TIME-TABLE OF THE WORLD: A.D. 1500 to 1700

New World Entered, and East Re-entered. The Reformation. Organisation of European Nations under Absolute Monarchies. Constitutional Struggle in England. English Naval Supremacy.

A.D.
1500

Asia and Africa

Europe and America

A.D.
1500

The New World bestowed on Spain and Portugal by the Bull of Pope Alexander VI.
Portuguese dominion established in the Indian seas by Albuquerque.
Conquest of Egypt by Ottoman Turks.
Safid dynasty in Persia (“The Sofy”).

Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Titian.
Rivalry of Henry VIII. (1509–47), Francis I. (1515–47), and Charles V. (1519–56), who combines Spain, Burgundy, and the Empire.
Luther challenges the Papacy, 1517–20.
The Reformation era opens.

1520

1520

First circumnavigation completed, 1522.
Invasion of Hindostan (Northern India) by Baber, the first “Mogul” emperor, 1526.

Expulsion of Moguls: dynasty of Sher Shah at Delhi, 1540.

Turkish advance under Solyman the Magnificent.
Gustavus Vasa in Sweden, 1523–60.
Spain conquers Mexico (1520) and Peru (1533).
REFORMATION: Subjection of Church to Crown (England). Confession of Augsburg: Protestant League. Calvin creates Presbyterianism.

1540

1540

François Xavier in Japan.

Restoration of Moguls, 1556.

RUSSIA: Ivan the Terrible.
Order of Jesuits formally established.
GERMANY: Contest between Charles V. and Protestant princes of Germany ended by compromise at Peace of Augsburg.
ENGLAND: Protestant Revolution (Edward VI.) followed by Romanist reaction (Mary), and final establishment of Protestantism (Elizabeth) in England and Scotland.

1560

1560

Rule of Akbar, 1556–1605.
Toleration of Hinduism.

SPAIN: Philip II. and the Inquisition.
Council of Trent defines limits of Roman Catholicism.
FRANCE: Series of civil wars of religion, 1562–95.
Revolt of Netherlands from Spain.
Turkish advance checked at Lepanto, 1571.
PORTUGAL absorbed by Spain.

1580

1580

Mogul dominion established and organised throughout Northern India.

Gradual success of the Netherlands revolt.
English naval supremacy proved by the Armada 1588.
Decadence of Spain.
FRANCE: Toleration secured by Henri IV.
Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakespeare.

1600

1600

Development of Japanese Feudalism.
Reign of Jehan Gir in Hindostan, 1605–27.
First English factory at Surat, 1611.
First English Embassy to Delhi, 1615.

Galileo and Bacon.
Union of English and Scottish Crowns, 1603.
Dutch and English commerce in the East Indies.
Virginia, first successful British colony in North America, 1606.
HOLLAND: Independence established, 1609.
GERMANY: Thirty Years’ War begins, 1618–48.

1620

1620

Reign of Shah Jehan, 1627–58.
The Taj Mahal built.
End of the Portuguese power in the East.
Extension of the Mogul dominion into the Deccan.

Gustavus Adolphus.
FRANCE: Richelieu organises absolutism.
ENGLAND: Constitutional struggle between Charles I. and Parliament. The Petition of Right, 1628.
PORTUGAL recovers independence.

1640

1640

Rise of the Manchu (Tartar) dynasty in China.

Reign of Aurangzib, 1658–1707.
Rise of the Mahrattas under Sivaji.

FRANCE: Rule of Mazarin: absolutism established.
ENGLAND: Civil War, resulting in military protectorate.
Thirty Years’ War ended by Peace of Westphalia.
Commercial and naval rivalry of English and Dutch.
Development of France into the leading military power.

1660

1660

France enters the field in India.
Revival of intolerant Mohammedanism by Aurangzib.
Expansion of the Mogul Empire over Southern India.

FRANCE: Louis XIV. initiates policy of aggression.
ENGLAND: Charles II. undermines supremacy of Parliament. Repression of Nonconformity by Parliament.
Louis XIV. attacks Holland, with occasional support from Charles II.
ENGLAND: Attack on Romanism.

1680

1680

1700
A.D.

Aggressive movement of Turkey.
FRANCE: Louis XIV. revokes Edict of Nantes, 1685.
Constitutionalism established in England by the revolution of 1688.
Wars of England and Holland against France.
RUSSIA: Peter the Great.
Newton and Leibnitz.

1700
A.D.

Settling Down of the Powers

From 1739 to 1763 Europe was again plunged into wars, with an eight years’ interval. The motives of those wars, and of the combinations of states on either side, were complicated; the results were simple. Prussia, under Frederick the Great, emerged as a first-class Power; France lost her North American Colonies to Great Britain; the British East India Company defeated the attempt of the French to establish a paramount influence with the native princes, the Mogul Empire having broken up into a congeries of practically independent satrapies; and the British themselves became established as a territorial Power by the conquest of Bengal. Russia also, organised at the beginning of the century by Peter the Great, had taken her place definitely among the great Powers.

During the next twenty years (1763–1783) Poland was absorbed by her neighbours. The British Empire was sundered by the revolt of the older American Colonies, which were established as the United States of America; while Canada remained loyal. By this time the whole of Europe was practically governed by absolute monarchies; but a cataclysm was at hand. France became the scene of a tremendous revolution. Crown and aristocracy were toppled into the abyss.

Napoleon and the Revolution

France proclaimed herself the liberator of the peoples; the monarchs of Europe combined to suppress the proletariat. During the last decade of the century one revolutionary constitution after another was set up in Paris, while the revolutionary armies shattered monarchical armies, and turned the “liberated” peoples into subject dependencies of the Republic. On the seas, however, Britain successfully asserted her supremacy. Of the commanders of the Republic, the most brilliant was the Corsican Bonaparte. He dreamed of making Egypt the basis for achieving an Asiatic empire, and thence overwhelming Europe; but the dream was shattered when he found himself isolated by Nelson’s destruction of the French fleet at Aboukir in the Battle of the Nile. Returning to Paris, he transformed the republic into an empire; he set up his brothers or his generals as rulers over half the kingdoms in Europe; he dictated terms to every government except Britain. Britain annihilated his fleets, and fought and beat his generals in the Spanish Peninsula. He conquered the kings, but the nations rose against him, and overthrew him; his last effort was crushed at Waterloo.

Absolutism was reinstated, but the proletariats had learnt to demand freedom. Steam-power and steam-traction so changed the conditions of production as to revolutionise the relations between labour and capital, and between the landed and the manufacturing interests. In Great Britain political power passed from the landowners to the manufacturers with the great Reform Bill of 1832, and from the wealthy to the labouring classes with the Franchise Bills of 1867 and 1884. Every monarchy has been compelled to submit to limitations of its own powers more or less copied from Britain.

The World as it is