history of the English
monarchy. Although in the greater part of his reign he brutally suppressed the influence of the
Protestant Reformation in England (see also Martyrdom of William Tyndale.} a movement having some
roots with John Wycliffe in the 14th century, he is more popularly known for his political struggles with
Rome. These struggles ultimately led to the separation of the Church of England from papal authority,
the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and establishing himself as the Supreme Head of the Church of
England. Though Henry reportedly became a Protestant on his death-bed, he advocated Catholic
ceremony and doctrine throughout his life. Royal support for the English Reformation began with his
heirs, the devout Edward VI and the renowned Elizabeth I, whilst daughter Mary I temporarily
reinstated papal authority over England. Henry also oversaw the legal union of England and Wales with
the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542. He is also noted for his six wives, two of whom were beheaded.
Christians and Christendom

0:00 MENU
Christianity was challenged at the beginning of the modern period
with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and later by various Johann Sebastian Bach – Mass in B
movements to reform the church (including Lutheran, Zwinglian, minor – Agnus Dei, From 1724
and Calvinist), followed by the Counter Reformation.
End of the Crusades and Unity
The Hussite Crusades involved the military actions against and

amongst the followers of Jan Hus in Bohemia ending ultimately with
the Battle of Grotniki. Also known as the Hussite Wars, they were
arguably the first European war in which hand-held gunpowder
weapons such as muskets made a decisive contribution. The
Taborite faction of the Hussite warriors were basically infantry, and
their many defeats of larger armies with heavily armored knights
helped effect the infantry revolution. In totality, the Hussite Battle of Vienna, 12 September
Crusades were inconclusive. 1683
The last crusade, the Crusade of 1456, was organized to counter the
expanding Ottoman Empire and lift the Siege of Belgrade, and was led by John Hunyadi and Giovanni
da Capistrano. The siege eventually escalated into a major battle, during which Hunyadi led a sudden
counterattack that overran the Turkish camp, ultimately compelling the wounded Sultan Mehmet II to
lift the siege and retreat. The siege of Belgrade has been characterized as having "decided the fate of
Christendom".[51] The noon bell ordered by Pope Callixtus III commemorates the victory throughout the
Christian world to this day.
Nearly a hundred years later, the Peace of Augsburg officially ended the idea that all Christians could be
united under one church. The principle of cuius regio, eius religio ("whose the region is, [it shall have]
his religion") established the religious, political and geographic divisions of Christianity, and this was
established in international law with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which legally ended the concept
of a single Christian hegemony, i.e. the "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church" of the Nicene Creed.
Each government determined the religion of their own state. Christians living in states where their
denomination was not the established church were guaranteed the right to practice their faith in public
during allotted hours and in private at their will. With the Treaty of Westphalia, the Wars of Religion
came to an end, and in the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 the concept of the sovereign national state was born.
The Corpus Christianum has since existed with the modern idea of a tolerant and diverse society
consisting of many different communities.
Inquisitions and Reformations
The modern Inquisition refers to any one of several institutions charged with trying and convicting
heretics (or other offenders against canon law) within the Catholic Church. In the modern era, the first
manifestation was the Spanish Inquisition of 1478 to 1834.[52] The Inquisition prosecuted individuals
accused of a wide array of crimes related to heresy, including sorcery,[53] blasphemy, Judaizing and
witchcraft, as well for censorship of printed literature. Because of its objective—combating heresy—the
Inquisition had jurisdiction only over baptized members of the Church (which, however, encompassed
the vast majority of the population in Catholic countries). Secular courts could still try non-Christians for
blasphemy (most of the witch trials went through secular courts).
The Protestant Reformation and rise of modernity in the early 16th

century entailed the start of a series of changes in the Corpus
Christianum. Martin Luther challenged the Catholic Church with his
Ninety-five Theses, generally accepted as the beginning of the
Reformation, a Christian reform movement in Europe, though
precursors such as Jan Hus predate him. The Protestant movement
of the 16th century occurred under the protection of the Electorate
of Saxony, an independent hereditary electorate of the Holy Roman
Empire. The Elector Frederick III established a university at
Wittenberg in 1502. The Augustinian monk Martin Luther became
professor of philosophy there in 1508. At the same time, he became
one of the preachers at the castle church of Wittenberg.
Bourgeoisie takes more and more
On 31 October 1517, Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses on the importance throughout the modern
door of the All Saints' Church, which served as a notice board for era.
university-related announcements.[54] These were points for debate
that criticized the Church and the Pope. The most controversial
points centered on the practice of selling indulgences (especially by Johann Tetzel) and the Church's
policy on purgatory. The reform movement soon split along certain doctrinal lines. Religious
disagreements between various leading figures led to the emergence of rival Protestant churches. The
most important denominations to emerge directly from the Reformation were the Lutherans, and the
Reformed/Calvinists/Presbyterians. The process of reform had decidedly different causes and effects in
other countries. In England, where it gave rise to Anglicanism, the period became known as the English
Reformation. Subsequent Protestant denominations generally trace their roots back to the initial
reforming movements.
The Diet of Worms in 1521, presided by Emperor Charles V, declared Martin Luther a heretic and an
outlaw (although Charles V was more preoccupied with maintaining his vast empire than with arresting
Luther). As a result of Charles V's distractions in East Europe and in Spain, he agreed through the Diet of
Speyer in 1526 to allow German princes to effectively decide themselves whether to enforce the Edict of
Worms or not, for the time being. After returning to the empire, Charles V attended the Diet of Augsburg
in 1530 to order all Protestants in the empire to revert to Catholicism. In response, the Protestant
territories in and around Germany formed the Schmalkaldic League to fight against the Catholic Holy
Roman Empire. Charles V left again to handle the advance of the Ottoman Turks. He returned in 1547 to
launch a military campaign against the Schmalkaldic League and to issue an imperial law requiring all
Protestants to return to Catholic practices (with a few superficial concessions to Protestant practices).
Warfare ended when Charles V relented in the Peace of Passau (1552) and in the Peace of Augsburg
(1555), which formalized the law that the rulers of a land decide its religion.
Of the late Inquisitions in the modern era, there were two different manifestations:[52]
1. the Portuguese Inquisition (1536–1821)
2. the Roman Inquisition (1542 – c.1860)
This Portuguese inquisition was a local analogue of the more famous Spanish Inquisition. The Roman
Inquisition covered most of the Italian peninsula as well as Malta and also existed in isolated pockets of
papal jurisdiction in other parts of Europe, including Avignon.
The Catholic Reformation began in 1545 when the Council of Trent was called in reaction to the
Protestant Rebellion. The idea was to reform the state of worldliness and disarray that had befallen some
of the clergy of the Church, while reaffirming the spiritual authority of the Catholic Church and its
position as the sole true Church of Christ on Earth. The effort sought to prevent further damage to the
Church and her faithful at the hands of the newly formed Protestant denominations.
Tsardom of Russia
In development of the Third Rome ideas, the Grand Duke Ivan IV (the "Awesome"[55] or "the Terrible")
was officially crowned the first Tsar ("Caesar") of Russia in 1547. The Tsar promulgated a new code of
laws (Sudebnik of 1550), established the first Russian feudal representative body (Zemsky Sobor) and
introduced local self-management into the rural regions.[56][57] During his long reign, Ivan IV nearly
doubled the already large Russian territory by annexing the three Tatar khanates (parts of disintegrated
Golden Horde): Kazan and Astrakhan along the Volga River, and Sibirean Khanate in South Western
Siberia. Thus by the end of the 16th century Russia was transformed into a multiethnic,
multiconfessional and transcontinental state.
Russia experienced territorial growth through the 17th century, which was the age of Cossacks. Cossacks
were warriors organized into military communities, resembling pirates and pioneers of the New World.
The native land of the Cossacks is defined by a line of Russian/Ruthenian town-fortresses located on the
border with the steppe and stretching from the middle Volga to Ryazan and Tula, then breaking abruptly
to the south and extending to the Dnieper via Pereyaslavl. This area was settled by a population of free
people practicing various trades and crafts.
In 1648, the peasants of Ukraine joined the Zaporozhian Cossacks in

