Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a series of events that happened in the 16th century in the Catholic Church. Because of corruption allegations in the Catholic Church, some people saw that the way it worked needed to change. People like Erasmus, Huldrych Zwingli, Martin Luther and John Calvin protested the corruption and tried to stop it. This led to a split in the church, into Catholics and various Protestant churches. The Protestant reformation triggered the Catholic Counter-Reformation.

Martin Luther's posting of The Ninety-Five theses at Wittenberg is seen as the start of the Protestant Reformation. This happened in the year 1517. John Knox brought Luther's ideas to Scotland and founded the Presbyterian Church. As various countries adopted Protestant ideas, wars broke out between Catholic and Protestant factions and countries. Many people died in these wars, which included the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War. These wars were not just about religion. Since most countries have recognized (state) religion, many of the disputes were political. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 recognized Protestants when the signers agreed not to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. This included their chosen religion.

The recent invention of the printing press helped spread awareness of the Church's abuses. A start was made in translating the Bible into various local languages. For example, John Wycliffe and William Tyndale worked on translating it into the English language. Much of Tyndale's translation was used in the King James version of the Bible. Luther translated the Bible into German.