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1100
Sale of Indulgences
Indulgences were given out by the Catholic Church to raise money for their lavish living in Rome, to starve and trick the masses into a con. They were a trick to convince people that they'd get into heaven easily if they bought them. The Council of Trent ended this later on after many bitter battles with common people. -
1193
The Scientific Method
The Scientific Method first began by the mind of Albertus Magnus, a student of scholasticism who began using great philosophical logic and experimental science. Through the Bacon's, Copernicus, Galileo, Isaac Newton used his powerful mind to revolutionize this scientific thinking into a process still used today. Thanks to many years of knowledge, this scientific method has become a staple of the branch of science. -
1231
The Inquisition
The Catholic Church Inquisition was created long ago to stop heresy from within the Church and around it, but Pope Leo made the Inquisition try to put a stop to Protestantism, their enemy. The special court used secret testimony, torture, and execution to kill all Protestants they could. They even prepared a list of irreligious books of Luther and Calvin Catholics couldn't use; if they found you with it, you were done. If you encountered their court, you were sure to be dead soon no matter what. -
Jul 20, 1304
Petrarch
Petrarch was one of the earliest humanists during the Renaissance in Italy, a poet. He alone created sonnets for a loved woman of his within a year only, his burst of creation. He is sometimes referred to as the father of a humanism. -
1398
Johann Gutenburg
Gutenburg, in 1448, became the first European to use a moveable-type printing press, which revolutionized the spread of the Renaissance and the rise of knowledge. His improved invention brought the rise of schools and literacy to Europe, soon not to mention the invention of cheap paper. By 1500, his printing press ran in more than 200 European cities. -
1400
Humanism
Humanism is the study of classical works from the Romans and Greeks. Individuality of a human is praised during this time. The complexity and praise of free will and such ideas were studied. -
1448
Printing Revolution
Gutenburg brought knowledge to the world with moveable-type. This spread the Renaissance quickly and to all people of any class. Literacy came back and many schools were built during this time, the slight downfall of the Church was brought about when the Bible was given to the masses. -
Apr 15, 1452
Leonardo da Vinci
Da Vinci was a true Renaissance man of the ideal personality. He was painter, engineer, and government advisor, as well as a physiologist and botanist. He is famous world-wide for the "Mona Lisa". -
Oct 27, 1466
Erasmus
Erasmus was a major religious scholar during the times of the Renaissance. He was the one to translate the Bible into Greek and the vernacular language, disturbed by the corruptness of the Church. He wrote many texts on many subjects in the religious world. -
May 3, 1469
Machiavelli
To unite a fragmented Italy, Machiavelli proposed that leaders used whatever means possible to achieve this goal. To be brutal and scandalous for a short time was fine, but not long. His theories were very sketchy in some ways in acceptance. -
May 21, 1471
Albrecht Durer
Durer was known for using the painting techniques of the Renaissance in his engravings. Also a painter, his engravings usually featured religious upheaval and were very realistic as the style was. One could mistake his engravings as sketches easily at first notice. -
Feb 19, 1473
Copernicus
An astronomer, he created the idea that the sun was the center of the solar system, not the Earth in his studies. In 1543, he wrote a book called " "On the revolutions of the heavenly bodies," in Latin which stated his mind-blowing new theory of a heliocentric solar system. Martin Luther was very stubborn in his opposition of this theory, making one his priest's calling Copernicus a fool. His theories were soon accepted after his death in 1543. -
Mar 6, 1475
Michelangelo
Michelangelo is very famous as he created the 18-ft. statue of David. Also, he was called upon to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling by the Pope in his time. He painted over 10,000 sq. ft. on the ceiling with 4 years to do so: it still can be seen there current times. -
Feb 7, 1478
Thomas More
Thomas More was a very important English Humanist who pushed for social reform. He wrote "Utopia" in 1516 about an ideal society where all where well-educated and had justice equally. This was to say that England, a terrible place to live during this time, was not a utopia and that it should change into a utopia. -
Apr 6, 1483
Raphael
Raphael is famous for his Vatican fresco "The School of Athens", which uses Renaissance painting techniques like realism and three dimensions. He took many commissions, including paintings of Julius II and Leo X. Raphael also did designs for many palaces in his life. -
Nov 12, 1483
Martin Luther
A dedicated monk furious with the corruptness of the Church, Luther created his own religion of Lutheranism. This was a simplified form of Christianity free of Church corruption, seeing that only the faith in God could place you in salvation. He created the 95 Theses to create this religion. -
Jul 2, 1489
Thomas Cranmer
Thomas became the archbishop of the Church of England for Henry to divorce his first wife, Catherine, and was below the King as he wasn't the head of the Church. He wrote "The Book of Common Prayers" to be required to be read at every service in this new Church. When Queen Mary tried to restore Catholicism to England, he was burned at the stake for heresy even though he denounced that he split from the Church. -
Jul 28, 1491
King Henry VIII
King Henry VIII, to divorce his first wife in 1527 as she failed to give a male heir to the throne, broke from the Church to create the Church of England to make this possible. After six wives though, he only had one son and two daughters to succeed him, and fell to converting England to a Protestant land then. In his rage, after killing many English Catholics, he became a terribly sick and evil dictator who died as so with the title of the fattest king of England. -
Jul 10, 1509
John Calvin
A French native, Calvin created Calvinism to battle the corrupt Church, a strict form of Christianity to lead a pure life as a true Christian. He believed in 'predestination', that God had determined who'd be saved and doomed eternally long ago. To gain this, all of his people led pure and good lives of strict rules and religion. After many times of hopping from country to country, he took his people to the English sanctuary, America. -
Sep 7, 1533
Queen Elizabeth I
In 1558, Elizabeth (the second daughter to King Henry VIII) took the throne and united England as she avoided future religious wars there after the dictatorship of her sister, Mary. She became a main compromiser between the warring people, the Protestants and the Catholics, helping this as such. She, naming the arch-bishop as the head of the Church, translated the service from Latin to English. -
1543
Heliocentric Theory
Proposed by Copernicus, this theory stated that the sun was the center of the solar system, not Earth. Few accepted it as the Church stated the opposite agreeing with the ancient scholars like Aristotle and Ptolemy with a geocentric model. Copernicus was forced to recant this in the sake of his life. -
Dec 13, 1545
Council of Trent
This council was created by Pope Leo in 1545 to end corruptness and worldliness in the Church, and also to settle the issues of doctrine. They banned the sale of indulgences and came to this salvation conclusion: 1) faith in God, and 2) doing good works in the world. This doctrine though failed to bring people back into the Church and brought the horrible Inquisition upon the world. -
Feb 15, 1564
Galileo
A large supporter of the mind of Copernicus, Galileo broke from the traditional thinking of Aristotle and others. He further developed the progressive idea of 'scientific theory' in his work and also studied the speed of light as well as making the forefront of the study of motion on Earth. He is known also as the 'the father of modern physics' to many in his time and far after. -
Apr 23, 1564
William Shakespeare
William was a famous English author during the Renaissance that, between 1590 and 1613, he wrote 37 plays in all to study the lives of humans. Like the Humanist ideology, he focused on the complexity of humans in his writings and created many popular works in his life. He also added over 1,700 words to the common language of English. -
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton, a key figure in the Scientific Revolution, is best known for his law of gravitation. This new law came from his revolutionary study of Physics and his three laws of motion. Newton once believed he'd discovered the recipe for the Philosopher's Stone, a stone to turn ordinary metals to gold which had been sought for by countless others; this however lead to the creation of modern experimental science as we know it.
