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16th to 19th Centuries:
Europe, Africa and the Americas to 1600
Time Line of Art History: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
In his famous book, "Organism," Abraham Maslow originated the idea of self-actualization within a hierarchial structure of physilogical and psychological needs. Within this structure are what Maslow calls "esteem needs." From the very beginning of time historians have made manifest evidence of man's expression of "esteem needs." Over 30,000 years ago in Chauvet France the discovery of dynamic, vibrant paintings of animals drawn on limestone cave walls stand as a testament to man's need to express his world through art.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,
That is all ye know on earth and
All ye need to know.
-------- John Keats (1819) "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
Take the time to see the truth, to see the beauty that man has created across time and space. "Click away!"
Mesoameria and Central America, 1400-1600 C.E.
Time Line Index:
The Timeline Index : People, Periods, Places and Events in a chronological context.
Age of Exploration 15th-16th Century
Martin Luther and the Reformation
Henry IV, 1st Bourbon King of France
Henry VIII of England, Tudor 1491-1547
Maps:
Ancient Trade Routes between Europe and Asia
Readings: Washington State University-World Cultures from 1500
Discovery:
It's hard to know why Europeans suddenly expanded over the globe with such rapidity and such ferocity. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the world was a fairly small and contained place for Europeans. While they knew about far-flung areas such as China and southern Africa, their world view was still narrowly focused on Europe and the Mediterranean. Within two hundred years, Europeans would be all over the world with settlements on every continent except Australia and Antarctica. By 1600, most of the coastline of the Americas would be under the domination of Europeans as well as all the major cities in eastern Africa. How did this happen? How did Europeans suddenly end up all over the world? And how did this change the European world view?
The country that undertook the most ambitious voyages of discovery was Portugal. From these voyages, Europe would discover the entire coastline of Africa and build the first European settlements south of the Sahara. From the Portuguese, Europe would also learn the efficient human commerce: the profitable buying, selling, and distributing of human beings from Africa as slaves to Europeans, a form of mercantilism that would leave a permanent stamp on European and world culture.
The discovery of the American continent had nothing to do with intellectual curiosity or even unfathomable human courage. It was almost entirely about one and only one thing: money. And it was a mistake. The Portuguese all throughout the sixteenth century ruthlessly a nd aggressively built a monopoly in the spice trade from the east by dominating the trade routes around the continent of Africa. Spain, on the other hand, began thinking of ways to get around this monopoly by developing a western route to the eastern countries. The problem was that this route was infinitely longer than the trip around Africa and it lay across an ocean so vast that it staggered the imagination and chilled the heart.
The Spanish Empire in the New World was a disaster for Native Americans. The Spanish for their part could never really decide what to do with the Native Americans. On the one hand, they believed that they were introducing Native Americans to Christianity and to the arts of civilization and some believed that Native Americans had a right to their lands and should not be economically or politically exploited. This benign attitude was paternalistic: the Spanish would introduce Native Americans to salvation and school them in European civilization. On the other hand, the Spanish druthlessly massacred native populations and freely enslaved them in some of the most cruel slave practices ever seen on the face of the earth. The average Native American slave lasted barely a year under his or her Spanish masters.
Video Presentations and Links: Discovery
On November 15th 1532, 168 Spanish conquistadors arrive in the holy city of Cajamarca, at the heart of the Inca Empire, in Peru. They are exhausted, outnumbered and terrified – ahead of them are camped 80,000 Inca troops and the entourage of the Emperor himself. Yet, within just 24 hours, more than 7,000 Inca warriors lie slaughtered; the Emperor languishes in chains; and the victorious Europeans begin a reign of colonial terror which will sweep through the entire American continent.
Bridging World History: Early Global Commodities
What is globalization and when did it begin? Before the sixteenth century, the world's four main monetary substances were silver, gold, copper, and shells. But it was China's demand for silver and Spain's newly discovered mines in the Americas that finally created an all-encompassing network of global trade.
Pre-Columbian America
This six-hour workshop focuses first on the Historical Thinking Skills, as developed by the National Center for History in the Schools. The second portion of the session introduces Pre-Columbian societies in North America.
Mapping Initial Encounters
Columbus’s arrival launched an era of initial encounters between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans that continued for nearly 300 years. This unit examines how these contacts began the phenomenon now known as the Columbian Exchange, profoundly altering the way of life of peoples around the globe.
Video Presentations and Links: The Explorers in Africa
So far, Jared Diamond has demonstrated how geography favoured one group of people – Europeans – endowing them with agents of conquest ahead of their rivals around the world. Guns, germs and steel allowed Europeans to colonize vast tracts of the globe – but what happened when this all-conquering package arrived in Africa, the birthplace of humanity?
