European wars of religion new political order that is now known as Westphalian sovereignty. The conflicts began with the Knights' Revolt (1522), a minor war in the Holy Roman Empire. Warfare intensified after the Catholic Church began the Counter-Reformation in 1545 against the growth of Protestantism. The conflicts culminated in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which devastated Germany and killed one-third of its population. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) put an end to the war by recognising three separate Christian traditions in the Holy Roman Empire: Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism. Although many European leaders were 'sickened' by the religious bloodshed by 1648, religious
Dominions of Sweden Norway to the king of Sweden under the Treaty of Kiel, which followed on Second War against Napoleon. However the treaty of Kiel never came into force: instead sovereignty of Western Pomerania passed to Kingdom of Prussia, who already held the eastern parts and merged them into the Province of Pomerania. Norway declared her independence, but was forced after a short war into a personal Union with Sweden. Sweden received the German town of Wismar with the surrounding countryside in the Peace of Westphalia (1648). In 1803 Wismar was pawned, in exchange for a loan, and control was handed over