rebellion against Poland–Lithuania during the Khmelnytsky
Uprising, because of the social and religious oppression they
suffered under Polish rule. In 1654 the Ukrainian leader, Bohdan
Khmelnytsky, offered to place Ukraine under the protection of the
Russian Tsar, Aleksey I. Aleksey's acceptance of this offer led to
another Russo-Polish War (1654–1667). Finally, Ukraine was split
along the river Dnieper, leaving the western part (or Right-bank
Cossacks became the backbone of
Ukraine) under Polish rule and eastern part (Left-bank Ukraine and
the early Russian Army.
Kiev) under Russian. Later, in 1670–71 the Don Cossacks led by
Stenka Razin initiated a major uprising in the Volga region, but the
Tsar's troops were successful in defeating the rebels. In the east, the
rapid Russian exploration and colonisation of the huge territories of Siberia was led mostly by Cossacks
hunting for valuable furs and ivory. Russian explorers pushed eastward primarily along the Siberian
river routes, and by the mid-17th century there were Russian settlements in the Eastern Siberia, on the
Chukchi Peninsula, along the Amur River, and on the Pacific coast. In 1648 the Bering Strait between
Asia and North America was passed for the first time by Fedot Popov and Semyon Dezhnyov.
Discovery and trade
The Age of Discovery was a period from the early 15th century and
continuing into the early 17th century, during which European ships
traveled around the world to search for new trading routes and
partners to feed burgeoning capitalism in Europe. They also were in
search of trading goods such as gold, silver and spices. In the
process, Europeans encountered peoples and mapped lands
previously unknown to them. This factor in the early European The Cantino planisphere (1502), the
modern period was a globalizing character; the 'discovery' of the oldest surviving Portuguese nautical
Americas and the rise of sustained contacts between previously chart showing the results of the
isolated parts of the globe was an important historical event. explorations of Vasco da Gama to
India, Columbus to Central America,
The search for new routes was based on the fact that the Silk Road Gaspar Corte-Real to Newfoundland
was controlled by the Ottoman Empire, which was an impediment to and Pedro Álvares Cabral to Brazil.
European commercial interests, and other Eastern trade routes were The meridian of Tordesillas,
not available to the Europeans due to Muslim control. The ability to separating the Portuguese and
outflank the Muslim states of North Africa was seen as crucial to Spanish halves of the world is also
European survival. At the same time, the Iberians learnt much from depicted
their Arab neighbors. The northwestern region of Eurasia has a very
long coastline, and has arguably been more influenced by its
maritime history than any other continent. Europe is uniquely situated between several navigable seas,
and intersected by navigable rivers running into them in a way that greatly facilitated the influence of
maritime traffic and commerce. In the maritime history of Europe, the carrack and caravel both
incorporated the lateen sail that made ships far more maneuverable. By translating the Arab versions of
lost ancient Greek geographical works into Latin, European navigators acquired a deeper knowledge of
the shape of Africa and Asia.
Mercantile capitalism
Mercantilism was the dominant school of economic thought throughout the early modern period (from
the 16th to the 18th century). This led to some of the first instances of significant government
intervention and control over the economy, and it was during this period that much of the modern
capitalist system was established. Internationally, mercantilism encouraged the many European wars of
the period and fueled European imperialism. Belief in mercantilism began to fade in the late 18th
century, as the arguments of Adam Smith and the other classical economists won out.
The Commercial Revolution was a period of economic expansion, colonialism, and mercantilism that
lasted from approximately the 16th century until the early 18th century. Beginning with the Crusades,
Europeans rediscovered spices, silks, and other commodities rare in Europe. This development created a
new desire for trade, which expanded in the second half of the Middle Ages. European nations, through
voyages of discovery, were looking for new trade routes in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which
allowed the European powers to build vast, new international trade networks. Nations also sought new
sources of wealth. To deal with this new-found wealth, new economic theories and practices were
created. Because of competing national interest, nations had the desire for increased world power
through their colonial empires. The Commercial Revolution is marked by an increase in general
commerce, and in the growth of non-manufacturing pursuits, such as banking, insurance, and investing.
Trade and the new economy
In the Old World, the most desired trading goods were gold, silver, and spices. Western Europeans used
the compass, new sailing ship technologies, new maps, and advances in astronomy to seek a viable trade
route to Asia for valuable spices that Mediterranean powers could not contest.
mDesired trading goods
Gold fueled Silver, valued as a Spices were among

