Dates & Summaries Flashcards
1598 - Edict of Nantes
issued by Henry IV of France to please the Calvinists; gave freedom of religion to the Protestants in France, a noteworthy step in the direction of religious toleration. This decree did put an end to active hostilities between the Huguenots and the Catholics for a time, but it could not lead to a lasting peace if the Calvinists retained their garrisoned places of safety and could form a state within a state. The hatred of Catholicism and of the Catholic king among the Calvinists will simmer in France for two hundred years. This hatred will burst forth and become prevalent in the eighteenth century.
1607 - Settlement of Jamestown
the first permanent English colony in America. During what we might call the second age of discovery headed by Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands, the British make their first permanent settlement in America at Jamestown, Virginia. This marks the beginning of the British Empire.
1618 - The Thirty Years’ War begins
The Thirty Years’ War in the Empire (Germany) marked the final and ultimate struggle between Protestantism and Catholicism in Europe. The causes of the war were none other than the strife between Catholic and Protestant parties. The war was protracted, and had various phases, with short interruptions. Its phases were: The Bohemian and Palatinate Wars, the Danish War (in both of which the Catholics were triumphant), the Swedish war of Gustavus Adolphus, upon whose death the war devolved into a political struggle between the House of Hapsburgs (Holy Roman Empire) in Austria and the House of Bourbon in France. Because Richelieu did not want to see the Hapsburgs emerge victorious from the war as the principal power of Europe, he allied France with the Protestant Swedes. The Treaty of Westphalia which ended the war was the final death-blow to the Catholic order of Europe. The Protestants were confirmed in the possession of the archbishoprics, bishoprics, monasteries, and convents which they had seized. The Pope and the bishops saw themselves deprived of all active means of jurisdiction over the Catholics residing in Lutheran countries. The various sects of the Reformation all obtained the free exercise of their respective worship. The Treaty solidified in a unit the Protestant territory and destroyed any hope of regaining the unity of Christendom. In the northern part of Europe, a Protestant culture will now grow, and will eventually overtake what remains of the Catholic order of Europe. Sweden got most of the German Baltic coast, and the territory of Bremen on the North Sea; France got Alsace-Lorraine. The independence of the Dutch Netherlands and of Switzerland was guaranteed. The Protestant states of Germany were confirmed as independent of the Holy Roman Empire. The Emperor only retained authority in his native Austria and attached Bohemia and part of Hungary.
1688 - The English Revolution begins
completes the work of the Puritan Revolution by overthrowing absolutism and divine right in England. The Puritan Revolution was a bitter struggle between King Charles I. and Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell, for supremacy. After surrendering to the Scottish army, Charles was made to stand trial for treason and was beheaded in 1649. Charles’s son James II. converted to Catholicism. His attempts to promote Catholicism led to a conflict with Parliament. In 1685 James prorogued Parliament and ruled alone. In 1687 he issued a Declaration of Indulgence which aimed at complete toleration. In June 1688, James’s second wife, Mary of Modena, gave birth to a son, James Francis Edward. Fearing that a Catholic succession was now assured, a group of Protestant nobles appealed to William of Orange, husband of James’s older, and Protestant, daughter Mary. In November, William landed with an army in Devon. Deserted by an army, James fled abroad. In February 1689, James landed in Ireland where, with French support, he raised an army. He was defeated by William at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690. James died in exile in Saint-Germain in France on 16 September 1701. The second Revolution swept from the minds of Englishmen the Stuart idea of the divine right of kings. Parliament was supreme. It made William III. king, it could also unmake him. Since the passing of the Bill of Rights, every sovereign of England reigns solely by an Act of Parliament. All the chief actors in the second Revolution were men of a low moral standard. The revolution was to a great part the work of bigotry, perfidy, self-seeking, treason, a revolting amount of ingratitude, and base betrayal of filial piety. Of the two daughters who betrayed their father, Mary had no child to whom she could bequeath her royalty, and Anne saw the last of her seventeen children buried before she became queen.
