Ideas that shape our world today

From the revolutionary age known as "The Enlightenment" in Europe came ideas such as:

• the rights of man and of the citizen
• freedom to worship according to one's own conscience
• the right to vote for people of property
• the right to a free and fair trial
• the idea that all men (sic!) were born equal

These ideas are considered by many people to have led to important improvements in the lives of many people in Europe, and to have led on to more rights and freedoms for more people.

And the people who had these ideas and who struggled to see them become real for people, well, a lot of them spent a long time in the coffee houses. They drank coffee, thought about and planned action to make Europe a better place!