Lightning AP History

This chapter focuses on Europe's religious wars of the 15th and 16th century, that came as the result of the Protestant Reformation. While these wars were fought over religious difference and the desire for religious freedom, in reality, these wars were fought for political reasons. After all, religious freedom IS political freedom as well, and various religious groups sought to leave the Catholc Church as a means to gain political power and independence. We will mainly look at the wars in France, Spain and the Netherlands, England, and the Thirty Years War, which ravaged the Holy Roman Empire, in particular the German states, and ended with the Peace of Westphalia.

For much of history, Europe was confined and for the most part isolated. It had a difficult time venturing east, due to primitive knowledge of geography, the lack of technology in navigation and sea-faring, and trade routes dominated by Muslim states that jealously guarded their commerce against crusading Europeans. However, once the Portuguese and Spanish first began to sail the world in search of spices and gold, a Pandora's Box would open that would change the fate of the world and its people forever. Once the British, Dutch, and French began to create competition in search of their own mercantile empires, a series of bitter wars and competition would ensue for the next 3 centuries. In conjunction with the rise of capitalism, absolute monarchical states, and scientific advances, Europe's conquest of the Spice Islands, the Americas, and Africa's coastal regions and its slave markets was brutally finalized.

This chapter focuses on the Scientific Revolution, which began in the 16th century in the wake of the Age of Religious Wars and the destruction of the Thirty Years War, as well as the witch hunts of the 1600's. It is interesting that despite the prevalence of religious superstition and intolerance, scientific thought emerged and gained massive momentum. We will look at how Europeans' knowledge of the world began to change after the birth of new scientific and mathematical ideas and advances, namely under the great minds of Copernicus, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, and Rene Descartes. Interestingly, at the same time that Europe was starting to embrace reason and logic to understand the universe, the great witch hunts of Europe took place, in which thousands of people, mainly women, were tortured and executed as suspected witches