Before factories were a thing, everything humanity was consuming was handmade. From processing food to sewing clothes, everything had to be handmade. Basic needs were harder to obtain. The prices were high and only available to the upper class. Humanity needed something that would decrease the time spent on the process so that it could eventually lower the prices. And that’s how the Industrial Revolution began.
We must go back to the early 12th century to understand how it started. At that time, Europe was under the pressure of the Catholic Church. There wasn’t an environment for science and civilization to develop. It’s the reason for these times to be called the Dark Ages. Until the beginning of the 13th century, this state had continued. But the next century would be different from the previous ones. Artists in Italy were fed up with the current state. Especially in Florence, people were into arts more than ever. For example, in the writings of Petrarch and Dante Alighieri, we can notice the thoughts of the modern age. That’s why the ideas that were the backbone of the Renaissance were born there. As we get closer to the 15th century, we can see that the idea of the Renaissance is spread out to the whole of Europe. With the support of the richer class, Europe was more open to science and arts.
Although the appropriate environment for the development of science and technology was somewhat approached, the biggest threat to it still hasn’t been eliminated. The Catholic Church. At that time, people couldn’t read the Bible because most of them couldn’t find or were able to buy a copy of it. With that, the Church was able to control people by their beliefs because they didn’t know what the bible said. That's why, in 1517, Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation by publishing his Ninety-five Theses. Also, with the help of the publishing press, many people were able to reach his thesis and started leaving Catholicism in droves. And now there was nothing left to stand in the way of science.
Once the right environment was established, science started developing at an immense speed in Europe. With that technology, they were able to conquer many weak countries, especially the ones in Africa, so that they could exploit their natural resources. In the meantime, in England, people found that they could use steam power in their machines which minimized the usage of human power. With all the raw materials they exploited and the power of steam-powered machines, they started mass-producing and became the richest continent.
To sum everything up, Europe was not always as developed as we know it today. It took them several centuries and many important events to leave their Dark Ages and enter a Golden Era which is the Europe we know today.