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- [Announcer] The Biography Channel,

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24 hours a day of the world's
most fascinating lives.

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You're watching Biography
of the Millennium on A&E.

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(church bell ringing)

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- [Narrator] His father
wanted him to be a lawyer

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and was appalled when he became a priest,

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but this simple German
friar would transform

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the way we look at faith, and
by extension society itself,

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Martin Luther.

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- The leader of the
Protestant Reformation,

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I mean, he changed the world.

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I just assumed that he
would, if not be number one,

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certainly in the top five.
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- [Narrator] Martin Luther's story begins

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with a crisis of faith.

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He was sickened by the
corruption and greed

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of his fellow priests,

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and he was overwhelmed by
guilt for this own sinfulness.

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He prayed and fasted for days on end.

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Finally, he had a revelation.

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Only by faith can man reach
salvation, he decided.

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Not through donations to the church,

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not through a priest at all,

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just through devotion
to God and His mercy.

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- The church was saying
you need the priest,

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you need ceremonies,

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you need to use the church
in order to attain salvation.

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Luther said no.

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We cannot accept religious
belief from others.

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Unless you have faith, unless
you feel the faith within you,

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you cannot be saved.

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- With Luther it's a gigantic shift

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of authority from other
people to the individual.

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You're not given the keys to salvation,

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you find them for yourself.

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- [Narrator] Luther even
began to translate the Bible

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from Latin into German so
that all could read it.

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- Changing religious practice
from an obscure, ancient,

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dead language, Latin, to the vernacular,

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to your own living language--

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English, German, French, Dutch--

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it's a kind of repossession.

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I mean, it really lets
you own your belief.

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- [Narrator] The conflict
between Martin Luther

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and the church came to a head in 1517

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when Luther decided to take a stand.

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He attacked the Catholic
hierarchy in a diatribe

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called "The Ninety-five Theses."

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Legend has him hammering the document

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to the front door of the local church.

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Luther was dragged before an assembly

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in the German city of Worms.

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When he refused to recant,

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he was declared a heretic
and excommunicated.

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Soon after Luther gathered
his supporters together

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and established the first
Protestant congregation,

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breaking off in protest
against the Catholic church.

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- The central idea that there is no longer

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a homogeneous Western Christianity,

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that is an immensely important
idea, a liberating idea.

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It's an idea that leads people to believe

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they can fashion their
religion in their own way,

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and the proliferation of
sects and individual oddballs

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and strange ideas in the years
following Luther's revolution

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is quite extraordinary.

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- [Narrator] Extraordinary,
yes, but explosive, as well.
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Although the Reformation
broadened people's

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individual and intellectual freedoms,

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it also led directly to
the Thirty Years' War,

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one of the bloodiest in Europe's history.

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But despite the carnage that ensued

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from the Protestant Reformation,

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Martin Luther holds his position
on our Millennium Countdown

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because he eloquently
defined man's ability

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to relate directly to God.

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- I think Luther's statement
at the Diet of Worms,

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"Here I stand, God rest my soul.

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I can do no other," is in many ways

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the core statement of conscience

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that underlies all modern democracy.

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(cymbals shimmering)

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- [Narrator] Number two on our
list would have been unhappy

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to be second to anybody.

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He was an eccentric, insecure man

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who was abandoned as a child.

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He once threatened to kill his stepfather

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and burn his house down.

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In later years he would grow
violent defending his work

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and would even suffer a nervous breakdown.

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Yet, looking back over the millennium,

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no one can dispute the
importance of this man,

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Sir Isaac Newton, founder
of modern science,

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master of mathematics and physics.

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- I think Newton is the greatest scientist

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of the millennium.

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Up there with Galileo,
Darwin, and Einstein.

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But Newton probably
had the most influence.

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He was the person who put
together mathematics, physics,

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and the Universe and helped
us see what science can do.

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- Life on Earth was not
the same after Newton

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compared with before.

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If he didn't exist, it would've
been another hundred years

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before someone would've
done what he contributed.

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- [Narrator] Isaac Newton was a farm boy

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from the rural English town of Woolsthorpe

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whose innate intelligence and curiosity

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were recognized early on.

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He studied at Cambridge,

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but when the bubonic plague
struck England in the 1660s

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and cities were evacuated,
Newton returned home.

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And that's where it all began.

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- He left Cambridge and went
to live in the countryside

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where he devoted himself to meditation

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and to mathematical experiments,

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and it was during this that
he did his monumental work

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on the Laws of Motion.

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- [Narrator] Sitting in an
orchard, Newton saw an apple

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plummet from its tree
and wondered why it fell

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straight down toward
the center of the Earth.

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From that simple observation,

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he extrapolated the laws that
govern the Earth's gravity,

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the orbits of the planets,
the positions of the stars.

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- He was in his teens and
just barely in his 20s

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where he then sort of single-handedly

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deduces the laws of
gravity and laws of optics

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and laws of motion.

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That is sheer brilliance.

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He devised a complex new
branch of mathematics

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almost as an afterthought.

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We now know it as Calculus.

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Almost every problem of
higher engineering or physics

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is built upon the foundation
of Newton's Calculus,

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and it's indispensable
for plotting the movements

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of planets.

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And the paths of spacecraft.

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- [NASA Controller] You guys
are up there and who's driving?

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- [Astronaut] That's a good question.

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I think Isaac Newton's doing
most of the driving right now.

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- We couldn't have gotten to the moon

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without Sir Isaac Newton.

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We wouldn't have gotten there.

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Here is a fellow (laughs)
that hundreds and hundreds

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of years ago came up with
these laws of physics

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that have endured for so long.

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I mean, he's the guy that taught us

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what makes the world go round.
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- [Narrator] The impact
of his work is staggering.

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Just look at the other names
on our list who owe him a debt.

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If it hadn't been for Newton,

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the Wright brothers would never
have gotten off the ground.

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Henry Ford's Model T
would be up on blocks.

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Edison would still be sitting in the dark.

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And Bill Gates would be
building a better abacus.

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Newton didn't start the
scientific revolution,

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but he took the discoveries
of those who came before him,

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like Copernicus, Galileo, and Descartes

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and increased their significance manyfold.

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- Newton has a wonderful phrase,

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he says, "They may be giants
and we may be pygmies,

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"but we stand on the shoulders of giants

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and we can see further."

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Newton finally made it clear
that science is here to stay,

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that you can't attack
science anymore as mistaken

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or wrong-headed or evil
or simply unnecessary.

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He made science central
to Western thought.

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- [Narrator] The scientific
age that Newton ushered in

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is so much a part of our lives today,

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we often take it for granted,

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but it was his groundbreaking
theories of light, motion,

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mechanics, and gravity
that would eventually

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make science accessible to everyone.

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Finally, we could comprehend our planet

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and take our newfound understanding

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to the edges of the Universe.

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(majestic orchestral music)

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- Politicians and statesmen
often get the day-to-day

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headlines and the limousines and the jets,

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but over time the people
who make the most difference

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in our lives are usually the discoverers--

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the scientists, the people who
made the great breakthroughs.