The Scientific Revolution

The timeline of the early modern period’s Scientific Revolution is marked by examples of thunderous innovation and technological advances. But these innovations didn’t spring up out of thin air. They themselves were the product of global interconnections and centuries of collective learning, all of which led to breakthroughs that contributed to the Age of Enlightenment in Western Europe.

Scientific Revolution

How to Teach the Scientific Revolution

World History AP Lesson Guide: Technological Innovations from 1450 to 1750 CE

Connect the dots between scientific innovations in Afro-Eurasia and the dawn of the global age. Get teacher guidance to identify patterns of trade and analyze primary sources with students.

Blog: How Historians Find Their Sources

Give students the inside view into how historians get ahold of the sources they need to fuel their research.

Teach Tomorrow: The Scientific Revolution in Context

World History AP®

Transoceanic Interconnections

c. 1450 to 1750 CE

Technological Innovations from 1450 to 1750 CE

European exploration relied on Afro-Eurasian scientific advances, technology, and trade. Explore how centuries of knowledge sparked the first global age.

World History Origins

The Long Nineteenth Century

1750 to 1914 CE

Enlightenment and Revolution

Discover the ways Enlightenment thinkers challenged old ideas and inspired revolutions that reshaped politics, rights, and society across the globe.

Scientific Revolution Resources

Folio from an c. 18th century astronomical manuscript illustrating the relative positions of the sun, the moon, Jupiter and Venus

The Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution does indeed include everything from Copernicus to Newton. But the story also extends beyond Europe and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Diderot's Encyclopedia title page

World History 1750

Diderot’s 1750 Encyclopedia

Diderot’s Encyclopedia was a work produced through the massive effort of many authors and thinkers. It attempted to catalog human knowledge and reimagine the world.

Illustration of Nicolaus Copernicus standing the shoulders of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi

Big History Project

Standing on the Shoulders of Invisible Giants

The history of science is a history of our collective learning. Historians piece together different conversations to tell a story that crosses centuries and continents.

Illustration of various Islamic scholars looking at the stars at the Maragha Observatory in Persia. Wind carries equations and formulas in and out of the observatory to depict collective learning.

The Maragha Observatory

The Scientific Revolution conjures up the names of some European scientific heavyweights. But there were many invisible giants who helped science progress.

Athanasius Kircher's Quest to Know Everything

Athanasius Kircher’s Quest to Know Everything

Many important discoveries have come from the mistakes of scholars like Athanasius Kircher, who showed us that collective learning doesn’t always happen in a straight line.

A drawing of Muhammad Ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi writing on paper connecting ancient knowledge to present-day technology

Thank You for Algebra: Muhammad Ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi

This Muslim mathematician built on ancient ideas and offered new approaches to mathematics that we still rely on today.

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