"The term, Evangelical, has had a variety of meanings. In its origins, the words was synonymous with Protestant, albeit embodying a positive witness to the Gospel rather than a negative “protest.” This interchangeability of Evangelical and Protestant was found in the United States until about 1900 and is still common in Germany, France, and other parts continental Europe. In the United States and Great Britain, however, the label Evangelical has also become attached in a distinctive way to persons and institutions affected by the religious renewals or “Awakenings” that have periodically swept trough these lands. The First Great Awakening, associated with figures such as Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and the Tennet family, reached its peak in the 1730s and 1740s. America's Second Great Awakening, tied to names including Charles Grandison Finney, Lyman Beecher, and Lorenzo Dow, ran roughly from 1800 to 1840. Some observers of the great Revivals of Dwight Moody and Billy Sunday, which spanned from 1873 to 1917, thought that they were living in a Third Great Awakening."