History of Europe

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History of Europe Timeline

Europe depicted by Antwerp cartographer Abraham Orteliusin 1595.

360 BC Plato attacks Athenian democracy in the Republic.

323 BC Alexander the Great dies and his Macedonian Empirefragments.

44 BC Julius Caesar is murdered. The Roman Republicdrawing to a close.

27 BC Establishment of the Roman Empire under Octavian.

AD 330 Constantine makes Constantinople into his capital, anew Rome.

395 Following the death of Theodosius I, the Empire is permanently split

into eastern and western halves.

527 Justinian I is crowned emperor of Byzantium.

800 Coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor.

1054 Start of the East-West Schism, which divides theChristian church

for centuries.

1066 Successful Norman Invasion of England by William the Conqueror.

1095 Pope Urban II calls for the First Crusade.

1340 Black Death kills a third of Europe's population.

1337 - 1453 The Hundred Years War

 1453 Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks.

1492 Christopher Columbus lands in the New World.

1498 Leonardo da Vinci paints The Last Supper in Milan, as

the Renaissance flourishes.

1517 Martin Luther nails his demands for Reformation to the door of
the church in Wittenberg.

1648 The Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years' War.

1707 The United Kingdom of Great Britain is formed by

theunion of England and Scotland.

1789 The French Revolution.

1815 Following the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte the Treaty of Vienna is

signed.

1860s Russia emancipates its serfs and Karl Marx completes the first
volume of Das Kapital.

1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria is assassinated and World War

I begins.

1945 World War II ends with Europe in ruins.

1950 The Schuman declaration begins European unity.

1989 The Berlin Wall comes down leading to the end of Communism in
Europe.

2004 The European Union takes in most of the former communist east,
reuniting the continent.

History of Europe describes the history of humans inhabiting the European continent since it was first
populated in prehistorictimes to present, with the first human settlement between 45,000 and 25,000
BC.

Greco-Roman civilizations dominated Classical antiquity, starting with the reappearance of writing
in Ancient Greece at around 700 BC, generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided
the foundation of Western civilization and immensely influential on language, politics, educational
systems, philosophy, science and the arts. Those values were inherited by theRoman
Republic established in 509 BC, having expanded from Italy, centered in the Mediterranean Sea, until
the Roman Empirereached its greatest extent around the year 150.
After a period of civil wars, emperor Constantine I shifted the capital from Rome to the Greek town
Byzantium in 313, then renamed Constantinople (modern Istanbul), having legalized Christianity. In
395 the empire was permanently split in two, with theWestern Roman Empire repeatedly attacked
during the migration period. Rome was sacked in 410 by the Visigoths, the first of the Germanic
peoples migrating into Roman territories. With the last West Roman emperor removed in 476,
Southeastern Europe and some parts of the Mediterranean remained under the Eastern Roman
Empire (Byzantine Empire) up to the later sixth century.

As Constantinople faltered, Germanic peoples established kingdoms in western territories. The new
states shared Latin written language, lingering Roman customs and Christian religion. Much territory
was brought under the rule of the Franks byCharlemagne, whom the pope crowned western Emperor
in 800, but soon divided while Europe came under attack from Vikings,Muslims from north Africa,
and Magyars from Hungary. By the mid-tenth century the threat had diminished, although Vikings
remained threatening the British Isles.

In 1054 AD a schism divided Christian Church into Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, but
from 1095 a series ofreligiously sanctioned military campaigns were waged by coalitions of Latin
Christian Europeans, in response to a call from the Byzantine Empire, for help against the Muslim
expansion. Spain, southern France, Lithuania and pagan regions were consolidated during this time,
with the last large-scale crusade of the Middle Ages fought in 1396. Complex feudal loyalties
developed and the aristocracy of new nations become very closely related by intermarriage.
The feudal society began to break asMongol invaded frontier areas and the Black
Death pandemic killed from 30% to 60% of Europe's population.[1]

Beginning roughly in the 14th century in Florence, and later spreading through Europe with the
development of printing press, aRenaissance of knowledge challenged traditional doctrines in science
and theology, with the rediscovery of classical Greek and Roman knowledge.</ref>
Simultaneously Protestant Reformation under German Martin Luther questioned Papal
authority. Henry VIII sundered the English Church, allying in ensuing religious wars between German
and Spanish rulers. The Reconquista of Portugal and Spain led to a series of oceanic explorations
resulting in the age of discovery that established direct links with Africa, the Americas and Asia, while
religious wars continued to be fought in Europe,[2] which ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia.

European overseas expansion led to the rise of colonial empires, producing the Columbian Exchange.
[3]
The combination of resource inflows from the New World and the Industrial Revolution of Great
Britain, allowed a new economy based on manufacturing instead of subsistence agriculture.[4] Starting
in 1775, British Empire colonies in America revolted to establish a representative government. Political
change in continental Europe was spurred by the French Revolution under the motto liberté, egalité,
fraternité. The ensuing French leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, conquered and enforced reforms through
war up to 1815.

The period between 1815 and 1871 saw a large number of revolutionary attempts and independence
wars. In France and the United Kingdom, socialist and trade union activity developed. The last
vestiges of serfdom were abolished in Russia in 1861[5]and Balkan nations began to regain
independence from the Ottoman Empire. After the Franco-Prussian War, Germany and Italy unified
into nation states, and most European states had become constitutional monarchies by 1871.

Rivalry in a scramble for empires spread. The outbreak of World War I was preciptated by a series of
struggles among the Great Powers. War and poverty triggered the Russian Revolution which led to the
formation of the communist Soviet Union. Hard conditions imposed on Germany by the Treaty of
Versailles and the Great Depression led to the rise of fascism in Germany as well as in Italy, Spain
and other countries. The rise of the irredentist totalitarian regime Nazi Germany led to a Second World
War.

Following the end of the Second World War, Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain between an
American dominated west and a Soviet dominated east. Western countries came under US protection
via NATO and formed the European Economic Communityamongst themselves. The East was
dominated by communist countries under the Soviet Union's economic and military leadership. There
were also a number of neutral countries in between.

In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union fell and former Communist Bloc countries gained
independence. The west's economic integration deepened and the founded the European
Union which expanded to include most of the former-communist Eastern Europe in 2004.

Prehistory
Main article: Prehistoric Europe
Further information: Palaeolithic Europe, Mesolithic Europe, Neolithic Europe, Stone Age, Bronze Age
Europe, and Iron age Europe
Map showing the Neolithic expansions from the 7th to the 5th millennium BC, including the Cardium Culture in
blue.

Homo erectus and Neanderthals migrated from Africa to Europe before the emergence of modern
humans. The bones of the earliest Europeans are found in Dmanisi, Georgia, dated at 1.8 million
years ago.

The earliest appearance of anatomically modern people in Europe has been dated to 35,000 BCE.
Some locally developed transitional cultures (Szletian in Central Europe and Châtelperronian in the
Southwest) use clearly Upper Paleolithictechnologies at very early dates and there are doubts about
who were their carriers: H. sapiens, Neanderthal or the intermarried population.

Nevertheless, the definitive advance of these technologies is made by the Aurignacian culture. The
origins of this culture can be located in what is now Bulgaria (proto-Aurignacian) and Hungary (first full
Aurignacian). By 35,000 BC, the Aurignacian culture and its technology had extended through most of
Europe. The last Neanderthals seem to have been forced to retreat during this process to the southern
half of the Iberian Peninsula.

Around 24,000 BP two new technologies/cultures appeared in the southwestern region of

Europe: Solutrean and Gravettian. The Gravettian technology/culture has been theorized to have
come with migrations of people from the Middle East, Anatolia, and the Balkans

Around 19,000 BP, Europe witnesses the appearance of a new culture, known as Magdalenian,
possibly rooted in the old Aurignacian one. This culture soon supersedes the Solutrean area and the
Gravetian of Central Europe. However, in Mediterranean Iberia, Italy and Eastern Europe, epi-
Gravettiancultures continue evolving locally.

Around 12,500 BP, the Würm Glacial age ends. Slowly, through the following millennia, temperatures
and sea levels rise, changing the environment of prehistoric people. Nevertheless, Magdalenian
culture persists until circa 10,000 BP, when it quickly evolves into two microlithist cultures: Azilian, in
Spain and southern France, and Sauveterrian, in northern France and Central Europe.

Evidence of permanent settlement dates from the 7th millennium BCE in the Balkans.
The Neolithic reached Central Europe in the 6th millennium BCE and parts of Northern Europe in the
5th and 4th millennium BCE. The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture 5508-2750 BCE was the first big
civilization in Europe and among the earliest in the world. Starting from Neolithic we have the
civilization of the Camunni in Valle Camonica, Italy, that left to us more than 350,000 petroglyphs, the
biggest site in Europe.

Also known as the Copper Age, European Chalcolithic is a time of changes and confusion. The most
relevant fact is the infiltration and invasion of large parts of the territory by people originating
from Central Asia, considered by mainstream scholars to be the original Indo-Europeans, although
there are again several theories in dispute. Other phenomena are the expansion of Megalithism and
the appearance of the first significant economic stratification and, related to this, the first known
monarchies in the Balkan region. The first well-known literate civilization in Europe was that of
the Minoans of the island of Crete and later the Mycenaens in the adjacent parts of Greece, starting at
the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE.

Though the use of iron was known to the Aegean peoples about 1100 BCE, it didn't reach Central
Europe until 800 BCE, giving way to the Hallstatt culture, an Iron Age evolution of the culture of the
Urn Fields. Probably as by-product of this technological peculiarity of the Indo-Europeans, soon after,
they clearly consolidated their positions in Italy and Iberia, penetrating deep inside those peninsulas
(Rome founded in 753 BCE).

