The Chartist movement emerged in the early 1830s and continued to be influential up until the early 1850s. The Chartists were working-class activists who sought to extend voting rights to all the adult men in Britain. They also demanded a series of other reforms designed to liberate the working classes from the shackles of the Industrial Revolution and reform Britain’s requirements for voting and holding office that excluded the majority of the population.

Thomas More was a statesman, lawyer, and politician who was also a devout Catholic during the reign of the Tudors in England. More served in a variety of political offices, including Speaker of the House of Commons, and became a close advisor of Henry VIII. More eventually succeeded Cardinal Wolsey as chancellor in 1529 after Henry and Wolsey began to disagree on many significant issues. More served Henry loyally until Henry’s marriage issues began to lead to a schism between him and the Catholic Church. Eventually, Henry wanted to separate from the church even though More was against it, and More resigned his chancellorship over this issue. More was later tried and executed for refusing to recognize Henry’s authority as the head of the Church of England.

The primary disagreement between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, two revolutionary factions, lay in their divergence on the issue of a "vanguard" of the proletariat. The Bolsheviks supported the idea; the Mensheviks believed that it ran counter to the communist ideal.

The French people did not argue that the monarchy was not dedicated to the Catholic cause. Rather, they saw the regime as wasteful, oppressive of the poor, and too attached to the clergy.

Chartists, although they did have some socialist inspiration, primarily sought to reorganize the British state to render it more equitable. Among the reforms envisioned in their massive, multi-million signature petitions were universal male suffrage, the secret ballot, salaries for parliamentary representatives and annual elections, but not popular initiatives.

Martin Luther believed that merit alone should be the sole judge of who could get into heaven. Monetary indulgences were essentially free passes into heaven for those who could afford it, meaning that, in essence, the Catholic church was perpetuating the idea that the rich could get into heaven with money alone. Luther also believed that full and equal access to scripture was paramount, and therefore translated the Bible from Latin into German, even after being excommunicated and exiled.

The Thermidorian Reaction refers to the counter-revolt in 1794 that unseated Robespierre and signalled the end of the Reign of Terror.

The Committee of Public Safety was the government in control of France in the wake of the Revolution. They felt the only way to keep France safe was to kill anyone that held political views that were in opposition to the Revolution. As such many Royalists, former nobility, and those holding more conservative political stances were condemned to death.

In 1789 the French Revolutionary Government passed the Declaration of the rights of man to outline the universal rights all men shared, that should be protected by the government. The Bill of Rights refers to the first 10 amendments to the US constitution. Petition of Right is an English constitutional document. Sans-Coulettes was the term for common people in pre-revolutionary France, not the name of a rights document at all.

Bastille Day celebrates the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille fortress, July 14th, 1789; which was the beginning of the French Revolution.