Greathouse of Philadelphia County, PA
Do you have any Greathouse kith and kin who resided in Philadelphia County, PA? If so, please join us in our efforts to better document the Greathouse kith and kin who lived in this county, by sending your additions and corrections to Greathouse Point.
2007 - Changes In Bielefeld's Political Status
Before 1614 - |
Bielefeld was a town in the County of Ravensberg, a possession of the Duke of Cleves. John William, Duke of Cleves, died in 1609. (Ravensberg was noted for making linen.) |
|
|
Treaty of 1614 - |
County of Ravensberg plus Duchy of Cleves and County of Mark were given to John Sigismund (a Hohenzollern), Elector of Brandenburg (1608-1619). (The Hohenzollern family had acquired the Electorate of Brandenburg plus Lusatia in 1411.)
John's wife, Anne, was a niece of Duke John William. As the oldest daughter of Albert Frederick, Duke of East Prussia, Anne also inherited East Prussia in 1618 since she had no brothers. George William, the son of John Sigismund and Anne, thus inherited Brandenburg, East Prussia, Cleves, Mark, and Ravensberg in 1619 and ruled until 1640. (Albert Frederick's father, Albert of Hohenzollern, had been the grand master of the Teutonic Knights, which held East Prussia as a fief from the king of Poland.
Albert had converted to Lutheranism, dissolved the order of the Teutonic Knights, and taken over East Prussia as a personal fief from the Polish king.) |
|
|
1618 - |
The Hohenzollern holdings became "Brandenburg-Prussia" after the death of Albert Frederick and the acquisition of East Prussia.
Frederick William "the Great Elector" ruled from 1640 to 1688.
In 1648, with the Peace of Westphalia, he acquired eastern Pomerania (with former bishopric of Kammin), Halberstadt near the Elbe, Minden, and Nordhausen.
The Great Elector's oldest surviving son was Elector Frederick III, who ruled from 1688 to 1713.
|
|
|
January 18, 1701 - |
Elector Frederick III crowned himself King Frederick I of East Prussia with the emperor's approval (after Frederick had promised military support for Hapsburgs in Spain).
The royal title applied only to Prussia, which was outside the Holy Roman Empire; as Elector of Brandenburg, Frederick still owed fealty to the emperor. Frederick, however, began to use the title King of Prussia as his primary title throughout his territories.
King Frederick William I (1713-1740)
King Frederick II "the Great" (1740-1786) increased Prussian lands by over half and connected Brandenburg with Prussia by annexing parts of Poland.
King Frederick William II (nephew of Frederick II) was king from 1786 to 1797, during the French Revolution. The second and third partitions of Poland (1791 and 1795) erased Poland from the map of Europe and added a large Slavic population to Prussian control.
This time marked the greatest eastward expansion of Prussia.
King Frederick William III (1797-1840) was a young man during the Napoleonic Wars and mostly kept Prussia neutral. |
|
|
1803 - |
Napoleon's first reorganization of Europe eliminated over half of the more than 300 sovereign political entities in Germany that had been existence since 1648. Prussia lost its territories west of the Rhine River to the French Republic, but Ravensberg stayed within the Kingdom of Prussia. |
|
|
1806 - |
Napoleon reorganized Germany again by establishing the Confederation of the Rhine and by proclaiming the German states free from any loyalty to the Holy Roman emperor. Emperor Francis II yielded to reality and officially dissolved the Holy Roman Empire. |
|
|
1807 - |
Prussian King Frederick William III tried, too late, to resist Napoleon. Prussian forces were routed at the battles of Jena and Auerstadt in October, 1806, and Napoleon defeated Prussia's ally Russia at Friedland in June, 1807. In the Treaties of Tilsit, a much-reduced Kingdom of Prussia lost its territories west and south of the Elbe River, and Ravensberg became part of the Kingdom of Westphalia, which was part of the Confederation of the Rhine. One of Napoleon's brothers was the King of Westphalia. |
|
|
1815 - |
Mer the defeat of Napoleon in the "Battle of the Nations" near Leipzig in 1813, his exile on Elba, his return to power for 100 days, and his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815, the Congress of Vienna redrew the map of Europe. The German Confederation was established with thirty-five sovereign principalities and four free cities. Prussia recovered many of its former lands, including the area of Ravensberg, which had become part of the province of Westphalia. |
|
|
1866 - |
During the middle part of the nineteenth century, Prussia and Austria jostled for position, each trying to unite the German states under its own leadership. Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck directed Prussian diplomacy and successfully expanded Prussian territory and influence. Mer the Seven Weeks' War against Austria in 1866, Prussia created the North German Confederation (under Prussian domination) to replace the German Confederation of 18 15. Frederick William IV ruled Prussia from 1840 to 1858. His brother William became regent in 1858 (because of Frederick William's bouts of insanity) and became king in 1861; William I ruled until his death in 1888 at age ninety-one. |
|
|
1871- |
Prussia defeated France (under Napoleon III) in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, and William was crowned German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles (near Paris) on January 18, 1871. The Second Reich (Empire) was proclaimed then also. All of the German states except Austria were unified under the emperor. William I was succeeded by Frederick III (Prussian enumeration) for ninety-nine days before his death from throat cancer. William II was the Kaiser [emperor] from 1888 until the night of November 9-10, 1918, when he fled to Holland at the end of World War I. |
|
|
1918 - |
Germany's First Republic, called the "Weimar Republic," was the government in Germany after World War I. Excessive demands for reparations and two ruinous periods of inflation undermined the economy and thus popular support for the democratic government. Adolf Hitler gained widespread support by denouncing the Treaty of Versailles and advocating renewed German nationalism and union with Austria. Hitler's rabble-rousing speeches, Nazi paramilitary thugs, intimidation of opponents, and election victories resulted in the appointment of Hitler as chancellor on January 30, 1933, by German President Paul von Hindenburg. |
|
|
1934 - |
Upon Hindenburg's death in 1934, Hitler combined the offices of president and chancellor and consolidated his power. Hitler's Third Reich ended the Weimar Republic and led Germany into World War II. |
|
|
1945 - |
The German surrender took effect on May 9, 1945, following Hitler's suicide on April 30. The victorious Allies-England, the United States, Russia, and France-divided Germany into occupation zones under the Allied Military Government. The English zone included Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, the city-state of Hamburg, and a new state named North Rhine-Westphalia (which included Westphalia, the Ruhr, and the Lower Rhineland). Since then, Bielefeld has been part of North Rhine-Westphalia. |
|
|
1947 - |
Bizonia was created on January 1, 1947, to combine the English, American, and French zones into one administrative unit, separate from the Russian zone in the east. |
|
|
1948 - |
The German Federal Republic was organized in West Germany, including the states of
Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Rhineland Palatinate, Wiirttemberg, Baden, and Bavaria. The German Democratic Republic in East Germany was controlled by the Russian communist Soviet Union. East Germany included Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, and Thuringia. |
|
|
1990 - |
The two Germanys were reunited into one nation, the Federal Republic of Germany, on October 3, 1990. |
| |
|
Footnotes:
Sources:
Rodes, John E. Germany: A History. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964. The World Almanac and Book of Facts: 2006. New York: World Almanac Books, 2006.
|