[edit]Classical Antiquity
Main article: Classical Antiquity
The Parthenon, an ancient AthenianTemple on the Acropolis (hill-top city) fell to Rome in 176 BCE

The Greeks and the Romans left a legacy in Europe which is evident in current language, thought, law
and minds. Ancient Greece was a collection of city-states, out of which the original form of democracy
developed. Athens was the most powerful and developed city, and a cradle of learning from the time
of Pericles. Citizens forums debated and legislated policy of the state, and from here arose some of
the most notable classical philosophers, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the last of whom
taught Alexander the Great.

The king of the Greek kingdom of Macedon, Alexander's military campaigns spread Hellenistic culture
and learning to the banks of the River Indus. But the Roman Republic, strengthened through victory
over Carthage in the Punic Wars was rising in the region. Greek wisdom passed into Roman
institutions, as Athens itself was absorbed under the banner of the Senate and People of Rome
(Senatus Populusque Romanus).

The Romans expanded from Arabia to Britannia. In 44 BCE as it approached its height, its
leader Julius Caesar was murdered on suspicion of subverting the Republic, to become dictator. In the
ensuing turmoil, Octavian usurped the reins of power and bought the Roman Senate. While
proclaiming the rebirth of the Republic, he had ushered in the transfer of the Roman state from a
republic to an empire, the Roman Empire.

[edit]Ancient Greece
Main articles: Ancient Greece and Hellenistic period
A mosaic showing Alexander the Greatbattling Darius III

The Hellenic civilization took the form of a collection of city-states, or poleis (the most important
being Athens, Sparta, Thebes, Corinth, and Syracuse), having vastly differing types of government
and cultures, including what are unprecedented developments in various governmental
forms,philosophy, science, mathematics, politics, sports, theatre and music.

Athens, the most powerful city-state, governed itself with an early form of direct democracy founded by
Athenian noble Cleisthenes. In Athenian democracy, the citizens of Athens themselves voted on
legislation and executive bills in their own right. From here arose Socrates, considered one of the
founders of Western philosophy.[6]

Socrates also created the Socratic Method, or elenchus, a type of pedagogy used to this day in
philosophical teaching, in which a series of questions are asked not only to draw individual answers,
but to encourage fundamental insight into the issue at hand. Due to this philosophy, Socrates was put
on trial and sentenced to death for "corrupting the youth" of Athens, as his discussions conflicted with
the established religious beliefs of the time. Plato, a pupil of Socrates and founder of the Platonic
Academy, recorded this episode in his writings, and went on to develop his own unique
philosophy,Platonism.

The Hellenic city-states founded a large number of colonies on the shores of the Black Sea and
the Mediterranean sea, Asia Minor, Sicily and Southern Italy in Magna Graecia, but in the 5th century
BCE their eastward expansions led to retaliation from the Achaemenid Persian Empire. In the Greco-
Persian Wars, the Hellenic city-states formed an alliance and defeated the Persian Empire at
the Battle of Plataea, repelling the Persian invasions.

The Greeks formed the Delian League to continue fighting Persia, but Athens' position as leader of this
league led to Sparta forming the rival Peloponnesian League. The two leagues began
the Peloponnesian War over leadership of Greece, leaving the Peloponnesian League as the victor.
Discontent with the Spartan hegemony that followed led to the Corinthian Warwhere an alliance led by
Thebes crushed Sparta at the Battle of Leuctra.
Continued Hellenic infighting made Greek city states easy prey for king Philip II of Macedon, who
united all the Greek city states. The campaigns of his son Alexander the Great spread Greek culture
into Persia, Egypt and India, but also favoured contact with the older learnings of those countries,
opening up a new period of development, known as Hellenism. Alexander died in 323 BCE, splitting
his empire into many Hellenistic civilizations.

[edit]The rise of Rome

Main articles: Ancient Rome, Roman Republic, and Roman Empire

Cicero addresses the Roman Senate to denounce Catiline's conspiracy to overthrow the Republic, by Cesare
Maccari

Much of Greek learning was assimilated by the nascent Roman state as it expanded outward
from Italy, taking advantage of its enemies' inability to unite: the only challenge to Roman ascent came
from the Phoenician colony of Carthage, and its defeat in the end of the 3rd century BCE marked the
start of Roman hegemony. First governed by kings, then as a senatorial republic (the Roman
Republic), Rome finally became an empire at the end of the 1st century BCE, under Augustus and
his authoritarian successors.

The Roman Empire had its centre in the Mediterranean Sea, controlling all the countries on its shores;
the northern border was marked by theRhine and Danube rivers. Under emperor Trajan (2nd century
AD) the empire reached its maximum expansion, controlling approximately 5,900,000 km² (2,300,000
sq mi) of land surface, including Britain, Romania and parts of Mesopotamia. The empire brought
peace, civilization and an efficient centralized government to the subject territories, but in the 3rd
century a series of civil wars undermined its economic and social strength.

In the 4th century, the emperors Diocletian and Constantine were able to slow down the process of
decline by splitting the empire into a Western and an Eastern part. Whereas Diocletian severely
persecuted Christianity, Constantine declared an official end to state-sponsoredpersecution of
Christians in 313 with the Edict of Milan, thus setting the stage for the empire to later become officially
Christian in about 380 (which would cause the Church to become an important institution).

[edit]Decline of the Roman Empire

Main articles: Decline of the Roman Empire and Crisis of the third century

Map of the Roman Empire partition in 395, at the death of Theodosius I: the Western(red) and Eastern Roman
Empire (Byzantine Empire) (purple).

The Roman Empire had been repeatedly attacked by invading armies from Northern Europe and in
476, Rome finally fell. Romulus Augustus, the last Emperor of the Western Roman
Empire surrendered to the Germanic King Odoacer. British historian Edward Gibbon argued in The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776) that the Romans had become decadent, they had lost
civic virtue.

Gibbon said that the adoption of Christianity, meant belief in a better life after death, and therefore
made people lazy and indifferent to the present. "From the eighteenth century onward", Glen W.
Bowersock has remarked,[7] "we have been obsessed with the fall: it has been valued as an archetype
for every perceived decline, and, hence, as a symbol for our own fears." It remains one of the greatest
historical questions, and has a tradition rich in scholarly interest.

Some other notable dates are the Battle of Adrianople in 378, the death of Theodosius I in 395 (the
last time the Roman Empire was politically unified), the crossing of the Rhine in 406 by Germanic
tribes after the withdrawal of the legions in order to defend Italy against Alaric I, the death of Stilicho in
408, followed by the disintegration of the western legions, the death of Justinian I, the last Roman
Emperor who tried to reconquer the west, in 565, and the coming of Islam after 632. Many scholars
maintain that rather than a "fall", the changes can more accurately be described as a complex
transformation.[8] Over time many theories have been proposed on why the Empire fell, or whether
indeed it fell at all.

[edit]Late Antiquity and Migration period

Main articles: Late Antiquity and Migration period
2nd to 5th century simplified migrations. See also map of the world in 820 A.D..

When Emperor Constantine had reconquered Rome under the banner of the cross in 312, he soon
afterwards issued the Edict of Milan in 313, declaring the legality of Christianity in the Roman Empire.
In addition, Constantine officially shifted the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to the Greek
town of Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople ("City of Constantine").

In 395 Theodosius I, who had made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, would be the
last emperor to preside over a united Roman Empire, and from thenceforth, the empire would be split
into two halves: the Western Roman Empire centered in Ravenna, and the Eastern Roman Empire
(later to be referred to as the Byzantine Empire) centered in Constantinople. The Western Roman
Empire was repeatedly attacked by marauding Germanic tribes (see: Migration Period), and in 476
finally fell to the Heruli chieftan Odoacer.

Roman authority in the West completely collapsed and the western provinces soon became a
patchwork of Germanic kingdoms. However, the city of Rome, under the guidance of the Roman
Catholic Church, still remained a centre of learning, and did much to preserve classic Roman thought
in Western Europe. In the meantime, the Roman emperor in Constantinople, Justinian I, had
succeeded in codifying all Roman lawinto the Corpus Juris Civilis (529-534).

For the duration of the 6th century, the Eastern Roman Empire was embroiled in a series of deadly
conflicts, first with the Persian Sassanid Empire (see Roman-Persian Wars), followed by the onslaught
of the arising Islamic Caliphate (Rashidun and Umayyad). By 650, the provinces of Egypt, Palestine
and Syria were lost to the Muslim forces, followed by Hispania andsouthern Italy in the 7th and 8th
centuries (see Muslim conquests).

In Western Europe, a political structure was emerging: in the power vacuum left in the wake of Rome's
collapse, localised hierarchies were based on the bond of common people to the land on which they
worked. Tithes were paid to the lord of the land, and the lord owed duties to the regional prince. The
tithes were used to pay for the state and wars.
This was the feudal system, in which new princes and kings arose, the greatest of which was the
Frank ruler Charlemagne. In 800, Charlemagne, reinforced by his massive territorial conquests, was
crowned Emperor of the Romans (Imperator Romanorum) by Pope Leo III, effectively solidifying his
power in western Europe.

Charlemagne's reign marked the beginning of a new Germanic Roman Empire in the west, the Holy
Roman Empire. Outside his borders, new forces were gathering. The Kievan Rus'were marking out
their territory, a Great Moravia was growing, while the Angles and the Saxons were securing their
borders.

[edit]Middle Ages
Main articles: Middle Ages and Medieval demography

526 Europe under gothic control, and 600 with Byzantium at its height

The Middle Ages are commonly dated from the fall of the Western Roman Empire (or by some
scholars, before that) in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th
century, marked by the rise of nation-states, the division of Western Christianity in theReformation, the
rise of humanism in the Italian Renaissance, and the beginnings of European overseas expansion
which allowed for theColumbian Exchange.[9]

The Middle Ages witnessed the first sustained urbanization of northern and western Europe. Many
modern European states owe their origins to events unfolding in the Middle Ages; present European
political boundaries are, in many regards, the result of the military and dynastic achievements during
this tumultuous period.

