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Period: 476 to 1450
The Middle Ages
Life was pretty grim back then, which is why it's sometimes called the Dark Ages. In the 8th and 9th centuries, Charles the Great, or Charlemagne, united territories in modern-day France, Germany and Italy, leading to a brief flowering of art, culture, and learning. By 750, Muslim rulers controlled everything from modern-day Spain to Pakistan, creating one of the largest empires in history. This era is sometimes called the Islamic Golden Age. -
Period: 800 to
The Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was an attempt to revive the Western Roman Empire, whose legal and political structure deteriorated during the 5th and 6th centuries, to be replaced by independent kingdoms ruled by Germanic nobles. During the Italo-German phase, the empire played a significant role in central European politics and ecclesiastical affairs. -
Period: 1054 to 1417
The Great Schism of 1054
In 1054, relations between the Greek speaking Eastern of the Byzantine empire and the Latin speaking Western traditions within the Christian Church reached a terminal crisis. This crisis led to the separation between the Eastern and Western churches. Western Christendom split of 1378. -
Period: 1300 to
The Renaissance
The period of European history referred to as the Renaissance was a time of great social and cultural change in Europe. Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo and other famous artists and many inventions were formed during this time. It brought big changes to art, literature, philosophy, science and many others. -
Period: 1333 to 1353
The Black Death
The Black Death, or the Black Plague, was a pandemic that killed millions of people during the Middle Ages. Due to war, famine, and terrible weather, life was pretty rough for people when an additional problem —illness— was struck from 1333 in China. Nobody knew how to keep it from spreading and what caused it. -
Period: 1517 to
The Reformation
While Martin Luther, who posted on October 31st 1517 about a 94 theses on why the church was not a good idea, was working on translating the bible into German published in 1522, William Tyndale publishes a translation of the New Testament into English at 1526. The first marriage between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon is formed in 1533. -
Period: 1543 to
The Scientific Revolution
By tradition, the "Scientific Revolution" refers to historical changes in thought & belief, to changes in social & institutional organization, that unfolded in Europe between roughly 1550-1700; beginning with Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543), who asserted a heliocentric (sun-centered) cosmos, it ended with Isaac Newton (1642-1727), who proposed universal laws and a Mechanical Universe. -
Period: to
The Enlightenment
The Age of Reason was an intellectual movement that made many new scientific discoveries from people like John Locke, Isaac Newton, Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin. However in France, the financial crisis and poor harvests left many both angry and hungry, leading to the French Revolution in 1789: a constitution to limit the power of the king.