Five who or what shaped the modern state
Westphalia, the Bastille, Kant, steam, and the assassination that ended the long peace.
5 questions. Pick an answer to see the explanation. Share your result at the end.
Which 1648 treaty ended the Thirty Years' War and established the foundations of the modern European state system?
The Peace of Westphalia (24 October 1648) consisted of two linked treaties signed at Münster and Osnabrück. It ended the Thirty Years' War, recognized Dutch and Swiss independence, and established the principle of sovereign territorial states — the 'Westphalian system' that still names the modern international order. Versailles is 1919 (WWI); Tordesillas is 1494 (Spanish-Portuguese New World division); Augsburg is 1555 (the earlier and inadequate Lutheran-Catholic settlement).
On what date was the Bastille stormed, marking the symbolic start of the French Revolution?
The Bastille — a medieval fortress in eastern Paris being used as a state prison — was stormed by a Parisian crowd on 14 July 1789, six weeks after the Estates-General had convened. The date became France's national holiday in 1880. 5 May 1789 was the opening of the Estates-General; 21 January 1793 the execution of Louis XVI; 9 November 1799 Napoleon's coup that ended the Revolution.
Whose 1784 essay 'What Is Enlightenment?' provided the movement's most famous summary, *Sapere aude* ('Dare to know')?
Kant's 1784 essay *Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?* offered the standard summary of the movement's self-conception: the application of independent reasoning to all questions, captured by the slogan *Sapere aude* — 'Dare to know.' Voltaire died in 1778; Rousseau in 1778; Hume in 1776 — none of them wrote this essay.
Where did the Industrial Revolution begin?
Britain in the late 18th century combined cheap coal, colonial markets, scientific culture, property rights, and high labour costs — together creating the conditions for industrialisation. The textile, steam, and iron industries transformed first. Germany, the United States, and Japan industrialised in the second half of the 19th century; Italy and Russia followed.
Whose assassination triggered the start of World War I?
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was shot in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 by the Bosnian Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia, and the alliance system turned the Balkan crisis into a continental war within five weeks. The Tsar, the Kaiser, and President Wilson all survived 1914 unharmed (although Nicholas II was eventually executed in 1918, after the Russian Revolution).