Thirty Years' War four-year period, the warring parties (the Holy Roman Empire, France, and Sweden) were actively negotiating at Osnabrück and Münster in Westphalia. The end of the war was not brought about by one treaty, but instead by a group of treaties such as the Treaty of Hamburg. On 15 May 1648, the Peace of Münster was signed, ending the Thirty Years' War. Over five months later, on 24 October, the Treaties of Münster and Osnabrück were signed. The war ranks with the worst famines and plagues as the greatest medical catastrophe in modern European history. Lacking good census information, historians have
Siege of Breda (1624) thereafter. The siege of 1624 captured the attention of European princes and, along with other battles like White Mountain (1620), played a part in the Spanish army regaining the formidable reputation it had held throughout the previous century. In the latter stages of the combined Eighty and Thirty Years' wars that had greatly strained Spanish resources, Breda was lost to the Dutch under Frederick Henry after a four-month siege. In the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia that ended the Thirty and Eighty Years' wars, it was ceded to the Dutch Republic. There were several motives for Spinola's siege of Breda. Because