Category: Timeline Stories

Henry VIII and his children (Royal Museums Greenwich)   The Tudors of England react to the printing press with censorship and crack down on libellers and freethinkers with harsh punishments.…

In episode XI we continue to survey the wreckage after hurricane Luther was unleashed on Europe with the Reformation, with a superstar cast including Calvin, Servetus, Castillio, Acontius, Henry VIII,…

Witch-burning in Saxony-Anhalt, 1555. Woodcut after original leaflet, Germanisches Nationalmusem in Nuremberg (Public Domain)   In the late 1500s, Europe is gripped with witch hysteria. An estimated 100,000 are accused.…

The term ‘Medieval Inquisition’ covers series of inquisitions from 1184 to the 1230s.   Pope Lucius III opens the Episcopal Inquisition in 1184 to combat the heretical Cathars and Waldensians.…

Scene from an Inquisition by Francisco Goya, 1808-12   The Spanish Inquisition is initiated by Isabel of Castille and Fernando of Aragon in 1478. Around 150,000 are persecuted and 3-5,000 executed…

  Jan Hus at the stake. Spiezer Chronik, 1485   The Bohemian theologian Jan Hus is burned to death in Jena on July 6, 1415. The execution is a sign…

The pope’s birth according to an anti-Catholic pamphlet from 1545 (Public Domain)   Thanks to the printing press, the confessional wars of the Reformation become the first testing ground for…

Luther at the Diet of Worms in 1521. Anton von Werner, 1877   Martin Luther is the first person to see his ideas go viral with the printing press. In…

Woodcut of early printing workshop (Public Domain)   Around 1448, the German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1400 – 1468) gets a brilliant idea: He takes a printing press and breaks…

The disruptive effects of the internet and social media on the spread of information are unprecedented. Or are they? In episode 10 of Clear and Present Danger, we cover the invention,…