We can identify three major 'roots' of the Enlightenment: the humanism of the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, and the Protestant Reformation. Together these movements created the conditions in Europe for the Enlightenment to take place.

So what was it? The Enlightenment, sometimes called the 'Age of Enlightenment', was a late 17th- and 18th-century intellectual movement emphasizing reason, individualism, and skepticism.

The enlightenment was a time in the 1700's in Europe when people began to question old ideas and search for knowledge. The name Enlightenment refers to the light of knowledge that supposedly replaces the darkness of superstition and ignorance.

Central to Enlightenment thought were the use and celebration of reason, the power by which humans understand the universe and improve their own condition. The goals of rational humanity were considered to be knowledge, freedom, and happiness.

The Enlightenment was a period of time when people developed new ideas about human existence, including peoples' basic rights and the level of control they should have over their government and their futures. The Enlightenment began in Europe around 1715.

The Enlightenment produced numerous books, essays, inventions, scientific discoveries, laws, wars and revolutions. The American and French Revolutions were directly inspired by Enlightenment ideals and respectively marked the peak of its influence and the beginning of its decline.

The Enlightenment – the great 'Age of Reason' – is defined as the period of rigorous scientific, political and philosophical discourse that characterised European society during the 'long' 18th century: from the late 17th century to the ending of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.