European precious metal, has the most luxurious
exploration of the been used to make products, the most
Americas. Explorers expensive common being black
reported Native ornaments, fine pepper, cinnamon
Americans in jewelry, high-value (and the cheaper
Central America, tableware and alternative cassia),
Peru, Ecuador and utensils (silverware), cumin, nutmeg,
Colombia were to and currency coins. ginger and cloves.
have had large
amounts.
In terms of shipping advances, the most important developments were the creation of the carrack and
caravel designs in Portugal. These vessels evolved from medieval European designs from the North Sea
and both the Christian and Islamic Mediterranean. They were the first ships that could leave the
relatively placid and calm Mediterranean, Baltic or North Sea and sail safely on the open Atlantic.
When the carrack and then the caravel were developed in Iberia, European thoughts returned to the
fabled East. These explorations have a number of causes. Monetarists believe the main reason the Age of
Exploration began was because of a severe shortage of bullion in Europe. The European economy was
dependent on gold and silver currency, but low domestic supplies had plunged much of Europe into a
recession. Another factor was the centuries-long conflict between the Iberians and the Muslims to the
south.
Piracy's Golden Age
The Golden Age of Piracy is a designation given to one or more outbursts of piracy in the early modern
period, spanning from the mid-17th century to the mid-18th century. The buccaneering period covers
approximately the late 17th century. The period is characterized by Anglo-French seamen based on
Jamaica and Tortuga attacking Spanish colonies and shipping in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. A
sailing route known as the Pirate Round was followed by certain Anglo-American pirates at the turn of
the 18th century, associated with long-distance voyages from Bermuda and the Americas to rob Muslim
and East India Company targets in the Indian Ocean and Red Sea. The post-Spanish Succession period
extending into the early 18th century, when Anglo-American sailors and privateers left unemployed by
the end of the War of the Spanish Succession turned en masse to piracy in the Caribbean, the American
eastern seaboard, the West African coast, and the Indian Ocean.
European states and politics
The 15th to 18th century period is marked by the first European colonies, the rise of strong centralized
governments, and the beginnings of recognizable European nation states that are the direct antecedents
of today's states. Although the Renaissance included revolutions in many intellectual pursuits, as well as
social and political upheaval, it is perhaps best known for European artistic developments and the
contributions of such polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who inspired the term
"Renaissance man".[58][59]
During the Baroque period the Thirty Years' War in Central Europe decimated the population by up to
20%. In 1648, the Peace of Westphalia, consisting of the treaties of Osnabrück and Münster, signed on
May 15 and October 24, respectively, ended several wars in Europe and established the beginning of
sovereign states. The treaties involved the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand III (Habsburg), the
Kingdoms of Spain, France and Sweden, the Netherlands and their respective allies among the princes
and the Republican Imperial States of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Peace of Westphalia resulted from the first modern diplomatic congress. Until 1806, the regulations
became part of the constitutional laws of the Holy Roman Empire. The Treaty of the Pyrenees, signed in
1659, ended the war between France and Spain and is often considered part of the overall accord.
Absolutism
The Age of Absolutism describes the monarchical power that was unrestrained by any other institutions,
such as churches, legislatures, or social elites of the European monarchs during the transition from
feudalism to capitalism. Monarchs described as absolute can especially be found in the 17th century
through the 19th century. Nations that adopted Absolutism include France, Prussia, and Russia. Nobles
tended to trade privileges for allegiance throughout the eighteenth century, so that the interests of the
nobility aligned with that of the crown. Absolutism is characterized by the ending of feudal partitioning,
consolidation of power with the monarch, rise of state power, unification of the state laws, drastic
increase in tax revenue collected by the monarch, and a decrease in the influence of nobility.
French power
For much of the reign of Louis XIV, who was known as the Sun King (French: le Roi Soleil), France stood
as the leading power in Europe, engaging in three major wars—the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the
League of Augsburg, and the War of the Spanish Succession—and two minor conflicts—the War of
Devolution, and the War of the Reunions. Louis ruled according to the Divine Right of Kings, the theory
that the King was crowned by God and accountable to him alone. Consequently, he has long been
considered the archetypal absolute monarch. Louis XIV continued the work of his predecessor to create a
centralized state, governed from the capital to sweep away the remnants of feudalism that persisted in
parts of France. He succeeded in breaking the power of the provincial nobility, much of which had risen
in revolt during his minority called the Fronde, and forced many leading nobles to live with him in his
lavish Palace of Versailles.
Men who featured prominently in the political and military life of France during this period include
Mazarin, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Turenne, Vauban. French culture likewise flourished during this era,
producing a number of figures of great renown, including Molière, Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, Lully,
Le Brun, Rigaud, Louis Le Vau, Jules Hardouin Mansart, Claude Perrault and Le Nôtre.
Early English revolutions
Before the Age of Revolution, the English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political
machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists. The first and second civil wars pitted the
supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third war saw
fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The Civil War
ended with the Parliamentary victory at the Battle of Worcester. The monopoly of the Church of England
on Christian worship in England ended with the victors consolidating the established Protestant
Ascendancy in Ireland. Constitutionally, the wars established the precedent that an English monarch
cannot govern without Parliament's consent. The English Restoration, or simply put as the Restoration,
began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after
the Commonwealth of England that followed the English Civil War. The Glorious Revolution of 1688
establishes modern parliamentary democracy in England.
International balance of power
The War of the Spanish Succession was a war fought between 1701 and 1714, in which several European
powers combined to stop a possible unification of the Kingdoms of Spain and France under a single
Bourbon monarch, upsetting the European balance of power. It was fought mostly in Europe, but it
included Queen Anne's War in North America. The war was marked by the military leadership of notable
generals like the duc de Villars, the Jacobite Duke of Berwick, the Duke of Marlborough and Prince
Eugene of Savoy.
The Peace of Utrecht established after a series of individual peace treaties signed in the Dutch city of
Utrecht concluded between various European states helped end the War of the Spanish Succession. The
representatives who met were Louis XIV of France and Philip V of Spain on the one hand, and
representatives of Queen Anne of Great Britain, the Duke of Savoy, and the United Provinces on the
other. The treaty enregistered the defeat of French ambitions expressed in the wars of Louis XIV and
preserved the European system based on the balance of power.[60] The Treaty of Utrecht marked the
change from Spanish to British naval supremacy.
Sub-Saharan Africa
The Songhai Empire took control of the trans-Saharan trade at the beginning of the modern era. It seized
Timbuktu in 1468 and Jenne in 1473, building the regime on trade revenues and the cooperation of
Muslim merchants. The empire eventually made Islam the official religion, built mosques, and brought
Muslim scholars to Gao.[61]
Around the beginning of the modern era, the Benin Kingdom was an independent trading power in the
southeastern coastline of West Africa, blocking the access of other inland nations to the coastal ports.
Benin may have housed 100,000 inhabitants at its height, spreading over twenty-five square kilometres,
enclosed by three concentric rings of earthworks. By the late 15th century Benin was in contact with
Portugal. At its apogee in the 16th and 17th centuries, Benin encompassed parts of southeastern
Yorubaland and the western Igbo.
New World and Americas
John Trumbull's Declaration of