[edit]Early Middle Ages

Main article: Early Middle Ages

The Early Middle Ages span roughly five centuries from 500 to 1000.[10] During this period, most of
Europe was Christianized, and the "Dark Ages" following the fall of Rome took place. The
establishment of the Frankish Empire by the 9th century led to the Carolingian Renaissanceon the
continent. Europe still remained a backwater compared to the rising Muslim world, with its vast network
of caravan trade, or India with its Golden Period under the Gupta Empire and the Pratiharas or China,
at this time the world's most populous empire under the Song Dynasty. By AD 1000, Constantinople
had a population of about 300,000, but Rome had a mere 35,000 and Paris 20,000. Islam had over a
dozen major cities stretching fromCórdoba, Spain, at this time the world's largest city with 450,000
inhabitants, to central Asia.

[edit]A Byzantine light

Main article: Byzantine Empire

Constantine I and Justinian I offering their fealty to the Virgin Mary inside the Hagia Sophia

Many consider Emperor Constantine I (reigned 306–337) to be the first "Byzantine Emperor". It was he
who moved the imperial capital in 324 from Nicomedia to Byzantium, refounded as Constantinople, or
Nova Roma ("New Rome").[11] The city of Rome itself had not served as the capital since the reign
of Diocletian. Some date the beginnings of the Empire to the reign of Theodosius I (379–395)
and Christianity's official supplanting of the pagan Roman religion, or following his death in 395, when
the political division between East and West became permanent. Others place it yet later in 476,
when Romulus Augustulus, traditionally considered the last western Emperor, was deposed, thus
leaving sole imperial authority with the emperor in the Greek East. Others point to the reorganization of
the empire in the time of Heraclius (ca. 620) when Latin titles and usages were officially replaced with
Greek versions. In any case, the changeover was gradual and by 330, when Constantine inaugurated
his new capital, the process of hellenization and increasing Christianization was already under way.
The Empire is generally considered to have ended after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman
Turks in 1453. The Plague of Justinian was a pandemic that afflicted the Byzantine Empire, including
its capital Constantinople, in the years 541–542. It is estimated that the Plague of Justinian killed as
many as 100 million people across the world.[12][13] It caused Europe's population to drop by around
50% between 541 and 700.[14] It also may have contributed to the success of the Arab conquests.[15][16]

[edit]Feudal Christendom

Main articles: Holy Roman Empire, Charlemagne, Caliphate of Córdoba, Bulgarian Empire, Great
Moravia, and Kievan Rus'

In 814 the Frankish Empire reached its peak, while Byzantium had before Islamic conquest

Pope Hadrian I asks Charlemagne, King of the Franks for assistance against invasion in 772

The Holy Roman Empire emerged around 800, as Charlemagne, king of the Franks, was crowned by
the pope as emperor. His empire based in modern France, the Low Countries and Germany expanded
into modern Hungary, Italy, Bohemia, Lower Saxony and Spain. He and his father received substantial
help from an alliance with the Pope, who wanted help against the Lombards. The pope was officially a
vassal of theByzantine Empire, but the Byzantine emperor did (could do) nothing against the
Lombards.

To the east, Bulgaria was established in 681 and became the first Slavic country. The
powerful Bulgarian Empire was the main rival of Byzantium for control of the Balkans for centuries and
from the 9th century became the cultural center of Slavic Europe. Two states, Great
Moravia and Kievan Rus', emerged among the Western and Eastern Slavs respectively in the 9th
century. In the late 9th century and 10th century, northern and western Europe felt the burgeoning
power and influence of the Vikings who raided, traded, conquered and settled swiftly and efficiently
with their advanced sea-going vessels such as the longships. The Hungarians pillaged mainland
Europe, the Pechenegs raided eastern Europe and the Arabs the south. In the 10th century
independent kingdoms were established in Central Europe, for example, Polandand Kingdom of
Hungary. Hungarians had stopped their pillaging campaigns; prominent also
included Croatia and Serbia in the Balkans. The subsequent period, ending around 1000, saw the
further growth of feudalism, which weakened the Holy Roman Empire.

[edit]High Middle Ages

Main article: High Middle Ages

In 1097, as the First Crusade to the Holy land commences

The slumber of the Dark Ages was shaken by renewed crisis in the Church. In 1054, a schism, an
insoluble split, between the two remaining Christian seats in Rome and Constantinople.

The High Middle Ages of the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries show a rapidly increasing population of
Europe, which caused great social and political change from the preceding era. By 1250, the robust
population increase greatly benefited the economy, reaching levels it would not see again in some
areas until the 19th century. From about the year 1000 onwards, Western Europe saw the last of the
barbarian invasionsand became more politically organized. The Vikings had settled in the British
Isles, France and elsewhere, whilst Norse Christian kingdoms were developing in
their Scandinavian homelands. The Magyars had ceased their expansion in the 10th century, and by
the year 1000, the Roman Catholic Apostolic Kingdom of Hungary was recognized in central Europe.
With the brief exception of the Mongol invasions, major barbarian incursions ceased.

In the 11th century, populations north of the Alps began to settle new lands, some of which had
reverted to wilderness after the end of theRoman Empire. In what is known as the "great clearances,"
vast forests and marshes of Europe were cleared and cultivated. At the same time settlements moved
beyond the traditional boundaries of the Frankish Empire to new frontiers in eastern Europe, beyond
the Elbe River, tripling the size of Germany in the process. Crusaders founded European colonies in
the Levant, the majority of the Iberian Peninsula was conqueredfrom the Moors, and
the Normans colonized southern Italy, all part of the major population increase and resettlement
pattern.

The High Middle Ages produced many different forms of intellectual, spiritual and artistic works. This
age saw the rise of modern nation-states in Western Europe and the ascent of the great Italian city-
states. The still-powerful Roman Church called armies from across Europe to a series
of Crusades against the Seljuk Turks, who occupied the Holy Land. The rediscovery of the works
of Aristotle led Thomas Aquinas and other thinkers to develop the philosophy of Scholasticism. In
architecture, many of the most notable Gothic cathedrals were built or completed during this era.

[edit]A divided church

Main articles: East-West Schism and Norman Invasion

The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the Battle of Hastings and the events leading to it

The Great Schism between the Western and Eastern Christian Churches was sparked in 1054
by Pope Leo IX asserting authority over three of the seats in the Pentarchy, in Antioch, Jerusalem and
Alexandria. Since the mid eighth century, the Byzantine Empire's borders had been shrinking in the
face of Islamic expansion. Antioch had been wrested back into Byzantine control by 1045, but the
resurgent power of the Roman successors in the West claimed a right and a duty for the lost seats in
Asia and Africa. Pope Leo sparked a further dispute by defending the filioque clause in the Nicene
Creed which the West had adopted customarily. Eastern Orthodox today state that the 28th Canon of
the Fourth Ecumenical Council explicitly proclaimed the equality of the Bishops of Rome and
Constantinople. The Orthodox also state that the Bishop of Rome has authority only over his own
diocese and does not have any authority outside his diocese. There were other less significant
catalysts for the Schism however, including variance over liturgical. The Schism of Roman
Catholic and Eastern Orthodox followed centuries of estrangement between Latin and Greek worlds.
Further changes were set afoot with a redivision of power in Europe. William the Conqueror, a Duke of
Normandy invaded England in 1066. The Norman Conquest was a pivotal event in English history for
several reasons. This linked England more closely with continental Europe through the introduction of
a Norman aristocracy, thereby lessening Scandinavian influence. It created one of the most powerful
monarchies in Europe and engendered a sophisticated governmental system. Being based on an
island, moreover, England was to develop a powerful navy and trade relationships that would come to
constitute a vast part of the world including India, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many key
naval strategic points like Bermuda, Suez, Hong Kong and especially Gibraltar. These strategic
advantages grew and were to prove decisive until after World War II.

[edit]Holy wars

Main articles: Crusades, Reconquista, and Magna Carta

A mitred Adhémar de Monteil carrying theHoly Lance in one of the battles of the First Crusade

After the East-West Schism, Western Christianity was adopted by newly created kingdoms of Central
Europe: Poland, Hungary and Bohemia. The Roman Catholic Church developed as a major power,
leading to conflicts between the Pope and Emperor. In 1129 AD the Roman Catholic Church
established the Inquisition to make Western Europeans Roman Catholic by force. The Inquisition
punished those who practisedheresy (heretics) to make them repent. If they could not do so, the
penalty was death. During this time many Lords and Nobles ruled the church. The Monks of Cluny
worked hard to establish a church where there were no Lords or Nobles ruling it. They
succeeded. Pope Gregory VII continued the work of the monks with 2 main goals, to rid the church of
control by kings and nobles and to increase the power of the pope. The area of the Roman Catholic
Church expanded enormously due to conversions of pagan kings
(Scandinavia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary), Christian reconquista of Al-Andalus, and crusades. Most of
Europe was Roman Catholic in the 15th century.

Early signs of the rebirth of civilization in western Europe began to appear in the 11th century as trade
started again in Italy, leading to the economic and cultural growth of independent city states such
as Venice and Florence; at the same time, nation-states began to take form in places such
as France, England, Spain, and Portugal, although the process of their formation (usually marked by
rivalry between the monarchy, the aristocratic feudal lords and the church) actually took several
centuries. These new nation-states began writing in their own cultural vernaculars, instead of the
traditional Latin. Notable figures of this movement would include Dante Alighieri and Christine de
Pisan(born Christina da Pizzano), the former writing in Italian, and the latter although an Italian
(Venice) relocated to France and wrote inFrench.(See Reconquista for the latter two countries.) On the
other hand, the Holy Roman Empire, essentially based in Germany and Italy, further fragmented into a
myriad of feudal principalities or small city states, whose subjection to the emperor was only formal.

The 13th and 14th century, when the Mongol Empire came to power, is often called the Age of the
Mongols. Mongol armies expanded westward under the command of Batu Khan. Their western
conquests included almost all of Russia (save Novgorod, which became a vassal),
[17]
Kipchak lands, Hungary, and Poland (Which had remained sovereign state). Mongolian records
indicate that Batu Khan was planning a complete conquest of the remaining European powers,
beginning with a winter attack on Austria, Italy and Germany, when he was recalled to Mongolia upon
the death of Great Khan Ögedei. Most historians believe only his death prevented the complete
conquest of Europe[citation needed]. In Russia, the Mongols of the Golden Horde ruled for almost 250 years.

