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The War of the Spanish Succession was an early 18th-century European war, triggered by the death in November 1700 of the childless Charles II of Spain. It established the principle that dynastic rights were secondary to maintaining the balance of power between different countries.
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The First Great Awakening or the Evangelical Revival was a series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its thirteen North American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. The revival movement permanently affected Protestantism as adherents strove to renew individual piety and religious devotion.
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Frederick II, the king of Prussia, invades the neighboring Habsburg province of Silesia, launching the War of the Austrian Succession. This was the last Great Power conflict with the Bourbon-Habsburg dynastic conflict at its heart and marked the rise of Prussia as a major power. This war resulted in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, confirming the right of succession of the house of Hanover both in Great Britain and in Hanover.
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The French and Indian War began in 1754 and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The war provided Great Britain enormous territorial gains in North America, but disputes over subsequent frontier policy and paying the war's expenses led to colonial discontent, and ultimately to the American Revolution.
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The Seven Years' War was a global conflict, "a struggle for global primacy between Britain and France," which also had a major impact on the Spanish Empire. In Europe, the conflict arose from issues left unresolved by the War of the Austrian Succession, with Prussia seeking greater dominance. This resulted in the creation of 4 treaties (Treaty of Hubertusburg, Treaty of Paris, Treat of Saint Petersburg, Treaty of Hamburg).
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The Diplomatic Revolution of 1756 was the reversal of longstanding alliances in Europe between the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War. Austria went from an ally of Britain to an ally of France, while Prussia became an ally of Britain.
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The Annus Mirabilis of 1759 took place in the context of the Seven Years' War and Great Britain's military success against French-led opponents on several continents. Britain gained almost total supremacy of the seas and would retain it for more than a century and a half.
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The Stamp Act was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which imposed a direct tax on the British colonies in America and required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp. Instead of levying a duty on trade goods, the Stamp Act imposed a direct tax on the colonists. Specifically, the act required that legal documents and printed materials must bear a tax stamp provided by commissioned distributors.
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This was the early modern reformulation of chemistry that culminated in the law of conservation of mass and the oxygen theory of combustion. Several factors led to the first chemical revolution. First, there were the forms of gravimetric analysis that emerged from alchemy and new kinds of instruments that were developed in medical and industrial contexts.
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The French Revolution began in May 1789 when the Ancien Régime was abolished in favour of a constitutional monarchy. Its replacement in September 1792 by the First French Republic led to the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793, and an extended period of political turmoil.