The “Ninety-Five Theses,” as they came to be called, catapulted Martin Luther into the centre of a controversy that would soon affect all of Europe in staggeringly diverse ways — from great wars and religious persecution to massive educational renewal and marriage reforms.

His “95 Theses,” which propounded two central beliefs—that the Bible is the central religious authority and that humans may reach salvation only by their faith and not by their deeds—was to spark the Protestant Reformation.

By nailing his Ninety-five Theses to the church door, Luther was trying to start a discussion. It was as thought he were putting a notice on a bulletin board and asking people to respond to his ideas. But his ideas proved so powerful that they sparked a protest that led to huge changes across Europe.

She was the first-ever Queen of England to rule in her own right, but to her critics, Mary I of England has long been known only as “Bloody Mary.” This unfortunate nickname was thanks to her persecution of Protestant heretics, whom she burned at the stake in the hundreds.

She prioritized religion above all else, implementing reforms and restrictions aimed at restoring the Catholic Church’s ascendancy in England. Most controversially, she ordered 280 Protestants burned at the stake as heretics—a fact that would later cement her reputation as “Bloody Mary.”

24 March 1603

300 Protestants

Elizabeth is the only English queen never to marry. MPs and the Privy Councillors expected her to marry in order to secure the succession , and many foreign princes and English noblemen wanted to marry her. She kept her thoughts on the subject private, but we can speculate as to why she never married.

As expected, and has it happened in real-life, Reign’s finale ended just how Mary’s life did: she was beheaded in 1587, with the show staging a 21 year time-jump in the final moments.

Queen Elizabeth II is a direct descendant of Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary, Queen of Scots ruled Scotland from 1542 to 1567. Her son, James VI and I,…

Following the Jacobite line, the current King of Scotland would be Franz Bonaventura Adalbert Maria Herzog von Bayern, whose great-grandfather Ludwig III was the last Bavarian monarch before being deposed in 1918. Now 77 years old, his heir is his younger brother Max, 74, and then Sophie, his eldest niece.