Short answers, pulled from the story.
Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation on the 31st of October 1517 when he nailed the Ninety-five Theses to the door of the All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, Germany. This act was initially a scholarly invitation to debate the Catholic Church's sale of indulgences rather than a call to form a new church.
The five core principles of Protestantism are known as the Five Solae and include Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Solus Christus, Sola Gratia, and Soli Deo Gloria. These Latin phrases define the movement's differences from the Catholic Church by asserting that the Bible is the sole authority, salvation comes through faith alone, Christ is the only mediator, grace is a free gift, and all glory belongs to God alone.
The Thirty Years War between 1618 and 1648 killed between 25% and 40% of the population of Germany. This devastating conflict turned the continent into a graveyard of religious intolerance and ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
The Radical Reformation was led by figures such as Thomas Müntzer and Andreas von Bodenstein Karlstadt who rejected state-sponsored churches. This movement included groups like the Anabaptists who believed the church should be a voluntary community of believers separate from political coercion.
The First Great Awakening occurred in the 1730s and 1740s and swept through Protestant Europe and British America. This revival movement made Christianity intensely personal to the average person through powerful preaching and emotional conversion experiences.
Lutheranism traces its roots directly to Martin Luther and advocates for justification by grace alone through faith alone on the basis of Scripture alone. Other major branches include Anglicanism, Calvinism, Methodism, Adventism, Pentecostalism, Quakers, and Baptists.