Only Slate Plus members can gift Slate stories. Become a member to share 10 free articles a month. In 1521, in the imperial free city of Worms, the firebrand Augustinian friar Martin Luther stood ...

In 1914, the Habsburg empire’s fatal combination of belligerence and weakness triggered World War I and, four years later, the empire’s own dissolution. This graceful account of Habsburg diplomacy ...

Six days after the death in 1922 of his father—Karl I, last of the ruling Habsburgs—little Franz Josef Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Maximilian Heinrich Sixtus Xavier Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetano Pius ...

On this episode of American Prestige, Natasha Wheatley on the transformation of the Habsburg Empire from a multinational collection of polities to discrete nation-states. Derek Davison and Daniel ...

From Madrid's Habsburg plazas to Brussels's Ommegang pageant, the far-reaching legacy of Charles V's divided empire reveals itself across Europe's most compelling cities and landscapes. Thanks to its ...

This story was featured in The Must Read, a newsletter in which our editors recommend one can’t-miss story every weekday. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. A woman freezes at the sight of white ...

On Dec. 13, 1740, the Prussian king Frederick II slipped out of a masquerade ball and mounted his horse at the head of 27,000 well-drilled troops. Three days later, he crossed the frontier into ...

The Habsburg royal house, known for its notorious inbreeding practices, ruled Spain from 1506 to 1700 and held the Holy Roman Empire from 1452 until 1806. To maintain wealth, power, and "blue blood," ...

A facial deformity known as "Habsburg jaw," famously noted in the Habsburg dynasty of Spanish and Austrian royals, can be attributed to inbreeding. According to a new study published in the Annals of ...

In this work, Dr. Mitchell, a veteran policy analyst who is currently Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, takes a look at the “Habsburg Puzzle”. That is, the success of the ...