Period 1
This philosophical movement placed human potential and achievement at the center of intellectual inquiry, replacing medieval theological focus.
humanism
Louis XIV revoked this in 1598, stripping French Protestants of their legal protections and triggering mass emigration of Huguenots from France.
Edict of Nantes
Championed by Adam Smith, this philosophy argued for free markets and limited government interference in the economy.
Laissez-Faire Capitalism
In 1989, this structure — which had divided East and West Germany since 1961 — was torn down, symbolizing the Cold War's end.
Berlin Wall
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels outlined their theory of class struggle in this 1848 pamphlet.
Communist Manifesto
The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ended this devastating conflict, which began as a religious war in the Holy Roman Empire but evolved into a broader European power struggle killing millions.
Thirty Years War
Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws introduced this constitutional concept of dividing government into distinct branches to prevent tyranny — directly influencing the U.S. Constitution.
Separation of Powers
These early 19th-century English craftsmen and laborers smashed industrial machinery in protest against the displacement of skilled workers — giving rise to a term still used for those who oppose new technology.
Luddites
This failed 1938 agreement gave Hitler the Sudetenland in exchange for a promise of no further territorial demands.
Munich Agreement
Germany's unification under Prussian leadership was masterminded by this chancellor who used "blood and iron" diplomacy.
Otto Von Bismark
This 1494 treaty, brokered by Pope Alexander VI, divided newly discovered lands in the Americas and Africa between Spain and Portugal along a specific line of longitude.
Treaty of Tordesillas
This concept, articulated by theorists like Bodin and Bossuet, held that monarchs derived their authority directly from God and were accountable to no earthly power — underpinning the theory of absolutism.
Divine Right of Kings
Metternich's conservative order was challenged by a wave of liberal and nationalist revolutions across Europe in this year, later called the "Springtime of Nations."
1848
This 1947 U.S. economic recovery program provided over $12 billion to rebuild Western European economies — with the strategic aim of preventing the spread of communism into war-devastated nations.
Marshall Plan
This 1555 agreement ended religious warfare in the Holy Roman Empire by letting princes choose their territories' religion.
Peace of Augsburg
Henry VIII's break from Rome was formalized by this 1534 act, making the monarch head of the English Church.
Act of Supremacy
This political theorist argued in Leviathan that humans surrender their natural rights to an all-powerful sovereign through a social contract — not out of divine right, but out of rational self-interest.
Thomas Hobbes
This 1870–71 conflict, provoked by Bismarck's manipulation of a diplomatic telegram, resulted in French defeat, the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, and the proclamation of the German Empire in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
Franco-Prussian War
This French president withdrew France from NATO's integrated military command in 1966, pursued an independent nuclear deterrent, and championed a foreign policy of national sovereignty free from both American and Soviet influence.
Charles De Gaulle
This Austro-Hungarian journalist, horrified by the Dreyfus Affair, argued in his 1896 pamphlet Der Judenstaat that Jews could only be safe from antisemitism by establishing their own sovereign nation.
Theodor Herzl
Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote this satirical work mocking Church corruption and society's foolishness, published in 1511.
In Praise of Folly
This revolutionary journalist and radical, known for his newspaper L'Ami du peuple, inflamed Parisian mobs against perceived enemies of the Revolution before being stabbed in his medicinal bath by Charlotte Corday.
Jean-Paul Marat
This Italian revolutionary leader conquered Sicily and southern Italy with his "Redshirts" in 1860.
Giuseppe Garibaldi
The 1956 Hungarian Revolution was crushed when this Soviet leader, who had initially signaled a softer approach to Eastern Europe in his "Secret Speech" denouncing Stalin, ultimately authorized military intervention.
Nikita Kruschev
This 1975 multilateral agreement, signed in Helsinki, recognized post-WWII European borders while including human rights provisions that dissidents in Eastern Europe used to challenge Soviet-backed governments.
Helsinki Accords