1700-1800 - The Age of Enlightenment
Protestantism and Humanism produced first in Protestant countries then in Catholic a whole school of thaught and attitude known as the “Englightenment.” The general characteristic of the Englightenment with regard to religion is incredulism, i.e. the rejection of supernatural revelation and supernatural religion. Those who abandoned belief in a supernatural religion sought to replace it with “Natural Religion.” The obvious consequence of such a dogma is: 1) the inconsequence of dogmatic differences; 2) religious tolerance; 3) one world religion; 4) humanitarian goal for religion. This project of a new, naturalistic religion, all the while retaining an appearance of Christianity, is a very important step in the process towards the Novus Ordo.
1754-1763 - French and Indian War
The French and Indian War was a conflict between the French and English. It began in North America and later spread across Europe and India; here it was known as the Seven Years’ War. England and Prussia were allied against Austria and France. The war was caused by a dispute over the interior of the continent. Both England and France claimed the Ohio Valley. When William Pitt became prime minister of England, he decided to fight out his quarrel with France in the colonies, especially in North America, and to drive the French from the continent. Canada was lost to the French when Major-General James Wolfe fought his way up the St. Lawrence and took Quebec. The definite peace between Great Britain, France, and Spain took place in Paris in 1763. The destruction of the French power in America removed the one ever-pressing danger which secured the dependence of the English colonies on the mother country. The great colonial forces raised and successfully employed during the war gave the colonies for the first time a consciousness of their strength, and furnished them with leaders for the War of Independence, while the burden of the debt due to the lavish expenditure of Pitt revived the scheme for the taxation of America, which led in a few years to the dismemberment of the Empire. The general results of the war were: England attained her greatest extension and power. Prussia became one of the great Powers and Austria’s rival. France was stripped of her colonial greatness.
1760-circa 1840 - The Industrial Revolution
period in which predominantly agrarian, rural societies in Europe and America became industrial and urban. It began in Great Britain and spread to the rest of the world. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain in the late 1700s, manufacturing was often done in people’s homes, using hand tools or basic machines. Industrialization marked a shift to powered, special-purpose machinery, factories, and mass production. The iron and textile industries, along with the development of the steam engine, played centrol roles in the Industrial Revolution, which also saw improved systems of transportation, communication, and banking. While industrialization brouht about an increased volume and variety of manufactured goods and an improved standard of living for some, it also resulted in often grim employment and living conditions for the poor and working classes. The era’s intense focus on materal progress and prosperity is evidence of the naturalism of the age.
1762 - Rousseau’s Social Contract published
its democratic teachings were put into effect by the French revolutionists. Not one of the “philosophers” obtained an influence in shaping future events which could be compared with that of Rousseau. He appealed to the common people to carry out revolutionary changes. His Social Contract became the model of the revolutionary State. The liberty, equality, the sovereignty of the people was the foundation of the contract. The State, with Rousseau, is nothing but a collection of individuals freely associating together and forming a contract for the recognition of their rights. This community excludes all other communities, especially the Church. A Christian community in which the Church has special rights not delegated by the State is, in his view, a contradiction. Whatever opposes an obstacle to the equality of the citizens, possession of private property, a government, an aristocracy, a church, must be overthrown. The people have the inalienable right to determine the form of government and at any time to change it, to accept or reject any proposed laws by universal suffrage. It is evident that sucha. theory, carried out in practice, must lead to anarchy and mob rule.
1775-1783 - American War for Independence
The immediate cause of the revolt was the conflicting claims of the colonists and the British Parliament. The colonists maintained that as Englishmen by birth or descent they were entitled to the same degree of liberty as Englishmen enjoyed at home. Not being represented in Parliament they opposed Parliamentary taxation as an invasion of the rights upon the principal that taxation without representation is tyranny. On the other hand, Parliament claimed the unrestricted right of legislating for, and of taxing the colonies, not merely to defray the expenses of protecting them, but as a mark of colonial subordination and dependence. In the American Revolution, we see Protestant individualism rising up against the excessive claims of the over-powerful Parliament of England. As a result of Protestantism, the time from 1517 to 1789 saw the rise of two opposite and extreme errors: the absolutism of monarchs, on the one hand, and the revolutionism of the common people on the other.
