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In terms of accomplishments, Isabella I unified Spain through her marriage to Ferdinand II of Aragon, and she financed the expedition of Christopher Columbus, leading to the discovery of the Americas. She also completed the Reconquista but infamously expelled Jews and Muslims and empowered the Spanish Inquisition. -
Was king of Spain from 1516 to 1556 and Holy Roman emperor, Charles V, from 1519 to 1558. The grandson of Ferdinand II and Isabella I as well as the emperor Maximilian I, Charles inherited an empire that stretched from Germany to the Americas.
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The Battle of Lepanto was a naval engagement that took place on 7 October 1571 when a fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of Catholic states arranged by Pope Pius V, inflicted a major defeat on the fleet of the Ottoman Empire in the Gulf of Patras. -
Was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519 to 1556, King of Spain (Castile and Aragon) from 1516 to 1556, and Lord of the Netherlands as titular Duke of Burgundy from 1506 to 1555.
was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519 to 1556, King of Spain (Castile and Aragon) from 1516 to 1556, and Lord of the Netherlands as titular Duke of Burgundy from 1506 to 1555. -
He chose to abdicate after the British government, public, and the Church of England condemned his decision to marry the American divorcée Wallis Warfield Simpson. -
The Acts of Supremacy are two acts passed by the Parliament of England in the 16th century that established the English monarchs as the head of the Church of England.
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Philip II was a member of the Habsburg dynasty. He served as king of the Spaniards from 1556 to 1598 and as king of the Portuguese (as Philip I) from 1580 to 1598. The Spanish empire under Philip prospered: it attained its greatest power, extent, and influence.
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During her reign, Elizabeth I established Protestantism in England; defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588; maintained peace inside her previously divided country; and created an environment where the arts flourished. She was sometimes called the "Virgin Queen", as she was never married.
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When Ferdinand died in 1564, the Habsburg lands were divided among his three sons. Maximilian II succeeded his father as Holy Roman Emperor and gained Bohemia, part of Hungary, and Upper and Lower Austria. His brother Charles acquired Inner Austria, while the third brother, Ferdinand, received lands in Germany. -
The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572 was a targeted group of assassinations and a wave of Catholic mob violence, directed against the Huguenots during the French Wars of Religion.
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English guns damaged the Armada, and a Spanish ship was captured by Sir Francis Drake in the English Channel. The Armada anchored off Calais.
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Henry IV (French: Henri IV; 13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), also known by the epithet Good King Henry or Henry the Great, was King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarch of France from the House of Bourbon, a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty.
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Huguenots were French Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who followed the teachings of theologian John Calvin. Persecuted by the French Catholic government during a violent period, Huguenots fled the country in the 17th century, creating Huguenot settlements all over Europe, in the United States and Africa
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James I, (born June 19, 1566, Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland—died March 27, 1625, Theobalds, Hertfordshire, England), king of Scotland (as James VI) from 1567 to 1625 and first Stuart king of England from 1603 to 1625, who styled himself “king of Great Britain.”
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Don Quixote is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Its full title is The Ingenious Gentleman Sir Quixote of La Mancha. It was originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615
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El Greco, byname of Doménikos Theotokópoulos, (born 1541, Candia [Iráklion], Crete—died April 7, 1614, Toledo, Spain), master of Spanish painting, whose highly individual dramatic and expressionistic style met with the puzzlement of his contemporaries but gained newfound appreciation in the 20th century.
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Three incidents in the history of Bohemia in which people were defenestrated.
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Considered one of the most destructive wars in European history, estimates of total deaths caused by the conflict range from 4.5 to 8 million, while some areas of Germany experienced population declines of over 50%.
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The Petition of Right was sent by English Parliament to King Charles I to complain about a series of breaches of law he had made. He was compelled to agree to the petition in order to receive money for his lifestyle and policies.
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The Palace of Versailles is a former royal residence located in Versailles, about 12 miles west of Paris, France.
