18th century

The hundred-year period from 1701 through 1800 in the Gregorian calendar. It includes the Enlightenment, the American and French Revolutions, and the beginning of industrialization.

American Revolution: The conflict from 1775 to 1783 in which thirteen British colonies gained independence and formed the United States. It established an independent republic during the century’s age of revolution.
Age of Enlightenment: An intellectual movement emphasizing reason, criticism of authority, and inquiry into society and nature. Its ideas circulated widely during the century and informed reform and revolution.
Gregorian calendar: The calendar system introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 and used internationally today. Its numbering makes this century span 1701 through 1800, not 1700 through 1799.
Age of Revolutions: A period of political upheavals, chiefly from the late 18th to mid-19th centuries, that challenged imperial and monarchical rule. The American and French Revolutions became landmarks in this broader wave.
Voltaire: A French writer and philosopher known for satire, advocacy of religious toleration, and criticism of authority. His writings made Enlightenment criticism of intolerance and arbitrary power widely known.
French Revolution: A political and social upheaval beginning in 1789 that ended France’s monarchy and transformed European politics. Its attack on monarchy and inherited privilege became a defining late-century rupture.
Republicanism: A political tradition that locates legitimate government in public affairs and rejects rule by hereditary monarchs. Revolutionaries drew on republican ideas to justify new forms of government.
Century: A period of one hundred years, commonly numbered from the first year through the hundredth. The concept’s boundaries follow the conventional numbering of centuries.
Atlantic slave trade: The forced transportation of millions of Africans across the Atlantic for enslavement in the Americas. The century saw both the trade’s continued expansion and growing organized opposition to it.
Adam Smith: A Scottish political economist and moral philosopher whose 1776 book The Wealth of Nations analyzed markets and economic growth. His work shaped debates about commerce and the emerging industrial economy.

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