Protestants generally trace their separation from the the Roman Catholic church to the 1500's. This is the time the most successful refomers effected a permanent, substantial break with the church. Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg? in 1517?, and Calvin was active a generation after him. Other reformers included Ulrich Zwingli and Jan Hus.
Protestantism's major theological differences with the Catholics include the belief in the sufficiency of faith alone for salvation, the figurative (rather than real) presence of Christ in the bread and wine of communion, the lack of need for formal confession to a priest followed by acts of penitence, and the rule of the pope over the church. Generally speaking, Protestants thought and think that it is above all most important that one have a personal relationship with the divine, unmediated by a priesthood or church. It is uncommon for protestants to believe in the existence of purgatory.
Protestants refer to particular protestantism sects as denominations to imply that they are differently named parts of the whole church, although some denominations are less accepting of others and some are so unorthodox as to be questioned by most. All denominations consider all others to have some points of doctrine wrong. These theological differences are sometimes very small. Many denominations do not consider that the points of doctrine which other denominations have wrong as important enough to keep followers of the other denomination eternally separated from God or Heaven.
Protestant denominations:
Other well-known Protestants:
English seems to lack a word for Christian denominations which have never been a part of the Roman Catholic Church, such as some of the Syrian churches, the Saint Thomas Christians of India, and the Ti-Ping movement. These are often called Protestant but the useage is not correct because they did not protest against and leave the Roman Catholic Church in the first place, but formed separately.
Most of these present no problem - they are either Catholic, Eastern Orhodox, or Oriental Orthodox. The Syrian churches are either members of Eastern Orthodoxy (The Syrian Orthodox Church), the Catholic Church (the Melkite Catholic Church), or are part of Oriental Orthodoxy. None of those are single words, but they are in general usage in English to describe them. The Thomas Christians are called Malabar Christians or Thomas Christians, who for a very long time had Syrian bishops and were in communion with the Oriental Orthodox. I don't know about the Ti-Ping movement. --MichaelTinkler
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