The document summarizes important events in European history between 1576-1630: 1) The Pacification of Ghent in 1576 united Dutch provinces to drive out the Spanish and end Calvinist persecution. 2) The Union of Utrecht in 1581 established the independence of the northern Netherlands from Spain as the United Provinces. 3) The Defenestration of Prague in 1618 sparked the Thirty Years' War when Bohemian Protestants threw imperial regents out a window in protest of Habsburg authority.