Wednesday 20 June 2012

I set out to commit 3-5 dates per century to memory in order to later be able to use them as reference points for my understanding of history. This way I will slowly work my way back through the centuries, as far as I feel like it is useful to go. If you missed the posts so far, have a look here and here.

I realised as I was going back that my knowledge before about 1700 gets decidedly more sketchy. Here it wasn’t so much a matter of attaching dates to known events, I actually had trouble finding enough things I knew about. That’s why there are quite a few pieces of art and a number of books in there and much less political events.I have a sneaking suspicion this is actually going to get worse as I go back even further but I think matters will improve by the time I approach the roman empire.

17th Century

1618-1648 the 30-year war

1633 Trial of Galileo Galilei

1687 Sir Isaac Newton publishes the “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica

16th Century

1503 Leonardo Da Vinci begins the “Mona Lisa

1517 Start of the Reformation

1543 Copernicus published “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium” and Vesalius publishes “De humani corporis fabrics”, which start of the Scientific Revolution

1597 Shakespeare publishes “Romeo and Juliet

15th Century

1403 the Canary Islands are settled by the Spanish, starting off the Spanish empire

1439 Gutenberg invents moveable type printing

1486 The “Malleus Malleficarum” is published

1492 Christopher Columbus lands in America

6 comments:

  1. I really love this series! I'm learning loads - keep it coming!

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  2. Again you chose some great dates, I really enjoy this series so far! History nerd fact: Did you know that four of the dates you mentioned can be used when you want to define the ending of the middle ages? 1492 is the most famous one but many historians also use the invention of the moveable type printng, the reformation or the scientific revolution.

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    1. Really? In that case I might be lazy and just call it 1500? This does explain why history always seems a little fuzzy to me. To many opinions, not enough facts :D (just kidding)

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  3. Thank you for this series. It has so much information in it and you post dates I never knew.
    And if you want to keep the stress on art: A professor from my university once asked a friend, to name the 10 most important artists of all times. Of course this is a real subjective question but in the end he said: If you didn't ennumerate Dürer, something went terribly wrong. I don't know if I would have thought of him, either, but it made me think. So maybe you want to add him. ;-)

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    1. I read about Dürer while making the list but while I agree that he was very important, in my mind there isn't one iconic Dürer painting so I had trouble picking something. That's why I left him out. I do know though, that he was painting while Christopher Columbus found America, at about the same time that Da Vinci, during the protestant revolution but he was dead by the time the Scientific revolution kicked off. I find it easier to use him as the next level of detail rather than making him a cornerstone date.

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