[edit]Late Middle Ages

Main article: Late Middle Ages
Further information: Lex Mercatoria, Hundred Years War, and Fall of Constantinople

Europe in 1400
Europe in 1477

The Late Middle Ages span the 14th and 15th centuries. Around 1300, centuries of European
prosperity and growth came to a halt. A series of famines and plagues, such as the Great Famine of
1315–1317 and the Black Death, reduced the population by as much as half according to some
estimates. Along with depopulation came social unrest and endemic
warfare. France and England experienced serious peasant risings: the Jacquerie, the Peasants'
Revolt, and the Hundred Years' War. To add to the many problems of the period, the unity of
the Catholic Churchwas shattered by the Great Schism. Collectively these events are sometimes
called the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages.[18]

Despite these crises, the 14th century was also a time of great progress within the arts and sciences.
A renewed interest in ancient Greekand Roman texts led to what has later been termed the Italian
Renaissance. Toward the end of the period, an era of discovery began. The growth of the Ottoman
Empire, culminating in the fall of Constantinople in 1453, cut off trading possibilities with the east.
Europeans were forced to discover new trading routes, as happened with Columbus’s travel to
the Americas in 1492, and Vasco da Gama’s circumnavigation ofIndia and Africa in 1498.
Monks infected with plague given a priest's blessing

One of the largest catastrophes to have hit Europe was the Black Death. There were numerous
outbreaks, but the most severe was in the mid-1300s and is estimated to have killed a third of
Europe's population.

Beginning in the 14th century, the Baltic Sea became one of the most important trade routes.
TheHanseatic League, an alliance of trading cities, facilitated the absorption of vast areas
of Poland,Lithuania and other Baltic countries into the economy of Europe. This fed the growth of
powerful states in Eastern Europe including Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, and Muscovy. The
conventional end of the Middle Ages is usually associated with the fall of the city Constantinopleand of
the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The Turks made the city the capital of
their Ottoman Empire, which lasted until 1922 and included Egypt, Syria and most of the Balkans.
The Ottoman wars in Europe, also sometimes referred as the Turkish wars, marked an essential part
of the history of southeastern Europe.

 Hanseatic League, Marco Polo, Lex Mercatoria, History of trade

 Western Schism (1378-1417)

 Hundred Years War, Joan of Arc

[edit]Early Modern Europe

Main article: Early Modern Europe
Further information: Renaissance, Protestant Reformation, Baroque, Age of Enlightenment, Scientific
revolution, Great divergence, and European miracle

Europe in 1519
Europa regina, 1570 print bySebastian Munster of Basel.

Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man depicts his vision for the perfectly proportioned man.

The Early Modern period spans the centuries between the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution,
roughly from 1500 to 1800, or from the discovery of the New World in 1492 to the French Revolution in
1789. The period is characterized by the rise to importance of science and increasingly
rapidtechnological progress, secularized civic politics and the nation state. Capitalist economies began
their rise, beginning in northern Italian republicssuch as Genoa. The early modern period also saw the
rise and dominance of the economic theory of mercantilism. As such, the early modern period
represents the decline and eventual disappearance, in much of the European sphere, of feudalism,
serfdom and the power of the Catholic Church. The period includes the Protestant Reformation, the
disastrous Thirty Years' War, the European colonization of the Americas and the European witch-
hunts.
[edit]Renaissance

Main article: Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in
the early modern period. Beginning in Italy, and spreading to the north and west during a cultural lag of
some two and a half centuries, its influence affected literature, philosophy, art, politics, science,
history, religion, and other aspects of intellectual enquiry.

The Italian Petrarch (Francesco di Petracco), deemed the first full-blooded Humanist, wrote in the
1330s: "I am alive now, yet I would rather have been born in another time." He was enthusiastic about
Greek and Roman antiquity. In the 15th and 16th centuries the continuing enthusiasm for the ancients
was reinforced by the feeling that the inherited culture was dissolving and here was a storehouse of
ideas and attitudes with which to rebuild.Matteo Palmieri wrote in the 1430s: "Now indeed may every
thoughtful spirit thank god that it has been permitted to him to be born in a new age." The renaissance
was born: a new age where learning was very important.

The Renaissance was inspired by the growth in study of Latin and Greek texts and the admiration of
the Greco-Roman era as a golden age. This prompted many artists and writers to begin drawing from
Roman and Greek examples for their works, but there was also much innovation in this period,
especially by multi-faceted artists such as Leonardo da Vinci. Many Roman and Greek texts were
already in existence in the European Middle Ages. The monks had copied and recopied the old texts
and housed them for a millennium, but they had regarded them in another light. Many more flowed in
with the migration of Greek scholars and texts to Italy following the Fall of Constantinople while other
Greek and Roman texts came from Islamic sources, who had inherited the ancient Greek and Roman
texts and knowledge through conquest, even attempting to improve upon some of them.[citation needed] With
the usual pride of advanced thinkers, the Humanists saw their repossession of a great past as a
Renaissance—a rebirth of civilization itself.

Important political precedents were also set in this period. Niccolò Machiavelli's political writing in The
Prince influenced later absolutism and real-politik. Also important were the many patrons who ruled
states and used the artistry of the Renaissance as a sign of their power.

In all, the Renaissance could be viewed as an attempt by intellectuals to study and improve
the secular and worldly, both through the revival of ideas from antiquity, and through novel approaches
to thought—the immediate past being too "Gothic" in language, thought and sensibility.

[edit]Reformation

Main article: Protestant Reformation

The Ninety-Five Theses of German monkMartin Luther which broke Papal autocracy

During this period corruption in the Catholic Church led to a sharp backlash in the Protestant
Reformation. It gained many followers especially among princes and kings seeking a stronger state by
ending the influence of the Catholic Church. Figures other than Martin Luther began to emerge as well
like John Calvin whose Calvinism had influence in many countries and King Henry VIII of England who
broke away from the Catholic Church in England and set up the Anglican Church (contrary to popular
belief, this is only half true; his daughter Queen Elizabeth finished the organization of the church).
These religious divisions brought on a wave of wars inspired and driven by religion but also by the
ambitious monarchs in Western Europe who were becoming more centralized and powerful.

The Protestant Reformation also led to a strong reform movement in the Catholic Church called
the Counter-Reformation, which aimed to reduce corruption as well as to improve and strengthen
Catholic Dogma. An important group in the Catholic Church who emerged from this movement were
theJesuits who helped keep Eastern Europe within the Catholic fold. Still, the Catholic Church was
somewhat weakened by the Reformation, portions of Europe were no longer under its sway and kings
in the remaining Catholic countries began to take control of the Church institutions within their
kingdoms.

Unlike Western Europe, the countries of Central Europe, the Polish-Lithuanian

Commonwealth and Hungary, were more tolerant. While still enforcing the predominance of
Catholicism they continued to allow the large religious minorities to maintain their faiths. Central
Europe became divided between Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox and Jews. Another important
development in this period was the growth of pan-European sentiments. Eméric Crucé (1623) came up
with the idea of the European Council, intended to end wars in Europe; attempts to create lasting
peace were no success, although all European countries (except the Russian and Ottoman Empires,
regarded as foreign) agreed to make peace in 1518 at the Treaty of London. Many wars broke out
again in a few years. The Reformation also made European peace impossible for many centuries.

Another development was the idea of European superiority. The ideal of civilization was taken over
from the ancient Greeks and Romans:discipline, education and living in the city were required to make
people civilized; Europeans and non-Europeans were judged for their civility, and Europe regarded
itself as superior to other continents. There was a movement by some such as Montaigne that
regarded the non-Europeans as a better, more natural and primitive people. Post services were
founded all over Europe, which allowed a humanistic interconnected network of intellectuals across
Europe, despite religious divisions. However, the Roman Catholic Church banned many leading
scientific works; this led to an intellectual advantage for Protestant countries, where the banning of
books was regionally organized. Francis Bacon and other advocates of science tried to create unity in
Europe by focusing on the unity in nature.1 In the 15th century, at the end of theMiddle Ages,
powerful sovereign states were appearing, built by the New Monarchs who were centralizing power
in France, England, and Spain. On the other hand the Parliament in thePolish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth grew in power, taking legislative rights from the Polish king. The new state power was
contested by parliaments in other countries especially England. New kinds of states emerged which
were cooperations between territorial rulers, cities, farmer republics and knights.

[edit]Exploration and Conquest

Main articles: Age of Discovery and Mercantilism

Cantino planisphere, 1502, earliest chart showing explorations by Gama, Columbusand Cabral

The numerous wars did not prevent European states from exploring and conquering wide portions of
the world, from Africa to Asia and the newly discovered Americas. In the 15th century, Portugal led the
way in geographical exploration along the coast of Africa in search for a maritime route to India,
followed by Spain in the early 16th century, dividing their exploration of world according to the Treaty
of Tordesillas of 1494.[19] They were the first states to set up colonies in America and trading posts
(factories) along the shores of Africa and Asia, establishing the first direct European diplomatic
contacts with Southeast Asian states in 1511, China in 1513 and Japan in 1542. In 1552,
Russian tsar Ivan the Terrible conquered two major Tatar khanates, Kazan and Astrakhan, and
the Yermak's voyage of 1580 led to the annexation of Siberia into Russia. Oceanic explorations were
soon followed by France, England and the Netherlands, who explored the Portuguese and Spanish
trade routes into the Pacific Ocean, reaching Australia in 1606[20] and New Zealand in 1642.

