What is the most important Event in European History

[Steppe Merc]

Red, yeah, the gun armies I suppose would be.

[Gregoshi]

I'll take a shot and suggest an off-the-wall event: the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg. I'm foundering for the words to support this notion, but it had far reaching and broad impact on Europe (and the world) since its invention and up to this day.

[Adrian II]

I'll take a shot and suggest an off-the-wall event: the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg. I'm foundering for the words to support this notion, but it had far reaching and broad impact on Europe (and the world) since its invention and up to this day.

Why not? It was a huge leap, just like the 'invention' of the water wheel or gun powder. And what about -- now, don't laugh --the invention of spectacles in thirteenth century Italy?

In his book The Wealth and Poverty of Nations science historian David Landes makes a very convincing case that revolutionary changes came about or were made possible by this invention. The key to its revolutionary role was a multiplyer effect: corrective lenses made it possible for craftsmen to keep working and transmitting their accumulated knowledge and experience to the next generation for at least twenty years more than they used to. And the visual precision made possible by the lenses resulted in new inventions and the constant improvement of old ones such as telescopes, gauges, micrometers, microscopes, mechanical clocks and other precision tools including, of course, eyeglasses! In a sense, the very nature of the eyeglass enabled its own perfection over the course of the centuries.

After all, isn't history all in the eyeglass of the beholder?

Pisan eyeglasses, 13th century

[Meneldil]

The roman influenced (sp?) the law system, the language, and on a larger scale the culture of many modern country, but I don't think they had a huge impact on the modern military organisation.

On the other hand, the Napoleonic 'Code Civil' (written around 1809 I think)was written by roman law and germanic law experts. A lot of those laws were already being used under the roman rule in southern gaul.

Things are probably different in northern europe, where germanic laws and anglo-norman common law are probably the basis of the current law systems

[Soulforged]

[QUOTE=AdrianII]After all, isn't history all in the eyeglass of the beholder?
[QUOTE]

No i think that it's beauty

[English assassin]

Is "the Enlightenment" an event? As much as the hundred years war, I suppose, so my vote goes for the Enlightenment. The end of superstition and the dawning of rationality. (yes yes, I know. That was the promise anyway.)

The legacy of the Enlightenment was and is huge, and with no disrespect to the fall of Rome, the Enlightenment ideas remain relevant and unfulfilled today. Indeed, they arein alarming retreat before the forces of superstition, which it seems, like fascism, has to be defeated afresh each generation.