Westsiiide, And How We Got This Way.

[pyrrhiccomedy]

Hey guys--come play with me. What do you think are the most significant events in the history of Western civilization?

Comments

[onikotsu]

I picked The French Revolution, The invention of moveable type and the printing press, and the Protestant Reformation. The French Revolution not only because it inspired other revolutions but it also got Napoleon into power which led to the Napoleonic Wars which lead to the forming of the Quadtruple/Quintuple alliance which created the whole mess that lead into WWI which brought us into WWII. So it was a snowballing event. The type and printing press was choosen because it allowed ideas to be spread faster which causes things to happen. And lastly the protestant revolution was something that greatly weakened the church's power or the world and the people allowing countries to make their own decisions without consulting the pope.

[pyrrhiccomedy]

Groovy answers, thank you!

[ellenel13]

I was going to say the Industrial Revolution but that probably has something to do with Physics.

[pyrrhiccomedy]

Probably. XD

[soorim]

Hmmmm. Hmmmm.
I picked the Industrial Revolution, the fall of Rome and the discovery of the New World. I picked the Rome one because it was the closest thing to " the existence of Rome" and Rome was super important to all of Europe forever. Europe is like a club of Rome's fanboys. The Industrial Revolution got picked because hello British empire and also because of modernism, which despite being my archenemy is pretty important. ( I reaaly don't like modernism. The New World... well. It has given us America and also the Spanish empire and will probably only grow more important as time goes by. Most of my stuff is based off of how much it's affected the modern age/contributed to putting us where we are at today, but eh, " significant" is kinda hard to pinpoint.

I'm 19, from the USA w. Hispanic parents, and vaguely feel like their ought to be some Asian history on here somewhere, but don't really know enough to suggest anything.

[pyrrhiccomedy]

...I love that icon.

vaguely feel like their ought to be some Asian history on here somewhere

If I were making a list of formative events in Eastern civilization, it'd be a completely different list; and obviously there's a lot of cross-pollination between the two, but that's sort of outside the scope of a question like this.

[rotifora]

Oh boy that was hard. I was reminded of those nasty surprise essays my history teacher gave back in high school where we had to justify our reasons. For a grade. <.<

After agonizing and over analyzing for ten minutes I chose the conversion of Emperor Constantine, the Printing press and Newton because of its feasibility as a springboard for other events. Kind of like a snowball effect. Constantine's conversion led to the thousand + years of religious wars, the movable type and printing press led to all that we know about the enlightenment (the vernacular Bible you guys) and Newton's for jumpstarting the industrial revolution and technology. Combine all and you get the modern world. That's my justification and I'm sticking to it. XD

Oh and I'm 21, a U.S. citizen, and I love to travel.

[pyrrhiccomedy]

Those are my three picks, too! (Well, I picked WW2 instead of the printing press, but now I wish I'd gone the other way around. >_>) Thank you for participating!

[pyrrhiccomedy]

Oh, for sure: without Plato and Aristotle, there would be no such thing as "western thought" as we understand it now. You can't really overestimate the importance of those clowns. I'm glad they've gotten some love. =D