Colonial expansion continued in the following centuries (with some setbacks, such as successful wars
of independence in the British American colonies and then later Mexico, Brazil, and others surrounding
the Napoleonic Wars). Spain had control of part of North America and a great deal of Central America
and South America, the Caribbean and the Philippines; Britain took the whole of Australia and New
Zealand, most of India, and large parts of Africa and North America; France held parts of Canada and
India (nearly all of which was lost to Britain in 1763), Indochina, large parts of Africa and Caribbean
islands; the Netherlands gained the East Indies (now Indonesia) and islands in the Caribbean;
Portugal obtained Brazil and several territories in Africa and Asia; and later, powers such
as Germany, Belgium, Italy andRussia acquired further colonies.

This expansion helped the economy of the countries owning them. Trade flourished, because of the
minor stability of the empires. By the late 16th century American silver accounted for one-fifth of the
Spain's total budget.[21] The European countries fought wars that were largely paid for by the money
coming in from the colonies. Nevertheless, the profits of the slave trade and of plantations of the West
Indies, then the most profitable of all the British colonies, amounted to less than 5% of the British
Empire's economy (but was generally more profitable) at the time of the Industrial Revolution in the
late 18th century.

[edit]Enlightenment

Main article: Age of Enlightenment

The Battle of Nördlingen (1634) in theThirty Years' War

Throughout the early part of this period, capitalism (through Mercantilism) was replacing feudalism as
the principal form of economic organization, at least in the western half of Europe. The expanding
colonial frontiers resulted in a Commercial Revolution. The period is noted for the rise of
modern science and the application of its findings to technological improvements, which culminated in
the Industrial Revolution.Iberian (Spain and Portugal) exploits of the New World, which started with
Christopher Columbus's venture westward in search of a quicker trade route to the East Indies in
1492, was soon challenged by English and French[22] exploits in North America. New forms of trade
and expanding horizons made new forms of government, law and economics necessary.

The Reformation had profound effects on the unity of Europe. Not only were nations divided one from
another by their religious orientation, but some states were torn apart internally by religious strife,
avidly fostered by their external enemies. France suffered this fate in the 16th century in the series of
conflicts known as the French Wars of Religion, which ended in the triumph of the Bourbon Dynasty.
England avoided this fate for a while and settled down under Elizabeth to a moderate Anglicanism.
Much of modern day Germany was made up of numerous small sovereign states under the theoretical
framework of the Holy Roman Empire, which was further divided along internally drawn sectarian lines.
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is notable in this time for its religious indifference and a general
immunity to the horrors of European religious strife.

The Thirty Years' War was fought between 1618 and 1648, principally on the territory of
today's Germany, and involved most of the major European powers. Beginning as a religious conflict
between Protestants and Catholics in Bohemia, it gradually developed into a general war involving
much of Europe, for reasons not necessarily related to religion.[23] The major impact of the war, in
which mercenary armies were extensively used, was the devastation of entire regions scavenged bare
by the foraging armies. Episodes of widespread famine anddisease devastated the population of the
German states and, to a lesser extent, the Low Countries, Bohemia and Italy, while bankrupting many
of the regional powers involved. Between one-fourth and one-third of the German population perished
from direct military causes or from illness and starvation related to the war.[24] The war lasted for thirty
years, but the conflicts that triggered it continued unresolved for a much longer time.

After the Peace of Westphalia, Europe's borders were still stable in 1708

After the Peace of Westphalia which ended the war in favour of nations deciding their own religious
allegiance, Absolutism became the norm of the continent, while parts of Europe experimented with
constitutions foreshadowed by the English Civil War and particularly the Glorious Revolution.
European military conflict did not cease, but had less disruptive effects on the lives of Europeans. In
the advanced northwest, the Enlightenment gave a philosophical underpinning to the new outlook, and
the continued spread of literacy, made possible by the printing press, created new secular forces in
thought. Again, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth would be an exception to this rule, with its
unique quasi-democratic Golden Freedom.

Eastern Europe was an arena of conflict for domination between Sweden, the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire. This period saw a gradual decline of these three powers
which were eventually replaced by new enlightened absolutist
monarchies, Russia, Prussiaand Austria. By the turn of the 19th century they became new powers,
having divided Poland between them, with Sweden and Turkey having experienced substantial
territorial losses to Russia and Austria respectively. Numerous Polish Jews emigrated to Western
Europe, founding Jewish communities in places where they had been expelled from during the Middle
Ages.

[edit]From revolution to imperialism

See also: Nineteenth century

In 1815 Europe's borders were resettled, its roots shaken up by Napoleon's armies

The "long nineteenth century", from 1789 to 1914 sees the drastic social, political and economic
changes initiated by the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, and
following the re-organization of the political map of Europe at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the rise
of Nationalism, the rise of the Russian Empire and the peak of the British Empire, paralleled by
the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Finally, the rise of the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian
Empire initiated the course of events that culminated in the outbreak of World War I in 1914.

[edit]Industrial Revolution
Main article: Industrial Revolution

London's chimney sky in 1870, byGustave Doré

The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in
agriculture, manufacturing, and transport affected socioeconomic and cultural conditions in Britain and
subsequently spread throughout Europe and North America and eventually the world, a process that
continues as industrialisation. In the later part of the 1700s the manual labour based economy of
theKingdom of Great Britain began to be replaced by one dominated by industry and the manufacture
of machinery. It started with the mechanisation of the textile industries, the development of iron-making
techniques and the increased use of refined coal. Once started it spread. Trade expansion was
enabled by the introduction of canals, improved roads and railways. The introduction of steam
power (fuelled primarily by coal) and powered machinery (mainly in textile manufacturing) underpinned
the dramatic increases in production capacity.[25] The development of all-metal machine tools in the
first two decades of the 19th century facilitated the manufacture of more production machines for
manufacturing in other industries. The effects spread throughout Western Europe and North America
during the 19th century, eventually affecting most of the world. The impact of this change on society
was enormous.[26]

See also: Steam engine, Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, History of
economic thought, and History of rail transport
[edit]Political revolution
Main articles: American Revolution, French Revolution, and Napoleonic Wars

The storming of the Bastille in the French Revolution of 1789

French intervention in the American Revolutionary War had bankrupted the state. After repeated failed
attempts at financial reform, Louis XVIwas persuaded to convene the Estates-General, a
representative body of the country made up of three estates: the clergy, the nobility, and the
commoners. The members of the Estates-General assembled in the Palace of Versailles in May 1789,
but the debate as to which voting system should be used soon became an impasse. Come June, the
third estate, joined by members of the other two, declared itself to be aNational Assembly and swore
an oath not to dissolve until France had a constitution and created, in July, the National Constituent
Assembly. At the same time the people of Paris revolted, famously storming the Bastille prison on 14
July 1789.

At the time the assembly wanted to create a constitutional monarchy, and over the following two years
passed various laws including theDeclaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the abolition of
feudalism, and a fundamental change in the relationship between France and Rome. At first the king
agreed with these changes and enjoyed reasonable popularity with the people, but as anti-royalism
increased along with threat of foreign invasion, the king, stripped of his power, decided to flee along
with his family. He was recognized and brought back to Paris. On 12 January 1793, having been
convicted of treason, he was executed.

On 20 September 1792 the National Convention abolished the monarchy and declared France
a republic. Due to the emergency of war the National Convention created the Committee of Public
Safety, controlled by Maximilien Robespierre of the Jacobin Club, to act as the country's executive.
Under Robespierre the committee initiated the Reign of Terror, during which up to 40,000 people were
executed in Paris, mainly nobles, and those convicted by theRevolutionary Tribunal, often on the
flimsiest of evidence. Elsewhere in the country, counter-revolutionary insurrections were brutally
suppressed. The regime was overthrown in the coup of 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794) and Robespierre
was executed. The regime which followed ended the Terror and relaxed Robespierre's more extreme
policies.

The Battle of Waterloo, where Napoleonwas defeated by the Duke of Wellington in 1815

Napoleon Bonaparte was France's most successful general in the Revolutionary wars, having
conquered large parts of Italy and forced the Austrians to sue for peace. In 1799 he returned from
Egypt and on 18 Brumaire (9 November) overthrew the government, replacing it with theConsulate, in
which he was First Consul. On 2 December 1804, after a failed assassination plot, he crowned
himself Emperor. In 1805, Napoleon planned to invade Britain, but a renewed British alliance with
Russia and Austria (Third Coalition), forced him to turn his attention towards the continent, while at the
same time failure to lure the superior British fleet away from the English Channel, ending in a decisive
French defeat at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October put an end to hopes of an invasion of Britain.
On 2 December 1805, Napoleon defeated a numerically superior Austro-Russian army at Austerlitz,
forcing Austria's withdrawal from the coalition (see Treaty of Pressburg) and dissolving the Holy
Roman Empire. In 1806, a Fourth Coalition was set up, on 14 October Napoleon defeated the
Prussians at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, marched through Germany and defeated the Russians on
14 June 1807 at Friedland, the Treaties of Tilsit divided Europe between France and Russia and
created the Duchy of Warsaw.

On 12 June 1812 Napoleon invaded Russia with a Grande Armée of nearly 700,000 troops. After the
measured victories at Smolensk and Borodino Napoleon occupied Moscow, only to find it burned by
the retreating Russian Army, he was forced to withdraw, on the march back his army was harassed
by Cossacks, and suffered disease and starvation. Only 20,000 of his men survived the campaign. By
1813 the tide had begun to turn from Napoleon, having been defeated by a seven nation army at
the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813. He was forced to abdicate after the Six Days Campaign and the
occupation of Paris, under the Treaty of Fontainebleau he was exiled to the Island of Elba. He returned
to France on 1 March 1815 (seeHundred Days), raised an army, but was comprehensively defeated by
a British and Prussian force at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815.

