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The Council of Trent is a council of the Roman Catholic Church, held in three parts from 1545 to 1563. The Council of Trent was highly important for its sweeping decrees on self-reform and for its definitions that clarified virtually every doctrine made by the Protestants. Despite internal angst and two lengthy interruptions, the council played a vital role in revitalizing the Roman Catholic Church in many parts of Europe.
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In 1488, Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias (c. 1450-1500) became the first European mariner to round the southern tip of Africa, opening the way for a sea route from Europe to Asia.
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The Portuguese were using enslaved Africans on sugar plantations in Madeira, a Portuguese island off the west coast of Africa, by 1460. In the early 17th century, Portugal was a major trader in enslaved Africans.
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Mehmed II ruled the Ottoman for a brief time, from 1444 to 1446, after his father. Mehmet II was a genius statesman and a military leader who was also interested in literature, fine arts and monumental architecture. He was a very strict statesman and a very brave soldier.
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This is the time period where Mehmed ruled over the Ottoman Empire from 1451 to 1481.
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Sunni Ali was an African ruler who founded the Songhai Empire in the 15th century. He was the hereditary ruler of the kingdom of Songhai, which existed from the 11th century and was centered in the city of Gao on the Niger River in the southeastern part of the present-day Republic of Mali.
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Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella agreed to fund the voyage and in August of 1492, Columbus set sail from the Spanish port of Palos with three ships and 88 men. Columbus described this first voyage to the Americas in his ship's log.
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The period of the Safavids, named for the dynasty that took control of Persia at the start of the sixteenth century, marks the start of modern Persia. But because of the religious nature, it would not be correct to identify it as a modern nation-state. Still, the Safavids, in bringing a largely nomadic society under the control of a centralized administrative machine that was used to finance a powerful army, created the basics of an impressive, modernized state machine.
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Emperor Wanli was the 13th emperor of the Ming dynasty; Wanli ascended the throne when he was only nine years old, and was helped by Zhang Juzheng, a noble statesman, for the first ten years. Also, he defended China successfully against attacks from the Mongols and the Japanese.
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The French and Indian War was the North American conflict in a larger imperial war between Great Britain and France known as the Seven Years' War. The French and Indian War began in 1754 and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763.
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On 25 March 1807, the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act entered the statute books. Nevertheless, although the Act made it illegal to engage in the slave trade throughout the British colonies, trafficking between the Caribbean islands continued, regardless, until 1811