The Well-Trained Mind

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Great Men and Women
  • Saint Augustine (writing c. 411)
  • Attila the Hun (c. 433–453)
  • King Arthur (probably killed in 537 at the Battle of Camlann)
  • Theodora (500–548)
  • Gregory of Tours (540–594)
  • Muhammad (570–632)
  • The Venerable Bede (672–735)
  • Charles Martel (688–741)
  • Charlemagne (ruled 768–814)
  • Alfred the Great (849–899)
  • Leif Eriksson (discovered North America c. 1000)
  • Omar Khayyam (1027–1123)
  • Edward the Confessor (1042–1066)
  • Anna Comnena (1083–1153)
  • Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179)
  • Empress Matilda (1102–1167)
  • Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122–1204)
  • Chrétien de Troyes (1144–1190)
  • Genghis Khan (b. 1155)
  • Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)
  • Dante Alighieri (1265–1321)
  • Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340–1400)
  • Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471)
  • Jan van Eyck (c. 1390–1441)
  • Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1396–1468)
  • Catherine of Valois (1401–1437)
  • Joan of Arc (1412–1431)
  • Sandro Botticelli (1444–1510)
  • Christopher Columbus (1451–1506)
  • Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)
  • Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512)
  • Erasmus (1465–1536)
  • Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543)
  • Michelangelo (1475–1564)
  • Titian (1477–1576)
  • Thomas More (1478–1535)
  • Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521)
  • Martin Luther (1483–1546)
  • Raphael (1483–1520)
  • Ignatius Loyola (1491–1556)
  • Correggio (1494–1534)
  • Giovanni Angelo de’ Medici (1499–1565)
  • Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542)
  • Nostradamus (1503–1566)
  • John Knox (1505–1572)
  • John Calvin (1509–1564)
  • Hernando Cortés (entered Mexican capital, 1519)
  • Pieter Brueghel (1520–1569)
  • Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525–1594)
  • Tycho Brahe (1546–1601)
  • Philip Sidney (1551–1586)
  • Walter Raleigh (1554–1618)
  • William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
  • Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)
  • Jan Brueghel (1568–1625)
  • John Donne (1572–1631)
  • Inigo Jones (1573–1652)
  • René Descartes (1596–1650)
Primary Sources
  • Procopius, “On Justinian” from The Secret History (c. 540)
  • Muhammad, “Last Sermon” (630)
  • Bede, “The Conversion of England” from The Ecclesiastical History (c. 700)
  • William of Malmesbury, “The Battle of Hastings” (1066)
  • Urban II’s Speech at Clermont (1095)
  • The Magna Carta (1215)
  • “Peasant Uprising of 1381,” from Anonimalle Chronicle (1381)
  • “The Discovery of North America by Leif Ericsson” from The Saga of Eric the Red (1387)
  • Joan of Arc, “Letter to the King of France” (1429)
  • Christopher Columbus, “Selections from Journal” (1492)
  • Vasco da Gama, “Round Africa to India” (1498)
  • Martin Luther, “95 Theses” (1517)
  • Thomas Cranmer, “Letter on Henry VIII’s Divorce” (1533)
Memorization
  • the order of the rulers of England
    from Egbert to Elizabeth I
  • the dates for rulers from William to Elizabeth I
  • the dates of Charlemagne's rule
  • the dates of each of the Crusades,
    the Hundred Years' War,
    the War of the Roses,
    and the French religious wars
  • the dates of the voyages of
    Magellan, Marco Polo, Vasco da Gama,
    Leif Ericsson, Christopher Columbus, and Hernando Cortés