Google Doodle celebrates Belgium National Day, observed on July 21, which marks the country s struggle for independence and its evolution as a sovereign nation.
Thirty Years’ War, (1618–48), in European history, a series of wars fought by various nations for various reasons, including religious, dynastic, territorial, and commercial rivalries. Its destructive campaigns and battles occurred over most of Europe, and, when it ended with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, the map of Europe had been irrevocably changed. A brief treatment of the Thirty Years’ War follows. For full treatment, see Europe, history of: The Thirty Years’ War. Although the struggles that created it erupted some years earlier, the war is conventionally held to have begun in 1618, when the future Holy Roman emperor