The Peace of Münster was a treaty between the Lords States General of the United Netherlands and the Spanish Crown, the terms of which were agreed on 30 January 1648. The Treaty is a key event in Dutch history marking formal recognition of the independent Dutch Republic and formed part of the Peace of Westphalia ending the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War; the Dutch Revolt called the Eighty Years' War, of 1568–1648 was the struggle by the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands for independence from the Spanish Empire. Spain was at the height of its power and suppressed the rebellion, but in 1572 the Dutch rebels captured the strategic port of Brielle, providing them with a bridgehead for expanding the area under their control. Supported by France and Protestant states like England and Scotland, by 1581 the Northern provinces of the Netherlands were de facto independent. By the mid-17th century the Netherlands was the world's leading economic and maritime power, a period of economic and cultural growth known as the Dutch Golden Age.

Despite these successes, the Dutch failed to expel the Spanish from the wealthy provinces of the Southern Netherlands, modern-day Belgium, Luxembourg plus the Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Longwy regions of northern France. France had financed the Dutch for many years to weaken the Habsburgs the dominant power in Europe. In 1639, the Dutch navy destroyed a Spanish fleet carrying supplies and men to the Netherlands at the Battle of the Downs while in 1643 the French defeated the Army of Flanders at the Battle of Rocroi. French intervention and internal discontent at the costs of the Dutch war led to a change in Spain's'Netherlands First' policy and a focus on suppressing the French-backed Catalan Revolt or Reapers War. After Rocroi, France acquired large parts of the Southern Netherlands and Dutch leaders like Andries Bicker and Cornelis de Graeff grew concerned the main beneficiary of continuing the war was France; these fears were heightened by suggestions of a treaty between Spain and France that would be reinforced by a marriage between Louis XIV and a daughter of Philip IV.

Such an outcome threatened the Dutch since France would acquire dynastic rights over the Southern Netherlands and the Northern provinces as well. These factors increased the urgency on both sides to end the war. Negotiations between began in 1641 in present-day Germany. With the initiation of Spanish-Dutch peace talks, Dutch trade with the Levant and the Iberian Peninsula began to flourish. Dutch merchants, benefiting from both the availability of cheap shipping and the cessation of hostilities, soon dominated the markets, dominated by English traders. Dutch merchants would benefit from the foreign upheavals of the English Civil War and gain on English trade in their American colonies. While Spain did not recognise the Dutch Republic, it agreed that the Lords States General of the United Netherlands was'sovereign' and could participate in the peace talks. In January 1646, eight Dutch representatives arrived in Münster to begin negotiations; the Spanish envoys had been given great authority by the Spanish King Philip IV, suing for peace for years.

On 30 January 1648, the parties reached agreement and the text sent to the Hague and Madrid for approval. The Peace of Münster between the Holy Roman Emperor and their allies and the Treaty of Osnabrück involving the Holy Roman Empire and their allies were collectively known as the Peace of Westphalia. While European conflict continued, this marks a significant point in the transition to sovereignty based on states rather than individuals e.g. the Habsburgs. Sovereignty has been defined by historian Harry Hinsley as the idea that there is a final and absolute political authority in the political community...and no final and absolute authority exists elsewhere. Despite achieving independence, there was considerable opposition to the Treaty within the States General since it allowed Spain to retain the Southern Provinces and permitted religious toleration for Catholics. Support from the powerful province of Holland meant it was narrowly approved but these differences resulted in political conflict.

An original copy of the treaty is held by the Rijksarchief in The Hague. Boer, H. W. J. de, H. Bruch en H. Krol Adriaan Pauw. Heemstede, VOHB, 1985 Manzano Baena, Laura, "Negotiating Sovereignty: the Peace Treaty of Münster, 1648", History of Political Thought, Volume 28, Number 4, 2007, pp. 617–641. Manzano Baena, Laura, "Conflicting Words: The Peace Treaty of Münster and the Political Culture of the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Monarchy, " Leuven University Press, 2011 Parker, Geoffrey, "The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567-1659: The Logistics of Spanish Victory and Defeat in the Low Countries' Wars, " Cambridge University Press, 1972 Poelhekke, J. J. De vrede van Munster.'s-Gravenhage, Martinus Nijhoff, 1948

Baba Fakhruddin Suharwardy was a Sufi saint who lived in the 12th century. Before coming to Penukonda, he was a king of Shahpur in Iran, his disciples knew him as a true follower of Islam. His Murshid was Tabr-e-Aalam Baadshah Nathar Vali, who himself was a king who had renounced the world in a place called Tiruchirapalli. After serving for several years at his Murshid's command, Baba Fakruddin left for Penukonda in order to preach, he is known as Babaiah in India and his name has been taken by many men over the centuries due to a widespread popular respect for his legend. Today, his mausoleum is located in Anantapur District, Andhra Pradesh, India. Life Sketch of a Sufi Saint Baba Fakruddin

