During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the biggest empire in the world was Spanish, and the most powerful country in Europe was Spain under the rule of King Philip II. Spain was a Catholic kingdom, and Philip was determined to convert the Kingdom of England to Catholicism. He first tried marrying the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I, who refused, knowing it would mean the loss of her power and the end of the Tudor Dynasty. So, Philip II launched an attack with the Spanish Armada. The Armada was repulsed by the English navy; this is often seen as a turning point in English and world history. Philip also despised Elizabeth because she supported the Dutch Revolt against Spanish dominion and because she allowed privateers and pirates to pillage and rob Spanish ships headed home from the New World.

In the battle between the Spanish Armada and the English navy, the English navy was somewhat helplessly outnumbered, but they had the advantage of defending and favorable weather. They also had fireboats. The English employed fireboats to devastating effect. They would fill an unmanned ship with gunpowder and other explosives, light it, and ensure it raced towards Spanish ships. The effect of this was mass carnage, with no net loss for the English.

The Globe Theatre was built in 1559, the second year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It was the site of many of Shakespeare's plays and was frequented often by the Queen, as well as the common people of London. Plays were a major social and cultural event in the Elizabethan Era.

Queen Elizabeth I never married because she feared that her marriage would transfer power to a man; by not marrying, Elizabeth ensured the end of the Tudor Dynasty, which led to the emergence of the Stuarts. James I was the first Stuart monarch to sit on the throne. James I was also James VI of Scotland. Scotland and England remained separate kingdoms during his reign, but were under the personal control of one man. James was an advocate for unifying the two parliaments.

The Anglo-Spanish War was waged between the Elizabethan kingdom of England and the Spanish kingdom of Phillip II in the years 1585-1604. The most famous incident of the war was the failed invasion of England by the Spanish Armada in 1588. However, it would be incorrect to say that England won the war - nobody really won. Throughout the war Phillip II provided supplies for rebels against the crown, most notably in Ireland.

The Act of Supremacy and the Act of Uniformity were both passed in 1558 by the parliament of Queen Elizabeth I. They were the two primary legal features of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement. The Act of Supremacy established Elizabeth as the supreme and absolute ruler of the Church of England. The Act of Uniformity established the guidelines for Christian worship in Elizabethan England. Collectively they mark the Elizabethan Religious Settlement which could be seen as an end to the worst conflicts of the Anglican Reformation.

The Franco-Prussian War was a major victory for Prussia, which took less than 10 months from July 1870 to May 1871 to overrun the French armies and take possesion of the territories of Alsace and Lorraine. The war saw drastic changes for both countries. The French Second Empire was dissolved, with the Third Republic being established, and Emperor Napoleon III having to abdicate. The various German states were unified under a project long attempted by Prussian King Wilhelm I (who became German Emperor Wilhelm I) and Chancellor Otto Bismarck.

The Berlin Conference of 1884 to 1885 was set up to try and "peacefully" divide the territories of Africa between the various imperial European powers. This marked Germany's emergence onto the world stage as a significant imperial power.

During the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon sought to isolate Britain from the rest of the world. In a process known as the Continental System, Napoleon prevented all the European nations under his control (which were most of them) from trading with Britain. The idea was that a British nation starved of much-needed imports and unable to raise revenue through exports would make for a much less challenging rival. In the end, Napoleon lacked the naval power to fully enforce the Continental System.

For much of European history what is now known as Germany had been a collection of numerous princely states and small kingdoms. Moreover, the German speaking people were scattered throughout Europe from the Netherlands and Denmark to Hungary and Romania. Now, whilst you may not have known that the unification of Germany took place in 1871, in the Nineteenth Century, you should have known that the Nineteenth Century was the century where European nationalism grew into a dominant political ideology. Different people all over Europe were suddenly coming to see themselves as part of a distinct, and usually “special”, nationality. Germany was no exception and under the chancellorship of Bismarck, Prussia used German nationalism to unify the country. You might also have been confused and considered the reunification of Germany at the end of the Cold War, when the Berlin Wall was taken down, but this would better be called the "reunification" of Germany.