1270-1289 Marco Polo, Specs & Mongols Invade Japan

This twenty year period covers the reign of Henry III of England at a time when Marco Polo (pictured) was journeying to China

The longest period of relative world peace and safety  was about 6 years -- after the 8th Crusade in 1270, the 1274-1281 Mongol invasion of Japan and the 1284 War of The Sicilian Vespers.

In 1271 a new pope -- Gregory X -- was elected after three years of delays which finally caused the new king of France, Philip III, and Charles of Anjou to intervene and force the issue.

At the time of his election, Gregory X was in the Holy Land on crusade with Prince Edward of England who, with Henry III's death in 1272, became Edward I.

On his return to Rome, Gregory and the eastern emperor Michael Palaeologus met in 1274 to heal the rift between the eastern and western church.

Gregory X also reformed the election of popes, and approved the election of a new German king in 1273 -- Rudolf I, Holy Roman Emperor, who founded the Hapsburg dynasty -- on proviso that he relinquished German claims to the papal states and Sicily.

In 1275 Marco Polo journeyed to China and in 1286 convex spectacles were invented by Italians. 

1470-1489 Spanish Inquisition

With the Spanish Inquisition and the murder of Edward IV's sons, this twenty year period covers murderous times. 

When Edward IV died in 1483 he was succeeded by his 12-year old son Edward V who was never crowned and reigned for only 78 days being imprisoned with his younger brother Richard in the Tower by their evil uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and then executed -- the crown being taken by their uncle and murderer, Richard III.

Richard III died in 1485 and because his son Edward had died the year before, Henry VII came to power by virtue of being the husband of Elizabeth of York -- Edward V's sister -- but he steadfastly claimed the throne in his own right through a vague genealogy back to John of Gaunt, Edward III's son.

In this period there were only two wars -- the 1474-1477 Burgundian Wars between the Duchy of Burgundy and the Swiss Confederation, and the 1478 War between the Principality of Moscow and the Republic of Novgorod -- but from 1478 the Spanish inquisition of 1478

In 1471 the Portuguese reached the Gulf of Guinea in Africa and established a trade similar to the Arabs' on the east coast of Africa. 

In 1478 the Spanish inquisition commenced and in 1486 Maximilian established the German Hapsburg empire.

In 1483 the estimated population of Japan was 15m, Europe 73m, India 110m, China 120m, N and S America 11m, the Near East 23m and Africa 39m.

was race or religion the unique feature of western civilization?

At no other time in history - other than in the 7th century when Rome chose it as the bastion of Christianity in the face of rising Islam - has Ireland played any major role in shaping the political, economic or cultural evolution of the western world. Indeed, the universal state of western civilization was represented by the Hapsburg Monarchy 1526-1918, not the Celtic kings.

And, except for continuing to lead the Catholic Church, the political power of the Pope in Rome has diminished considerably in modern times.

If Christianity - in particular Catholicism - were the unique feature of Western civilization at its inception in 675 in Ireland, then it did not remain so forever.

However, Ireland cannot be discounted for another major unique feature of Western civilization at its inception in 675 that has remained strong - it's white Celtic ethnic identity.

Because of the abominable conditions of overpopulation and poverty in Ireland, the Irish provided by far the most immigrants to the new worlds in centuries to follow. In that respect, the Irish Celts most certainly played the most important part in shaping the ethnic identity of the evolving western civilization.

In that respect, Ireland in 675 was indeed the 'cradle' of western civilization. If historians believe that a unique ethnicity founded western civilization, then it was a white Irish Celtic ethnicity - not the Mediterranean ethnicity of the Romans, French and Spanish, nor the polyglot ethnicity of the various other northern tribes in the western world at the time.

In fact, because three separate and distinctive Christian civilizations evolved in Turkey, Russia and Europe - respectively represented by the Ottoman Empire, the Muscovite Empire and the Hapsburg Monarchy - indicates that Christianity was not a unique feature of western civilization.

Of race and religion, then, race in the form of white Celtic ethnicity, was the unique feature of Western civilization.