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
Peace of Westphalia European issues of the time. Scholars of international relations have identified the Peace of Westphalia as the origin of principles crucial to modern international relations, including the inviolability of borders and non-interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. This system became known in the literature as Westphalian sovereignty. Although scholars have challenged the association with the Peace of Westphalia, the debate is still structured around the concept of Westphalian sovereignty. Peace of Westphalia The Peace of Westphalia () was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster, largely