“Louis XIV had sent hundred of soldiers--all men--to New France. These soldiers wanted to start families... But there were six men for every woman... [Louis XIV] announced that he would pay young Frenchwomen large amounts of money if they would go and live in the colonies. Many young women accepted the King's offer...”
Source: Early Modern Times: From Elizabeth the First to the Forty-Niners
“The days of kings and lords first began to lose their brightness when philosophers and scientists realized that the ancient Greeks, who had long been held up as the wisest men in the world, were sometimes wrong.”
Source: Early Modern Times: From Elizabeth the First to the Forty-Niners
“Galileo was one of the first scientists to use the scientific method. Instead of accepting old ideas, he carefully observed the world around him, and then tried to make a theory that would explain his observations.”
Source: Early Modern Times: From Elizabeth the First to the Forty-Niners
“In his scientific notebook, Newton wrote, "Amicus Plato amicus Aristoteles magis amica veritas." That is Latin for, "Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my best friend is truth.”
Source: Early Modern Times: From Elizabeth the First to the Forty-Niners
“In [Two Treatises of Government], John Locke explained that he had discovered universal laws that could predict how people should act. Every man and woman, Locke wrote, was equal. Every human being had, by "natural law," the right to seek "life, health, liberty, and possession.”
Source: Early Modern Times: From Elizabeth the First to the Forty-Niners
“Elena has shown me that intimacy is not about the elimination of solitude—it is about the transformation of solitude from something defensive into something generative.”
Source: THE CAGE OF WHISPERS : THE CAGE THAT HOLDS US AND THE WINGS WE DARE TO GROW
“Isaac Newton, John Locke, and many other men and women in England and Europe began to... believe that universal laws, discovered through observation, governed every part of human life. Today, we often talk about these ideas as "Western ideas." Sometimes, we talk about the years when these ideas became popular as the "Enlightenment.”
Source: Early Modern Times: From Elizabeth the First to the Forty-Niners
“In February 1912, ancient China came to an end when the last of three millennia of Chinese emperors abdicated.
Imagine twentieth-century Italy coming to terms with the fall of the Roman empire or Egypt with the last pharaoh abdicating in 1912. For China, the last century has been a period of transition - dramatic change and perpetual revolution.”
Source: Salt: A World History
“Beer for breakfast, ale for lunch, stout with dinner and a few mugs in between. The average Northern European, including women and children drank three liters of beer a day. That's almost two six-packs, but often the beer had a much higher alcoholic content. People in positions of power, like the police, drank much more. Finnish soldiers were given a ration of five liters of strong ale a day (about as much as seven six-packs). Monks in Sussex made do with 12 cans worth.”
Source: The Devil's Cup: A History of the World According to Coffee
“At this time to refuse or neglect to give coffee to their wives was a legitimate cause for divorce among the Turks." William H. Ukers (1873-1945).”
Source: The Devil's Cup: A History of the World According to Coffee