Okay, I've got a pretty good idea of what my history prof is looking for, but I know I'm gonna forget something huge in my essay. So, I would appreciate anyone's input, and I'm sure it will be a nice backup for other History 111 kids. So, what do you think were some important events or people in Western Civilzation's history up to 1600? I'm not asking for you to answer the essay for me, but I don't want to leave out something as big as the printing press from this thing.

Erik the Red
Columbus
Roman Empire (big influence, religion, goverment and such)
The Magna Carta
Abacus (yay math)
The Greeks (aristotle, plato, the world isn't flat, trigonometry)
Literacy
Marco Polo
Gunpowder

I would agree except on Erik the Red and Columbus.
My ten would include the seven that are left:
1) Roman Empire (big influence, religion, goverment and such)
2) The Magna Carta
3) Abacus (yay math)
4) The Greeks (aristotle, plato, the world isn't flat, trigonometry)
5) Literacy
6) Marco Polo
7) Gunpowder

And:
8 ) Michael Faraday (electricity and magnetism)
9) Currency (origonatied in Asian long before the Western World)
10) Vikings (Terrorized northern Europe for centuries affecting their lives and also hit America long before Columbus or Americo Vespuchi)

We also get a fair amount of our legal philosophy from the Vikings.

.....How could you not agree on Erik the Red then? Erik the Red was supposedly the first viking to discover the Americas.

In chronological order

1. The discovery of fire
2. Invention of the written language by Sumarians
3. The babylonian Code of Hamurabi (fuck spelling)
4. The discovery of steel
5. The founding of Rome
6. The fall of Rome and the spread of Christianity
7. Gunpowder brought into the west
8. European imperial colonization
9. WW I & WW II
10. Cold War & Computer Age

Thats well and good, but the question was:

Huh, I'm looking at some of these and agreeing completely with them, but we never covered anything about them: Erik the Red and Marco Polo are examples. What about Joan of Arc (ignore that she's French) or the emergence of Islam, if you guys are listing Christianity? I think I'll stick Columbus under "exploration of new worlds" or something, and put Hippocrates, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle under the heading "Greek Scholars".

By the way, I had to put up to 1600 because I knew I would have people crying about the wonders of the PS3 or television or something.

reverse cronological
the internet
tv
radio
newspapers
printing press
what do they have in common see
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4332830819848713435&q

You said Western Civ so I figured Islam was out...

Actually The Religion Of Peace conquered a significant amount of territory in Europe sometime before the 1500's (Spain, in particular). The scary part is that part of Islam states that Allah gets particularly angry (because, let's face it, Allah is always angry about something) when lands that were once held by Muslims are conquered/reclaimed by infidels.

Well, we pretty much got everywhere over there except China and India and the far reaches of Russia. I mean, we needed to know why the Crusades happened and how Constantinople was sacked and all.

Fixed.

What about the Reinassance (sp?)? Didn't that happen before 1600? People like DaVinci and Michaelangelo, hell throw in Donatello and Raphael and you got all of the Ninja Turltes.

Also, there were a couple pretty influencial Pope's on Western Culture, along with the rest of the Catholic Church.

Up to 1600?

Greece (yes, the whole f'n thing. They've really done too much to narrow it down to any particular person/event).

The burning of the Library at Alexandria (I think it was at Alexandria, a vast amount of knowledge lost that wasn't rebuilt until after the Dark Ages).

The Rise of the Roman Catholic Church (honestly, they've been one of the most influential institutions in history)

Sumarians inventing writing.

I'm not too much of a history buff, so that's all I can think of off the top of my head

Yeah, Renaissance thinking and Greek Philosophy made it onto my final list (with each entry only being a paragraph long, I did have to limit the whole "Greece" thing).