Independence, showing the
Committee of Five in charge of
drafting the Declaration in 1776 as it
presents its work to the Second
Continental Congress in
Philadelphia
World Colonization of 1492 (Early Modern World), 1550, 1660, 1754 (Age of Enlightenment), 1822
(Industrial revolution), 1885 (European Hegemony), 1914 (World War I era), 1938 (World War II era),
1959 (Cold War era) and 1974, 2008 (Recent history).
The term colonialism is normally used with reference to discontiguous overseas empires rather than
contiguous land-based empires, European or otherwise. European colonisation during the 15th to 19th
centuries resulted in the spread of Christianity to Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, Australia and the
Philippines.
Exploration and conquest of the Americas
Christopher Columbus came to the Americas in 1492. Subsequently, the major sea powers in Europe sent
expeditions to the New World to build trade networks and colonies and to convert the native peoples to
Christianity. Pope Alexander VI divided newly discovered lands outside Europe between Spain and
Portugal along a north–south meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands (off the west coast of
Africa). The division was never accepted by the rulers of England or France. (See also the Treaty of
Tordesillas, which followed the papal decree.)
Colonial Latin America
What is now called Latin America, a designation first used in the late 19th century,[62] was claimed by
Spain and Portugal. The Western Hemisphere, the New World, was divided between the two Iberian
powers by the Treaty of Tordesillas in what until the late 16th-century, was an area that could be called
"Ibero-America." Spain called its overseas empire there "The Indies," with Portugal calling its territory in
South America Brazil, after the dyewood found there. Spain concentrated building its empire where
there were large indigenous populations, "Indians," who could be compelled to work and large deposits
of precious metals, mainly silver. Both New Spain (colonial Mexico) and Peru fit those criteria and the
Spanish crown established viceroyalties to rule those two large areas. As Spanish settlements and the
economy grew in size and complexity, the Spanish established viceroyalties in the eighteenth century
during administrative reforms Rio de la Plata (southeastern South America) and New Granada (northern
South America).
Initially, Portuguese settlements (Brazil) in the coastal northeast were of lesser importance in the larger
Portuguese overseas empire, where lucrative commerce and small settlements devoted to trade were
established in coastal Africa, India and China. With sparse indigenous populations that could not be
coerced to work and no known deposits of precious metals, Portugal sought a high-value, low-bulk
export product and found it in sugarcane. Black African slave labour from Portugal's West African
possessions was imported to do the grueling agricultural work. As the wealth of the Ibero-America
increased, some Western European powers (Dutch, French, British, Danish) sought to duplicate the
model in areas that the Iberians had not settled in numbers. They seized some Caribbean islands from
the Spanish and transferred the model of sugar production on plantations with slave labour and settled
in northern areas of North America in what are now the Eastern Seaboard of the United States and
Canada.[63]
Colonial North America
North America outside the zone of Spanish settlement was a contested area in the 17th century. Spain
had founded small settlements in Florida and Georgia but nowhere near the size of those in New Spain
or the Caribbean islands. France, The Netherlands, and Great Britain held several colonies in North
America and the West Indies from the 17th century, 100 years after the Spanish and Portuguese
established permanent colonies. The British colonies in North America were founded between 1607
(Virginia) and 1733 (Georgia). The Dutch explored the east coast of North America and began founding
settlements in what they called New Netherland (now New York State.). France colonized what is now
Eastern Canada, founding Quebec City in 1608. France's loss in the Seven Years' War resulted in the
transfer of New France to Great Britain. The Thirteen Colonies, in lower British North America, rebelled
against British rule in 1775, largely due to the taxation that Great Britain was imposing on the colonies.
The British colonies in Canada remained loyal to the crown, and a provisional government formed by the
Thirteen Colonies proclaimed their independence on July 4, 1776 and subsequently became the original
13 United States of America. With the 1783 Treaty of Paris ending the American Revolutionary War,
Britain recognised the former Thirteen Colonies' independence.
Atlantic World
A recent development in early modern history is the creation of Atlantic World as a category. The term
generally encompasses western Europe, West Africa, North and South and America and the Caribbean
islands. It seeks to show both local and regional development and the connections between the various
geographical regions.
Religion, science, philosophy, and

education
Eastern philosophies
Concerning the development of Eastern philosophies, much of

Eastern philosophy had been in an advanced state of Waldseemüller map with joint sheets, 1507
development from study in the previous centuries. The various
philosophies include Indian philosophy (Of note in modern
Indian philosophy are the philosophers who gave contemporary meaning to traditional philosophy, such
as Swami Vivekananda) Chinese philosophy, Iranian philosophy, Japanese philosophy, and Korean
philosophy.
Muslim world
The Islamic Golden Age reached its peak in the High Middle Ages, stopped short by the Mongol
invasions of the 13th century. The re-establishment of three major Muslim empires by the 16th century
(the aforementioned Ottoman Safavid and Mughal Empires) gave rise to a Muslim cultural revival. The
Safavids established Twelver Shi'a Islam as Iran's official religion, thus giving Iran a separate identity
from its Sunni neighbors.
Protestant Reformation
The early modern period was initiated by the Protestant Reformation and the collapse of the unity of the
medieval Western Church. The theology of Calvinism in particular has been argued as instrumental to
the rise of capitalism (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism).
Counter-Reformation and Jesuits
The Counter-Reformation was a period of Catholic revival in response to the Protestant Reformation
during the mid-16th to mid-17th centuries. The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort,
involving ecclesiastical or structural reforms as well as a political dimension and spiritual movements.
Such reforms included the foundation of seminaries for the proper training of priests in the spiritual life
and the theological traditions of the Church, the reform of religious life by returning orders to their
spiritual foundations and new spiritual movements focusing on the devotional life and a personal
relationship with Christ, including the Spanish mystics and the French school of spirituality. It also
involved political activities that included the Roman Inquisition.
New religious orders were a fundamental part of this trend. Orders such as the Capuchins, Ursulines,
Theatines, Discalced Carmelites, the Barnabites, and especially the Jesuits strengthened rural parishes,
improved popular piety, helped to curb corruption within the church and set examples that would be a
strong impetus for Catholic renewal.
Scientific Revolution
The Great Divergence in scientific discovery, technological innovation, and

