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.
