home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- HUMANITIES II - Western Humanities from 1400-1900 AD
-
- This is a brief test of the major accomplishments, and developments of the
- Italian Renaissance (1375-1500), The northern reformation and expansion
- (1430-1600), The age of genius (1475-1600), The new synthesis of the the
- seventeenth century, The decline of the aristocracy (1700-1798), and of
- course the romantic temper (1789-1848).
-
- This is not a complete test of all possible questions you may encounter in
- a Humanities II class, but rather a small sample of the most likely questions
- (based on this authors opinion) that you may be confronted with in a final
- exam of this subject. A brief chronology of major events follows.
-
- CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS:
-
- 1401 - Brunelleschi and Ghiberti entered a competition for the commision to
- make the relief sculptures for the doors of the Florence Cathedral
- baptistry.
- 1418 - Brunelleschi begins the dome of Florence Cathedral.
- 1452 - Ghiberti completes the "Gates of Paradise"
- 1453 - The fall of Constantinople to the Turks. Estern Christian Empire was
- lost.
- 1469 - Beginning of the rule of Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence. Period of
- high cultural activity.
- 1471 - Birth of Albrecht Durer, German engraver and painter.
- 1475 - Invention of printing with movable type by Johannes Gutenberg.
- 1485 - Beginning Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" and Leonardo da Vinci's "Last
- Supper"
- 1494 - Charles III of France invades Italy, beginning of modern military
- diplomacy.
- 1498 - Savonarola, the great "revivalist" preacher, executed in Florence. End
- of a period of intense religious enthusiasm.
- 1509 - Desiderius Erasmus' satire on religion and politics "The Praise of
- Folly". Raphael's "School of Athens"
- 1512 - Michelangelo finishes the Sistine ceiling.
- 1515 - Machiavelli's treatise "The Prince", advice to rulers on how to keep
- power. This secular handbook showed some of the limits of humanism.
- 1517 - Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the church
- at Wittenberg, thus beginnings the Protestant religious reform.
- 1527 - The sack of Rome by Charles V of France.
- 1534 - Jesuit order established by Ignatius of Loyola, the Church of England
- established by Henry VIII. Protestantism spreads in northern Europe.
- 1545 - The Council of Trent reacts to the spread of Protestantism, begins
- the Counterreformation.
- 1552 - Last of the first four books of "Gargantua and Pantagruel" published
- a year before Rabelais's death.
- 1564 - Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespere, and Galileo Galilei born.
- 1572 - Saint Batholomew's Day massacre. A mob-action "religious war" centering
- Paris, persecuting Protestant Huguenots.
- 1580 - Michel de Montaigne's "Essays"
- 1588 - England defeats the Spanish armada, securing itself for Protestantism
- and signaling its ambition for conquest in the new world.
- 1596 - (Approx) Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
- 1601 - (Approx) Shakespeare's Hamlet.
- 1641 - 1649. English civil wars which end with the beheading of Charles I.
- 1643 - 1715. Reign of Louis XIV. The growth of a French court distant from the
- populace. A monarch who has nearly absolute power.
- 1648 - French Royal Academy founded. Supports, but also governs the arts.
- 1660 - Commonwealth rule ends in England. Charles II returns from the
- continent to rule. Parliament has close control of government.
- 1661 - 1682 Building of Versailles in France. Was a symbol of the remoteness
- and indiference of the French government.
- 1688 - Bloodless revolution in England. James II flees, William of Orange is
- king.
- 1689 - English Bill of Rights.
- 1789 - Beginning of the French Revolution. The fall of the Bastille in Paris
- (July 14). The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (Aug 27).
- 1792 - France declares war on Austria.
- 1793 - Louis XVI is executed. France declares war on Great Britain.
- 1789 - Wadsworth and Coleridge publish "Lyrical Ballads"
- 1803 - 1805. Beethoven composes "Fidelio".
- 1804 - Napoleon crowns himself emperor.
- 1814 - Napoleon returns from Elba and is defeated at Waterloo. He is banished
- to Saint Helena.
- 1821 - 1822. Greek war of independence from the Turks.
- 1832 - Important social and labor reforms in England. Goethe publishes "Faust"
- Part 2.
- 1839 - Daguerre demonstrates photography in Paris. The painter Paul Delaroche
- says, "From today painting is dead."
- 1848 - Marx publishes "The Communist Manifesto."
- 1851 - Great London Exposition. Crystal Palace is built.
- 1853 - 1857. The Crimean war. England and France against Russia.
- 1853 - 1874. Wagner composes "The Ring of the Nibelung."
- 1859 - Darwin publishes "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural
- Selection."
- 1860 - 1870. Italy is unified.
- 1866 - Alfred Nobel invents dynamite.
- 1876 - Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone.
- 1877 - Thomas Edison patents the phonograph.
- 1879 - Edison invents the first practical light bulb.
- 1895 - Marconi develps the telegraph.
- 1898 - The Curies discover radium and radioactivity.
-