Representatives from across the Holy Roman Empire would gather at the Reichstag, where these politicians would choose the next king who would be declared emperor only after he was crowned by the Pope. The emperors depended on the Reichstag to supply him money for war and other activities. In 1314, there was a disagreement between two factions on whether Louis of Bavaria or Frederick of Austria should be crowned king. Pope John XXII didn’t recognize either as emperor, so they went to war. 

In 1322, Louis defeated Frederick, but refused to appear at the Papal court so the Pope excommunicated him. Incensed, Louis proceeded to call Pope John a heretic and marched with his army to Rome. Once in Rome, Louis declared Nicholas V the new Pope, causing Romans to riot against Louis. Further outrage ensued after German soldiers stole bread from the market, resulting in rioting. This caused Louis to be forced to return to Germany and Pope John was able to take control of the papacy again.

After this incident, support of Louis dissolved, so he tried desperately to apologize to the Pope, but this failed. Instead, Charles IV was crowned Holy Roman Emperor instead and governed respectably, lowering taxes and managing the realm adeptly. Emperor Frederick III (r. 1440-1493) lost many lands to Hungary during his long reign, but these territories would be taken back during the reign of Maximilian I (r. 1508-1519).

In 1469, the Iberian kingdoms of Aragon and Castile were brought together when Queen Isabella of Castile and King Ferdinand of Aragon married. This alliance unified Spain as a singular nation and consolidated it into a strong, centralized government. Unlike other European nations, Spain did not pay much attention to the Pope, and enjoyed broad tax exemptions, independent court systems, and kings that were able to choose their own bishops. From 1482-1492, the Spanish conquered Grenada, which was the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian peninsula. This completed the Reconquista, an era lasting from 718 to 1492. 

Previously, the Emirate of Granada paid tribute to Spain, but in 1466, this practice stopped. After a 10 year war, the Spanish sieged out Granada, which fell in 1492. The Spanish allowed Muslims keep their religion and let them be governed by their own rulers, that is, until the Spanish Inquisition. During this famous period, Spain sought to cleanse the country of all non-Christians, so they forcibly converted or deported hundreds of thousands of Muslims, making Spain a fully Catholic nation. In 1492, King Ferderinad also issued a decree which exiled all Jews from Spain, sending 200,000 of them to North Africa. 

After the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottomans in 1453, the Ottomans blocked the Silk Road to Europe in order to prevent Europeans from trading with India and China. The Silk Road had been used all throughout the late middle ages, and supplied Europe with valuable goods like gunpowder and silk. Therefore Europeans looked for a different route to Asia, preferably by sea. 

A Portuguese explorer named Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) tried to sail around the horn of Africa to get to India. Although he never made it to his destination, Henry established trading outposts in Western Africa and traded with sub-Saharan Africans, eventually buying slaves from them and bringing them to Europe for the first time. In 1488, another Portuguese explorer Bartholomew Dias discovered the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa and made it to the Indian Ocean multiple times to trade with the locals in India. 

Vasco Da Gama (1460-1524) took four ships to Africa and India in 1497 and was the first European to successfully sail to India by sea. The Portuguese occupied Eastern India and Macao in Southern China, and started trading spices with the locals. Since Portugal dominated the eastern sphere, Spain decided to find a sea route in the West. 

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was an Italian merchant who was assigned by the Spanish crown the task of sailing westward through the Atlantic. On the 12th of October, 1492, Columbus and his crew landed on the Island of San Salvador, in the Bahamas, marking (possibly) the first discovery of the Americas by Europeans. Columbus later discovered the island of Cuba and Hispaniola (Haiti), where he established trading outposts and brought West African slaves to the Caribbean since the Spanish had outlawed enslaving the natives.