economic development began in the early modern period as the pace of change in
Western countries increased significantly compared to the rest of the world.
During the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17 century, empiricism and modern
science replaced older methods of studying nature – European research methods
that mainly involved reading texts by ancient writers. In ancient times, natural
philosophers made observations of nature and came up with explanations, but never
conducted experiments to test those explanations, because creating an artificial
Model for the
situation was considered an invalid way to discover the rules of nature. The
Three Superior
scientific method of testing hypotheses was first recorded in the 10th century by Ibn
Planets and
al-Haytham (Alhazen), inspiring Roger Bacon to begin experimenting in 13th
Venus from
century Europe. By the time of the Revolution, these methods resulted in
Georg von
accumulation of knowledge that overturned ideas inherited from Ancient Greece Peuerbach,
(primarily Aristotelian physics, which includes the modern domains of physics, Theoricae novae
chemistry, biology) through the Middle Ages and Islamic scholars. Major changes of planetarum.
the Scientific Revolution and the 18th century included:
The ancient geocentric model of the solar system (the planets circle the Earth) was replaced by the
heliocentric model (Earth and other planets circle the Sun). Known as the Copernican Revolution,
the 1543 publication of Nicolaus Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the
Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, which was influenced by Mu'ayyad al-Din al-Urdi and was
based on detailed astronomical observations) is often used to mark the beginning of the Scientific
Revolution. Heliocentrism was resisted by the Catholic Church because it contradicted the Bible; the
Catholic Inquisition imprisoned Galileo Galilei (sometimes called the "father of modern science" for
his many empirical discoveries) for promoting this theory.
Armed with detailed observations from Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler found the idea that the
planets moved in ellipses rather than on perfect celestial spheres, publishing Kepler's laws of
planetary motion. The commonly held idea that the fixed stars are mounted on a large sphere was
replaced by the idea that they are distant suns. Astrology and astronomy began to separate into
different disciplines, with only astronomy using scientific methods. Telescope technology improved
tremendously as did the study of optics.
Aristotle's laws of motion were demonstrated to be incorrect, and were replaced by Newton's laws of
motion and Newton's law of universal gravitation. The 1687 publication of Isaac Newton's 1687
Principia is often used to mark the end of the Scientific Revolution.
A revival of atomism (denied by Aristotle) and corpuscularianism began to undermine the classical
elements. Both 8th century Islamic experimenter Jabir ibn Hayyan and 17th century Christian
experimenter Robert Boyle have been described as the founders of modern chemistry, both worked
as alchemists before the fields were clearly separated. Boyle argued for corpuscularism in the 1661
book The Sceptical Chymist, and discovered Boyle's Law of gases. Phlogiston theory was refuted by
empirical discovery of conservation of mass, among other discoveries bring the chemical revolution.
The discovery of modern chemical elements would not begin until the 19th century in the late
modern period, followed by experimental confirmation of atoms.
Finally overcoming the difficulties human corpses to perform dissections, the anatomical descriptions
of the 2nd century Galen were updated by the 1543 publication of De humani corporis fabrica by
Andreas Vesalius, considered a foundational text of modern medicine and early modern anatomy.
The 1628 work De Motu Cordis by William Harvey was a major advance in the understanding of the
circulatory system.
The field of microbiology began with the invention of the microscope and the first observations of
microorganisms, famously by Anton van Leeuwenhoek in the 1670s and probably also by
Athanasius Kircher in the 1640s. Though microorganisms were (correctly) proposed as the cause of
infectious diseases as soon as they were discovered, this theory was generally dismissed. Though
scientific investigation undermined humorism in medicine, miasma theory remained dominant

throughout the early modern period. The germ theory of disease was not widely accepted until the
1880s, in the late modern period.
Modern scientific dentistry was founded by Pierre Fauchard.
The smallpox vaccine was invented in the 1770s and popularized by Edward Jenner in the 1790s,
though it was unclear at the time how it worked.
Carl Linnaeus published the first modern taxonomy in 1735, replacing Aristotle's Great Chain of
Being. Binomial nomenclature was used in publications by Gaspard Bauhin as early as 1622, and by
Linnaeus in 1753.
The ancient theory of spontaneous generation remained dominant throughout the early modern
period, but the history of evolutionary thought includes some who questioned the strictest form of this
dogma. The idea of partial common descent was famously promoted by Georges-Louis Leclerc,
Comte de Buffon. Evolution was not fully articulated and accepted until the 19th century.
Modern geology began to take shape mainly in the 18th and 19th centuries. Early on, Nicolas Steno
proposed the law of superposition in 1669, and various writers in the history of geology began to
question the notion derived from the Christian Bible that the Earth was only about 6,000 years old
and relatively unchanged over time. Steno and James Hutton are often considered founders of the
modern field. The study of fossils and rock types became systematic.
Early developments in the history of electromagnetism during this era include gradual teasing out of
the relationships between electricity, magnetism, and lightning; development of the electrostatic
generator and Leyden jar for storage; and the discoveries of ferromagnetism, "electrics" and "non-
electrics" (conductors and insulators). The now-obsolete fluid theory of electricity was developed to
explain electrical phenomena in terms of "vitreous" and "resinous" fluids (later recognized as positive
and negative electrical charges). Electrochemistry was born with the discovery of voltaic electricity
(which would provide a power source for later experimentation) and pyroelectricity. Around 1784,
Coulomb's law mathematically described the strength of electrical attraction. The discovery that
electricity could cause muscles to contracted was termed "Galvanic electricity".
In the new social sciences:
Historical linguistics emerged in the late 18th century as a field after the discovery of the common
origin what are now called Indo-European languages by philologist William Jones
The fields of anthropology and paleoanthropology emerged in the 18th century, but much of early
modern anthropology is now considered scientific racism.
The 1776 multi-book publication The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith is considered the
foundational text of classical economics.
Scientific discovery would accelerate in the late modern period, and continues today.
Technology
Inventions of the early modern period included the floating dock, lifting tower, newspaper, grenade
musket, lightning rod, bifocals, and Franklin stove. Early attempts at building a practical electrical
telegraph were hindered because static electricity was the only source available.
Enlightenment and reason
The Age of Enlightenment is also called the Age of Reason because it marked a change from the medieval
tradition of scholasticism based on Christian dogma and the often occultist approach of Renaissance
philosophy. Instead, reason became the central source of knowledge, beginning the era of modern
philosophy, especially in Western philosophy. The period was

typified in Europe by the great system-builders, philosophers who
presented unified systems of epistemology, metaphysics, logic, and
ethics and often politics and the physical sciences as well.
Early 17th-century philosophy is often called the Age of Rationalism