[edit]Nations rising
Main articles: Italian unification, Franco-Prussian War, Crimean War, and Revolutions of 1848

Cheering the Revolutions of 1848 in Berlin

After the defeat of revolutionary France, the other great powers tried to restore the situation which
existed before 1789. In 1815 at theCongress of Vienna, the major powers of Europe managed to
produce a peaceful balance of power among the empires after the Napoleonic wars (despite the
occurrence of internal revolutionary movements) under the Metternich system. However, their efforts
were unable to stop the spread of revolutionary movements: the middle classes had been deeply
influenced by the ideals of democracy of the French revolution, theIndustrial Revolution brought
important economical and social changes, the lower classes started to be influenced
by socialist, communistand anarchistic ideas (especially those summarized by Karl Marx in The
Communist Manifesto), and the preference of the new capitalists became Liberalism. Further instability
came from the formation of several nationalist movements (in Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary etc.),
seeking national unification and/or liberation from foreign rule. As a result, the period between 1815
and 1871 saw a large number of revolutionary attempts and independence wars. Napoleon III, nephew
of Napoleon I, returned from exile in the United Kingdom in 1848 to be elected to the French
parliament, and then as "Prince President" in a coup d'état elected himself Emperor, a move approved
later by a large majority of the French electorate. He helped in the unification of Italy by fighting the
Austrian Empire and fought the Crimean War with the United Kingdom and the Ottoman Empire
against Russia. His empire collapsed after an embarrassing defeat for France at the hands of Prussia
in which he was captured. France then became a weak republic which refused to negotiate and was
finished by Prussia in a few months. In Versailles, King Wilhelm I of Prussia was proclaimed Emperor
of Germany, and modern Germany was born. Even though the revolutionaries were often defeated,
most European states had become constitutional (rather than absolute) monarchies by 1871, and
Germany and Italy had developed into nation states. The 19th century also saw the British
Empire emerge as the world's first global power due in a large part to the Industrial Revolution and
victory in the Napoleonic Wars.

[edit]Colonial Empires
Main article: Colonial Empires
Further information: History of colonialism, Ottoman Empire, Habsburg Empire, Russian
Empire, French colonial empire, British Empire, Dutch Empire, and Italian colonial empire

Paris with the World Fair of 1889

Colonial empires were the product of the European Age of Exploration in the 15th century. The initial
impulse behind these dispersed maritime empires and those that followed was trade, driven by the
new ideas and the capitalism that grew out of the European Renaissance. Agreements were also done
to divide the world. Portugal began establishing the first global trade network and empire from Brazil,
in South America, to several colonies in Africa (namely Portuguese Guinea, Cape Verde, São Tomé
and Príncipe, Angola and Mozambique), inPortuguese India (Bombay and Goa), in China (Macau),
and Oceania (East Timor), amongst many other smaller or short-lived possessions. During its Siglo de
Oro, the Spanish Empire had possession of the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Italy,
parts of Germany, parts of France, and many colonies in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. With the
conquest of inland Mexico, Peru, and the Philippines in the 16th century, Spain established overseas
dominions on a scale and world distribution that had never been approached by its predecessors (the
Mongol Empire had been larger but was restricted to Eurasia). Possessions in Europe, Africa,
the Atlantic Ocean, the Americas, the Pacific Ocean, and the Far East qualified the Spanish Empire.
From 1580 to 1640 the Portuguese Empire and the Spanish Empire were conjoined in a personal
union of its Habsburg monarchs, during the period of the Iberian Union, though the empires continued
to be administered separately. Subsequent colonial empires included the French, Dutch,
and British empires. The latter, consolidated during the period of British maritime hegemony in the
19th century, became the largest empire in history because of the improved transportation
technologies of the time. At its height, the British Empire covered a quarter of the Earth's land area and
comprised a quarter of its population. By the 1860s, the Russian Empire — continued as the Soviet
Union — became the largest contiguous state in the world, and the latter's main successor, Russia,
continues to be so to this day. Despite having "lost" its Soviet periphery, Russia has 12 time zones,
stretching slightly over half the world's longitude.

The peace would only last until the Ottoman Empire had declined enough to become a target for the
others. (See History of the Balkans.) This instigated the Crimean War in 1854 and began a tenser
period of minor clashes among the globe-spanning empires of Europe that set the stage for the First
World War. It changed a third time with the end of the various wars that turned the Kingdom of
Sardinia and the Kingdom of Prussia into the Italian and German nation-states, significantly changing
the balance of power in Europe. From 1870, theBismarckian hegemony on Europe put France in a
critical situation. It slowly rebuilt its relationships, seeking alliances with Russia and Britain, to control
the growing power of Germany. In this way, two opposing sides formed in Europe, improving their
military forces and alliances year-by-year.

[edit]World Wars and Cold War

See also: Twentieth century

Trenches became one of the most striking symbols of World War I

The "short twentieth century", from 1914 to 1991, sees World War I, World War II and the Cold War,
including the rise and fall of Nazi Germany and of the Soviet Union. These disastrous events spell the
end of the European Colonial empires and initiated widespreaddecolonization. The collapse of
the Soviet Union in 1989 to 1991 leaves the United States as the world's single superpower and
triggers the fall of the Iron Curtain, the reunification of Germany and an accelerated process of
a European integration that is ongoing.

[edit]World Wars
Main articles: World War I, Russian Revolution (1917), Treaty of Versailles, Great Depression,
and World War II

After the relative peace of most of the 19th century, the rivalry between European powers exploded in
1914, when World War I started. Over 60 million European soldiers were mobilized from 1914 – 1918.
[27]
On one side were Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire andBulgaria (the Central
Powers/Triple Alliance), while on the other side stood Serbia and the Triple Entente - the loose
coalition of France, theUnited Kingdom and Russia, which were joined by Italy in 1915 and by
the United States in 1917. Despite the defeat of Russia in 1917 and the collapse of the Eastern
Front (the war was one of the major causes of the Russian Revolution, leading to the formation of the
communistSoviet Union), the Entente finally prevailed in the autumn of 1918.

In the Treaty of Versailles (1919) the winners imposed relatively hard conditions on Germany and
recognized the new states (such
as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria,Yugoslavia, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) created
in central Europe out of the defunct German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires, supposedly out
of national self-determination. Most of those countries engaged in local wars, the largest of them being
the Polish-Soviet War (1919-1921). In the following decades, fear of communism and the Great
Depression of 1929-1933 led to the rise of extreme nationalist governments – sometimes loosely
grouped under the category of fascism – in Italy (1922), Germany (1933), Spain (after acivil
war ending in 1939) and other countries such as Hungary (1944), Romania (1940) and Slovakia.
"Peace, Bread and Land" was the revolutionary messageBolshevik party and Lenin's message to a Russian
people, ravaged by war

After allying with Mussolini's Italy in the "Pact of Steel" and signing a non-aggression pact with the
Soviet Union, the German dictator Adolf Hitlerstarted World War II on 1 September 1939
attacking Poland and following a military build-up throughout the late 1930s. After initial successes
(mainly the conquest of western Poland, much of Scandinavia, France and the Balkans before 1941)
the Axis powers began to over-extend themselves in 1941. Hitler's ideological foes were the
Communists in Russia but because of the German failure to defeat the United Kingdom and the Italian
failures in North Africa and the Mediterranean the Axis forces were split between garrisoning western
Europe and Scandinavia and attacking Africa. Thus, the attack on the Soviet Union (which together
with Germany had partitioned central Europe in 1939-1940) was not pressed with sufficient strength.
Despite initial successes, the German army was stopped close to Moscow in December 1941.

Over the next year the tide was turned and the Germans started to suffer a series of defeats, for
example in the siege of Stalingrad and at Kursk. Meanwhile, Japan (allied to Germany and Italy since
September 1940) attacked the British in Southeast Asia and the United States in Hawaii on 7
December 1941; Germany then completed its over-extension by declaring war on the United States.
War raged between the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allied Forces (British
Empire, Soviet Union, and the United States). Allied Forces won in North Africa, invaded Italy in 1943,
and invaded occupied France in 1944. In the spring of 1945 Germany itself was invaded from the east
by the Soviet Union and from the west by the other Allies respectively; Hitler committed suicide and
Germany surrendered in early May ending the war in Europe.

This period was marked also by industrialized and planned genocide. The Nazis began the systematic
genocide of over 11 million people, including themajority of the Jews of Europe and Gypsies as well as
millions of Polish and Soviet Slavs. The Soviet system of forced labour, expulsions andallegedly
engineered famine had a similar death toll. During and after the war millions of civilians were affected
by forced population transfers.

[edit]Cold War
Main articles: Cold War, NATO, Marshall Plan, and European Economic Community

East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall, 20 November 1961

World War I and especially World War II ended the pre-eminent position of western Europe. The map
of Europe was redrawn at the Yalta Conference and divided as it became the principal zone of
contention in the Cold War between the two power blocs, the Western countriesand the Eastern bloc.
The United States and Western Europe (United Kingdom, France, Italy, Netherlands, West Germany,
etc.) established the NATO alliance as a protection against a possible Soviet invasion. Later, the
Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia,the GDR, Hungary, Poland,
and Romania) established the Warsaw Pact as a protection against a possible U.S. invasion.

Meanwhile, Western Europe slowly began a process of political and economic integration, desiring to
unite Europe and prevent another war. This process resulted eventually in the development of
organizations such as the European Union and the Council of Europe. The Solidarnośćmovement in
the 1980s in weakened the Communist government in Poland. The Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev initiated perestroika andglasnost, which weakened Soviet influence in Eastern Europe.
Soviet-supported governments collapsed, and by 1990 the Federal Republic of Germany had
absorbed the GDR. In 1991 the Soviet Union itself collapsed, splitting into fifteen states,
with Russia taking the Soviet Union's seat on the United Nations Security Council. The most violent
breakup happened in Yugoslavia, in the Balkans. Four (Slovenia, Croatia,Bosnia and
Herzegovina and Macedonia) out of six Yugoslav republics declared independence and for most of
them a violent war ensued, in some parts lasting until 1995. In 2006 Montenegro seceded and became
an independent state. In the post-Cold War era, NATO and the EU have been gradually admitting
most of the former members of the Warsaw Pact.

