622 Beginning of Islam
731 Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, popularizes method of dating events from birth of Christ
732 Muslim forces halted in Europe by Charles Martel at Poitiers
781 Alcuin leads Carolingian renaissance, establishes study of seven liberal arts as basic medieval curriculum
800 Charlemagne crowned emperor of West
866 John Scotus Erigena’s De Divisione Naturae, synthesis of Christianity and Neoplatonism
1000 Most of Europe under Christian influence
1054 Schism declared between Western and Eastern Churches
1077 Anselm’s Meditation on the Reasonableness of Faith
1090 Roscellinus teaching nominalism
1095 First Crusade initiated by Urban II
1117 Abelard’s Sic et Non
1130 summa
1150 Rediscovery of Aristotle’s works begins in Latin West
1170 Founding of University of Paris
Intellectual centers developing at Oxford and Cambridge
Court of Eleanor of Aquitaine at Poitiers becomes center of troubador poetry and model of courtly life
1185 André le Chapelain’s Art of Courtly Love
1190 Joachim of Fiore fl., trinitarian philosophy of history
1194 Building of Chartres Cathedral begins
1209 Francis of Assisi founds Franciscan order
1210 Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival
Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan und Isolde
1215 Signing of Magna Carta
1216 Dominic founds Dominican order
1225 Birth of Thomas Aquinas
1245 Aquinas begins studies under Albertus Magnus in Paris
1247 Roger Bacon begins experimental research at Oxford
1260 Chartres Cathedral consecrated
1266 Siger of Brabant prominent at Paris
1266–73 Aquinas’s Summa Theologica
1274 Death of Aquinas
1280 Jean de Meun’s Roman de la Rose
1300–30 Spread of mysticism in Rhineland, Meister Eckhart fl.
1304 Birth of Petrarch
1305 Duns Scotus teaching at Paris
1309 Papacy moved to Avignon (“Babylonian captivity”)
1310–14 Dante’s La Divina Commedia
1319 Ockham teaching at Oxford
1323 Aquinas canonized
1330–50 Spread of Ockham’s thought (nominalism) at Oxford and Paris
1335 First public striking clock erected in Milan
1337 Hundred Years’ War begins between England and France
1340 Buridan rector at University of Paris
1341 Petrarch crowned poet laureate on the Capitoline in Rome
1347–51 Plague sweeps Europe (Black Death)
1353 Boccaccio’s Decameron
1377 Oresme’s Book on the Sky and the World defends theoretical possibility of moving Earth
1378 Great Schism, conflict between rival popes (until 1417)
1380 Wycliffe attacks Church abuses and orthodox doctrine
1400 Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
1404 Vergerio’s Concerning Liberal Studies, first humanist treatise on education
1415 Religious reformer Jan Hus burned at stake
1429 Joan of Arc leads French against English
Bruni’s History of Florence pioneers Renaissance historiography
1434 Accession to power of Cosimo de’Medici in Florence
1435 Alberti’s On Painting systematizes principles of perspective
1440 Nicholas of Cusa’s On Learned Ignorance
Valla’s On the True Good
1452 Birth of Leonardo da Vinci
1453 Fall of Constantinople to Ottoman Turks, end of Byzantine Empire
1455 Gutenberg Bible produced, start of printing revolution
1462 Ficino becomes head of Platonic Academy of Florence
1469 Accession of Lorenzo the Magnificent in Florence
1470 Ficino completes first Latin translation of Plato’s Dialogues
1473 Birth of Copernicus
1482 Ficino’s Theologica Phtonica
1483 Birth of Luther Leonardo’s Virgin of the Roch
1485 Botticelli’s Birth of Venus
1486 Pico’s Oration on the Dignity of Man
1492 Columbus reaches America
1497 Vasco da Gama reaches India
Copernicus studying in Italy, makes first astronomical observation
1498 Leonardo’s Last Supper
1504 Michelangelo’s David
1506 Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome begun under Bramante
1508 Erasmus’s Adagia
1508–11 Raphael’s School of Athens, Parnassus, Triumph of the Church
1508–12 Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling
1512–14 Copernicus’s Commentariolus, first outline of heliocentric theory
1513 Machiavelli’s The Prince
1513–14 Dürer’s Knight, Death and Devil, St. Jerome in His Study, Melencolia I
1516 Thomas More’s Utopia
Erasmus’s Latin translation of New Testament
1517 Luther posts Ninety-five Theses in Wittenburg
Beginning of Reformation
1519 Luther’s On Christian Liberty
1521 Luther’s excommunication and defiance of the imperial Diet at Worms
1524 Erasmus’s defense of freedom of will against Luther
1527 Paracelsus teaching at Basel
1528 Castiglione’s The Courtier
1530 Melanchthon’s Augsburg Confession of Lutheran Churches
1532 Rabelais’s Pantagruel
1534 Henry VIII issues Act of Supremacy rejecting papal control
Luther completes translation of Bible into German
1535 Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises
1536 Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion
1540 Society of Jesus founded by Loyola Rheticus’s Narrano Puma, first published work describing Copernican theory
1541 Michelangelo’s Last Judgment
1542 Establishment of Roman Inquisition
1543 Copernicus’s De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium
Vesalius’s On the Structure of the Human Body
1545–63 Council of Trent, start of Counter-Reformation
1550 Vasari’s Lives of the Artists
