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After Charles V saw that the Hapsburg empire was too scattered, he gave up his titles and entered a monastery. During that same period, he divided his empire and gave the Hapsburg lands to the soon to become Holy Roman emperor, his brother Ferdinand.
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The 42-year emperor Phillip II, kept fighting wars in attempt to advance Spanish power. At the Battle of Lepanto, in the year of 1571, the Ottoman empire was defeated and forced to leave from the western coast of Greece. The ones who defeated them were Spain and its Italian allies, who came in a fleet from the Holy League. The fleet consisted of 206 galleys and 6 galleases, with which they defeated the Ottomans in no more than 10 hours.
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Religious wars that took place around the 1560s until the 1590s between the Huguenots, tore France apart. During a royal wedding were Huhuenot and Catholic nobles were gathered, an attack by Catholic royals led to a massacre of 3,000 Huhuenots. In the following few days, thousands more were slaughtered, causing that day to be the symbol of the breakdown of order in France.
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After realizing that Queen Elizabeth I was Philip's main enemy, he prepared a huge armada to carry a Spanish invasion force and end English attacks, as well as to subdue the Dutch. The fleet sailed towards England with more than 130 ships, 20,000 men, and 2,400 pieces of artillery. As they advanced into the English Channel, faster English ships outmaneuvered the Spanish and bad weather caused the survivors to just give up and go back to Spain, with defeat written all over.
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Henry IV fought during 4 years in order to gain control of France, and in order to end the conflict, he converted to Catholicism. However, in 1598 he issued the Edict of Nantes in order to protect Protestants. The Edict of Nantes was a treaty that granted Huguenots some privileges, such as religious toleration and other freedoms.
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During the 30 years war, two royal officials were tossed out of a castle window in Prague by a few rebellious Protestant noblemen. That act, sparked a general revolt, which Ferdinand had to move in order to suppress. That was known as the second event of the Defenestration of Prague in the history of Bohemia, since the first one wasn’t considered severe.
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After Cardinal Richelieu was able to choose his successor, Cardinal Mazarin, he died. One year after Richelieu’s death, when Louis XIV inherited the throne in 1643, Mazarin was placed in order to serve as chief minister. As soon as Louis XIV became king, disorder swept all over France again.
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After the sparked happened, it soon became a terrible war between several countries. Such war took a terrible toll in population and daily life that combatants were so exhausted that they finally signed a series of treaties, known as the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. These treaties aimed to bring general European peace and to settle international problems.
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In the years of 1600s, two powerful political forces emerged in England, the Tories and Whigs. The Tories were aristocrats who sought to preserve old and ancient traditions and supported broad royal powers. The Whigs liked to reflect urban business interests, supported religious toleration, and backed the policies of the Glorious Revolution.
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After James II had been ruling England for a couple of years, he was forced to flee to France. This was because he practiced the Catholic faith, causing English Protestants to fear that he would restore the Roman Catholic Church. Because of that, they invited Mary&William III to become rulers. Just before they landed in England, James had already fled.
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Before the James’s Protestant daughter and her husband could be crowed, they had to accept several acts passed by the Parliament. The daughter, Mary, and her husband, William, accepted the English Bill of Rights, which ensured the superiority of Parliament over the Monarchy. The Bill of Rights barred Roman Catholic from sitting on the throne and required the monarch to summon the Parliament regularly. Also, it gave the House of Commons the “power of the purse”.
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Even though Peter the Great was just 10 years old when he inherited the throne in 1682, since he was a not well educated young tsar, he didn't take control of the government until the year of 1689. He was always a very curious young man. He spent hours and hours in the 'German quarter' where he learned about the new technologies. When he did take control, his leader inspirations showed very well on how he controled his government.
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When Peter the Great defeated the Swedes and won the territory along the Baltic Sea, he started building the magnificent capital named St. Petersburg. The city was located along the shores of the Neva River, where he forced tens of thousands of serfs to drain the swamps. Even though thousands died, the plan succeded and St. Petersburg became a symbol of the modern Russia Peter was creating.
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Right after Charles’s death in 1740, the eight-year war known as the War of the Austrian Succession, took place when Frederick II of Prussia seized the rich Hapsburg province of Silesia. This war included King George’s War, the First Carnatic War, and the first and second Silesian wars. It mostly included all powers of Europe thanks to Maria Theresa’s succession to the realms of the House of Habsburg.
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After Peter the Great died without a heir and without naming a successor, a woman took the reins of power firmly in hand and became known as Catherine the Great. As she learned about Russia and embraced the Russian Orthodox faith, she increased the loyalty won from the people. On the year of 1762, a group of Russian army officers murdered Catherine's husband, Tsar Petter III, and Catherine rose to the Russian throne.