[edit]Recent history
Further information: History of the European Union

Germans standing on top of the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate, November 1989; it would begin to be torn
apart in the following days.

Following the end of the Cold War, the European Economic Community pushed for closer integration,
cooperation in foreign and home affairs and started to increase its membership into the neutral and
former communist countries. In 1993, the Maastricht Treaty established theEuropean Union,
succeeding the EEC and furthering political cooperation. The neutral countries
of Austria, Finland and Sweden acceded to the EU and those that didn't join were tied into the EU's
economic market via the European Economic Area. These countries also entered theSchengen
Agreement which lifted border controls between member states.[28]

Another major innovation in the Maastricht Treaty was the creation of a single currency for most EU
members. The euro was created in 1999 and replaced all previous currencies in 2002. The most
notable exception to the currency union was the United Kingdom which also did not participate in the
Schengen Agreement.

However the EU's desire to work on foreign policy was undermined due to its failure to act during
the Yugoslav wars and its division over whether to support the United States in the Iraq War.
European NATO countries faced frequent criticism from the United States for not spending enough on
the military and for not sending enough troops to support the NATO war in Afghanistan. Europe
meanwhile decided to reap the benefits of its post-cold war peace dividend and instead support the
development of international law, for example through the International Criminal Court.

In 2004 the EU enlarged to include 10 new countries, eight developing former-communist countries
(including three which were part of the Soviet Union itself along with Malta and the divided island
of Cyprus. These would be followed by another two former-communist countries in 2007. NATO
likewise expanded to include these countries, despite protestations from Russia which was growing
more assertive. Russia engaged in a number of bilateral disputes about gas supplies
with Belarus and Ukraine which endangered gas supplies to Europe. Russia also engaged in a minor
war with Georgia in 2008.
However, with the influx of new members in 2004 together with awarding Turkey candidate status,
public opinion in the EU turned against enlargement. This came out in part with the rejection of
the European Constitution in referenda in France and the Netherlands. The constitution's replacement,
the Treaty of Lisbon, was also voted down by the Irish before they reversed their decision in 2009.
This led to the period between up to 2009 being dominated by "institutional navel gazing" by the EU
and a rise in euroskepticism in some states. The Lisbon Treaty did however enhance the EU's
capacity for foreign policy action.

Opposition to Turkish membership of the EU developed parallel to an increasing unease as to how

Europe deals with Islam. Al Quaeda inspired attacks in London and Madrid, together with a perception
that Europe's large Muslim majority was not integrating, contributed to a backlash in some countries.
Belgium enacted a ban on the Burqa, also pursed by Francewhile Switzerland banned minarets.
Danish publication of cartoons portraying the prophet Muhammad further damaged relations with
Europe's Muslim population and the Islamic world at-large.

In 2008 the EU's eurozone (those countries using the euro) entered its first recession and sparked a
debate about how the EU should respond to an economic collapse of a member. The eurozone agreed
to set up a bail out mechanism and study proposals for more fiscal integration in the EU. In most
recent years, it has become evident to the EU that on the majority Greece (as well as other countries
of the EU such as Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Ireland) have fallen under high amounts of debt, and
because the EU does not have the exact same fiscal powers of a central banking system (ie the
Federal Reserve or Bank of Canada), they cannot lend money directly to Greece. However, on May
3rd, 2010, the German parliament agreed to load 22.4 billion euros to Greece over three years, with
the stipulation that Greece follow strict austerity measures in return.
urope (/ˈjʊərəp/ YOOR-əp or /ˈjurəp/ YUR-əp[1]) is, by convention, one of the world's
seven continents. Comprising the westernmostpeninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided
from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea,
the Caucasus region (Specification of borders) and the Black Sea to the southeast.[2] Europe is
bordered by the Arctic Ocean and other bodies of water to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the
west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and the Black Sea and connected waterways to the
southeast. Yet the borders for Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are
somewhat arbitrary, as the termcontinent can refer to a cultural and political distinction or
a physiographic one.

Europe is the world's second-smallest continent by surface area, covering about

10,180,000 square kilometres (3,930,000 sq mi) or 2% of the Earth's surface and about 6.8% of
its land area. Of Europe's approximately 50 states, Russia is the largest by both area and
population (although the country covers both Europe and Asia), while the Vatican City is the
smallest. Europe is the third-most populous continent after Asia and Africa, with a population of
731 million or about 11% of the world's population. However, according to the United
Nations (medium estimate), Europe's share may fall to about 7% by 2050.[3] In 1900, Europe's
share of the world's population was 25%.[4]

Europe, in particular Ancient Greece, is the birthplace of Western culture.[5] It played a

predominant role in global affairs from the 16th century onwards, especially after the beginning
of colonialism. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European nations controlled at various
times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania, and large portions of Asia. Both World Wars were
largely focused upon Europe, greatly contributing to a decline in Western European dominance in
world affairs by the mid-20th century as the United States and Soviet Uniontook prominence.
[6]
During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west
and the Warsaw Pact in the east. European integration led to the formation of the Council of
Europe and the European Union in Western Europe, both of which have been expanding
eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Definition

• 2 Etymology

• 3 History

o 3.1 Prehistory
 o 3.2 Classical antiquity

o 3.3 Early Middle Ages

o 3.4 Middle Ages

o 3.5 Early modern period

o 3.6 18th and 19th centuries

o 3.7 20th century to present

• 4 Geography and extent

o 4.1 Physical geography

• 5 Climate

• 6 Geology

o 6.1 Geological history

• 7 Biodiversity

• 8 Demographics

• 9 Political geography

• 10 Economy

o 10.1 Pre–1945: Industrial growth

o 10.2 1945–1990: The Cold War

o 10.3 1991–2007: Integration and reunification

o 10.4 2008–2010: Recession

• 11 Language

• 12 Religion

• 13 Culture

• 14 See also

• 15 Notes

• 16 References

• 17 Further reading

• 18 External links

Definition
A medieval T and O map from 1472 showing the division of the world into 3 continents, allocated to the three sons
ofNoah

The use of the term "Europe" has developed gradually throughout history.[7][8] In antiquity, the
Greek historian Herodotus mentioned that the world had been divided by unknown persons into
the three continents of Europe, Asia, and Libya (Africa), with the Nile and the river Phasisforming
their boundaries—though he also states that some considered the River Don, rather than the
Phasis, as the boundary between Europe and Asia.[9] Flavius Josephus and the Book of
Jubilees described the continents as the lands given by Noah to his three sons; Europe was
defined as between the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar, separating it from Africa, and
the Don, separating it from Asia.[10]

A cultural definition of Europe as its being the lands of Latin Christendom coalesced in the eighth
century, signifying the new cultural condominium created through the confluence of Germanic
traditions and Christian-Latin culture, defined partly in contrast with Byzantium andIslam, and
limited to northern Iberia, the British Isles, France, Christianized western Germany, the Alpine
regions and northern and central Italy.[11] This division—as much cultural as geographical—was
used until the Late Middle Ages, when it was challenged by the Age of Discovery.[12][13] The
problem of redefining Europe was finally resolved in 1730 when, instead of waterways, the
Swedish geographer and cartographer von Strahlenberg proposed the Ural Mountains as the
most significant eastern boundary, a suggestion that found favour in Russiaand throughout
Europe.[14]

Europe is now generally defined by geographers as the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, with
its boundaries marked by large bodies of water to the north, west and south; Europe's limits to the
far east are usually taken to be the Urals, the Ural River, and the Caspian Sea; to the south-east,
the Caucasus Mountains, the Black Sea and the waterways connecting the Black Sea to the
Mediterranean Sea.[15]
Sometimes, the word 'Europe' is used in a geopolitically limiting way[16] to refer only to the
European Union or, even more exclusively, a culturally defined core. On the other hand,
the Council of Europe has 47 member countries, and only 27 member states are in the EU.[17] In
addition, people living in insular areas such as Ireland, the United Kingdom, the North
Atlantic and Mediterranean islands and also in Scandinavia may routinely refer to "continental" or
"mainland" Europe simply as Europe or "the Continent".[18]

Clickable map of Europe, showing one of the most commonly used geographical boundaries[19] (legend: blue = states in both

Europe and Asia; green = sometimes included within Europe but geographically outside Europe's boundaries)

Alb.
And.
Austria
Armenia
Azer.
Belarus
Belgium
Bosnia
Bulgaria
 Croatia
Cyprus
Czech
Rep.
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Georgia
Greece
Greenland (Dk)
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
S. Mar.
Kazakhstan
Kos.
Latvia
Liec.
Lithuania
Lux.
Mac.
Malta
Moldova
Mon.
Mont.
Neth.
Norway
Svalbard (Nor)
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Serbia
Slovakia
Slo.
Spain
Sweden
Switz-
erland
Turkey
Ukraine
United
Kingdom
Far. (Dk)
Vat.

Adr-
iatic
Sea
Arctic Ocean
Aegean
Sea
Barents Sea
Bay of
Biscay
Black
Sea
Azov
Sea
Caspian
Sea
Celtic
Sea
Greenland Sea
Baffin Bay
Gulf of
Cadiz
Ligurian
Sea
 Mediterranean Sea
North
Atlantic
Ocean
North
Sea
Norwegian
Sea
Strait of Gibraltar

Etymology
In ancient Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess whom Zeus abducted after
assuming the form of a dazzling white bull. He took her to the island of Crete where she gave
birth to Minos, Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon. For Homer, Europe (Greek: Εὐρώπη, Eurṓpē; see
also List of traditional Greek place names) was a mythological queen of Crete, not a geographical
designation. Later, Europa stood for central-north Greece, and by 500 BC its meaning had been
extended to the lands to the north.