1554 Palestrina’s first book of masses
1564 Birth of Galileo, Shakespeare
1567 Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross promote Carmelite reform
1572 Tycho Brahe observes supernova
1580 Montaigne’s Essays
1582 Gregorian calendar reform instituted
1584 Bruno’s On the Infinite Universe and Worlds
1590 Shakespeare’s Henry VI
1596 Birth of Descartes
Kepler’s Mysterium Cosmographicum
Spenser’s Faerie Queene
1597 Bacon’s Essays
1600 Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Giordano Bruno executed for heresy by Inquisition
Gilbert’s On the Magnet
1602 Kepler’s On the More Certain Fundamentals of Astrology
1605 Bacon’s Advancement of Learning
Cervantes’s Don Quixote
1607 Monteverdi’s Orfeo
1609 Kepler’s Astronomia Nova, first two laws of planetary motion
1610 Galileo announces telescopic discoveries in Sidereus Nuncius
1611 King James translation of Bible into English
Shakespeare’s The Tempest
1616 Catholic Church declares Copernican theory “false and erroneous”
1618–48 Thirty Years’ War
1619 Kepler’s Harmonia Mundi, third law of planetary motion Descartes’s revelatory vision of a new science
1620 Bacon’s Novum Organum
1623 Galileo’s Assayer
Boehme’s Mysterium Magnum
1628 Harvey’s On the Movement of the Heart and Blood in
Animals
1632 Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
1633 Galileo condemned by Inquisition
1635 Founding of Académie Française
1636 Founding of Harvard College
1637 Descartes’s Discourse on Method
Corneille’s Le Cid
1638 Galileo’s Two New Sciences
1640 Jansen’s Augustinus, beginning of Jansenism in France
1642–48 English Civil War
1644 Descartes’s Principia Philosophiae
Milton’s Areopagitica
1647 Lilly’s Christian Astrology
1648 Peace of Westphalia ending Thirty Years’ War
1651 Hobbes’s Leviathan
1660 Founding of Royal Society
Boyle’s New Experiments Physico-Mechanical
1664 Molière’s Tartuffe
1665–66 Newton makes early scientific discoveries and develops calculus
1666 Hooke demonstrates mechanical theory of planetary motion Founding of Académie des Sciences
1667 Milton’s Paradise Lost
1670 Pascal’s Pensées
1675 Spread of Evangelical Pietism in Germany
1677 Spinoza’s Ethica
Racine’s Phaedra
Leeuwenhoek’s discovery of microscopic organisms
1678 Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress
Simon’s Critical History of the Old Testament pioneers textual criticism of Bible
Huygens proposes wave theory of light
1687 Newton’s Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis
Quarrel of ancients and moderns begins at Académie Française
1688–89 Glorious Revolution in England
1690 Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Two Treatises of Civil Government
1697 Bayle’s Dictionnaire Historique et Critique
1704 Newton’s Opticks
1710 Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge
1714 Leibniz’s Monadology
1719 Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe
1721 Montesquieu’s Persian Letters
1724 Bach’s Passion According to Saint John
1725 Vico’s Scienza Nuova
1726 Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels
1734 Voltaire’s Lettres Philosophiques
Pope’s Essay on Man
Jonathan Edwards fl., beginning of Great Awakening in American colonies
1735 Linnaeus’s Systerna Naturae
1738 Wesley begins Methodist revival in England
1740 Richardson’s Pamela
1741 Handel’s Messiah
1747 La Mettrie’s L’Homme-Machine
1748 Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws
1749 Birth of Goethe
Fielding’s Tom Jones
1750 Rousseau’s Discours sur les Sciences et les Arts
1751 Encyclopédie begins publication under Diderot and d’Alembert Franklin’s Experiments and Observations on Electricity
1755 Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language
1756 Voltaire’s Essay on the Manners and Customs of Nations
1759 Sterne’s Tristram Shandy
Voltaire’s Candide
1762 Rousseau’s Emile, Social Contract
1764 Winckelmann’s History of the Art of Antiquity reawakens European appreciation for classical Greek art and culture
1769–70 Birth of Beethoven, Hegel, Napoleon, Hölderlin, Wordsworth
1770 Holbach’s Système de la Nature
1771 Swedenborg’s True Christian Religion
1774 Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther
1775 American Revolution begins
1776 Jefferson et al. draft Declaration of Independence
Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations
Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
1778 Buffon’s Époques de la Nature
1779 Hume’s Dialogue Concerning Natural Religion
1780 Lessing’s Education of the Human Race
1781 Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
Herschel discovers Uranus, first new planet since antiquity
1784 Herder’s Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind
1787 Mozart’s Don Giovanni
1787–88 The Federalist Papers by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay
1788 Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason
Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony
1789 French Revolution begins
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen
Blake’s Songs of Innocence
Lavoisier’s Elementary Treatise on Chemistry
Bentham’s Principles of Morality and Legislation
1790 Goethe’s Metamorphosis of Plants
Kant’s Critique of Judgment
Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France
1792 Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman
1793 Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell
1795 Schiller’s Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Mankind
Condorcet’s Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind
Hutton’s Theory of the Earth
1796 Laplace’s Exposition du Système du Monde
1797 Hölderlin’s Hyperion
1798 Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads
Schlegel brothers begin Romantic periodical Athenaeum
Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population
1799 Napoleon becomes first consul in France
Schleiermacher’s On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers
1800 Fichte’s The Vocation of Man
Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism
1802 Novalis’s Heinrich von Ofterdingen
1803 Dalton proposes atomic theory of matter
1803–4 Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony
1807 Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind
Wordsworth’s Ode: Intimations of Immortality
1808 Goethe’s Faust I
1809 Lamarck’s Philosophie Zoologique
1810 De Staël’s De l’Allemagne (On Germany)
1813 Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
1814 Scott’s Waverley
1815 Waterloo, Congress of Vienna
1817 Keats’s Poems
Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria
Ricardo’s Principles of Political Economy and Taxation
Hegel’s Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences
1819 Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Idea
1820 Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound
1822 Stendhal’s De l’Amour
Fourier’s The Analytical Theory of Heat
1824 Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
Byron’s Don Juan
Gauss postulates non-Euclidean geometry
1829 Balzac begins La Comédie Humaine
1830 Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le Noir
Comte’s Cours de Philosophie Positive
Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique
1831 Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin
Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris, Les Feuilles d’Automne
Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction
Darwin begins five-year voyage on Beagle
1832 Goethe’s Faust II
George Sand’s Indiana
1833 Lyell’s Principles of Geology
Emerson travels to Europe, meets Coleridge and Carlyle
1834 Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus
1835 Strauss’s Life of Jesus Critically Examined
Tocqueville’s Democracy in America
Babbage formulates idea of digital computing machine
1836 Emerson’s Nature initiates Transcendentalism
1837 Emerson’s “American Scholar” address Dickens’s Pickwick Papers
1841 Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity
1843 Kierkegaard’s Either/Or, Fear and Trembling
Mill’s Syst
em of Logic
Ruskin’s Modern Painters
1844 Birth of Nietzsche
Emerson’s Essays
1845 Fuller’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century
Poe’s Tales
Marx and Engels’s Die Heilige Familie
1848 Marx and Engels’s Communist Manifesto
Revolutions erupt throughout Europe
Women’s suffrage movement begins in United States
1850 Clausius formulates concept of entropy, second law of thermodynamics
Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter
1851 Melville’s Moby Dick
Great Exhibition in London
1854 Thoreau’s Walden
1855 Whitman’s Leaves of Grass
1857 Flaubert’s Madame Bovary
Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal
1858 Darwin and Wallace propose theory of natural selection
1859 Darwin’s Origin of Species
Mill’s On Liberty
Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde
1860 Burckhardt’s Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
Oxford debate on evolution between Wilberforce and Huxley
1861 Bachofen’s Mother Right
1861–65 American Civil War
1862 Hugo’s Les Misérables
1863 Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
1865 Mendel proposes theory of genetic inheritance
1866 Haeckel’s General Morphology of Organisms
Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment
1867 Marx’s Das Kapital
1869 Tolstoy’s War and Peace
Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy
1871 Darwin’s The Descent of Man
1872 Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy
Monet’s Impression: Sunrise
G. Eliot’s Middlemarch
1873 Maxwell’s Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism
1875 Blavatsky founds Theosophical Society
1877 Peirce publishes first articles on pragmatism
1878 Wundt founds first laboratory for experimental psychology
1879 Edison invents electric carbon-filament light
Frege’s Begriffschrift initiates modern logic
Ibsen’s A Doll’s House
1880 Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov
1881 Ranke’s Universal History
1883 Dilthey’s Introduction to Human Sciences
1883–84 Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra
1884 Twain’s Huckleberry Finn
1886 Rimbaud’s Illuminations
Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil
Mach’s The Analysis of Sensations
1887 Michelson-Morley experiment
1889 Van Gogh’s Starry Night
1890 William James’s Principles of Psychology
Frazer’s The Golden Bough
1893 Bradley’s Appearance and Reality
1894 Steiner’s Philosophy of Freedom
Passion of the Western Mind Page 59