What was the enlightenment

The Enlightenment is the period in the history of western thought and culture, stretching roughly from the mid-decades of the seventeenth century through the eighteenth century, characterized by dramatic revolutions in science, philosophy, society and politics; these revolutions swept away the medieval world-view

You can think of the Enlightenment as an era of Ideas and Individuality. This era took place in the 17th and 18th century where idealists such as Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith existed. It was great because this era really pushed to teach people that we are allowed to govern and make choices ourselves.