History

World History 1500 to Present

Heroes of the Reformation, led by Martin Luther (Library of Congress)

1. Emergence of the First Global Age (1500–1770)

During this era Europeans came to exert greater influence in the world than any single people had ever done, even while its societies underwent rapid political, social, technological, economic, and intellectual transformations through the Reformation, Scientific Revolution, and Enlightenment. This era also saw the advent of capitalism, the arrival of European explorers and colonists in the New World, and the domination of huge empires in Eurasia and northern Africa.

Documents

• Desiderius Erasmus: The Praise of Folly (1509)
• Niccolò Machiavelli: The Prince (1513)
• Requerimiento (1513)
• Martin Luther: Ninety-five Theses (1517)
• Hernán Cortés: Second Letter to Charles V (1520)
• The Key of Solomon the King (ca 1525)
• Nzinga Mbemba's Appeal to the King of Portugal (1526)
• Hernando Pizarro: Letter to the Royal Audience of Santo Domingo (ca. 1533)
• John Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
• Pope Paul III: Sublimus dei (1537)
• Paracelsus: Concerning the Nature of Things (1537)
• Rig Veda Americanus (ca. 1540–1585)
• New Laws of the Indies (1542)
• Nicolaus Copernicus: On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres (1543)
• Bartolomé de las Casas: A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1552)
• Lope de Aguirre: Letter to King Philip of Spain (1561)
• Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (1564)
• The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus (1565)
• Shulchan Arukh (ca. 1570)
• Bernal Díaz: The True History of the Conquest of New Spain (ca. 1576)
• Dutch Declaration of Independence (1581)
• James I: Speech on the Divine Right of Kings (1609)
• Fama Fraternitatis (ca. 1610)
• Galileo Galilei: Starry Messenger (1610)
• Matteo Ricci: “Religious Sects among the Chinese” (1615)
• Japanese Laws Governing Military Households (1615)
• Letter of Cardinal Bellarmine to Paolo Antonio Foscarini concerning Galileo's Theories (1615)
• Japan's Closed Country Edict (1635)
• René Descartes: Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason (ca. 1637)
• Westminster Confession (1646)
• Treaty of Westphalia (1648)
• Charles I: Speech on the Scaffold (1649)
• Great Muscovite Law Code (1649)
• Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan (1651)
• Oliver Cromwell: Speech at the Opening of the Protectorate Parliament (1654)
• Blaise Pascal: Pensées (1660)
• Antônio Vieira: “Children of God’s Fire” (ca. 1660)
• Habeas Corpus Act of the Restoration (1679)
• Louis XIV: Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685)
• English Bill of Rights (1689)
• John Locke: Second Treatise on Civil Government (1690)
• Juana Inés de la Cruz: “The Poet’s Answer to Sor Filotea De La Cruz” (1691)
• Mahanirvana Tantra (ca. 1700–1800)
• Hakuin Ekaku: “Song of Meditation” (ca. 1718)
• “Manslaughter over an Outhouse” (1722)
• Ba’al Shem Tov: “The Holy Epistle” (1752)
• Jean Jacques Rousseau: The Social Contract (1762)
• Proclamation of 1763 (1763)
• Voltaire: Philosophical Dictionary (1764)
• The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (1764)
• Catherine II of Russia: The Grand Instructions to the Commissioners (1767)
• Kitab al-jilwah (ca. 1850)