The French Wars of Religion were a prolonged period of war and popular unrest between Roman Catholics and Huguenots (Reformed/Calvinist Protestants) in the Kingdom of France between 1562 and 1598. It is estimated that three million people perished in this period from violence, famine, or disease in what is considered the second deadliest religious war in European history (surpassed only by the Thirty Years' War, which took eight million lives).[1]
Much of the conflict took place during the long regency of Queen Catherine de' Medici, widow of Henry II of France, for her minor sons. It also involved a dynastic power struggle between powerful noble families in the line for succession to the French throne: the wealthy, ambitious, and fervently Roman Catholic ducal House of Guise (a cadet branch of the House of Lorraine, who claimed descent from Charlemagne) and their ally Anne de Montmorency, Constable of France (i.e., commander in chief of the French armed forces) versus the less wealthy House of Condé (a branch of the House of Bourbon), princes of the blood in the line of succession to the throne who were sympathetic to Calvinism. Foreign allies provided financing and other assistance to both sides, with Habsburg Spain and the Duchy of Savoy supporting the Guises, and England supporting the Protestant side led by the Condés and by the Protestant Jeanne d'Albret, wife of Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarre, and her son, Henry of Navarre.
<span>People moved from large cities in the East to settle in the Western Territories.--new transportation and territories open up with cheap land drew people west.
Western migration eased the crowding of Northeastern cities and provided a group of people to farm and provide food for the growing industrial centers through the North and Midwest. Railroad transportation allowed for easier travel to the West as well as roads and canals. </span>
<span>On February 15, 1898, a mysterious explosion sank the battleship.</span>
The Federalist Party, referred to as the Pro-Administration party until the 3rd United States Congress, was the first American political party. It existed from the early 1790s to 1816.
