important years

• Period 1: C. 1450 - C. 1648


  • Renaissance
  • Exploration
  • Reformation
• Columbus


  1492
• 95 Theses


  1517
• Peace of Augsburg


  1555
• Defeat of the Spanish Armada


  1588
• Peace of Westphalia


  1648
• Period 2: C. 1649 - C. 1815


  • Absolutism
  • Constitutionalism
  • Scientific Revolutions
  • Enlightenment
  • French Revolution
• Glorius Revolution


  1688
• Death of Louis XIV

  1715
• Treaty of Paris; end of the 7 years war


  1763
• American Revolution 


  1776
• French Revolution


  1789
• Napoleon defeated at Waterloo - Congress of Vienna


  1815
• Period 3: C. 1815 - C. 1914


  • Industrialization
  • Democracy
  • Period of -ISMS
  • Causes of WWI
• Revolution in France; July Revolutions


  1830
• Great Reform Act of 1832


  1832
• Communist Manifesto, June days, Frankfurt Assembly

  1848
• Unification of Germany - Third French Republic


  1870
• (Russian) Revolution of 1905 - Einstein theory


  1905
• Period 4: C. 1914 - Present


  • WWI
  • Russian Revolution + USSR
  • Depression
  • WWII + Hitler
  • Cold War
• World War I


  1914
• Bolshevik Russian Revolution


  1917
• World War I armistice


  1918
• Treaty of Versailles


  1919
• Great Depression


  1929
• Rise of Hitler


  1933
• World War Il


  1939
• End of WWII


  1945
• Khrushchev de-stalinization + Hungarian revolt


  1956
• Czech "Prague Spring" Revolt


  1968
• Fall of the Berlin Wall


  1989
• Collapse of the Soviet Union


  1991