Modern world history

Industrial revolution

The transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840

Air

One of the four classical elements in Aristotelian natural philosophy, believed to make up all matter before the rise of experimental science.

African slaves

Africans who were forcibly enslaved and denied freedom, especially during the transatlantic slave trade.

Geocentric

A historical model of the universe that placed Earth at the center and shaped scientific and religious beliefs before the Scientific Revolution.

Paracelsus

Born Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, was a Swiss German philosopher, physician, botanist, astrologer, and general occultist

Skepticism

The idea that a scholar should be skeptical of everything they think they know.

Indentured servants

When someone gained travel to the New World in exchange for working for a period of time. After their work was finished, they became landowners

Alchemy

A pre-scientific practice involving magic and early theories of matter that was rejected during the Scientific Revolution.

Samurai

The military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan

Meiji

1868–1912; a Japanese era of rapid modernization, industrialization, and westernization that ended the samurai class.

Deng Xiaoping

A Chinese revolutionary and statesman

Heliocentric

The astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun at the center of the Solar System

Napoleon Bonaparte

A French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars

Private property

A legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental legal entities

Scientific method

A systematic approach to acquiring knowledge through observation, experimentation, and evidence, which replaced superstition and traditional authority during the Scientific Revolution

Galileo Galilei

An Italian astronomer, physicist, engineer, philosopher, and mathematician who played a major role in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century