Remember Ferdinand and Isabella? You know, the king and queen of Spain. The ones who bankrolled Christopher Columbus and his effort to reach the East by sailing West? Yep, That Ferdinand and Isabella. Well, before meeting with Christopher Columbus, they had gotten married, and in the process unified their separate kingdoms (Castile and Aragon) into one united Christian kingdom, and paved the way for the eventual complete reunification of Spain under their grandson. Ferdinand and Isabella also pushed the last remaining Moslems out of Europe and into North Africa. Later, after most of the excitement concerning these admittedly remarkable achievements had died down, they had several children and grandchildren. A grandson named Charles, through political maneuvering that included some interesting relationships with various Popes became Holy Roman Emperor, even though that title was usually reserved for a German Prince. One of Isabella and Ferdinand’s daughters was a girl named Catherine, who was married off to the presumptive heir to the English crown, Arthur Tudor. Arthur died young, and Catherine married his younger brother Henry, with the special consideration, again, of the Pope. Later, Henry became Henry VIII.
So. Here, we have all the elements of a thousand late-Medieval story plots, all concentrated in just a handful of people, in a very short time: The removal of Islam from mainland Europe, the establishment of Spain as an imperial power, the discovery of America, the Spanish and Portuguese colonization of South and Central America, the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation, the six wives of Henry VIII, the Spanish Armada, the English “War Dogs”, the English colonization of North America; all this and more revolved around the lifetimes of just a handful of people.
If the Popes had not been able to tap into the riches of the Aztecs and Incas through their close relationship with Spain, the Roman Catholic Church might not have survived the Reformation. If the Pope had not been so indebted to Spain and its ruling family, Henry VIII might never have left the Roman Church, and there might never have been a Church of England or English Separatist movement. If Germany had been unified under Roman worship, then Luther might have burned at the stake and Protestantism never gotten started! Almost everything we know about American and European history after 1492 would have been very different, just based on these few people and these few years.