Knowra Early modern period Early modern period A historical period between the late Middle Ages and the modern era, usually dated from about 1500 to 1800. Its boundaries vary by region and reflect uneven political, economic, and cultural change.
Atlantic slave trade : The forced transportation of millions of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. It tied European expansion and plantation economies to mass enslavement and enduring racial inequalities.
Fall of Constantinople : The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, which ended the Byzantine Empire. This landmark is sometimes used to mark the transition from medieval to early modern history.
Renaissance : A cultural movement that began in Italy and spread through Europe, emphasizing renewed engagement with classical learning and art. Its scholarship and artistic innovations shaped some of the period’s defining cultural shifts.
Late Middle Ages : The final centuries of medieval history in Europe, usually dated from the fourteenth to the fifteenth century. It marks the period this era is conventionally said to follow.
Scientific Revolution : A period of major changes in European natural philosophy and scientific practice, roughly from the sixteenth through seventeenth centuries. New methods and accounts of nature altered learned authority during this period.
Age of Discovery : The era of European maritime exploration and expansion beginning in the fifteenth century. Voyages opened sustained European routes to the Americas and across the oceans.
Absolutism : A form of monarchy in which a ruler claims extensive, centralized authority. It describes one influential, though uneven, approach to building stronger early modern states.
Modernity : A broad condition associated with modern social, political, economic, and cultural forms. Historians debate when early modern transformations became distinctively modern.
Protestant Reformation : A sixteenth-century movement that challenged Roman Catholic authority and created enduring Protestant churches. Religious division reshaped European institutions, politics, and everyday life.
Mughal Empire : A South Asian empire founded in 1526 that ruled much of the subcontinent at its height. Its rise shows the period’s political transformations beyond Europe.
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