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The printing press was built around the traditional screw press, a precursor to today's drill press, with an added matrix on which individually-cast letters and symbols could be arranged to form the desired text. -
While the invasion of the Ottoman Empire was the immediate cause of the fall of the Byzantine Empire and Constantinople, the empire had been declining for a number of centuries prior to its final conquest. -
The Catholic Monarchs is the title with which are known historically Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, granted by the Pope Alexander VI. The Catholic Monarchs were the last effective representatives of Dynasty Trastámara in the kingdom of Aragon and Castile.
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The explorer Christopher Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain: in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502. He was determined to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia, but he never did. Instead, he stumbled upon the Americas. -
The Treaty of Tordesillas was an agreement of 1494 between Spain and Portugal to divide the world by means of an imaginary line in the center of the Atlantic Ocean. -
Michelangelo Buonarroti, was an Italian Renaissance architect, sculptor, painter and poet, considered one of the greatest artists in history both for his sculptures and for his paintings and architectural work. Michelangelo's most famous works have to be his Pieta. -
Leonardo da Vinci was a Florentine polymath of the Italian Renaissance. He was simultaneously a painter, anatomist, architect, paleontologist, botanist, writer, sculptor, philosopher, engineer, inventor, musician, poet, and urban planner. Undoubtedly, the most famous and well-known work of the Florentine painter is La Gioconda, also called La Mona Lisa. -
She was nicknamed "La Loca" for an alleged mental illness alleged by her father and her son to separate her from the throne and keep her locked up in Tordesillas for life. It has been written that the disease could have been caused by jealousy towards her husband and by the pain she felt after his death.
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His “95 Theses,” which propounded two central beliefs—that the Bible is the central religious authority and that humans may reach salvation only by their faith and not by their deeds—was to spark the Protestant Reformation. -
The most important event of Carlos V was The Italian War, also known as the Four Years' War,1 is part of the Italian Wars. The conflict took place and in it Francis I of France and the Republic of Venice fought against the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Henry VIII of England and the Papal States. Among the causes of the conflict are the election of Charles I as Holy Roman Emperor and the need for Pope Leo X to ally with Charles to combat Martin Luther.
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Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy which defined the right of Henry VIII to be supreme head on earth of the Church of England, thereby severing ecclesiastical links with Rome. -
Calvin was originally trained as a humanist lawyer. He broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530. After religious tensions erupted in widespread deadly violence against Protestant Christians in France, Calvin fled to Basel, Switzerland, where he published the first edition of the Institutes. -
The Council of Trent was an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church developed in discontinuous periods during twenty-five sessions between the years 1545 and 1563. It took place in Trento, a city in the north of present-day Italy, which was then a free imperial city governed by a prince-bishop. -
Philip II, also known as Philip the Prudent, was King of Spain, King of Portugal, and King of Naples and Sicily until his death. He was also jure uxoris King of England and Ireland from his marriage to Queen Mary I in 1554 until her death in 1558. He was also Duke of Milan. He was Lord of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands.
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Philip III was King of Spain. As Philip II, he was also King of Portugal, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia and Duke of Milan. A member of the House of Habsburg, Philip III to King Philip II of Spain and his fourth wife and niece Anna, the daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II and Maria of Spain. Philip III later married his cousin Margaret of Austria, sister of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor.
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Philip IV, also called the Planet King, was King of Spain, King of Portugal. Philip is remembered for his patronage of the arts, including such artists as Diego Velázquez, and his rule over Spain during the Thirty Years' War.
By the time of his death, the Spanish Empire had reached approximately 12.2 million square kilometers in area but in other aspects was in decline, a process to which Philip contributed with his inability to achieve successful domestic and military reform. -
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, known as Diego Velázquez, was a Spanish Baroque painter considered one of the greatest exponents of Spanish painting and a master of universal painting.
Las Meninas is Velázquez's masterpiece. This is the portrait of the Royal Family staged in the painter's own workshop. -
Charles II of Spain, known as the Bewitched, was the last Habsburg ruler of the Spanish Empire. Best remembered for his physical disabilities and the War of the Spanish Succession that followed his death, Charles's reign has traditionally been viewed as one of managed decline. However, many of the issues Spain faced in this period were inherited from his predecessors and some recent historians have suggested a more balanced perspective.
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The War of the Spanish Succession was a European great power conflict that took place from 1701 to 1715. The death of childless Charles II of Spain led to a struggle for control of the Spanish Empire between his heirs, Philip of Anjou and Charles of Austria, and their respective supporters, among them Spain, Austria, France, the Dutch Republic, Savoy and Great Britain. -
The French Revolution began in 1789 and lasted until 1794. King Louis XVI needed more money, but had failed to raise more taxes when he had called a meeting of the Estates General. This instead turned into a protest about conditions in France.