This was the period when the Austro-Hungarian empire was dissolved, the Ottoman possessions in Europe were lost, the Prussian empire formed, the Italian nation formed, and many European monarchies fell during the liberal revolutions. Amongst the conflicts between the leading European powers, there was the Franco-Prussian War, the Boer War, the Anglo-Russian war in the Crimea. And then, just after your carefully-chosen 99 years, the Great War, and Russian Revolution. Hardly peaceful.

Yeah... on the continent. They were merciless to indigenous populations across the globe during that century. Big improvement there - instead of fighting each other, we'll invade everyone else with the full takeover of India in 1858, and the New Imperialism of the 1870s which added 8.8 million square miles of land to European possession.

> This is the rule, not the exception. Throughout history, instances where religious war was waged or religious atrocities occurred, there was often an underlying political logic to them. Religion has less to do with the underlying morality of the scripture and more to do with what religious leaders of the time say it is, and their interpretation can be...flexible.

Nah, ask a historian. The history of Europe over the last 1500 years or so is long, but you can only name a few incidents and examples. And even then, you can't show of a change where one thing was widely unacceptable and became acceptable to this day. The Catholic Church, for example, still condemns premarital sex and always has.