Short answers, pulled from the story.
Lynn Thorndike was an American historian of medieval science and alchemy who lived from the 24th of July 1882 to the 28th of December 1965. He was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, and became known for arguing that magic and experimental science developed as part of the same intellectual history.
Lynn Thorndike was the first historian to propose the term "early modern" to describe the period from about 1500 to 1800. He introduced it in his book A Short History of Civilization, published in 1926.
Lynn Thorndike is best known for A History of Magic and Experimental Science, published in eight volumes between 1923 and 1958. The work spans from early Christianity through early modern Europe to the end of the 17th century.
Lynn Thorndike was the younger brother of Edward Lee Thorndike, who is known as the father of modern educational psychology. He was also the brother of Ashley Horace Thorndike, an educator and expert on William Shakespeare, and the son of a clergyman, Edward R. Thorndike.
Lynn Thorndike disputed Jacob Burckhardt's view that the Italian Renaissance was a separate phase. He believed that most of the political, social, moral, and religious phenomena defined as Renaissance were almost equally characteristic of Italy at any time from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries.
Lynn Thorndike graduated from Wesleyan University in 1902 and earned his master's and doctorate from Columbia University in 1903. He taught at Northwestern University from 1907, then Western Reserve University from 1909 to 1924, and finally Columbia University until he retired in 1950.
Lynn Thorndike received the Sarton Medal from the History of Science Society in 1957. He served as president of both the History of Science Society in 1929 and the American Historical Association, and he was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1939.