Short answers, pulled from the story.
The early modern period began around the year 1453 when the Ottoman Empire captured Constantinople. This event shattered the Byzantine Empire and drove European explorers to seek new routes to Asia, igniting the Age of Discovery.
Medieval historian Lynn Thorndike first proposed the concept of the early modern period in 1926. He sought to move beyond the traditional Renaissance narrative to capture a broader and more complex era of change.
The Ottoman Empire, the Safavid Empire, and the Mughal Empire were the three gunpowder empires that reshaped the political geography of Eurasia. The Ottomans expanded into North Africa, the Safavids reasserted Iranian identity around 1501, and the Mughal Empire dominated South Asia from 1526.
The Protestant Reformation started in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg church. This act challenged the sale of indulgences and sparked the rise of rival Protestant denominations such as Lutheranism and the Reformed tradition.
Nicolaus Copernicus published the heliocentric model of the solar system in 1543 in his work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. This publication displaced the Earth from the center of the universe and sparked the Copernican Revolution.
Isaac Newton, René Descartes, John Locke, Pierre Bayle, and Baruch Spinoza developed new theories of gravity, reason, and politics during the Age of Enlightenment. Denis Diderot edited the Encyclopédie to spread these Enlightenment ideas across Europe.