Hernan Cortes (1485-1547) – a Spanish conquistador, conqueror of the Aztec Empire. In 1504, Cortes left Spain on the ship "Quintero". In the next 15 years, he fought in the Antilles with the natives. In 1511, together with a prominent Spanish commander D. Velasquez participated in the capture of the island of Cuba. Velasquez became governor, and his favorite Cortes – Secretary. In 1519, a military expedition under the command of Cortes was organized. He entered the capital of the Aztec empire Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City) and captured Montezuma – leader of the Aztecs; long time was governor of Mexico. In 1541, he took part in a military campaign in North Africa. There, he failed. Cortes was almost killed in a shipwreck. He died on December 2, 1547, in the estate of Castilla de la Cuesta near Seville.
B - Protestant Reformation
The Reformation was a social movement that gripped petty urban bourgeoisie and broad circles of the peasantry directed against all kinds of feudal exploitation. The main cause of the Reformation was the economic oppression of the ruling classes. In addition, the large role played also the decomposition of the Catholic Church, which turned religion into a set of lifeless formalities and ceremonies. A powerful impetus to the beginning of the Reformation made the great discoveries of XIV and XV centuries, which expanded the mental horizons and contributed to the development of the bourgeoisie’s critical thinking. Reform Movement was started by Martin Luther in 1520. The external result of the Reformation was a new Christian doctrine - Protestantism in both its forms: the Lutheran and Reformed Church.
C - Olaudah Equiano
Olaudah Equiano (1745 - 1797) - British writer and abolitionist of African descent. Born in Guinea, as a child was kidnapped and sold into slavery by the white people. After many years of slavery, he gained his freedom and settled in London, accepted Christianity under the name of Gustavus Vassa. In 1789, he published his autobiography «The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African». In it, he sharply criticized slavery and racism of white slave owners. In his opinion, skin color does not determine the spiritual and moral abilities of people, thus, Equiano called the white Christians to help their black brothers. At the same time, he criticized the whites for their dismissive attitude toward blacks and greed, which caused them to engage in the slave trade.
D - Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642) - the philosopher, astronomer, physicist, inventor, designer. Born on February 15, 1564, in Pisa. He studied at the University of Pisa, he taught at the Universities of Bologna, Pisa, and Padua. It was one of the most productive periods for the scientist. In his work "Mechanics", Galileo described his study of falling bodies, the pendulum, put forward new principles of movement, in contrast to Aristotle's dynamics. Due to his passion for astronomy, Galileo proved the truth of the heliocentric model of the universe structure. Then he constructed a telescope himself. Galileo's view of the structure of the world was contrary to the Holy Scripture. Advocating the teachings of Copernicus, he felt under the court of the Inquisition, where he was forced to say the text of the abdication.
E - Toussaint L’Ouverture
François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture (1743 - 1803) – was a Haitian statesman, leader of the Negro liberation movement. Toussaint Louverture was born in a slave family, was the coachman, then the administrator of the estate; in 1776, he gained his freedom. In 1791, he joined the uprising of black slaves against the French colonialists and headed one of the rebel groups. Toussaint Louverture was promoted to the General of the French army and became (in 1797) a commander of the armed forces of San Domingo. In 1798, he drove the British occupation troops from the island. In January 1801, Toussaint Louverture declared the abolition of slavery throughout the island, which actually has acquired independence already, and since July has become its life-long ruler.
1) In the late Middle Age, European representation of the world picture was extremely imperfect. In the 15th century, such countries as Spain and Portugal launched the Age of Discovery. In 1487 ships of the Portuguese Bartolomeu Dias reached the southern tip of the African continent. In 1498 three ships of Vasco da Gama arrived at the one of the richest Indian port of Calicut. However, the most significant were the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492. In 1495, the king and queen of Spain issued a decree that allowed expeditions to the New World.
In the beginning, Spaniards occupied islands, and built fortresses and settlements for immigrants from Spain, created plantations of a sugar cane, and spices. However, since 1510 began a new phase of conquest (“Spanish Colonization”). In 1519, a Spanish Hidalgo Hernan Cortes went to the conquest of the Aztec state. Bows and spears of the Aztecs couldn't resist to guns of Spaniards. In 1532, Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca state. Europeans seized vast areas of North and South America, unfortunately, these captures were connected with mass, and on the Antilles general, destruction of the indigenous Indian population. Spaniards forced Indian to work in mines, and Catholic priests violently converted them to Christianity. Those who did not want to renounce the faith of their ancestors were tortured and burned alive. Indians increasingly died from overwork, starvation, and new diseases.
4) The Renaissance is a period in European culture that began in the second half of the thirteenth century and ended in the early seventeenth century. It originated in Italy and spread to central and Western Europe. Economically, the Renaissance was the dawn of capitalism, and with the sociological point of view, it became an era of awakening of people that didn't realize the limits of their capabilities. As well as humanistic worldview, fully developed person, a man, instead of God, at the center of the ideology humanists were the main characteristic features of Renaissance culture.
Francois-Marie Voltaire was a classic philosopher of French enlightenment. The struggle against the Church, religious intolerance and fanaticism can be traced throughout the entire philosophical work of Voltaire. Voltaire substantiates the idea of human equality. He believed that the social and material equality is a condition for social equilibrium and the normal development of society. Another Renaissance philosopher Kant made a radical change in the formulation and solution of philosophical problems. In the philosophy of the Renaissance, the central part of his philosophical system was the doctrine of love and relations between the sexes, which corresponds to his skeptical view of the outside world. In his work “The Metaphysics of morals” he considers the phenomenon of love from an ethical point of view. However, the basic principles of the idea of equality were not formulated during the Renaissance, since at that time the society was overcoming the intellectual heritage of Christian ethics. However Englishwoman Mary Wollstonecraft, in her treatise “Protecting the rights of women” consider questions related to the fate of the woman, how a woman differs from a man, how motherhood affected to the role of women and is it true that women are stupider than men (“Mary Wollstonecraft”). Summarizing it should be noted that the architecture, literature, art and philosophy of Enlighten embodied new humanistic ideals of that time.
Works Cited
“Mary Wollstonecraft”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Substantive
revision September 17, 2013. Web. 12 May 2016 at <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wollstonecraft/ >
“Spanish Colonization”. Digital History, University of Houston. Web. Accessed 12 May
2016 at <http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3573>
