The Republic of the Seven United Provinces — which emerged from revolt against Spanish Habsburg rule in the late 16th century, became the world's leading commercial power through the 17th century, pioneered financial and commercial institutions that subsequent capitalism built on, and declined relative to Britain and France while establishing a model of tolerant republican governance that influenced European liberalism.
At its peak in the mid-17th century, the Dutch Republic — a territory roughly the size of West Virginia, with two million people — controlled the world's largest merchant fleet, operated the world's most sophisticated financial system, produced Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Spinoza in a single generation, and managed colonial empires in Asia, Africa, and the Americas simultaneously. None of this was predicted. The Dutch Republic happened because a small group of commercial cities revolted against the world's largest empire and discovered, in the process of surviving, what capitalism could do.