From the 16th to the 18th century, European civilization experienced great changes in its social structures , political and economic. A break from the Middle Ages began with the Scientific Revolution, when respected thinkers of the time began to explore new possibilities, such as the likelihood of a universe centered on the Sun instead of one centered on the Earth. The Enlightenment was an intellectual and cultural movement that emphasized the danger of unchecked authority and focused on the values ​​of law, reason, humanity, and religious tolerance. The French Revolution represented a broad wave of political changes and democratic ideas that spanned France, then all of Europe. The Industrial Revolution changed the way people lived and worked by introducing the steam engine, power looms, industrial sawmills, and steam threshing machines. The combination of all these revolutions triggered many profound changes in European society, starting with a new scientific view of the world and nature which led to intellectual and cultural movements which, in turn, caused political movements who overthrew old monarchies and established new democratic societies fueled by industrialization. .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The scientific revolution produced a new form of thinking. People began to look at the world through their experiences rather than through the dogmatic theories of the churches that the world was created by God. Change was slow at first and many notable thinkers of the time still believed that their work proved that God had created the world, such as Isaac Newton for example. Nicolaus Copernicus also believed in the creation of the Earth by God, but using mathematical calculations he came to the conclusion that the Earth is not the center of the Universe and is not stationary, but rotates on its own axis and around the Sun. Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, considered the greatest astronomers, also attempted to explain the discrepancies between the main theories of the Church through their own observations and calculations. Tycho suggested that the planets revolve around the sun and that the entire planetary system revolves around the Earth. After Tycho's death, his assistant, the young mathematician Johannes Kepler, used Tycho's observations and proposed his first law that the orbits of the planets are elliptical instead of round as Copernicus believed. With his second law, Kepler stated that the speed of planets depends on their distance from the sun, which helped English astronomer and physicist Isaac Newton develop his law of universal gravitation. Galileo Galilei built a telescope in 1609 and studied the night sky, observing Earth like features of the Moon, moons orbiting Jupiter, and sunspots. He published his work, which later earned him a trial before the Church and a lifetime of house arrest. "According to a story that began circulating shortly afterward, as he left the courthouse to be placed under house arrest, he stamped his foot and muttered defiantly, looking at the earth: Yet this move.” Francis Bacon and René Descartes established standards of practice and scientific evidence, and they sincerely believed in human thought. Physician, William Harvey contributed to science by observing living animalsdissected and experimenting on itself that blood circulates in our body through the veins, the heart and the arteries. Inventor and experimenter Robert Hooke brought the microscope into the laboratory and studied the structure of plants at the cellular level. Isaac Newton gave us the laws of motion, universal gravity, the reflecting telescope, optical theories and calculus. Advances in science led to the Age of Enlightenment, during which people began to think about social problems, good government, morality, and social order. At the beginning of the 18th century, England and France represented political and economic powers in Europe and the world. The population grew as cheaper food and fewer infectious diseases, the introduction of new crops from the Americas like corn and potatoes, manufacturing and trade flourished, while that transportation has been improved. “The result of all these developments was a European economy far more complex, more specialized, more integrated, more commercialized and more productive than anything the world had known before. Enlightenment thinkers focused on three major questions in society. : law and punishment, religious tolerance, and government administration, including taxes and economic policies. At the heart of the Age of Enlightenment, most thoughts revolved around the question of slavery. As colonial powers, “European slave traders sent at least a million Africans into slavery in the New World by the end of the 17th century, and at least six million in the 18th century. Control of the slave trade became fundamental to the politics of the great powers in Europe” (page 558, chapter 17). The issue of women's rights was also raised and many thinkers wrote and acted accordingly. Europe's leaders established a centralized government, raised taxes, trained paid military personnel, and imposed greater control over the Church. Enlightenment ideas also played a major role in the American Revolution, which led 13 colonies to proclaim their independence from Great Britain. While people sought equality and freedom, prosperity was not distributed equally and there were large differences between the rich and the poor. As the North American colonies boldly proclaimed their independence, the enlightened French also sought to change their political system. “The American Revolution of 1776 was a crisis in the British Empire, linked to a long series of conflicts between England and France for colonial control of North America. This led to a major crisis of the ancien regime in France. » The revolutionaries overthrew Louis XVI and established a democratic society. They eliminated the church tax on crops and removed many privileges granted to the nobility, such as hunting and purchasing offices, which severed ties with the last vestiges of feudalism. Their Declaration of the Rights of Man proclaimed the equality of all citizens before the law, freedom of speech, the natural right to property, security, liberty and resistance to oppression. Women took an active part in the revolution, became more organized and more publicly visible. The Industrial Revolution began when Scottish mechanic James Watt improved Thomas Newcomen's primitive steam engine. This improved steam engine was used in many areas of life. Transportation, agriculture and manufacturing have undergone a fundamental change. People had,.