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Oct 19, 1469
Isabella and Ferdinand unify Spain
Isabella's marriage to Ferdinand in 1469 created the basis of the de facto unification of Spain. -
May 16, 1537
Henry VIII resigns in England
Henry pushed through the Act of Supremacy. The Act made him, and all of his heirs, Supreme Head of the Church of England. This meant that the Pope no longer held religious authority in England, and Henry was free to divorce Catherine. -
Edict of Nantes
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The Edict of Nantes, 1598. The Edict of Nantes, issued under Henry of Navarre after he ascended to the French throne as Henry IV, effectively ended the French Wars of Religion by granting official tolerance to Protestantism. -
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. -
Petition of Right signed
The Petition of Right was sent by English Parliament to King Charles I to complain about a series of breaches of law he had made. He was compelled to agree to the petition in order to receive money for his lifestyle and policies. -
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Louis XIV reigns as king of France
The reign of Louis XIV is often referred to as “Le Grand Siècle” (the Great Century), forever associated with the image of an absolute monarch and a strong, centralised state. -
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The Long Parliament
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. -
Peace of Westphalia is signed
the Treaty of Westphalia was signed, marking the end of the Thirty Years' War. -
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Charles II regions England
King of Britain -
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Peter the Great reigns as czar of Russia
founded and developed the city of Saint Petersburg, which remained the capital of Russia until 1918. -
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Glorious Revolution
the term was first used in 1689 to summarise events leading to the deposition of James II and VII of England -
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. -
Sabastian Bach height of his career
spent the height of his working life in a Lutheran church position in Leipzig, as both organist and music director. -
Daniel Dafoe publishes “Robinson Crusoe”
The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a travelogue of true incidents. -
Jonathan Swift publishes “Gulliver’s Travels”
Swift's best known full-length work, and a classic of English literature. -
The Spirit of Laws Published
A treatise on political theory -
Denis Diderot publishes his “Encyclopedia”
This encyclopedia, written by a collaborative group of “men of letters,” is commonly viewed as a principle work of the Enlightenment and was highly influential in shaping and spreading the kind of progressive thinking that eventually led to the French Revolution. -
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Seven Years War
commercial and imperial rivalry between Britain and France, and by the antagonism between Prussia -
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Catherine the Greats Reign of Russia
she was crowned with a great ceremony in Moscow, the ancient capital of the tsars, and began a reign that was to span 34 years as empress of Russia. -
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Joseph II reigns Austria
at first coruler with his mother, Maria Theresa, and then sole ruler of the Austrian Habsburg dominions. -
Boston Massacre
a confrontation in Boston in which a group of nine British soldiers shot five people of a crowd of three or four hundred who were harassing them verbally and throwing various projectiles. -
Boston Tea Party
an American political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston. -
Intolerable Acts
a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws aimed to punish Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest of the Tea Act, a tax measure enacted by Parliament in May 1773. -
Wealth of Nations Published
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. -
Declaration of Independence signed.
The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. It was engrossed on parchment and on August 2, 1776, delegates began signing it. -
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Battle of Yorktown
or the German battle because of the presence of Germans in all three armies. -
Storming of the Bastille
state prison on the east side of Paris, known as the Bastille, was attacked by an angry and aggressive mob -
Tennis Court Oath
The oath was a revolutionary act and an assertion that political authority derived from the people and their representatives -
Declaration of the Rights of Man
The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly before all the members of the Social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and duties. -
Declaration of the Rights of Woman
The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen (French: Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne), 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”
with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, written by British philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft, is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. -
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Radical Phase (French Revolution)
the monarchy was abolished and a republic was established. War continued throughout Europe. After the radicals gained control, those who were against the revolution were subject to arrest or execution. -
National Convention Formed
The National Convention was elected to provide a new constitution for the country after the overthrow of the monarchy -
Committee of Public Safety created
a committee of the National Convention that formed the provisional government and war cabinet during the Reign of Terror, a violent phase of the French Revolution. -
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Reign of Terror (French Revolution)
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. -
Napoleon Bonaparte becomes Emperor
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
naval engagement between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars -
Battle of Leipzig
The Coalition armies of Austria, Prussia, Sweden, and Russia, led by Tsar Alexander I and Karl von Schwarzenberg, decisively defeated the Grande Armée of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. -
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Congress of Vienna
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 Elba
Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France and one of the greatest military leaders in history, abdicates the throne, and, in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, is banished to the Mediterranean island of Elba. -
Napoleon exiled to St. Helena
Napoleon had been exiled to St. Helena after he was defeated by the British at the Battle of Waterloo -
Jean Jacque Rousseau publishes “Social Contract”
Social contract theory says that people live together in society in accordance with an agreement that establishes moral and political rules of behavior.