History of Europe and its lands. The European religious wars between German and Spanish rulers. The Reconquista ended Muslim rule in Iberia. By the 1490s a series of oceanic explorations marked the Age of Discovery, establishing direct links with Africa, the Americas, and Asia. Religious wars continued to be fought in Europe, until the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. The Spanish crown maintained its hegemony in Europe and was the leading power on the continent until the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees, which ended a conflict between Spain and France that had begun during the Thirty Years' War. An unprecedented series of
Treaty of Stettin (1653) Pomerania became Brandenburgian Pomerania. During the war, Sweden had occupied the Duchy of Pomerania in 1630. The last Griffin duke Bogislaw XIV died in 1637, his duchy was supposed to be inherited by Brandenburg, who based her claims on in the Treaty of Grimnitz. This however was hindered by the Swedish presence. The 1648 Peace of Westphalia ended the war, and Pomerania was to be partitioned between Brandenburg and Sweden. The 1650 Treaty of Nuremberg roughly defined the areas that should be under control of Sweden and Brandenburg, respectively. The precise border was drawn in the 1653 Treaty of Stettin,