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A Dutch humanist, Desiderius Erasmus, writes In Praise of Folly. He is a devout Catholic who has been bothered by what he calls absurd superstitions of most of the Christians of his day. He favors the translation of the Bible from Latin to local languages so that the masses can read it, and he believes that common people have the capacity to understand Christianity as well as do priests.
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Hernando Cortés conquered Cuba where he assisted Diego Velázquez in his conquest of the island and made his reputation for courage and daring.
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The first Spaniards settled on the American mainland did so in Panama.
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Three sons of the aged Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II are fighting for his throne. Janissaries are a power behind the throne and choose the most warlike of the three: Selim. He eliminates all potential future successor claimants except his favorite son.
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The Ottoman sultan, Selim – a Sunni – defeats the Shah of Iran, Isma'il. Isma'il – a Shia – has been accustomed to victory, and he and his Safavid followers believed that Allah was on their side. They are bewildered by their defeat. Isma'il finds relief from depression in wine. Selim annexes Diyarbekir and Kurdistan.
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The Ottoman sultan, Selim, with superior weaponry, routes the Mamluks. It is the end of Egypt's Mamluk sultans. The last of them is hanged. Selim appoints a viceroy to rule Egypt as pasha. Egypt will now acknowledge Ottoman suzerainty and pay annual tribute to the Ottoman sultan.
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Sweden is free from the rule of Danish kings
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With the help of Native American allies they conquered Mexico and called Mexico "New Spain"
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The Ottomans continue to expand. Their sultan, Selim, has died and his son Suleiman (Sulayman) succeeds him and captures Belgrade
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The printing press is introduced in Stockholm, Sweden.
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With a mere 180 men, Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca empire of Peru in the
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the Spanish forces conquered the Mayan
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In France, attacks to the Catholic clergy have occurred. Troops are sent against the Protestant heresy in a cluster of towns. About twenty towns are destroyed and about 3,000 Protestant men, women and children are killed.
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Spain dominated the lands and peoples around the Caribbean and deep into both North and South America
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In France, the works of Martin Luther, John Calvin and others considered heretics are prohibited. In the cites of Paris, Toulouse, Grenoble, Rouen, Bordeaux and Agners, various heretics and those selling forbidden books have been burned at the stake. Another massacre of Protestants occurs. More than 3,000 Protestants are to be reported as having been killed and 763 houses, 89 stables and 31 warehouses destroyed.
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a book about the conquistadors' abuse was published by Bartolomé de las Casas. It was called a Short Account of the Destruction of the West Indies.
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Charles V son, Philip II, ruled Spain
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Selim II, son of Suleiman, becomes the new Ottoman sultan. He is untrained in government or military affairs, unlike his two older brothers, both of whom betrayed Suleiman. Selim II is the beginning of disinterested sultans. He is devoted to the pleasures of the harem and alcohol.
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Protestants in the Netherlands, led by Prince William of Orange, revolt against rule by the Catholic monarch, Philip II. The Eighty Years' War begins.
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Tatars sack and burn the outskirts of Moscow. The Russians drive them back.
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On August 24, St. Bartholmew's Day, about 3,000 Protestants in Paris are massacred. Across France within three days approximately 20,000 Huguenots are executed. Catholics across Europe rejoice and Protestants mourn and express anger.
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Seven northern provinces of the Netherlands, including Holland, renounce their allegiance to Philip II. They form the United Provinces of the Netherlands. The Eighty Years' War continues.
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o Wanted to seize control of the English Channel and permit an invasion by Spanish troops posted in the Netherlandso Consisted of 130 warships carrying 2,431 cannon and 22,000 sailors and soldierso The smaller English ships were faster and more mobileo This win emboldened the English to escalte their maritime predator activities
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Mechanical inventions are on their way to advancing science. A spectacles maker in the Netherlands, experimenting with several lenses in a tube, discovers that nearby objects appear greatly enlarged. The modern microscope is born.
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The Protestant Bourbon King of Navarre, Henry, has converted to Catholicism in order to extend his power to Paris. He is crowned King Henry IV, France's first Bourbon monarch.
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the Spanish Empire suffered one of its greatest setbacks in the Americas when native Capuches destroyed the Spanish army of Chile.
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Dutch defeat the Portuguese in a naval battle in the Indonesian Archipelago (the Spice Islands).
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The Dutch government (United Netherlands) grants the Dutch East India Company a monopoly to pursue trade in Asia.
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The Dutch "discover" northern Australia – at what today is called Cape York Peninsula.
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The Dutch defeat a Spanish fleet at Gibraltar.
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Frenchmen interested in trading with the Indians and in animal furs build a settlement at Quebec. Only 8 of the 28 settlers are to survive the first winter. More settlers are to arrive in the spring.
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The Dutch have ended Portugal's domination of the Indian Ocean, and they establish a trading outpost on the western coast of India.
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Forces of the Dutch East India Company conquer the city of Jayakarta and rename it Batavia (Latin for the Netherlands). They make it their capital in the Spice Islands. Also this year, the Dutch East India Company and the Britain's East India Company agree to cease all fighting, to return each other's captured ships and prisoners and to create a joint fleet (one-third English, two-thirds Dutch) to expel Spain and Portugal from the Spice Islands, China, the Philippines, and the Malay Peninsula.
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The Dutch establish a fur trading post, Fort Orange, at what today is Albany, New York.
