1429 Isabella financed Colombus's voyage to the Americas.
Isabella financed Colombus's voyage to the Americas.
Oct 20, 1485
1485 - 1603 England was ruled by the Tudor Dynasty
Oct 1, 1519
1519 Charles V inherits a huge empire.
1519 Charles V inherits a huge empire.
Oct 19, 1550
1550-1650 Spain's Golden Age
Oct 19, 1556
1556 Charles V gave up his titles and entered a monastery
Oct 19, 1560
1560's Riots against the Inquistition sparked a general uprising in the Netherlands.
Oct 19, 1561
1560s-1590s religious wats between Huguenots (French Protestants) and the Catholic majority tore France apart.
Oct 20, 1561
1560's "The most high and absolute power in the realm consists in the Parliament," wrote an English statesman
Oct 19, 1571
1571 Spain and Italian allies soundly defeated an Ottoman fleet in the Mediterranean
Aug 8, 1572
1572 St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.
Oct 19, 1580
1580's Philip II saw England's Queen Elizabeth I as his chief Protestant enemy.
Oct 19, 1581
1581 The nothern, largetly Protestant provinces declared their independence from spain and became known as the Dutch Netherlands.
1588 The Armada sailed with more than 130 ships, 20,000 men, and 2,400 pieces of artillery.
1589 Huguenor prince inherited the French throne as Henry IV.
1598 Edict of Nanted is issued.
1600s and 1700s, Dutch, English, and French fleets challenges and surpassed Spanish power bothin Europe and around the world.
1600s Hohenzollern family tuled scattered lands across north Germany.
1600s Russia was still a medieval state, untouched by the Renaissance and Reformation and largely isolated from Western Europe
1603 Elizabeth I dies
1603 A monarch with far different ideas took the throne of England.
1603 End of the Tudor Dynasty
1610 Henry IV was killed by an assassin.
1613 The reign of the first Romanov czar restored a measure of order
1614-1789 Estates General did not meet.
1618 Rebellious Protestant noblemen tossed two royal officials out of a castle window in Prague.
1624 Louis XIII appointed Cardinal Armand Richelieu as his chief minister.
1625 Charles I inherits the throne
1628 Charles' need to raise taxes forced him to summon Parliament.
1629 Charles dissolved Parliament
1637 Charles and Laud tried to impose the Anglican prayer book on Scotland.
1640 Parliament is finally summoned
1640 Parliament became known as the Long Parliament because it lasted until 1653
1642 Civil War starts
1642 Charles led the troops into the House of Commons to arrest its most radical leaders.
1643 Louis XIV inherited the throne
1647 The king was in the hands of parliamentary forces
1648 Dutch Netherlands earn recognition.
1648 Peace of Westphalia
1649 Charles I stood on a scaffold surrounded by his foes. "I am a martyr of the people," he declared.
1649 Civil War ends
1652 Parliament passed a law exiling most Catholics to barrenland in the west of Ireland.
1653 Parliament is gone
1653 Cromwell took the title Lord Protector
1660 Cheering crowds welcomed Charles II back to London
1660 Newly selected Parliament invited Charles II to return to England from exile
1661 Mazarin dies and Louis resolves to take over the government himself.
1682 A czar emerged who was strong enough to regain the absolute power of earlier czars
1685 Edict of Nantes is revoked by Louis XIV
1685 James II inheritss the throne
1688 Alarmed parliamentary leaders invited James's Prtestant daughter, Mary, and her Dutch Protestant husband, William II of Orange, to become rulers of England
1689 English Bill of Rights is established
1689 Toleration Act granted limited religious freedom to Puritans, Quakers and other dissenters, though not yet to Catholics
1689 Peter the Great didn't take control over the government until 1689
Late 1600s France had replaced Spain as the most powerful European nation. Louis XIV was absolute monarch of France and the most powerful ruler in Europe.
1697 Peter set out to study western technology himself
1700 Louis's grandson Philip V inherited the throne of Spain.
1700 Peter began a long war against the kingdom of Sweden
1700s Hapsburg empire already included Germans, Magyars, Slavs, and others.
1700s (early) Emperor Charles VI faced a new crisis, he had no son.
1700s (early) Peter hired the Danish navigator Vitus Bering to explore the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska
1700s Russia would be invreasingly involved in the affairs of Western Europe
1709 Peter defeated the Swedes and won land along the Baltic Sea
1713 War of the Spanish Succession ended.
1715 Louis XIV dies and five-year-old great-grandson inherited the throne as Louis XV
1725 Peter The Great died and left a mixed legacy
1740 Frederick II of Prussia sized the rich Hapsburg province of Silesia
1740 By then, Prussia was strong enough to challenge its rival Austria
1740 Frederick II is crowned king, doesn't loose any time in using his army.
1756 Seven Years' War starts
1762 Catherine The Great's husband was killed by a group of Russian army officers
1763 Seven Years' War ends
1770s Catherine The Great, Frederick The Great, and Emperor Joseph II divided Poland into three parts.
1772 The first partition happened. Catherine The Great took part of eastern Poland