Chronology of major events in modern world history

1. Renaissance

The Renaissance refers to a European ideological and cultural movement that occurred from the 14th to the 16th century and reflected the demands of the emerging bourgeoisie.

The concept of "Renaissance" had been used by Italian humanist writers and scholars from the 14th to 16th centuries. People at that time believed that literature and art had been highly prosperous in the classical era of Greece and Rome, but declined and disappeared during the "Dark Ages" of the Middle Ages. It was not until the 14th century that it was "reborn" and "revived", so it was called the "Renaissance."

The Renaissance first arose in Italian cities, and later spread to Western European countries. It reached its peak in the 16th century, ushering in a period of scientific and artistic revolution, opening the prelude to modern European history, and is considered to be the The boundary between medieval times and modern times. The Renaissance is one of the three major ideological emancipation movements in modern Western Europe (Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment).

After the 11th century, with the recovery and development of the economy, the rise of cities and the improvement of living standards, people gradually changed their previous pessimistic and despairing attitude towards real life and began to pursue the pleasures of secular life, and these The tendency is contrary to the teachings of Catholicism.

In Italy, where the urban economy was prosperous in the 14th century, resistance to Catholic culture first appeared. At that time, Italian citizens and secular intellectuals were extremely disgusted with the theocratic status of Catholicism and its hypocritical asceticism. On the other hand, because there was no mature cultural system to replace Catholic culture, they expressed their expression in the form of reviving ancient Greek and Roman culture. own cultural proposition.

Therefore, the Renaissance emphatically showed that the new culture took the classics as its teacher. It was not a simple classical revival. It was actually a bourgeois anti-feudal new cultural movement.

2. British Industrial Revolution

The British Industrial Revolution began in the 1760s, starting with the technological innovation of the cotton textile industry and centered on the improvement and widespread use of the Watt steam engine. The realization of mechanization of the machine manufacturing industry in the 1830s and 1840s was a sign of basic completion.

In the 17th century, the establishment of the British bourgeois regime promoted the further development of capitalism. British colonial expansion accumulated a large amount of capital for the development of capitalism, and the enclosure movement provided the basis for the development of capitalism. Labor force necessary for mass production.

In the mid-18th century, Britain became the largest capitalist colonial country in the world. The expansion of domestic and foreign markets put forward technical reform requirements for the factory handicraft industry. Therefore, the industrial revolution aimed at technological innovation first occurred in Britain. .

The main manifestation of the British Industrial Revolution is that large machine industry replaced handicraft industry, and machine factories replaced manual workshops. The occurrence of the revolution was not accidental. It was the inevitable result of the development of British social politics, economy, production technology and scientific research. It brought about major changes in the British social structure and production relations, and rapidly increased productivity.

This revolution took roughly a hundred years from its beginning to its completion. Its scope of influence not only extended to Western Europe and North America, promoting technological innovation in France, the United States, Germany and other countries, but also extended to In Eastern Europe and Asia, Russia and Japan also saw the climax of the Industrial Revolution, which marked the arrival of a new upsurge of world integration.

3. American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War (English: American Revolutionary War, 1775-1783), also known as the American Revolutionary War, was the 13th war between the British Empire and its North American A war between revolutionaries in the state colonies, and several other European powers.

This war began to fight against British economic policies, but later because France joined the war against Britain, the scope of the war expanded far beyond British North America.

Because Britain has always exploited the colonies, it has seriously hindered the economic development of the North American colonies. In order to resist British economic policies, the people of North America rose up to fight. Beginning with the gunfire in Lexington in April 1775, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence drafted by Thomas Jefferson on July 4, 1776, declaring the birth of the United States.

4. The French Revolution

The French Revolution (French: La Révolution fran?aise, English: The French Revolution), also known as the French Bourgeois Revolution, was launched on July 14, 1789. The revolution broke out in France, and the Bourbon dynasty and the monarchy under its rule, which had ruled France for centuries, collapsed within three years.

France experienced an epic transformation during this period: the past aristocratic and religious privileges were constantly under attack from liberal political organizations and people protesting on the streets, and the old concepts were gradually replaced by the new natural human rights. , separation of powers and other democratic ideas.

As for the end time of the French Revolution, there are many opinions among world historians, and it is difficult to achieve universal knowledge. In France, the Thermidor Coup is generally regarded as marking the end of the Revolution. The Thermidor Coup overthrew the radical centralized rule of the Jacobins.

On July 27, 1794, the citizen revolution in the French Revolution came to an end. In July 1830, the people of Paris launched the July Revolution and established the July Dynasty headed by Louis Philippe. Only then did the French Revolution come to an end.

A regime represented by the Thermidorians was established in the coup. French history has entered a period of safeguarding the achievements of the Revolution.

5. The First World War

The First World War (English: World War I, First World War or Great War, referred to as WWI or WW1), referred to as "World War I" ".

It was the widespread irreconcilable contradictions that arose when capitalist countries transitioned to their ultimate stage, imperialism, from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries. Colonies and semi-colonies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America were basically The division among the great powers was complete.

A world-class imperialist war broke out in order to redivide the world and compete for global hegemony against the backdrop of intensified contradictions between old and new colonialism, uneven economic development among imperialist countries, and unequal order divisions.

The war process was mainly a battle between the Allies and the Allies. The German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria belonged to the Allied Powers camp, while the British Empire, the Third French Republic, the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Italy, and the United States of America belonged to the Allied Powers camp. The war was one of the most destructive in European history.

About 65 million people participated in the war, more than 10 million people were killed, and 20 million people were injured. The war caused severe economic losses. ?

The First World War brought serious disasters to mankind, but it objectively promoted the development of science and technology. In World War I, various new weapons such as aircraft, poison gas, tanks, and long-range artillery were put into the war one after another, which was an important stage in the history of weapons development.

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