Joy Elizabeth Lawn is a Professor of Maternal and Child Health. She is Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Maternal, Reproductive & Child Health Centre, she developed the epidemiological evidence for the worldwide policy and programming that looks to reduce neonatal deaths and stillbirths and works on large-scale implementation research. Lawn's mother was a teacher and missionary in northern Uganda who suffered from an obstructed labour and was transferred to a bush hospital where the medic had never performed a caesarean section before. Lawn and her parents moved to Northern Ireland at the height of The Troubles, she studied medicine at the University of Nottingham and specialised in paediatrics, graduating in 1990. She moved back to Africa in the early 1990s, working as a neonatologist and lecturer at Kumasi in Ghana, she helped set up neonatal care at the University of Ghana Teaching Hospital. She was upset by many neonatal deaths daily and worked to reduce mortality with simple approaches, such as detecting infections early and not rotating nurses off neonatal wards.

Lawn moved to Atlanta with her family in 1997. She became more interested in public health, joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Whilst in Atlanta she earned a Master of Public Health at Emory University, she found there were few statistics on infant mortality as many babies who die in the Developing World are not registered at birth. She moved to the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health in 2001, where she completed a PhD in 2009, she worked for Save the Children USA from 2005. She was based in South Africa from 2005-2012 with Save the Children USA to work with 9 African countries to save newborn lives and undertaking large scale community trials; the BBC documentary, Invisible Lives, found that Nepal and Malawi were some of the few countries on track to meet the United Nations development goal to end the death of children under 5. In 2013 she was appointed director of MARCH at the LSHTM, she was awarded a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award to improve data on stillbirths and newborns.

With the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Lawn developed a massive open online course on women's health, delivered to over 26,000 participants from 130 countries. Lawn started to coordinate neonatal death and stillbirth estimates for the United Nations with the United Nations Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group from 2004, she developed the first cause of death estimates for neonatal deaths, published in The Lancet in 2005. She found in Uttar Pradesh neonatal mortality rates were as high as 60 in 1000 livebirths and 41 per 1000 in Sub-Saharan Africa. In her report she called for an end to the'unconscionable' 450 newborn deaths per hour, she developed the continuum of care for reproductive, maternal and child health. She co-led The Lancet Stillbirth series in 2011 and 2016, she worked with the World Health Organization to identify that in 2008 there were 2.65 million stillbirths worldwide, with 67% occurring in rural families. The report found that over 98 % of the stillbirths worldwide were in low-income families.

Lawn presented a Lancet TV series on Ending the Stillbirth epidemic. She was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as the Director of Evidence and Policy for Save the Children, Saving Newborn Lives Program, she was appointed to the Department for International Development Senior Research Fellow for newborn health in 2011 to 2015. She has worked to draw attention to equity issues and was involved with the Countdown to 2015 initiative. Lawn works on improving community engagement with national policy on healthcare, emphasising that in some countries people will choose to give birth at home when there are nearby facilities if quality of care is poor. Improving the quality of care at birth in hospitals could save 2 million lives a year Lawn's The Lancet Neonatal Survival Series was followed ten years by the Every Newborn Series, which advocated for quality care and community action at birth; this series led to the UN's Every Newborn Action Plan, the first Global Goal for every country to reduce newborn deaths Preterm birth was made a World Health Organization priority to reach Millennium Development Goal 4.

Lawn believes that kangaroo care could prevent death and disability caused by preterm birth and is an important foundation for intensive care, family centred. In 2014 she studied preterm birth worldwide, now the number one killer of young children under five worldwide, she estimated. These realisations motivated Lawn and Mary Kinney with the March of Dimes and 50 partner agencies to author the Born Too Soon Global Action Report on preterm birth, the first estimates of preterm birth birth by country, they found. The report was included as a commitment on the Every Woman Every Child website. Group B streptococcal infection is an important perinatal pathogen. Lawn works on Group B streptococcal infection, hoping to improve health system measurements and intervention trials. In estimates published with Anna Seale and 103 other authors, Group B Strep was found to be responsible for at least 150,000 preventable infant deaths and stillbirths a year. Lawn was awarded the 2013 Programme for Global Paediatric Research award for Outstanding Contributions to Global Child Health.

In 2014 the Uppsala University awarded her the Nils Rosén medal for paediatrics. in 2015 she was awarded the Sheth Distinguished International Alumni Award, Emory University, Atlanta. She was made a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2016, she was electe