Early modern Europe, also referred to as the post-medieval period, is the period of European history between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, roughly the mid 15th century to the late 18th century. Historians variously mark the beginning of the early modern period with the invention of moveable type printing in the 1450s, the Fall of Constantinople and end of the Hundred Years' War in 1453, the end of the Wars of the Roses in 1485, the beginning of the High Renaissance in Italy in the 1490s, the end of the Reconquista and subsequent voyages of Christopher Columbus to the Americas in 1492, or the start of the Protestant Reformation in 1517. The precise dates of its end point also vary and are usually linked with either the start of the French Revolution in 1789 or with the more vaguely defined beginning of the Industrial Revolution in late 18th century England.
Europe about 1560, as in the 1923 William Shepherd Atlas
Henry VIII broke England's ties with the Catholic Church, becoming the sole head of the English Church.
Treaty of Westphalia allowed Calvinism to be freely exercised.
Elizabeth ushers in Peace and Plenty. Detail from The Family of Henry VIII: An Allegory of the Tudor Succession, c. 1572, attributed to Lucas de Heere.
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe, classical antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the modern era.
The Late Pleistocene saw extinctions of numerous predominantly megafaunal species, coinciding in time with the early human migrations across continents.
Chauvet Cave painting, Aurignacian culture, France, c. 30,000 BC
Linear Pottery culture settlement, Germany, c. 4700 BC
Artefacts from the Varna necropolis, Bulgaria, c. 4500 BC
