What about the Industrial Revolution in England, America, and Germany? That certainly had a huge economic effect, moving the center of the economy from agriculture to factories.
And, perhaps as a side effect of that, the Antibiotic Revolution? Suddenly, in a period of a few years, countless numbers of people survived illnesses that would have killed them previously. It's amazing to read biographies of people who lived before the Second World War, because people died right and left. Practically everybody who survived had wives, husbands, children, and friends keeling over on a regular basis. Result: Suddenly people started to care about retirement--where previously you just worked until you died.
And the Scientific Revolution, where in Western countries, after about 1850 science began to overtake Christianity as the basis for understanding the world. And this didn't happen in all countries, and happened to different degrees in different countries...
after about 1850 science began to overtake Christianity as the basis for understanding the world
The "Scientific Revolution" is usually dated to the 17th century, but scientists only dropped religious speech during the 18th century. As late as 1730, De Moivre went into a short tangent arguing that the central limit theorem was evidence of the existance of God. guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
