When it comes to thinking big, it doesn’t get much bigger than determining the most significant year in human history. The Economist’s MoreIntelligentLife.com has launched a poll asking visitors to weigh in on the subject. The winner so far? 1439, the year Gutenberg invented the printing press. It is followed closely by 5 BC, the year of Jesus’s birth. 1953, the year DNA was discovered, is a distant third. And what was the most recent year suggested by the editors? This one.
2009 is the year of the Copenhagen Climate Summit—possibly humanity’s last chance to come to an international agreement on how to confront climate change. The Economist deemed this an important enough moment to rank among the most vital ever. Margot Wallström, the European Commission Vice-President, may agree with this sentiment: she stressed the importance of the meeting in a recently posted interview. Novelist and journalist Kurt Anderson suggested to Big Think that the time period around the 1840s is hugely underrated in terms of importance; he calls it the moment that technological innovation was translated into useful products. Chef Jacques Pepin, meanwhile, explained the importance of food innovation to human history. What are your thoughts on unrecognized but vital years in our evolution?
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Richard Oakes on August 19, 2009, 5:27 PM
My vote is for 1688!
That was the year that William of Orange brought his Protestant Army to England and the Catholic King James II lost his nerve and fled the country, leaving the throne of England vacant.
What happened next was extraordinarily important for the development of government in the West.
The English Parliament voted to make William and Mary, King and Queen of England. In an age where English Kings claimed divine right to rule, this was an extraordinary innovation. The ruled chose the ruler. The choice was made legally in an Act of Parliament.
The English Parliament at that time what not a democratic institution as we would understand it. Government “For the people and by the People” was still a long way off. However, in that year a truly revolutionary idea took root.
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