| A | B |
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| Geocentric Theory | in the Middle Ages, the-centered view of the universe in which scholars believed that the earth was an immovable object located at center of the universe. |
| Scientific Revolution | a major change in European thought, starting in the mid-1500s, in which the study of the natural world began to be characterized by careful observation and the questioning of accepted beliefs. |
| Heliocentric Theory | The idea that the earth and the other planets revolve around the sun. |
| Galileo Galilei | an italian scientist who built his own telescope to study the heavens. |
| Scientific Method | a logical procedure for gathering information about the natural world, in which experimentation and observation are used to test hypotheses. |
| Isaac Newton | Great English scientist who helped bring together breakthroughs under a single theory of motion. |
| Enlightment | an 18th-century European movement in which thinkers attempted to apply theprinciples of reason and the scientific method to all aspects of society. |
| Social contract | the agreement by which people define and limit their individual rights, thus creating an organized society or government. |
| John Locke | Philosipher who believed that people could learn form experience and improve themselves. |
| Philosphe | one of a group of social thinkers in France during the Enlighttenment. |
| Voltaire | One of the most brilliant and influential of the philosphes who published more than 70 books of ploitical essays Philosphy and Darama |
| Montesquieu | French writer who devoted himself to the study of political liberty. |
| Rousseau | Great philospher who passionately commited to individual freedom |
| Mary Wollstonecraft | Female Philosphy who published an essay called A Vindication of the rights of Woman. |
| Salon | a social gathering of intellectuals and artists, like those held in the homes of wealthy women in Paris and other European cities during the Enlightenment. |
| Baroque | relating to a grand, ornate style that characterized European painting, music, and architexture in 1600s and early 1700s. |
| Neoclassical | relating to a simple, elegant style (based on ideas and themes from ancient Greece and Rome) that characterized the arts in Europe during gthe late 1700s. |
| Enlightened Despot | one of the 18th-century European monarchs who was inspired by Enlightened ideas to rule justly and respect the rights of subjects. |
| Catherine the Great | A female pholispher who ruled Russia forom 1762 to 1796. |
| Declaration of independence | a statement of the reasons for the American colonies' break with Britain, approved by the Second Continental Congress in 1776. |
| Thomas Jefferson | The author of Declaration of Independence. |
| Checks and Balances | measures designed to prevent any one branch of government from dominating the others. |
| Federal System | a system of government in which power is divided between a central authority and a number of individual states. |
| Bill of Rights | The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which protect citizens' basic rights and freedoms. |
