Turning Points in History

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the author chose different turning points, moving away from victories on the battle-fields or conquests of uncharted territories to persons whose life's work moved forward the essential difference that separates man from lower orders of animals: Thought and reasoning. The author points out that, in the Hellenic Age of philosophy and art, when the mind for the first time in recorded history developed the first formation of moral and ethical standards, Plato and the advent of Christianity through Jesus were selected. The paper also selected as the turning points, in the Dark Ages, the adventurous merchant, son of Venetian merchants, Marco Polo; in the Italian Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci; in the Reformation, Martin Luther and, in Age of Enlightenment; Thomas Jefferson.

Table of Contents
Two Turning Points in Western Civilization: Greece and Rome
Two Turning Points: The Era of the Dark Ages to the Renaissance
Two Turning Points: Reformation and Enlightenment
Some Conclusions Concerning the Various Turning Points

From the Paper:

" DaVinci was born as an illegitimate child in Vinci,. Italy, in 1452. While we tend to consider the Mona Lisa as his most significant work, he did so many things, outside the world of painting and there is so much distortion about his accomplishments that he has become known as "the Hamlet of art history, whom each of us must recreate for ourselves. He is justly well-known for his drawings, especially how life-like his anatomical representations are. He advised students of painting that "It is necessary to know the inner structure of man." However, when one lists his accomplishments and innovations outside Art, he is a most remarkable creative Human...truly the outstanding example of a "Renaissance Man". To begin with, he ante-dated Galileo and Copernicus when he said "the sun does not move.""

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