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1469
Isabella and Ferdinand Unify Spain
By their marriage in October 1469, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile initiated a confederation of the two kingdoms that became the basis for the unification of Spain. By their support of the explorations of Christopher Columbus, they also laid the foundations for Spain's colonies in the New World. -
Period: Apr 22, 1509 to 1547
Henry Vlll Reigns England
King of England from 22 April 1509 until he died in 1547. Henry is known for his six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. -
Period: 1558 to
Elizabeth l Reigns England
Elizabeth succeeded to the throne on her half-sister's death in November 1558. She was very well-educated (fluent in five languages), and had inherited intelligence, determination and shrewdness from both parents. -
Edict of Nantes
Edict of Nantes, law promulgated at Nantes in Brittany on April 13, 1598, by Henry IV of France, which granted a large measure of religious liberty to his Protestant subjects, the Huguenots. -
Don Quixote Is Published
On January 16, 1605, Miguel de Cervantes' El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, better known as Don Quixote, is published. The book is considered by many to be the first modern novel and one of the greatest novels of all time. -
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Thirty Years War
(1618–48), in European history, a series of wars fought by various nations for various reasons, including religious, dynastic, territorial, and commercial rivalries. -
Petition Of Right Signed
In 1628 the English Parliament sent this statement of civil liberties to King Charles I. The next recorded milestone in the development of human rights was the Petition of Right, produced in 1628 by the English Parliament and sent to Charles I as a statement of civil liberties. -
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The Long Parliament
The Long Parliament was an English Parliament which lasted from 1640 until 1660. It followed the fiasco of the Short Parliament, which had convened for only three weeks during the spring of 1640 after an 11-year parliamentary absence. -
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Louis XIV Reigns as King of France
Louis XIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 1638 – 1 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great (Louis le Grand) or the Sun King (le Roi Soleil), was King of France from 1643 until he died in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any sovereign. -
Peace of Westphalia Is Signed
On October 24, 1648, the Peace of Westphalia formally ended the Thirty Years' War in Europe. -
Thomas Hobbs Publishes ¨Leviathan¨
Leviathan or The Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil, commonly referred to as Leviathan is a book written by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and published in 1651 (revised Latin edition 1668). -
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Charles ll reigns England
Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685) was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651 and King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685. -
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Peter the Great Reigns As Czar of Russia
The reign of Peter I (1682–1725) was a turning point in Russian history. He was determined that Russia become and remain a great European power and carried forward the Westernizing policies in a radical and uncompromising manner. -
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Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution is the sequence of events that led to the deposition of James II and VII in November 1688. -
John Locke Publishes ¨Two Treaties of Government¨
Locke proposed that government emerges from the consent of the government to protect their natural rights, which is the thesis of what is now called social contract theory. -
English Bill of Rights Signed
The English Bill of Rights is an act that the Parliament of England passed on December 16, 1689. -
Sabastian Bach Height of His Career
On March 2, 1714, he became concertmaster, with the duty of composing a cantata every month. He became friendly with a relative, Johann Gottfried Walther, a music lexicographer and composer who was organist of the town church, and, like Walther, Bach took part in the musical activities at the Gelbes Schloss (“Yellow Castle”), then occupied by Duke Wilhelm’s two nephews, Ernst August and Johann Ernst, both of whom he taught. -
Daniel Dafoe Publishes ¨Robinson Crusoe¨
Robinson Crusoe is an English adventure novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. Written with a combination of Epistolary, confessional, and didactic forms, -
Jonathan Swift Publishes ¨Gulliver´s Travel´s¨
Irish Protestant clergyman and satirist Jonathan Swift published Gulliver's Travels anonymously in 1726. The four-part novel relates ship captain Lemuel Gulliver's voyages to fanciful countries such as Lilliput and Brobdingnag, where he meets both tiny and giant inhabitants. -
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Catherine the Great reigns Russia
Catherine II (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 1729 – 17 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from -
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Frederick ll Reigns Prussia
Frederick II was King in Prussia from 1740 until 1772, and King of Prussia from 1772 until his death in 1786. -
Baron de Montesquieu publishes ¨The Spirit of Laws¨
Published in 1748, condemned by the Catholic Church in 1751, Montesquieu´s masterpiece, De I´Esprit des lois (Spirit of the Laws) marked a turning point in the European Age of Enlightenment. -
Denis Diderot Publishes His ¨Encyclopedia¨
A twenty-eight volume reference book published between 1751 and 1772 by André Le Breton and edited by translator and philosopher Denis Diderot. -
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Seven Years War
The Seven Years' War was a global conflict that involved most of the European great powers and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. -
Voltaire Publishes ¨Candid¨
Candid is a savage denunciation of metaphysical optimism—as espoused by the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz—that reveals a world of horrors and folly. -
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George lll Reigns England
The first truly British monarch of the Hanoverian kings. Ruling Britain was his first priority and he never visited his family's home in Hanover. -
Jean Jacque Rousseau Publishes ¨Social Contract¨
