Literacy; Communication; Education - AP European History

Sigmund Freud pioneered a new school of psychological interpretation called psychoanalysis. It allowed for the rigorous study, classification, and treatment of psychological disorders. Freud believed that there were many conscious and unconscious associations between dreams and the inner workings of a persons mind, and relied heavily on dream interpretation during his clinical work.

The Gutenberg printing press introduced movable type and made it possible to mass-produce books that were previously scribed by hand and therefore took a very long time to reproduce. The greatly increased availability of books contributed to a large increase of the number of people who learned to read.

The Enlightenment was a political and philosophical movement in the 1700's, centered on the belief in universal human rights that helped inspire democratic reforms in government and the American and French Revolutions.

The Glorious Revolution was the bloodless overthrow of England's King James II in 1688.

Dr. Theodor Geisel wrote children's books and is better known by his pen-name, Dr. Seuss.

During the Middle Ages (500-1350 CE), scientific knowledge did not evolve very much. Scholars studied the works of the old scientific thinkers, and accepted their findings as true without question. They began to ask questions and do experiments and found that the results did not always match up to the old accepted theories. This led to an explosion in scientific innovation and methodology which resulted in inventions and discoveries like the telescope, the barometer, the thermometer, the microscope and the scientific revolution. Scientific inquiry, observation and experimentation as we know it today was pioneered by the leaders of the scientific revolution- Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, Nicolas Copernicus, Rene Descartes, Galileo and others.

The story of David and Goliath was a well known story which was often the subject of paintings and sculptures at the time. However, usually the artist depicted David victorious after battle or valiantly fighting during it. Everyone was shocked when Michelangelo chose to David all alone, looking confident and contemplative in the moments before the battle. His weapon, the sling shot, is not prominent in the sculpture, it is slung over his shoulder almost out of view as if to emphasize that this hero’s strength lay in his intellect and ingenuity not brute strength.

James Watt did not invent the telegraph; that honor belongs to Samuel Morse, who also developed Morse Code. James Watt did, however, invent the first reliably functioning and efficient steam engine.

Miguel Cervantes wrote the (arguably) most famous piece of Spanish literature, Don Quixote, in the early seventeenth century. Cervantes' influence on the Spanish language can be compared to that of Shakespeare on the English language—modern-day Spanish would be near-unrecognizable without his impact.

In the late fifteenth century, Italian scholars developed a new form of education that they branded "humanism," which quickly spread across all of Europe and helped ignite both the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation. The start of humanism began with the rediscovery of Latin and Greek texts, which prompted new ideas and focuses, including a Christian neoplatonism, a focus on the individual, and a challenge to traditional religion.

Under the Spanish system of Encomienda, Spanish colonial administrators were granted by the Spanish crown specific percentages of the native population of their territory to work in slave-like conditions. In exchange, the Spanish colonial administrators were expected to educate the overworked and suffering native people in the Christian faith.

Adolf Hitler wrote the manifesto, Mein Kampf, or "My Struggle," in which he outlined his political ideology and vision for Germany. The second of two volumes was published in 1926.

Scottish economist Adam Smith advocated private enterprise, free trade, and lassiez-faire economics in his classic work popularly known as The Wealth of Nations (1776).

The Reformer Martin Luther was not the first person to try and create a Bible in a vernacular language instead of the Latin Vulgate used by the Catholic Church. Luther's translation was more successful, though, because he had the advantage of having printing presses that could produce more and more versions for easier access by parishioners. The German in Luther's Bible was a regional Saxon dialect, but over time Luther's Bible translation helped standardize modern German.

Cyrus Field was an American inventor and businessman who, along with other financiers and pioneers, founded the Atlantic Telegraph Company. In 1858, they laid the first transatlantic telegraph cable that connected Great Britain with North America.

Leonardo Bruni was a Florentine politician and historian who lived in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. He is most notable for producing a historical account of the development of Florence, one of the most famous historical works of the Early Modern period. Bruni's history of Florence was notable, and fairly unique for the time, because it was a secular history. He employed narrative structure and presented his historical analysis in a way that would still be familiar to readers today.

Dante was an Italian writer and poet who lived in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. His most famous works The Divine Comedy and The Inferno, were written in vernacular Italian rather than Latin. To write in vernacular Italian was innovative for the time period, and helped to lay the foundations for the modern Italian language.

The printing press had already been invented in China some centuries earlier by the time Gutenberg began to popularize it in the fifteenth century. His addition of movable type allowed books to be produced far more efficiently. Gutenberg's innovations caused a literary revolution in European society. Books began to be published in vernacular languages, and many more people suddenly had access to information and education. Ideas could be spread around the continent more quickly than ever, which would contribute to the success of the Protestant Reformation.

Erasmus is the most well-known of the Northern Christian humanists. He lived in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries and wrote extensively on the gradual reform of society and the importance of peace and reason. He was a devout Catholic, but also unafraid to be sharp in his criticism of the church. His most famous book In Praise of Folly is a criticism of many of the excesses of the church. His second most famous work Handbook of a Christian Knight was written as an educational manual for humanist Christians, advising them how to live practically and successfully as pious humanists.

The scientific revolution began in the sixteenth century and really took off in the seventeenth century. Across Western and Central Europe, the age of religion was coming to an end, and the age of rationalism and skepticism was on the rise. The French Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London were both established in the seventeenth century in order to promote scientific research, inquiry, and understanding.

Johannes Müller, usually referred to by his Latin name Regiomontanus, was a mathematician and astronomer in the fifteenth century. His work trying to situate the positions of various “heavenly bodies” relative to Earth was instrumental in the greater understanding of mathematics and astronomy that would emerge during and after the Copernican Revolution.

All of these men (particularly Chaucer, who lived in the fourteenth century) could lay claim to having dramatically influenced the direction of the modern English language; however, only one option from this list lived in the sixteenth century, and that was William Shakespeare. Shakespeare is widely considered the greatest writer in the history of the English language and often called the greatest writer of any language (although this is of course wildly subjective). He lived in the Elizabethan era and wrote plays, poems, and sonnets in vernacular English. Of particular note was his massive contribution of original words and phrases to vernacular English.