and is considered to succeed Renaissance philosophy and precede
the Age of Enlightenment, but some consider it as the earliest part of
the Enlightenment era in philosophy, extending that era to two
centuries. This era includes Isaac Newton's Principia and René
Descartes' "I think therefore I am" (1637). The 18th century saw the
beginning of secularization in Europe, rising to notability in the
wake of the French Revolution.
Immanuel Kant classified his predecessors into two schools: the

rationalists and the empiricists,[64] The three main rationalists are
normally taken to have been René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and
Gottfried Leibniz.
Roger Williams founded Providence Plantations in New England, "If there is something you know,
based on the principle of separation of church and state after being communicate it. If there is
exiled by Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The something you don't know, search
Enlightenment began at Harvard in 1646. The first great advances for it." An engraving from the 1772
towards modern science were made in the mid-17th century, most edition of the Encyclopédie; Truth
notably the theory of gravity by Isaac Newton (1643–1727). Newton, (center) is surrounded by light and
Spinoza, John Locke (1632–1704) and Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) unveiled by the figures to the right,
were philosophers sparking the ideas for the furthering of the Philosophy and Reason
Enlightenment.
French salon culture culminated in the Enlightenment's most influential publication, the great
Encyclopédie (1751–1772), edited by Denis Diderot (1713–1784) with contributions by hundreds of
leading philosophes (intellectuals) such as Voltaire (1694–1778) and Montesquieu (1689–1755). The
Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns shook up the French Academy in the 1690s, elevating new
discoveries over Greek and Roman wisdom. The French Enlightenment was received in Germany,
notably fostered by Frederick the Great, the king of Prussia, and gave rise to a flowering of German
philosophy, represented foremost by Immanuel Kant.
The French and German developments were further influential in Scottish, Russian, Spanish and Polish
philosophy.
The Enlightenment flourished until about 1790–1800, after which the emphasis on reason gave way to
Romanticism's emphasis on emotion and a Counter-Enlightenment gained force.
Humanism
With the adoption of large-scale printing after 1500, Italian Renaissance Humanism spread northward
to France, Germany, Holland and England, where it became associated with the Protestant Reformation.
Developing during the Enlightenment era, Renaissance humanism as an intellectual movement spread
across Europe. The basic training of the humanist was to speak well and write (typically, in the form of a
letter). The term umanista comes from the latter part of the 15th century. The people were associated
with the studia humanitatis, a novel curriculum that was competing with the quadrivium and scholastic
logic.[65]
In France, pre-eminent Humanist Guillaume Budé (1467–1540) applied the philological methods of
Italian Humanism to the study of antique coinage and to legal history, composing a detailed commentary
on Justinian's Code. Although a royal absolutist (and not a republican like the early Italian umanisti),
Budé was active in civic life, serving as a diplomat for Francis I and helping to found the Collège des
Lecteurs Royaux (later the Collège de France). Meanwhile, Marguerite de Navarre, the sister of Francis I,
herself a poet, novelist and religious mystic,[66] gathered around her and protected a circle of vernacular
poets and writers, including Clément Marot, Pierre de Ronsard and François Rabelais.
Death in the Early Modern Period

During the Early Modern Period, many societies' views on death changed greatly. With the
implementation of new torture techniques, and increased public executions, people began to give more
value to their life, and their body after death. Along with the views on death, methods of execution also
changed. New devices to torture and execute criminals were invented.[67] The number of criminals
executed by gibbetting[68], or hanging in chains increased[68], as did the total rate of execution during
the Early modern period.[68]
Torture
As aforementioned, people's perception of death changed various times throughout the Early Modern
Period. With a majority of the Eurasian population being Buddhist, death was just seen as another part
of the cycle of reincarnation. Aside from Buddhist communities, death was one of the most common
fears. According to Thomas Laqueur's The Book of the Dead, the dead body has always had a sort of
enchantment to it, being feared by most and in some cases, a ritualistic object.[67]
While the dead body was feared by most, some saw it as an opportunity to further disgrace one for their
crimes.[68] Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, executions were often followed by
further mutilation and more terrifying forms of punishment to the now lifeless corpse.[68] This was seen
throughout England around the thirteenth century, as public dissection, and was enforced by law.[67]
However, this did not last long as the poor would riot in the streets because of this. By the end of the
seventeenth century, most Western societies began to experience a change in their perspective of death
and violence, today this is known as the Age of Reason.[69]
Mortality
During the Early Modern Period, thorough and accurate global data on mortality rates is limited for a
number of reasons including disparities in medical practices and views on the dead. However, there still
remains data from European countries that still holds valuable information on the mortality rates of
infants during this era. In his book Life Under Pressure: Mortality and Living Standards in Europe and
Asia 1700 - 1900, Tommy Bengsston provides adequate information pertaining to the data of infant
mortality rates in European countries as well as provide necessary contextual influences on these
mortality rates.[70]
European Infant Mortality Rates
Infant mortality was a global concern during the Early Middle Period as many newborns would not
survive into childhood. Bengsston provides comparative data on infant mortality averages in a variety of
European towns and countries starting from the mid-1600s to the 1800s.[70] These statistics are
measured for deaths within the first month of every one thousandth birth in a given area. For instance,
the national average of infant mortality in Germany was 108 deaths per 1,000 people born.[70] In the
German city of Bavaria, there were 140-190 infant deaths reported for every 1,000 born.[70] With similar
numbers was France, with their city of Beauvaisis reporting 140-160 infants dying per every 1,000.[70]
Slightly lower mortality rates were seen in Italy, as Venice averaged 134 infant deaths per 1,000 born.[70]
Bengsston provides data for a handful of cities in Sweden: 80-110 dead per 1,000 born in Geneva, 70-95
per 1,000 in Linkøping, 48 per 1,000 in Sundsvall, and 41 per 1,000 in the town of Våstanfors.[70]
Causes of Infant Mortality
Bengsston claims that climate conditions were the most important factor in determining infant mortality
rates: “For the period from birth to the fifth birthday, [climate] is clearly the most important
determinant of death”.[70] Winters proved to be harsh on families and their newborns, especially if the
other seasons of the year were warmer. This seasonal drop in temperature was a lot for infantile bodies
to adapt to. For instance, Italy is home to a very warm climate in the summer, and the temperature drops
immensely in the winter.[70] This fact about the region's climate lends context to the morbid statistic:
“the [Italian] winter peak was the cruelest: during the first 10 days of life, a newborn was four times
more likely to die than in the summer”.[70] Bengsston had noticed this trend amongst other Italian and
European cities.[70] Despite other cities operating under different economics and agriculture, this trend
of weather's impact remained apparent. This leads Bengsston to his conclusion on what may cause
mortality rates in infants to spike during winter: “The strong protective effect of summer for neonatal
deaths leads us to suppose that in many cases, these might be due to the insufficient heating systems of
the houses or to the exposure of the newborn to cold during the baptism ceremony. This last hypothesis
could explain why the effect was so strong in Italy”.[70]
End of early period