Bridging World History: Annenburg Media
Food, Demographics, and Culture
What role has food played in human societies? Studying the production and consumption of food allows historians to uncover hidden levels of meaning in social relationships, understand demographic shifts, and trace cultural exchange. This unit examines the earliest impact of globalization including changing cuisine, environmental impact, and the rise of forced labor as a global economic force.
Readings: Washington State University-World Cultures from 1500
Reformation:
The Reformation is an odd chapter in European history. The history of the Catholic church throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance is a history filled with spiritual, artistic, and intellectual triumphs as well as a history of tremendous abuses and doctrinal stupidities. From the very formation of the Christian church, there has been no such thing as a unified church. All through the Middle Ages, there are strong, passionate, and often powerful reactions to Catholic doctrine and church practices. It's not unfair to say that the history of the medieval church is, by and large, one long history of heresies.
Martin Luther (1483-1546) stands in history as one of those unique forces, an individual who by force of will and by his ideas changed the world fundamentally. There are several ironies incumbent on Luther's pivotal role in history: 1) he doesn't really represent a break with the past, but rather a flash point where ideas and trends which had been smoldering in Europe for several centuries suddenly blazed aflame; 2) Luther initially saw himself as a great reformer of the Catholic church, a simple monk who thought the force of his ideas would single-handedly redirect the Leviathan of the church; in the end, however, he divided Christianity into two separate churches and that second division, Protestantism, would divide over the next four centuries into a near infinity of separate churches; 3) finally, Luther (and all the other reformers) saw themselves as returning Christianity to its roots, they believed that they were setting the clock back; in reality, their ideas irreparably changed the world and pushed it kicking and screaming, not into some ideal past, but into the modern era.
While Germany struggled under the political and religious consequences of Luther's reform movement, the movement itself quickly spilled out of the German borders into neighboring Switzerland. At the time, Switzerland was not so much a single country as a confederacy of thirteen city-states called cantons. When Luther's ideas began to pour over the border, several of the cantons broke from the Catholic church and became Protestant while other cantons remained firmly Catholic. Of the cantons that adopted Luther's new movement, the most important and powerful was the city-state of Zurich under the leadership of Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531).
The spirit of Zwinglianism reached its fullest development in the theology, political theories, and ecclesiastic thought of John Calvin (1509-1564). Perhaps even more so than Martin Luther, Calvin created the patterns and thought that would dominate Western culture throughout the modern period. American culture, in particular, is thoroughly Calvinist in some form or another; at the heart of the way Americans think and act, you'll find this fierce and imposing reformer.
The Catholic church was not caught unawares by the Reformation. It had been steadily battling opposition, resistance, and heresy for over four hundred years; much of the opposition against the church throughout the fifteenth century involved issues that closely paralleled those splitting the church in half during the early Reformation. In answer to the growth of the Protestant movement, the Catholic Church instituted its own series of reforms that balanced real reform with a strident and conservative reaction to Protestantism. This movement was called the Counter-Reformation.
The latter half of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century brought about one of the most passionate and calamitious series of wars that Europe had ever experienced. The early Reformation had been, in hindsight, remarkably free from bloodshed; the honeymoon, however, lasted only a short while. It was inevitable that the growing division between Christian churches in Europe would lead to a series of armed conflicts for over a century. Protestants and Catholics would shed each other's blood in prodigious amounts in national wars and in civil wars. These struggles would eventually shatter the European monarchical traditions themselves. The monarchy, which had always seemed an impregnable political institution, was challenged by Protestants unhappy with the rule of Catholic kings. The final result of these struggles would be the overthrow and execution of Charles I in England in the middle of the seventeenth century, an historical earthquake that permanently changed the face of Europe.
Video Presentations and Links: The Reformation in Europe
BBC Presentation: Protestant Reformation
BBC Presentation: Martn Luther "Driven to Defiance"
BBC Presentation: Martin Luther "The Reluctant Revolutinary"
Western Tradition: The Rise of the Middle Class:
As the cities grew, new middle-class mores had an impact on religious life
Western Tradition: The Wars of Religion:
For more than a century, the quarrels of Protestants and Catholics tore Europe apart
Western Tradition: The Rise of the Trading Cities:
Amid religious wars, a few cities learned that tolerance increased their prosperity
Video Presentations and Links: The Reformation in England
Henry VIII Scandals of a King - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4
The Most Evil Woman in History: Bloody Mary
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