Between the 16th and 18th centuries, European civilization experienced great changes in its social, political and economic structures. A break from the Middle Ages began during 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 rather than 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 change and democratic ideas that swept through France and, subsequently, all of Europe. The Industrial Revolution changed the way people lived and worked by introducing the steam engine, power looms, industrial sawmills, and steam threshers. The combination of all these revolutions triggered many profound changes in European society, starting from a new scientific vision of the world and nature that led to intellectual and cultural movements that in turn caused political movements that overthrew the old monarchies by establishing new democratic societies fueled by industrialization. .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an 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 Churches' dogmatic theories that the world was created by God. Changes were slow at first, and many leading thinkers of the time still believed that their work demonstrated that God had created the world, such as Isaac Newton. Nicholas 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 that it is not stationary, but rotates around its own axis and around the Sun. Also Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, considered the greatest astronomers, tried to explain the discrepancies in the main theories of the church through their own observations and calculations. Tycho suggested that the planets orbit the sun and the entire planetary system orbits the Earth. After Tycho's death, his assistant, the young mathematician Johannes Kepler, used Tycho's observations and formulated his First Law that the orbits of the planets are elliptical rather than round as Copernicus believed. With his Second Law, Kepler stated that the speed of planets depends on their distance from the sun, which helped the 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 terrestrial features of the Moon, moons orbiting Jupiter, and sunspots. He published his work, which later earned him a prosecution by the church and house arrest for life. “According to a story that began to circulate shortly thereafter, as he left the house arrest court he stamped his feet and muttered defiantly, looking at the earth: Yet it moves.” Francis Bacon and René Descartes established standards of scientific practice and evidence and were true believers in human thought. Doctor William Harvey contributed to science by observing live dissected animals and experienced on himself that blood circulates in our body through veins, heart and arteries. Inventor and experimenter Robert Hooke introduced the microscope into the laboratory and studied the structure of plants at the cellular level. IsaacNewton gave us the laws of motion, universal gravity, the reflecting telescope, optical theories, and calculus. The advancement of science led to the era of Enlightenment where people began to think about social problems, good governance, morality, and social order. At the beginning of the 18th century, both England and France represented political and economic powers in Europe and the world. The population grew due to cheaper food and less infectious diseases, the introduction of new crops from the Americas such as corn and potatoes, manufacturing and trade prospered, while transportation was improved. “The result of all these developments was a European economy far more complex, more specialized, more integrated, more marketed and more productive than anything the world had seen before. Enlightenment thinkers focused on three major issues of society: law and punishment, religious tolerance, and government administration including taxes and economic policies. At the heart of the Enlightenment most thinking revolved around the issue of slavery. As colonial powers, “European slave traders sent at least 1 million Africans into slavery in the New World in the late 17th century, and at least 6 million in the 18th century. Control of the slave trade became central to great power politics in Europe” (page 558, chapter 17). The issue of women's rights was also raised and many thinkers wrote and acted upon it. The rulers of Europe were implementing centralized government, raising taxes, training paid militaries, and imposing greater control over the Church. Enlightenment ideas also played an important 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 rich and poor. While the North American colonies boldly proclaimed independence, the enlightened French people also sought changes in their political system. “The American Revolution of 1776 was a crisis of the British Empire, linked to a long series of conflicts between England and France for colonial control of North America. This led to a serious crisis of the old regime in France." The revolutionaries overthrew Louis XVI and established a democratic society. They eliminated the ecclesiastical harvest tax and cut many privileges for the nobility such as hunting and purchasing offices, which severed ties with the last remnants of feudalism. Their Declaration of Human Rights affirmed the equality of all citizens before the law, freedom of speech, 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 found use in many areas of life. Transportation, agriculture and manufacturing have undergone fundamental change. People now had machines working for them, which increased the amount of goods that could be produced. New resources were more used such as coal and iron. Cities became more populated and urbanized, and new social classes such as the middle and working classes emerged, along with new social inequalities. Cities became overpopulated, factories began to employ women and children, and environmental pollution was a fact. “Across England, air pollution has had a huge impact,.