As in our own day it seems that fundamentalism encourages more violence than peace. The Thirty Years' War began with the Defenestration of Prague on May 23, 1618, when members of a protestant revolt in Bohemia stormed the royal palace in Prague and threw two of King Ferdinand II's royal ministers out a window. That begs the question why they were so mad? It goes back to the Peace of Augsburg signed by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V on Sept. 25, 1555. The Peace of Augsburg was signed to end the horrid bloodletting of the Reformation and to prevent the chaotic dissolution of the Empire. Unfortunately the treaty was only a temporary salve for a divisive issue, not unlike the Missouri Compromise of US history. Although the fighting stopped, underlying tensions remained. Local princes in the Empire could keep the lands seized from the Catholic church and mandate the religion of their domain. Also, although Lutheranism was recognized, the Anabaptists and Calvinists were still considered heretical. During the 50 years of shaky peace the Catholic leadership of the Empire, now Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, and his allies Ferdinand II of Bohemia and Maximilian I of Bavaria sought to restore catholic dominance. As the Empire approached 1618, protestant churches were burned and their members faced persecution and exclusion from the government administration. Tension grew as the rulers of Moravia and Austria also began to chip away at religious freedom. Eventually the people of Bohemia revolted against the catholic resurgence and one of its strongest supporters, Ferdinand II, King of Bohemia, who was a Spanish Hapsburg, an absolutist, a counter-reformationist, and very catholic. Soon after the Defenestration of Prague the people of Bohemia elected Frederick V of the Palatinate (on the Rhine) as king and formed the Protestant Union. In response, Maximilian I was made the head of the Catholic League and backed by Rudolf II, Fredinand II, and the Catholic church. Like in WW1, everyone was itching to start a war to settle the Reformation and eventually armies from nearly every county in Europe, including Sweden, would become inolved in a war that lurched through stages of open war, recovery, and back for 30 years.