Article 1: Changes in Europe

            Europe was way behind. When the black plague hit, it hit hard. Europe relied mostly on God to help them through tough times. Their sanitation was horrible and medical attention wasn’t good either. The more they tried the more deaths there were. People thought it was God punishing them for their evil ways. They prayed and prayed but nothing changed. It seemed like the end for Europe…this was a re-birth for Europe, this was the Renaissance! When Europeans read Greco-Roman literature they learned the concept of humanism, where everyone can control their own destiny. This sprung up a beautiful time in art and literature. People like Michelangelo, Shakespeare, and a Leonardo De Vinci made great contributions to this field. Humanism cost the church many followers but it was about to lose even more. Martin Luther a German monk was fed up with the Catholic Church and nailed the “95 thesis” to the door of a catholic church stating the main problems with Catholicism. Due to the printing press his “95 thesis” was distributed throughout Europe within a month. This was known as the Protestant Reformation. People broke away from the Catholic Church and became known as Protestants. At first they were persecuted in many horrible ways but then they started to gain power. Since they were losing a lot of people, the Catholic Church banned indulgences and required people to attend mass once a week. The council of Trent was in charge of the Catholic doctrine. Soon after religion conflict was dying down, the Scientific Revolution came which caused a whole new stir to religion. People wanted to make new discoveries. At a time people thought the earth was the center of the universe an idea created by Ptolemy in the 1500 CE which was approved by the church. The Scientific Revolution started when Nicholas Copernicus suggested that it wasn’t the center. In 1563 Galileo proved this true, this went against the church. They were upset and forced him to disagree but he refused so they confined him to his house for the rest of his life. Other scientists like Francis Bacon, Johannes Keppler and Sir Isaac Newton made important contributes to the Scientific Revolution. Many people became Deists, which were people who believed in God but he did nothing for humanity, because of the Revolution. Others became Atheists who believed in no God. The Commercial Revolution was when Europe and the colonies began to trade. This started the triangular trade. Then after this it led to the Colombian exchange. Europe saw goods it had never seen before. People started to work in trade so technology started increasing. Capitalism is when people were allowed to own and operate the mechanics of the economy without direction from the government. As people started getting into trade many people invested in merchants so they could get more money. This created the Joint Stock Company. One example of a Joint Stock Company is the British East India Company which controlled most of the Indian Ocean. When trading merchants would use Mercantilism, they got more money from exports than imports.