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The Long Parliament was an English Parliament that lasted from 1640 until 1660. It followed the fiasco of the Short Parliament, which had convened for only three weeks during the spring of 1640 after an 11-year parliamentary absence.
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The English Civil War was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists, mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of religious freedom. It was part of the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
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Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 5 September 1638 – 1 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great (Louis le Grand) or the Sun King (le Roi Soleil), was King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest recorded of any monarch of a sovereign country in history.
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The Peace of Westphalia is the collective name for two peace treaties signed in October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster.
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The execution of Charles I by beheading occurred on Tuesday 30 January 1649 outside the Banqueting House on Whitehall.
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Hobbes argued that the absolute power of the sovereign was ultimately justified by the consent of the governed, who agreed, in a hypothetical social contract, to obey the sovereign in all matters in exchange for a guarantee of peace and security.
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The Navigation Acts, or more broadly the Acts of Trade and Navigation, was a long series of English laws that developed, promoted, and regulated English ships, shipping, trade, and commerce between other countries and with its own colonies.
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He became heir to the throne on the death of his brother, Prince Henry, in 1612.
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Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG PC (26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745; known between 1725 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole) was a British statesman and Whig politician who is generally regarded as the de facto first Prime Minister of Great Britain.
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Peter the Great was the 14th child of Czar Alexis by his second wife, Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina. Having ruled jointly with his brother Ivan V from 1682, when Ivan died in 1696, Peter was officially declared Sovereign of all Russia.
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Johann Sebastian Bach is regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. He is celebrated as the creator of many masterpieces of church and instrumental music. His compositions represent the best of the Baroque era
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The Glorious Revolution, also called “The Revolution of 1688” and “The Bloodless Revolution,” took place from 1688 to 1689 in England. It involved the overthrow of the Catholic king James II, who was replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange
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The English Bill of Rights was an act signed into law in 1689 by William III and Mary II, who became co-rulers in England after the overthrow of King James II. The bill outlined specific constitutional and civil rights and ultimately gave Parliament power over the monarchy.
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Two Treatises of Government, major statement of the political philosophy of the English philosopher John Locke, published in 1689 but substantially composed some years before then.
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During the war, the Russian army organized the Crimean campaigns of 1687 and 1689 both which ended in Russian defeats. Despite these setbacks, Russia launched the Azov campaigns in 1695 and 1696, and after raising the siege in 1695 successfully occupied Azov in 1696.
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Philip V, also called (until 1700) Philippe, duc d'Anjou, (born December 19, 1683, Versailles, France—died July 9, 1746, Madrid, Spain), king of Spain from 1700 (except for a brief period from January to August 1724) and founder of the Bourbon dynasty in Spain.
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Petersburg has played a vital role in Russian history since its founding in 1703. For two centuries (1712–1918) it was the capital of the Russian Empire. -
Frederick II (1712-1786) ruled Prussia from 1740 until his death, leading his nation through multiple wars with Austria and its allies. His daring military tactics expanded and consolidated Prussian lands, while his domestic policies transformed his kingdom into a modern state and formidable European power.
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The Peace of Utrecht was a series of peace treaties signed by the belligerents in the War of the Spanish Succession, in the Dutch city of Utrecht between April 1713 and February 1715. The war involved three contenders for the vacant throne of Spain, and involved much of Europe for over a decade. -
The Dutch Revolt was the revolt in the Low Countries against the rule of the Habsburg King Philip II of Spain, hereditary ruler of the provinces.
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Maria Theresa (1717-1780), archduchess of Austria, Holy Roman Empress, and queen of Hungary and Bohemia, began her rule in 1740. She was the only woman ruler in the 650 history of the Habsburg dynasty.
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Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a travelogue of true incidents.
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By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, satirising both human nature and the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre.