1776 - American Declaration of Independence
When it became evident that the war coulrd end only in independence or in complete subjection, and when Congress contemplated an appeal to France, the first preliminary step seemed to call for independence. Finally, when England hired German mercenaries to fight against her own subject, the declaration of independence became inevitable. The Masonic periodical MASONIC REVIEW claims that fifty-five of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration were members of the sect (Freemasons). Others say only nine. Masons or not, the main figures of the American Revolution were very sympathetic to Masonic naturalism and to the godless ideas of the French Revolution. The document was written by Thomes Jefferson with the aid of Benjamin Franklin and others. Some of the phrasses about “equality” and “liberty of all men” are evidence of the new philosophy. For, if the signers had taken these assertations seriously, their first duty would have been the immediate abolition of slavery.
1783 - Treaty of Versailles (or Paris)
ended the War of the American Revolution. Signed between the U.S. and England and between England, France, and Spain. The principal stipulation was the independence of the United States with England retaining free navigation on the Mississippi.
1787 - Constitution of the United States framed
The period of federation following the Revolution proved a period of military, political, and financial confusion, of lack of revenue and infraction of treaties by the separate states. Hence the Constitutional Convention of Philadelphia met in Philadelphia. The Constitution was a compromise. It was however, on the whole a victory of the Federalists. The government of the US was divided into three departments, the legislative, the judiciary, and the executive. The federal Congress was to consist of two houses, the House of Representatives elected by the people and the Senate elected by the state legislatures. The executive power was vested in the President, chosen by electors for a term of four years, the electors to be chosen by the people. As to the judiciary department, a Federal Supreme Court was provided by the Contsitution and the creation of lower Federal Courts was left to Congress.
1789 - Storming of the Bastille (start of the French Revolution)
On July 14 the people of Paris attacked the Bastille or State prison for five hours. It could not be taken by force, but, compelled by his men, De Launey, the commander, surrendered on condition that no harm should be done. Only seven prisoners, who all deserved their fate, were found in this “stronghold of tyranny.” With the fall of the Bastille ancient royalty and all regular government were destroyed. Power passed from the king and the National Assembly to the mob. In all France began that career of anarchy, the reign of terror, which was crushed out only by the despotism of Napoleon. The French Revolution was not, as modern history books teach, a popular uprising of the common people against oppressive and bullish Louis XVI. Rather it was a well-orchestrated political upheaval brought about principally by the aristocracy and bourgeoisie, who were completely imbued with the spirit of the philosophes of the Enlightenment. It gave political expression to the impiety, anti-Catholicilsm, and spirit of revolt found in the writings of Voltaire, Rousseau, and others. It was the culmination of the political and social revolution which took place in Europe and was the last deduction from the principals of the Reformation. The denial of the divine authority of the Church naturally led to the denial of all human authority in the State.
1803 - Louisiana Purchase
the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory (about 828,000 miles) made possible a larger United States: Spain in 1800 ceded the whole of Louisiana to France. President Jefferson well understood the dangers threatening the Union if the mouth of the Mississippi was to remain in the hands of a foreign power. His negotiations with Napoleon, begun in 1801, came the following year to a successful issue and France ceded the whole to the United States.
1812 - War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between Great Britain and the United States. At the time, Britain was carrying on the Napoleonic Wars against the French. The cause of the war was the British practice of seizing American ships (which were carrying on trade with France) and impressing American seamen (whose citizenship Britain did not recognize) into her service. The Treaty of Ghent ending the war was signed in 1814. Though the treaty ignored the causes of the war, Great Britain tacitly withdrew from her opposition to the principals of maritime neutrality and never again advanced the claim of search and impressment against the United States.
