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 New Scientific Method | Skepticism, rationalism and empiricism create new grounds for knowledge |
| Enlightenment Knowledge Media | Organizing the collection and circulation of information through scientific societies, encyclopedias, and scholarly communities |
| Capitalism | Social institutions are reconfigured around capitalistic economies |
| Testing Democracy | Political institutions are reconceived according to implicit social agreements |
| 1660 - The Royal Society of London is founded | The earliest scientific society based upon experimental knowledge, growing out of the "Invisible College" |
| 1776 and 1789 - The American and French Revolutions | Power to the people succeeds and fails |
| Francis Bacon (late 16th) | Philosopher who reestablished scientific inquiry on the basis of empirical observation and inductive reasoning |
| Rene Descartes (early 17th) | Philosopher and mathematician who pioneered rational methods and analytic geometry |
| John Locke (late 17th) | Political philosopher and empiricist who deeply influenced modern democracies |
| Denis Diderot (mid 18th) | Philosopher, encyclopedist, satirist |
| Adam Smith (late 18th) | Economic philosopher, author of The Wealth of Nations and the concepts of labor specialization and "the invisible hand" |
| The Industrial Revolution | Britain innovates mass production of textiles using machines, new energy sources (coal, steam), factories, cheap and urbanized labor, and capital. Technology and transportation (trains, canals) made possible industrial commerce across Europe. |
| Socialism | Socialist philosophies manifest themselves in utopian social experiments in Europe and America, in the rise of labor unions, and through the Marxist call to laborers for social revolution. |
| The Middle Class and the Family | Urbanization and industrialization create a middle class with disposable income and evolving social connections. New attitudes about women, marriage, children, education and morality emerge among that class. |
| Romanticism | Artistic movement emerging from Germany emphasizing appreciation of nature, creativity, individualism, imagination, and beauty (as a response to Enlightenment rationalism and intellectualism). Romanticism idealized the past, reinforced nationalism, and explored the darker part of the human psyche (as in the gothic). |
| American Democracy and Civil Disobedience | America rises to significance in the 19th century as its citizens conquer the frontier and retain Enlightenment individualistic ideals. |
| Origins of Computing | Programming via Jacquard's loom; automated computation via Babbage's "difference engine" and algebraic calculus (via George Boole) lay the groundwork for electronic computers of the next century |
| Evolution | Charles Darwin posits that humans involved from inferior species, challenging the special station of humans and of religious knowledge. |
| Mormonism | The LDS movement exemplifies 19th century and American values, even while defining itself as a unique, revealed religion. |
| 1851 - Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations (World's Fair in Britain) | The Crystal Palace (in Hyde Park, London) houses 13,000 exhibits and host six million visitors |
| Karl Marx (mid 19th) | Seeing the history of society as the history of class struggle, Marx predicted the fall of capitalism when laborer would revolt against it and institute communism |
| William Wordsworth (early 19th) | Britain's poet laureate epitomized sensitivity to nature, beauty and the common folk. |
| Charles Babbage (mid 19th) | Inventor of the Difference Engine, precursor to the modern computer |
| Charles Darwin (mid 19th) | Naturalist whose Origin of Species (1859) helped establish natural selection as the scientific theory behind biological evolution |