This paper consists of four parts. It begins by using the authors's generalized Schauder formula, [50], and the algebraic multiplicity, $χ$, of Esquinas and López-Gómez [18,17,40] to package and sharpening all existing results in local and global bifurcation theory for Fredholm operators through the recent author's axiomatization of the Fitzpatrick-Pejsachowicz-Rabier degree, [51]. This facilitates reformulating and refining all existing results in a compact and unifying way. Then, the local structure of the solution set of analytic nonlinearities $\mathfrak{F}(λ,u)=0$ at a simple degenerate eigenvalue is ascertained by means of some concepts and devices of Algebraic Geometry and Galois Theory, which establishes a bisociation between Bifurcation Theory and Algebraic Geometry. Finally, the unilateral theorems of [40,42], as well as the refinement of Xi and Wang [63], are substantially generalized. This paper also analyzes two important examples to illustrate and discuss the relevance of the abstract theory. The second one studies the regular positive solutions of a multidimensional quasilinear boundary value problem of mixed type related to the mean curvature operator.