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The War of the Austrian Succession was the last great power conflict with the Bourbon-Habsburg dynastic conflict at its heart. It occurred from 1740 to 1748 and marked the rise of Prussia as a major power
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Handel's Messiah has been described by the early-music scholar Richard Luckett as "a commentary on [Jesus Christ's] Nativity, Passion, Resurrection and Ascension", beginning with God's promises as spoken by the prophets and ending with Christ's glorification in heaven.
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The Spirit of Law is a treatise on political theory, as well as a pioneering work in comparative law, published in 1748 by Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu.
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Voltaire stands today as the iconic example of the French Enlightenment philosopher. Denis Diderot (1713–1784) is often seen as Voltaire’s second in that role since it was around both men that the Enlightenment philosophes rallied as a movement after 1750
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The Seven Years' War was a global conflict that ran from 1756 until 1763 and pitted a coalition of Great Britain and its allies against a coalition of France and its allies. The war escalated from a regional conflict between Great Britain and France in North America, known today as the French and Indian War.
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It is a savage denunciation of a metaphysical optimist as espoused by the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz—that reveals a world of horrors and folly
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George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 1738 – 29 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death in 1820.
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The Social Contract, originally published as On the Social Contract; or, Principles of Political Right (French: Du contrat social; ou Principes du droit politique) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is a 1762 book in which Rousseau theorized about the best way to establish a political community in the face of the problems
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She was crowned with great ceremony in Moscow, the ancient capital of the tsars, and began a reign that was to span 34 years as empress of Russia under the title of Catherine II.
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Parliament passed the Stamp Act on March 22, 1765 and repealed it in 1766, but issued a Declaratory Act at the same time to reaffirm its authority to pass any colonial legislation it saw fit. -
The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 123 years.
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The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty. -
The Intolerable Acts (passed/Royal assent March 31–June 22, 1774) were punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest in reaction to changes in taxation by the British Government.
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On September 5, 1774, the First Continental Congress in the United States met in Philadelphia to consider its reaction to the British government's restraints on trade and representative government after the Boston Tea Party.
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The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War.
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The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. -
Two important officials passed up the chance to sign and others were added later. The first and largest signature was that of the president of Congress, John Hancock.
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The Battles of Saratoga marked the climax of the Saratoga campaign, giving a decisive victory to the Americans over the British in the American Revolutionary War.
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The string quartets were the height of his career and are dedicated to Haydn (who called Mozart the greatest living composer), the three great operas on Lorenzo Da Ponte's librettos—The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), and Così fan tutte (1790)—and his superb late symphonies.
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Joseph II was Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790 and ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 to 1790. He was the eldest son of Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I and thus the first ruler in the Austrian dominions of the House of Lorraine, styled Habsburg-Lorraine.
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The Articles were signed by Congress and sent to the individual states for ratification, after 16 months of debate.
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The siege of Yorktown, also known as the Battle of Yorktown, the surrender at Yorktown, or the German battle, beginning on September 28, 1781, and ending on October 19, 1781, at Yorktown, Virginia.
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The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the United States of America on September 3, 1783, officially ended the American Revolutionary War and overall state of conflict between the two countries
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The constitution became the official framework of the government of the United States of America when New Hampshire became the ninth of 13 states to ratify it. The journey to ratification, however, was a long and arduous process.
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The Storming of the Bastille was an event that occurred in Paris, France, on the afternoon of 14 July 1789, when revolutionaries stormed and seized control of the medieval armory, fortress, and political prison known as the Bastille. At the time, the Bastille represented royal authority in the centre of Paris. -
Tennis Court Oath, French Serment du Jeu de Paume, (June 20, 1789), dramatic act of defiance by representatives of the nonprivileged classes of the French nation (the Third Estate) during the meeting of the Estates-General (traditional assembly) at the beginning of the French Revolution. -
Great Fear, French Grande Peur, (1789) in the French Revolution, a period of panic and riot by peasants and others amid rumors of an “aristocratic conspiracy” by the king and the privileged to overthrow the Third Estate.
