Hist 143--Europe and the Modern World       logo

   Informational Focus Sheet


Some Pertinent Dates, 1500 to the 1680s


        (Think of these as "framework" dates)

1492—Columbus sails west to find the East

 

1497/98—Vasco da Gama sails south to find the East

 

1517—Luther opens the Protestant Reformation by nailing up the 95 Theses.

 

1534—Henry VIII succeeds in getting Parliament to pass the Act of Supremacy, separating the English, or Anglican, Church from Rome.

 

1588—Spanish Armada, the tool of Philip II of Spain, fails after huge effort to smash the England of Elizabeth I.  

 

1603—Death of Elizabeth I of England; accession of the House of Stuart under James I.

 

1618—Beginning of Thirty Years War, a bitter European conflict which began as a religious division in the Holy Roman Empire.  This ended only in October 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia.

 

1642-1651—English Civil War (pitting the Parliamentarians against the Royalists.  King Charles I was beheaded, 30 January 1649.  The Parliamentarians, under Oliver Cromwell won.  Monarchy was “ended,” and Cromwell made himself a kind of dictator.

 

c. 1650 to c. 1750--period of Absolutism in most European monarchies:  centralization, dynastic wars, attempted economic self-sufficiency ("mercantilism")

 

1642-1651--English Civil War:  Parliamentarians vs. Royalists.  The Parliamentarians won.  Puritan general Oliver Cromwell more or less dominated and ruled from about 1650 (he was "Lord Protector" from 1653) to his death in 1658.

 

1660/61--Restoration of the crown in England with crowning of Charles II.

 

1661-1715--Reign of Louis XIV (THE SUN KING) in France—genuine Absolutism. 

 

1688--The Glorious Revolution in England.  James II (Stuart) ousted; William and Mary accept the throne and recognize the Bill of Rights.

 

1682-1725--Reign of Peter the Great in Russia.