The end of the early modern period is usually associated with the
Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain around 1750, but
began to make substantial changes in many European countries by
around 1800.
The Age of Revolutions starts at the end of the early modern period
and continues into the late modern period, denoting in the decline of
absolutism in Europe. Near the end of the early modern period were
the Second Treaty of Paris which ended the American Revolution,
the French Revolution in 1789, and the Napoleonic Wars. The
Congress of Vienna in 1815 marked the end of this period of political Engraved world map (including
upheaval and frequent war, with the rise of new concepts of magnetic declination lines) by
nationalism and reorganization of military forces. 1815 is the latest Leonhard Euler from his school
year commonly reckoned as the end of the early modern period. atlas "Geographischer Atlas
bestehend in 44 Land-Charten" first
published 1753 in Berlin
The French Revolutions
Toward the middle and latter stages of the Age of Revolution, the
French political and social revolutions and radical change saw the
French governmental structure transform. It was previously an
absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and
Catholic clergy. It changed to forms based on Enlightenment
principles of citizenship and inalienable rights. The first revolution
led to government by the National Assembly, the second by the
Legislative Assembly, and the third by the Directory.
The changes were accompanied by violent turmoil, which included

the trial and execution of Louis XVI, vast bloodshed and repression Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Leading
during the Reign of Terror, and the French Revolutionary Wars the People (1830). The French
involving every other major European power. Subsequent events Revolution inspired a wave of
that can be traced to the Revolution include the Napoleonic Wars, revolutions across Europe.
two separate restorations of the monarchy, and two additional Liberalism and Nationalism were
revolutions as modern France took shape. In the following century, popular ideas that challenged
France would be governed at one point or another as a republic, Absolute Monarchies in the 19th
constitutional monarchy, and two different empires. century.
See also
Economic concepts
Price revolution, Proto-globalization
General concepts
Renaissance, Early Modern English, Early Modern warfare, Periodization, Atlantic history, Timeline
of early modern history
Political powers
Habsburg Spain, Habsburg Monarchy, Portuguese Empire, Dutch Republic, Early Modern Britain,
Early Modern France, Early Modern Italy, Ming Dynasty, Russian Empire, Polish–Lithuanian
Commonwealth, Ottoman Empire, Mughal Empire, Safavid Empire
Cuisine in the early modern world
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on his way—Taylor, Aline S. Isabel of Burgundy. Lanham, Md: Madison Books, c2001, pp. 212–213
51. Pope Calixtus III account from 1456 to the Burgundian bishop talking about the savior of Christianity
at Belgrade (https://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/endmiddle/bluedot/belgrade.html)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20090413030956/http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/
endmiddle/bluedot/belgrade.html) 2009-04-13 at the Wayback Machine
52. Medieval Sourcebook: Inquisition – Introduction (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/inquisition1.h
tml)
53. this also includes black magic (Maleficium).
54. Simon, Edith (1966). Great Ages of Man: The Reformation (https://archive.org/details/makingprogres
sth0000unse/page/120). Time-Life Books. pp. 120–121 (https://archive.org/details/makingprogressth
0000unse/page/120). ISBN 978-0-662-27820-7.
55. Frank D. McConnell. Storytelling and Mythmaking: Images from Film and Literature. (https://books.go
ogle.com/books?id=rqhZAAAAMAAJ&q=%22ivan+the+awesome%22) Oxford University Press,
1979. ISBN 0-19-502572-5; Quote from page 78: "But Ivan IV, Ivan the Terrible, or as the Russian
has it, Ivan Groznyi, "Ivan the Magnificent" or "Ivan the Awesome," is precisely a man who has
become a legend"
56. Solovyov, S. (2001). History of Russia from the Earliest Times. 6. AST. pp. 562–604. ISBN 978-5-17-
002142-0.
57. Skrynnikov, R. (1981). Ivan the Terrible (https://archive.org/details/ivanterrible0000skry/page/219).
Academic Intl Pr. p. 219 (https://archive.org/details/ivanterrible0000skry/page/219). ISBN 978-0-
87569-039-1.
58. BBC Science & Nature, Leonardo da Vinci (https://www.bbc.co.uk/science/leonardo/) (Retrieved on
May 12, 2007)
59. BBC History, Michelangelo (https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/michelangelo.shtml)
(Retrieved on May 12, 2007)
60. Palmer, Robert Roswell (1962). A History of the Modern World. Knopf. p. 234. OCLC 1000384424 (h
ttps://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1000384424).
61. Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, Cambridge 1988
62. José C. Moya, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Latin America. New York: Oxford University Press 2011
63. James Lockhart and Stuart B. Schwartz, Early Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press
1983.
64. "Kant, Immanuel: Metaphysics – Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy" (http://www.iep.utm.edu/k/kant
meta.htm#H1).
65. Paul Oskar Kristeller, Humanism, pp. 113–114, in Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner (editors), The
Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy (1990).
66. She was the author of Miroir de l'ame pecheresse (The Mirror of a Sinful Soul), published after her
death, among other devotional poetry. See also "Marguerite de Navarre: Religious Reformist" in
Jonathan A. Reid, King's sister—queen of dissent: Marguerite of Navarre (1492–1549) and her
evangelical network (http://www.brill.nl/print.aspx?partid=210&pid=18212) (Studies in medieval and
Reformation traditions, 1573–4188; v. 139). Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2009. (2 v.: (xxii, 795 p.) ISBN 978-
90-04-17760-4 (v. 1), 9789004177611 (v. 2)
67. Laqueur, Thomas (2015). The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains. Princeton
University. ISBN 9780691157788.
68. Ward, Richard (2015-09-28). Introduction to A Global History of Execution and the Criminal Corpse
(http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/95831/1/Ward2015_Chapter_Introduction.pdf) (PDF).
doi:10.1057/9781137577931 (https://doi.org/10.1057%2F9781137577931). ISBN 9781137577931.
PMID 27559562 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27559562).
69. Pinker, Steven (2007). "Steven Pinker on the myth of violence". doi:10.1037/e597002010-001 (http
s://doi.org/10.1037%2Fe597002010-001).
70. Bengsston, Tommy (2004). Life Under Pressure: Mortality and Living Standards in Europe and Asia,
1700-1900. The MIT Press. pp. Chapter 12: Infant and Child Mortality. ISBN 9780262025515.
Further reading
Burke, Peter. A Social History of Knowledge: From Gutenberg to Diderot (https://books.google.com/b
ooks?id=fbGuxIsGjwsC). Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2000.
Cavallo, Sandra, and Silvia Evangelisti, eds. A Cultural History of Childhood and Family in the Early
Modern Age (2014)
De Vries, Jan. "The limits of globalization in the early modern world." Economic History Review
(2010) 63#3 pp: 710–733. online (http://eml.berkeley.edu/~webfac/cromer/e211_sp08/devries.pdf)
Duara, Prasenjit et al. eds. A Companion to Global Historical Thought (Wiley Blackwell 2014)
Goldstone, Jack A. "Early Modern World." in Sociological Worlds: Comparative and Historical
Readings on Society (2013) pp: 249+
Goldstone, Jack A. Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (1993)
Goldstone, Jack A. "The Rise of the West–or not? A revision to socio-economic history," Sociological
Theory (2000). 18#2 pp 173–194
Lockyer, Roger. Tudor and Stuart Britain: 1485–1714 (3rd ed. 2004), 576 pp excerpt (https://www.am
azon.com/Tudor-Stuart-Britain-Roger-Lockyer/dp/0582771889/)
Knoll, Martin, and Reinhold Reith, eds. An Environmental History of the Early Modern Period (2014)
Kümin, Beat A. A cultural history of food in the early modern age (1600–1800) (Berg, 2011)
Newman, Gerald, ed. (1997). Britain in the Hanoverian Age, 1714–1837: An Encyclopedia (https://bo
oks.google.com/books?id=ZhaBz_5OZiUC&pg=PR11). Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780815303961.
online review (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03612759909604247); 904pp; short
articles on Britain by experts
Parker, Charles H. Global Interactions in the Early Modern Age, 1400–1800 (2010)
Pomeranz, Kenneth. The great divergence: China, Europe, and the making of the modern world
economy (Princeton University Press, 2000), a highly influential statement
Scott, Hamish, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History, 1350-1750: Volume I:
Peoples and Place (2018) excerpt (https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Handbook-European-History-13
50-1750/dp/0198820569/)
Scott, Hamish, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History, 1350-1750: Volume II:
Cultures and Power (2018) excerpt (https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Handbook-European-History-1
350-1750/dp/0198820577/)
Wong, R. Bin. China Transformed; Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience (Cornell
U.P., 1997)
External links
Internet Modern History Sourcebook (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pgc.asp?page=mod/modsbook.
html), fordham.edu
Websites
Discussion of the medieval/modern transition (http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/camenaref/cmh/c

