History of Europe
The Fall of Constantinople in 1453 showed the military weakness of the Christians in Eastern Europe. It is often used as a starting point for modern history. Western Christians completed the Reconquista and discovered a New World in 1492. Europe awoke from the medieval period through rediscovery of classical learning, much of which had been kept alive in the Muslim world while the Western church had rejected much of it as paganry. The Renaissance was followed by the Protestant Reformation, as priest Martin Luther attacked Papal authority. The Thirty Years War, the Treaty of Westphalia and the Glorious Revolution prepared for expansion and enlightenment.