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The French establish an outpost on Madagascar.
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Fearing Habsburg power along the Baltic Sea, Sweden joins the Thirty Year's War. The Swedes invade northern Germany and are not welcomed there by fellow Lutherans.
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Spain invaded France and pushed as far as Corbie but they had to pull out because of another near crown bankruptcy.
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France, a largely Catholic country but allied with the Dutch and the Swedes, enters the Thirty Years' War against Spain and the Holy Roman Empire.
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An armada of 21 Dutch ships appears off the coast of Angola. The Dutch capture Luanda and Benguela. The Portuguese retreat inland where they resist assaults by the Dutch and by Jaga tribesmen.
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King Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, son of King James, has been ruling since 1625 and is considered too friendly towards Catholicism. He is in conflict with his Calvinist and Puritan subjects and with Parliament. Civil war has erupted. On one side is the king and his army, on the other is Parliament and its army.
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The French establish an outpost at the mouth of Africa's Senegal River, where they trade for gum and for slaves.
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o In Britain, King Charles I and his army have been defeated. Charles is beheaded. England is a republic, a commonwealth without a House of Lords and run by the victors of the civil war – parliament. Parliament sends the Puritan Oliver Cromwell to Ireland to subdue rebellious Catholics. He massacres the populations of Drogheda and Wexford.
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In Leviathan, the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who dislikes democracy and the passions of the mob, favors a commonwealth, a social contract, with people delegating their powers to a central authority and submitting to that authority.
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Nikita Nikon, Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, wishes to return to the purity of previous times. He wants people to cross themselves with three fingers rather than two and creates a great disturbance among the faithful.
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A war begins between the English and Dutch, inspired by commercial competition.
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Russia has declared war on Poland and captures the cities of Minsk and Vilna.
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Ottoman historian Haji Khalifa dies. He saw Ottoman society as sick because of corruption, high taxation and oppression of the masses.
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England's parliament restores the monarchy to the eldest son of Charles I, Charles II, who arrives from France three weeks later amid great celebration.
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Another war between the English and Dutch has begun. English soldiers seize the town of New Amsterdam and rename it New York after the king's brother, the Duke of York.
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Two-thirds of London is evacuated to avoid the Black Plague, but nearly 70,000 die of the disease in one week.
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It is an era of big city fires. London is a city of mostly thatched roofs or timber and pitch. Much of London burns. Seeing a possible connection between the fire and God's displeasure, authorities begin an official investigation into atheism in London, and the English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, burns some of his writings to hide evidence that could be used against him. The city is to be rebuilt with brick and stone and institutionalized fire fighting developed.
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In England and in France this year there are separate reports of successful transfusions of blood from lambs to humans. There will be failures to keep a patient alive, and within ten years transfusions will be prohibited by law in both countries.
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The war between Russia and Poland ends, with Russia possessing most of Ukraine.
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The French establish their first factory in India, at Surat.
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Charles II joins Louis XIV of France in another war against the Dutch.
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The economic burdens of the war and rising opposition to the war by Protestants and Parliament results in Charles II agreeing to a negotiated settlement with the Dutch.
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The French build a fort on the island of Goree, a little more than a hundred miles to the south of the mouth of the Senegal River.
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Responding to public pressure, England's parliament passes the Habeas Corpus Act, against abusive detentions and detentions without legal authority.
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Robert Cavalier LaSalle claims the Mississippi River valley for France.
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The Ottoman Empire is trying to resume its conquests of centuries before. An Ottoman army penetrates the outer fortifications of Vienna – during what is to be known as the Second Siege of Vienna. An army of 70,000 Habsburg and Polish troops are on their way to rescue the city.
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The Ottomans are falling back. The Austrians push them from Hungary and the city of Budapest.
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Hostility to Catholicism and to King James II results in a rebellion against his rule. Parliament has invited a European royal, William of Orange, to rule. William lands with an army and defeats the army of James II – whose overthrow is called the Glorious Revolution.
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Parliament creates a Bill of Rights and the Toleration Act. Freedom of speech is guaranteed. People have the right to petition government. They are to be free from cruel and unusual punishments. They are not to be compelled to become members of the Church of England.
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The philosopher John Locke returns to England from Holland. He gives conscious ideology to Whig liberalism. He rejects church authority in matters of philosophy and science. He has advocated that churches be voluntary societies rather than appendages of higher authority associated with the state, as has been the Anglican Church. He rejects political power derived from the authority of God, as in rule by divine right of the old monarchies. He is afraid of the passions of the masses and advocate
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French forces led by the Duke of Luxembourg defeated the Spanish at Fleurus. This was revealed to Europe how vulnerable and backward the Spanish defenses and bureaucracy were.
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In Africa, the French blow up the English fort on the Gambia River.
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Peter the Great's brother, Ivan, dies. At the age of 24, Peter becomes Russia's sole tsar.
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Peter has been building Russia's naval strength is ready to take on the Ottomans. He drives them out of Azov. And that year the Austrians defeat the Ottomans at Zenta, about 100 hundred miles southwest of Budapest.
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Under diplomatic pressure from the Dutch, British and Venetians, the Ottomans sign the Treaty of Karlowitz – a dictated treaty. Hungary and Transylvania are ceded to Austria. Podolia, occupied by the Ottomans in 1672, is returned to Poland. The Ottomans give up Morea (the Peloponnesian Peninsula) and most of Dalmatia.