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The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human civil rights document from the French Revolution. -
The Women's March on Versailles, also known as the October March, the October Days or simply the March on Versailles, was one of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution.
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By September 1791, the National Assembly completed the Constitution. Louis XVI had no other option but to accept the Constitution of 1791.
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The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, also known as the Declaration of the Rights of Woman, was written on 14 September 1791 by French activist, feminist, and playwright Olympe de Gouges in response to the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. -
The Declaration of Pilnite, more commonly referred to as the Declaration of Pillnitz, was a statement of five sentences issued on 27 August 1791 at Pillnitz Castle near Dresden by Frederick William II of Prussia and the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II who was Marie Antoinette's brother. -
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, written by the 18th-century British proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. -
The Radical Phase of 1792-1794 is when most atrocities took place. France was ruled by a Committee for Public Safety. The Moderate Period1794-1799 was where the middle class took over. Lastly, Napoleon's coup-d-etat occurred and he took over.
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The National Convention was a parliament of the French Revolution, following the two-year National Constituent Assembly and the one-year Legislative Assembly. Created after the great insurrection of 10 August 1792, it was the first French government organized as a republic, abandoning the monarchy altogether.
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Marie-Antoinette was guillotined in 1793 after the Revolutionary Tribunal found her guilty of crimes against the state. The royal family had been compelled to leave Versailles in 1789 and live in captivity in Paris -
Ultimately unwilling to cede his royal power to the Revolutionary government, Louis XVI was found guilty of treason and condemned to death. He was guillotined on January 21, 1793 -
Political body of the French Revolution that gained virtual dictatorial control over France during the Reign of Terror -
The Reign of Terror, also called The Terror, was a period of state-sanctioned violence and mass executions during the French Revolution. Between Sept. 5, 1793, and July 27, 1794, France's revolutionary government ordered the arrest and execution of thousands of people.
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Directory, group of five men who held the executive power in France according to the constitution of the year III (1795) of the French Revolution. They were chosen by the new legislature, by the Council of Five Hundred and the Council of Ancients; each year one director, chosen by lot, was to be replaced. -
Born on the island of Corsica, Napoleon rapidly rose through the ranks of the military during the French Revolution (1789-1799). After seizing political power in France in a 1799 coup d'état, he crowned himself emperor in 1804
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The Napoleonic Wars were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions.
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Born on the island of Corsica, Napoleon rapidly rose through the ranks of the military during the French Revolution (1789-1799). After seizing political power in France in a 1799 coup d'état, he crowned himself emperor in 1804.
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The Battle of Trafalgar was a naval engagement between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars. -
Known as the Battle of the Three Emperors was one of the most important and decisive engagements of the Napoleonic Wars. -
The French invasion of Russia, also known as the Russian Campaign, the Second Polish War, the Second Polish Campaign, the Patriotic War of 1812, and the War of 1812, was begun by Napoleon to force Russia back into the Continental blockade of the United Kingdom.
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The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War.
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An international diplomatic conference to reconstitute the European political order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon I.
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On April 11, 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France and one of the greatest military leaders in history, abdicates the throne, and, in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, is banished to the Mediterranean island of Elba. The future emperor was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, on August 15, 1769.
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The vague consensus among the European monarchies favoring preservation of the territorial and political status quo.
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The Hundred Days (French: les Cent-Jours IPA: [le sɑ̃ ʒuʁ]), also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition, marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815 (a period of 110 days). -
Napoleon was subsequently exiled to the island of Saint Helena off the coast of Africa.
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The Hohenzollerns gained de jure sovereignty over Brandenburg when the empire dissolved in 1806, and Brandenburg was formally merged into Prussia. In 1871, in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, the German Empire was formed, and the King of Prussia, Wilhelm I was crowned German Emperor. -
Group of nine British soldiers killed three people of a crowd of three or four hundred who were abusing them verbally and throwing various missiles. -
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, generally referred to by its shortened title ̈ The Wealth of Nations.̈
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