The Social Contract, originally published as On the Social Contract; or, Principles of Political Right (French: Du contrat social; ou, Principes du droit politique), is a 1762 French-language book by the Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. -
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Joseph ll Reigns Austria
Joseph II (born March 13, 1741, Vienna, Austria—died Feb. 20, 1790, Vienna) Holy Roman emperor (1765–90), at first co-ruler with his mother, Maria Theresa (1765–80), and then sole ruler (1780–90) of the Austrian Habsburg dominions. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was a confrontation in Boston on March 5, 1770, in which nine British soldiers shot several of a crowd of three or four hundred who were harassing them verbally and throwing various projectiles. -
Boston Tea Party
American political and mercantile protest on December 16, 1773, by the Sons of Liberty in Boston in colonial Massachusetts. The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India Company to sell tea from China in American colonies without paying taxes apart from those imposed by the Townshend Acts. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts were a series of four laws passed by the British Parliament to punish the colony of Massachusetts Bay for the Boston Tea Party. -
Battle of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first major military campaigns of the American Revolutionary War, resulting in an American victory and an outpouring of militia support for the anti-British cause. -
Adam Smith publishes ¨Wealth of Nations¨
Smith, a Scottish moral philosopher by trade, wrote the book to describe the industrialized capitalist system that was upending the mercantilist system. -
Declaration of Independence Signed
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human civil rights document from the French Revolution. -
Battle of Yorktown
Battle of Yorktown was a decisive victory by a combined force of the American Continental Army troops led by General George Washington with support from Marquis de Lafayette and French Army troops led by Comte de Rochambeau and a French naval force commanded by Comte de Grasse over the British Army commanded by British Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis. -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris was signed by U.S. and British Representatives on September 3, 1783, ending the War of the American Revolution. -
US Constitution Ratified
Ratified in 1788, and operation since 1789, the United States Constitution is the world's longest-surviving written charter of government. -
Tennis Court Oath
The Tennis Court Oath was a key moment that set off the French Revolution. On June 20, 1789, the Tennis Court Oath was taken. -
Storming of the Bastille
The Storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris, France, on 14 July 1789, when revolutionary insurgents attempted to storm and seize control of the medieval armory, fortress, and political prison known as the Bastille. -
Declaration of the Rights of Man
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human civil rights document from the French Revolution. -
Women´s March on Versailles
The Women's March on Versailles was a riot that took place during this first stage of the French Revolution. It was spontaneously organized by women in the marketplaces of Paris, on the morning of October 5, 1789. -
Declaration of the Rights of Woman
The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, also known as the Declaration of the Rights of Woman, was written on 14 September 1791 by French activist, feminist, and playwright Olympe de Gouges in response to the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. -
Mary Wollstonecraft Publishes ¨A Vindication of the Rights of Woman¨
Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) made a pioneering and durably influential argument for women's equality. Emerging from the turbulent decade of the French Revolution -
National Convention Formed
The National Convention was established in 1792 during the French Revolution to replace the previous legislative bodies after the end of the monarchy. -
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Radical Phase (French Revolution)
France was made a republic, abolishing the monarchy and executing the king. -
Committee of Public Safety created
The Committee of Public Safety was created by the National Convention in 1793 with the intent to defend the nation against foreign and domestic enemies, as well as to oversee the new functions of the executive government. Members were elected and served for a period of one month. -
Reign Of Terror (French Revolution)
The Reign of Terror (French: la Terreur) was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervor, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety. -
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Five Man Directory Created
The Directory (also called Directorate, French: le Directoire) was the governing five-member committee in the French First Republic from 26 October 1795 (4 Brumaire an IV) until 10 November 1799, when it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire and replaced by the Consulate. -
Napoleon Bonaparte
In May 1804, he became Emperor of the French under the name of Napoleon I, and was the architect of France's recovery following the Revolution before setting out to conquer Europe, which led to his downfall. -
Battle of Trafalgar
The Battle of Trafalgar was a naval engagement that took place on 21 October 1805 between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition (August--December 18050) of the Napoleonic Wars (1803--1815). -
Battle Austerlitz
The Battle of Austerlitz, also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of the most important and decisive military engagements of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle occurred near the town of Austerlitz in the Austrian Empire. Around 158,000 troops were involved, of which around 24,000 were killed or wounded. -
Battle of Leipzig
Battle of Leipzig, also known as the Battle of the Nations, was fought from 16 to 19 October 1813 at Leipzig, Saxony. The Coalition armies of Austria, Prussia, Sweden, and Russia, led by Tzar Alexander l and Karl von Schwarzenberg, decisively defeated the Grande Armée of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. -
Napoleon Exiled to Elba
The coalition invaded France and captured Paris, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April 1814. He was exiled to the island of Elba, between Corsica and Italy. -
Period: to
The Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. -
Napoleon Exiled to St.Helene
Napoleon had been exiled to St. Helena after he was defeated by the British at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815