Scientific People

1. What was Martin Luther’s father’s profession?

• He was a manager in the copper mining industry. 

2. What did Martin Luther’s father want for Luther?

• He wanted him to be a lawyer

3. What led Martin Luther to become a monk?

• He was in a terrible storm, a lightning bolt struck a tree nearby. He promised that if he survived the storm, he would become a monk.

4. How would you describe Luther in the early days of monastic life?

• He tried his best to satisfy God, but he still felt like a sinner. He would punish himself but still feel unsatisfied. He tried following all the rules, but never felt he was good enough for God. 

5. Who was Johann Tetzel? Why did he infuriate Luther?

• Tetzel was a strong figure in selling indulgences, Luther strongly disagreed with this and believed it was greatly corrupt. Tetzel was a salesman who pressured rich and poor people alike to give him their money.

6. What are indulgences?

• These are things that forgive people’s sins, they are sold for money. 

7. What was the name of the document Luther posted on the Church door at Wittenberg?

• His 95 theses

8. Why did Luther post the document on the church door?

• He disagreed greatly with many practices of the church and wanted to talk about it with other academics. 

9. What realization did Luther have about salvation?

• He says that in God’s eyes, peasants were of equal worthiness of heaven as priests and other holy men. All that mattered was people’s faith in the bible. The righteous person lives by faith alone. He means that people shouldn’t do good deeds simply to get into heaven, they should do it because they want to. 

10. What was Luther’s response to the Papal Bull of excommunication by Pope Leo X?

• He burns it. He basically takes it as an opportunity to become more outspoken and proactive. He was directly challenging the church. 

11. What happened at Worms, Germany?

• Instead of going to Rome to be judged by the Pope, Martin Luthur went to Worms. There he had a public hearing judged by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles. He was told to either recant his teachings, or die. He refuses to recant but manages to escape death because the HRE doesn’t want to kill him on German soil in front of Luthur’s many adoring fans.  

12. What happened to Luther when returning to Wittenberg after the Diet of Worms? 

• He was kidnapped. Most Germans assumed he was dead, but it was actually a ruse by Frederick the Wise to keep him alive and hide him. He was then kept in a castle and hidden away to escape execution. 

Scientific Revolution

Nicolae Copernicus - 

• He was a mathematician and astronomer born in Toruń, Poland in 1473. His most influential theory was that the universe was heliocentric in comparison to geocentric. 

Johannes Kepler - 

• He was an astronomer and mathematician born in Weil der Stadt, Germany in 1571. With his powerful telescope he discovered the planets move in an elliptical orbit around the sun, he also created three fundamental laws of planetary motion. 

Galileo Galilei - 

• He was a philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician born in Pisa, Italy in 1564. With his invention of an advanced telescope he observed many things about the planets, including the phases of Venus, sunspots, and the rings around Jupiter. 

Francis Bacon - 

• He was an English philosopher, statesman, and writer born in London, England in 1561. He is best known for his creation of the scientific method and his ideas of learning by experimentation. 

Rene Descartes - 

• He was a philosopher, scientist, and mathematician born in Touraine, France in 1596. He is best known for his ideas of mind-body dualism and his statement of “I think, therefore I am.” He also created the coordinate plane. 

Isaac Newton - 

• He was a mathematician and physicist born in Lincolnshire, England in 1642. He is best known for his discovery of gravity and laws of planetary motion. 

Zacharias Jannsen - 

• He was an inventor and spectacle maker born in Hauge, Netherlands. His greatest accomplishment was the invention of the microscope, a machine that opened the door to a new field of science. 

Evangelista Torricelli - 

• He was a physicist and mathematician born in Rome, Italy in 1608. He is best known for his invention of the barometer, which greatly impacted the study of the atmosphere. 

Andreas Vesalius - 

• He was a physician and anatomist who was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1514. He is best known for his advancements in anatomy by dissection and study of human cadavers. 

William Harvey - 

• He was a physician born in Kent, England in 1578. He was the first person to accurately describe the circulation of blood in the body. 

Edward Jenner - 

• He was a scientist and physician born in Berkeley, England in 1749. His most important contribution was the creation of a smallpox vaccine.  

Robert Boyle - 

• He was a chemist, writer, and philosopher born in Waterford, Ireland in 1627. He is considered a pioneer of modern chemistry and is known best for his law of gases. 

Joseph Priestly - 

• He was a chemist, clergyman, and political theorist born in Birstall, England in 1733. He is best known for his discovery of oxygen. 

Antoine Lavoisier - 

• He was a chemist born in Paris, France in 1743. He is best known for the law of conservation of mass and how oxygen relates to combustion and respiration. 

Philosophers of the Enlightenment

Thomas Hobbes - 

• He was a philosopher and writer born in Malmesbury, England in 1588. He is best known for his book Leviathan and his belief that humans are fundamentally evil. 

John Locke - 

• He was a philosopher and physician born in Wrington, England in 1632. He is best known for An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Two Treatises on Government as well as his idea that humans are fundamentally good. His ideas largely inspired the values of the US Constitution. 

Voltaire - 

• He was a writer and philosopher born in Paris, France in 1694. He is best known for his novel entitled Candide, spreading the idea that humans are responsible for their own happiness. 

Baron de Montesquieu - 

• He was a judge and philosopher born in La Brède, France in 1689. He is best known for his book The Spirit of Laws. 

Jean Jacques Rousseau - 

• He was a philosopher and writer born in Geneva, Switzerland in 1712. He is best known for his Social Contract. 

Cesare Bonesana Beccaria - 

• He was a criminologist and economist born in Milan, Italy in 1738. He is best known for his Treatise on Crimes and Punishments. 

Mary Wollstonecraft - 

• She was a writer and philosopher born in London, England in 1759. She is best known for her A Vindication of the Rights of Women and for her work as one of the very first feminist writers. 

Denis Diderot - 

• He was a philosopher, writer, and art critic born in Langres, France in 1713. He is best known for his book Encyclopédie, a large and accessible collection of the world’s knowledge. 

David Hume - 

• He was a philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1711. He is best known for his A Treatise on Human Nature, the Enquires Concerning Human Understanding, and the Principal Morals. 

Immanuel Kant - 

• He was a philosopher born in Königsberg, Prussia. He is best known for his Critique of Pure Reason and the idea of categorical imperatives, or morals that must be followed no matter what.