The Age of Enlightenment

Isaac Newton was an English scientist and mathematician. He is seen as a large influence on the Enlightenment due to his discovery of the law of gravitation. This law, he discovered, extended farther than earth and kept planets in an even orbit. He also demonstrated and experiment that showed that light as we see it is fact filled with color. This led to many discoveries about the workings of vision.

The Great Plague of London was a two year period of devestation. Rats infected by fleas bit people and thus, the fever and sickness spread. This plague was the last major breakout of the bubonic plague to happen in England.

The fire of London devestated for 3 days. It started in the King's Bakery near London Bridge. The summer had been hot, and the wooden houses were dry as tinder. People began to abandon the city and attempt to get to the Thames to leave by boat. By September 4th, half of London had succumbed. By the 5th when the flames were put out - by blowing up the remaining buildings in the fire's path - only a fifth of London remained. Though much was destroyed, the fire did some good in cleansing much disease from the streets of London.

Jonathan Swift was an Irish essayist, author, and satirist. He was born in Dublin, Ireland -after the death of his father two months previously - to an impoverished mother. Seeking the best for her son, she sent him to live with his uncle Godwin Swift who enrolled him in Kilkenney Grammar School, which was maybe the most prestigious shool of the time. Swift advanced in his scholarship and eventually moved to England after the beginning of the Glorious Revolution (in which the king of Ireland, England, and Scotland was overthrown.) It was there that he published one of his most famous works: Gulliver's Travels. After several years, Swift returned to Ireland, and it was there that he wrote 'A Modest Proposal.' Swift died in 1745 after having had a stroke three years previously.

The war of Spanish Succesion began after the death of Charles II. A treaty was signed and it was agreed that his lands would be given to Prince Joseph Ferdinand. Everything began to go terribly wrong after Prince Joseph Ferdinand's death in 1699. After this, a second treaty was made that decree the succession of Archduke Charles (the son of Emperor Leopold I). Leopold opposed his son only having sections of the Spanish land and refused to sign the treaty. Charles bequethed the lands to Phlip duc d'Anjou (the grandson of Louis XIV). This launched an anti-France movement that culminated in treaties with France and the equal division of the land of Charles II.

Amo was a Ghanaian philosopher who became famous in Germany for his philosophical studies. He was the first intellectual of African ancestry to study in Germany. For years, he was a philosophy professor, until a shift in politics made his job far more difficult, and he returned to Ghana, where he later died.

Catherine the Great became empress of Russia in 1762 and under her Russia expanded and modernized following the Western Europeans. In her abismal marriage, Catherine the Great exposed how much power she had. She conspired to force her husband (Peter III) to step down from the throne, after which action, he was strangled to death in the care of Catherine's co-conspirator. After assuming the throne, Catherine began to appease the military and Church, who Peter III had alienated. She made efforts for the people of Russia through the "Nazak" which called for an end of capital punishment and torture and declared every man equal. She would later recant many of these improvements and turn completely in policy. Catherine the Great expanded the Russian border into Poland and had to form a treaty with Turkey to gain even more land. She pushed for education reform and wrote a collection of memoirs herself. She was a true example of a woman who would not be pushed aside and would in some ways grow her country.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, the East India company began to flourish. The Dutch decided to make expand the port at the Cape in the South of Africa. This led to an increase in the slave trade.

Olaudah Equiano was the son of a chief of the Igbo people in West Africa. He was kidnapped and sold into slavery when he was young. In his autobiography in 1789 he reminisced about the wonders of Africa.