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1469
Isabella & Ferdinand unify Spain
Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile initiated a confederation of the two kingdoms that became the basis for the unification of Spain. -
1509
Henry VIII resigns in England
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1558
Elizabeth I 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
The Edict of Nantes granted religious tolerance and equality to the Huguenots (French Protestants) and ended the French Wars of Religion. -
Don Quixote is published
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. -
Thirty Years War
A series of wars fought by various nations for various reasons, including religious, dynastic, territorial, and commercial rivalries. -
Petition of Right signed
An English constitutional document setting out specific individual protections against the state, reportedly of equal value to the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights 1689. -
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 -
Louis XIV reigns as king of France
Louis XIV, also known as Louis the Great or the Sun King, was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any sovereign. -
Peace of Westphalia is signed
The Peace of Westphalia is the collective name for two peace treaties signed in October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster. -
Thomas Hobbes publishes “Leviathan”
Written during the English Civil War, Hobbes' book is a call for a strong, undivided government. -
Charles II regions 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 he died in 1685. -
Peter the Great reigns as czar of Russia
Peter the Great (1672-1725), born Petr Alekseevich Romanov, was Tsar, later Emperor, of Russia from 1682 until he died in 1725. -
Glorious Revolution
The series of events in 1688-89 culminated in the exile of King James II and the accession to the throne of William and Mary. -
English Bill of Rights signed
- The Bill firmly established the principles of frequent parliaments, free elections, and freedom of speech within Parliament – known today as Parliamentary Privilege.
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John Locke publishes “Two Treaties of Government”
John Locke's Two Treatises of Government were published anonymously in 1689. In it, Locke proposed that government emerges from the government's consent to protect their natural rights, which is the thesis of what is now called social contract theory. -
Daniel Dafoe publishes “Robinson Crusoe”
Robinson Crusoe: A novel by Daniel Defoe published in 1719. -
Jonathan Swift publishes “Gulliver’s Travels”
Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read. Gulliver's Travels describes the four voyages of Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's surgeon. -
Frederick II reigns Prussia
Frederick II (1712-1786) ruled Prussia from 1740 until his death, leading his nation through multiple wars with Austria and its allies. -
Baron de Montesquieu publishes “The Spirit of Laws”
Montesquieu's greatest work, De l'esprit des lois (The Spirit of Laws), was published in 1748. It is a comparative study of three types of government: republic, monarchy, and despotism -
Denis Diderot publishes his “Encyclopedia”
The Encyclopédie, Ou Dictionnaire Raisonné Des Sciences, Des Arts Et Des Métiers, often referred to simply as Encyclopédie or Diderot's Encyclopedia, is a twenty-eight-volume reference book published between 1751 and 1772 by André Le Breton and edited by translator and philosopher Denis Diderot. -
Seven Years War
The Seven Years' War was a far-reaching conflict between European powers that lasted from 1756 to 1763. -
Voltaire publishes “Candid”
Candide, a satirical novel published in 1759 is the best-known work by Voltaire. It is a savage denunciation of metaphysical optimism—as espoused by the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz—that reveals a world of horrors and folly. -
George III reigns England
George III, who ruled between 1760 and 1820, was 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. He was a well-intentioned and cultured family man. -
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. -
Catherine Great reigns Russia
Catherine II (1729–96), known as Catherine the Great, was the empress, or czarina, of Russia from 1762 until her death. -
Joseph II reigns Austria
Holy Roman Emperor (1765–90). He was co‐regent of Austria with his mother Maria Theresa from 1765 and sole ruler from 1780 to 1790. -
Boston Massacre
Late in the afternoon of March 5, 1770, British sentries guarding the Boston Customs House shot into a crowd of civilians, killing three men and injuring eight, two of them mortally. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest that occurred on December 16, 1773, at Griffin's Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts. -
Intolerable Acts
The Coercive Acts of 1774, known as the Intolerable Acts in the American colonies, 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 & Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord on 19 April 1775, the famous 'shot heard 'round the world', marked the start of the American War of Independence (1775-83). -
Adam Smith publishes “Wealth of Nations”
The Wealth of Nations was published on 9 March 1776, during the Scottish Enlightenment and the Scottish Agricultural Revolution. It influenced several authors and economists, as well as governments and organizations. -
Battle of Yorktown (1781)
Outnumbered and outfought during a three-week siege in which they sustained great losses, British troops surrendered to the Continental Army and their French allies. -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris was signed by U.S. and British Representatives, ending the War of the American Revolution -
US Constitution ratified
In operation since 1789, the United States Constitution is the world's longest-surviving written charter of government -
Declaration of the Rights of Man
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human civil rights document from the French Revolution. -
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 -
Tennis Court Oath
The Tennis Court Oath was a key moment that set off the French Revolution -
Women’s Marc on Versailles
The Women's March on Versailles, also known as the October March, the October Days or simply the March on Versailles, was one of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution -
Declaration of the Rights of Woman
The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and 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. -
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. -
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 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. -
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. -
Five Man Directory created
The Directory was the governing five-member committee in the French First Republic -
Napoleon Bonaparte becomes Emperor
Napoleon and Joséphine were crowned Emperor and Empress of the French on Sunday, December 2, 1804 -
Battle Austerlitz
The first engagement of the War of the Third Coalition and one of Napoleon's greatest victories. -
Battle of Trafalga
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 of the Napoleonic Wars. -
Battle of Leipzig
The Battle of Leipzig, also known as the Battle of the Nations, was fought from 16 to 19 October 1813 at Leipzig, Saxony. -
Napoleon exiled to Elba
He was exiled to the island of Elba, between Corsica and Italy. In France, the Bourbons were restored to power. -
Congress of Vienna
What was the Congress of Vienna and what did it do?
The Congress of Vienna | History of Western Civilization II
The Congress of Vienna was the first of a series of international meetings that came to be known as the Concert of Europe, an attempt to forge a peaceful balance of power in Europe. -
Napoleon exiled to St. Helena
Napoleon had been exiled to St. Helena after he was defeated by the British at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. -
Sabastian Bach height of his career
Sebastian Philip Bierk (born April 3, 1968), known professionally as Sebastian Bach, is a Canadian-American singer who achieved mainstream success