mhint.html) from the introduction to the pioneering Cambridge Modern History (1902–1912)
Society for Renaissance Studies (http://www.rensoc.org.uk/)
Early Modern Culture (https://web.archive.org/web/20110925084220/http://emc.eserver.org/)
Early Modern Resources (http://earlymodernweb.org/)
Video films
Int'l Commerce, Snorkeling Camels, and The Indian Ocean Trade (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=a6XtBLDmPA0) on YouTube: Crash Course World History #18 – YouTube
Venice and the Ottoman Empire (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN-II_jBzzo) on YouTube:
Crash Course World History #19 – YouTube
Columbus, de Gama, and Zheng He! 15th Century Mariners (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjE
GncridoQ) on YouTube. Crash Course : World History #21 – YouTube
The Columbian Exchange (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQPA5oNpfM4) on YouTube: Crash
Course World History #23 – YouTube
The Atlantic Slave Trade (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnV_MTFEGIY) on YouTube: Crash
The Spanish Empire, Silver, & Runaway Inflation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjhIzemLdos)
on YouTube: Crash Course World History #25 – YouTube
The Seven Years War (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0qbzNHmfW0) on YouTube: Crash
Tea, Taxes, and The American Revolution (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlUiSBXQHCw) on
YouTube: Crash Course World History #28 – YouTube
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Early Modern Period

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19/10/2020 Early modern period - Wikipedia

Early modern period

European states and politics

Early modern timeline

Dates are approximate. Consult particular article for details.

The Rise of the Ottoman Empire

Important events in the early modern period include:

The spread of the printing press (c. 1440)

Development of the Watt steam engine (1763–1775)

Portuguese brought their matchlocks to Japan in the early 1500s.[16]

In the early Ming dynasty, urbanization increased as the population

With the xenophobia and intellectual introspection characteristic of

Following contact with the Portuguese on Tanegashima Isle in 1543,

characterised by the expansion of Persian cultural influence in the

British and Dutch colonization

The development of New Imperialism saw the conquest of nearly all

The Maratha states, following

Near East and Afro-Asiatic Africa

During the early modern era, the Ottoman state enjoyed an

North and Northeast Africa

In the Saracen sphere, the Ottomans seized Egypt in 1517 and

In the Ethiopian Highlands, the Solomonic dynasty established itself

Uzbeks and Afghan Pashtuns

Renaissance vs. early modern period III dies

The Renaissance[48] was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the

Johannes Gutenberg is credited as the first European to use movable

Christians and Christendom

End of the Crusades and Unity

The Hussite Crusades involved the military actions against and

Inquisitions and Reformations

The Protestant Reformation and rise of modernity in the early 16th

1. the Portuguese Inquisition (1536–1821)

2. the Roman Inquisition (1542 – c.1860)

In 1648, the peasants of Ukraine joined the Zaporozhian Cossacks in

Discovery and trade

Trade and the new economy

mDesired trading goods

Gold fueled Silver, valued as a Spices were among

Piracy's Golden Age

European states and politics

Early English revolutions

International balance of power

New World and Americas

John Trumbull's Declaration of

Exploration and conquest of the Americas

Colonial Latin America

Colonial North America

Religion, science, philosophy, and

Concerning the development of Eastern philosophies, much of

Counter-Reformation and Jesuits

The Great Divergence in scientific discovery, technological innovation, and

scientific investigation undermined humorism in medicine, miasma theory remained dominant

In the new social sciences:

Enlightenment and reason

philosophy, especially in Western philosophy. The period was

Early 17th-century philosophy is often called the Age of Rationalism

Immanuel Kant classified his predecessors into two schools: the

Death in the Early Modern Period

European Infant Mortality Rates

Causes of Infant Mortality

End of early period

The changes were accompanied by violent turmoil, which included

Cuisine in the early modern world