The name of Europa is of uncertain etymology.[20] One theory suggests that it is derived from
the Greek roots meaning broad (eur-) and eye (op-, opt-), hence Eurṓpē, "wide-gazing", "broad of
aspect" (compare with glaukōpis (grey-eyed) Athena or boōpis (ox-eyed) Hera). Broad has been
an epithet of Earth itself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion.[21]Another theory
suggests that it is actually based on a Semitic word such as the Akkadian erebu meaning "to go
down, set" (cf. Occident),[22] cognate to Phoenician 'ereb "evening; west" and Arabic Maghreb,
Hebrew ma'ariv (see also Erebus, PIE *h1regʷos, "darkness"). However, M. L. West states that
"phonologically, the match between Europa's name and any form of the Semitic word is very
poor".[23]

Most major world languages use words derived from "Europa" to refer to the "continent"
(peninsula). Chinese, for example, uses the word Ōuzhōu (歐洲), which is an abbreviation of the
transliterated name Ōuluóbā zhōu (歐羅巴洲); however, in some Turkic languages the
name Frengistan (land of the Franks) is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides
official names such as Avrupa or Evropa.[24]

History
Main article: History of Europe
Prehistory
Main article: Prehistoric Europe
Ġgantija, Malta

The Lady of Vinča, neolithic pottery from Serbia

Stonehenge, a prehistoric monument in the United Kingdom

The Nebra sky diskfrom Bronze ageGermany

Homo georgicus, which lived roughly 1.8 million years ago in Georgia, is the earliest hominid to
have been discovered in Europe.[25] Other hominid remains, dating back roughly 1 million years,
have been discovered in Atapuerca, Spain.[26]Neanderthal man (named for the Neander
Valley in Germany) appeared in Europe 150,000 years ago and disappeared from the fossil
record about 30,000 years ago. The Neanderthals were supplanted by modern humans (Cro-
Magnons), who appeared in Europe around 40,000 years ago.[27]

The European Neolithic period—marked by the cultivation of crops and the raising of livestock,
increased numbers of settlements and the widespread use of pottery—began around 7,000 BC
in Greece and the Balkans, probably influenced by earlier farming practices in Anatolia and
the Near East. It spread from South Eastern Europe along the valleys of theDanube and
the Rhine (Linear Pottery culture) and along the Mediterranean coast (Cardial culture). Between
4,500 and 3,000 BC these central European neolithic cultures developed further to the west and
the north, transmitting newly acquired skills in producing copper artefacts. In Western Europe the
Neolithic period was characterised not by large agricultural settlements but by field monuments,
such as causewayed enclosures, burial mounds and megalithic tombs.[28] The Corded
ware cultural horizon flourished at the transition from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic. During this
period giant megalithicmonuments, such as the Megalithic Temples of Malta and Stonehenge,
were constructed throughout Western and Southern Europe.[29][30] The European Bronze
Age began in the late 3rd millennium BC with the Beaker culture.

The European Iron Age began around 800 BC, with the Hallstatt culture. Iron Age colonisation by
the Phoenicians gave rise to early Mediterranean cities. Early Iron Age Italy and Greece from
around the 8th century BC gradually gave rise to historical Classical Antiquity.

Classical antiquity
Main article: Classical Antiquity
See also: Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome

The Greek Temple of Apollo, Paestum,Italy

Ancient Greece had a profound impact on Western civilisation.

Western democratic and individualistic culture are often attributed to Ancient Greece.[31] The
Greeks invented the polis, or city-state, which played a fundamental role in their concept of
identity.[32] These Greek political ideals were rediscovered in the late 18th century by European
philosophers and idealists. Greece also generated many cultural contributions:
in philosophy, humanism and rationalism under Aristotle, Socrates and Plato;
in history with Herodotus and Thucydides; in dramatic and narrative verse, starting with the epic
poems of Homer;[31] and in science with Pythagoras, Euclid and Archimedes.[33][34][35]

The Roman Empire at its greatest extent

Another major influence on Europe came from the Roman Empire which left its mark
on law,language, engineering, architecture, and government.[36] During the pax romana, the
Roman Empire expanded to encompass the entire Mediterranean Basin and much of Europe.[37]

Stoicism influenced Roman emperors such as Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius,
who all spent time on the Empire's northern border fighting Germanic, Pictish and Scottish tribes.
[38][39]
Christianity was eventually legitimised by Constantine I after three centuries of imperial
persecution.

Early Middle Ages

Main articles: Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages
See also: Dark Ages and Age of Migrations

Roland pledges fealty to Charlemagne,Holy Roman Emperor.

During the decline of the Roman Empire, Europe entered a long period of change arising from
what historians call the "Age of Migrations". There were numerous invasions and migrations
amongst
the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Goths, Vandals, Huns, Franks, Angles, Saxons, Slavs,Avars, Bulgars
and, later still, the Vikings and Magyars.[37] Renaissance thinkers such as Petrarch would later
refer to this as the "Dark Ages".[40] Isolated monastic communities were the only places to
safeguard and compile written knowledge accumulated previously; apart from this very few
written records survive and much literature, philosophy, mathematics, and other thinking from the
classical period disappeared from Europe.[41]

During the Dark Ages, the Western Roman Empire fell under the control of various barbarian
tribes. The Germanic and Slav tribes established their domains over Western and Eastern
Europe respectively.[42] Eventually the Frankish tribes were united under Clovis I.[43] Charlemagne,
a Frankish king of the Carolingian dynasty who had conquered most of Western Europe, was
anointed "Holy Roman Emperor" by the Pope in 800. This led to the founding of the Holy Roman
Empire, which eventually became centred in the German principalities of central Europe.[44]

The predominantly Greek speaking Eastern Roman Empire became known in the west as
the Byzantine Empire. Its capital wasConstantinople. Emperor Justinian I presided over
Constantinople's first golden age: he established a legal code, funded the construction of
the Hagia Sophia and brought the Christian church under state control.[45] Fatally weakened by
the sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade, the Byzantines fell in 1453 when they
were conquered by the Ottoman Empire.[46]

Middle Ages
Main articles: High Middle Ages, Late Middle Ages, and Middle Ages
See also: Medieval demography

Richard I and Philip II, during the Third Crusade

The Middle Ages were dominated by the two upper echelons of the social structure: the nobility
and the clergy. Feudalism developed inFrance in the Early Middle Ages and soon spread
throughout Europe.[47] A struggle for influence between the nobility and the monarchy in England
led to the writing of the Magna Carta and the establishment of a parliament.[48] The primary
source of culture in this period came from the Roman Catholic Church. Through monasteries and
cathedral schools, the Church was responsible for education in much of Europe.[47]

The Papacy reached the height of its power during the High Middle Ages. A East-West Schism in
1054 split the former Roman Empire religiously, with the Eastern Orthodox Church in
the Byzantine Empire and the Roman Catholic Church in the former Western Roman Empire. In
1095 Pope Urban II called for a crusade against Muslims occupying Jerusalem and the Holy
Land.[49] In Europe itself, the Church organised the Inquisition against heretics. In Spain,
the Reconquista concluded with the fall of Granada in 1492, ending over seven centuries of
Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula.[50]

The Battle of Crécy in 1346, from a manuscript of Jean Froissart's Chronicles; the battle established England as a
military power.

In the 11th and 12th centuries, constant incursions by nomadic Turkic tribes, such as
thePechenegs and the Kipchaks, caused a massive migration of Slavic populations to the safer,
heavily forested regions of the north.[51] Like many other parts of Eurasia, these territories
wereoverrun by the Mongols.[52] The invaders, later known as Tatars, formed the state of
the Golden Horde, which ruled the southern and central expanses of Russia for over three
centuries.[53]

The Great Famine of 1315–1317 was the first crisis that would strike Europe in the late Middle
Ages.[54] The period between 1348 and 1420 witnessed the heaviest loss. The population
of France was reduced by half.[55][56] Medieval Britain was afflicted by 95 famines,[57] and France
suffered the effects of 75 or more in the same period.[58] Europe was devastated in the mid-14th
century by the Black Death, one of the most deadly pandemics in human history which killed an
estimated 25 million people in Europe alone—a third of the European population at the time.[59]
The plague had a devastating effect on Europe's social structure; it induced people to live for the
moment as illustrated by Giovanni Boccaccioin The Decameron (1353). It was a serious blow to
the Roman Catholic Church and led to increased persecution of Jews,
foreigners, beggarsand lepers.[60] The plague is thought to have returned every generation with
varying virulence and mortalities until the 1700s.[61] During this period, more than 100
plague epidemics swept across Europe.[62]

Early modern period

Main article: Early modern period
See also: Renaissance, Protestant Reformation, Scientific Revolution, and Age of Discovery

The School of Athens by Raphael: Contemporaries such as Michelangelo andLeonardo da Vinci (centre) are
portrayed as classical scholars

The Renaissance was a period of cultural change originating in Florence and later spreading to
the rest of Europe. in the fourteenth century. The rise of a new humanism was accompanied by
the recovery of forgotten classical and Arabic knowledge from monastic libraries and the Islamic
world.[63][64][65] The Renaissance spread across Europe between the 14th and 16th centuries: it
saw the flowering of art, philosophy, music, and the sciences, under the joint patronage of royalty,
the nobility, the Roman Catholic Church, and an emerging merchant class.[66][67][68] Patrons in Italy,
including the Medici family of Florentine bankers and the Popes in Rome, funded
prolific quattrocento andcinquecento artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da
Vinci.[69][70]

Political intrigue within the Church in the mid-14th century caused the Great Schism. During this
forty-year period, two popes—one in Avignonand one in Rome—claimed rulership over the
Church. Although the schism was eventually healed in 1417, the papacy's spiritual authority had
suffered greatly.[71]

The Church's power was further weakened by the Protestant Reformation (1517–1648), initially
sparked by the works of German theologianMartin Luther, a result of the lack of reform within the
Church. The Reformation also damaged the Holy Roman Empire's power, as German princes
became divided between Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths.[72] This eventually led to
the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), which crippled the Holy Roman Empire and devastated much
of Germany, killing between 25 and 40 percent of its population.[73] In the aftermath of the Peace
of Westphalia, France rose to predominance within Europe.[74] The 17th century in southern and
eastern Europe was a period of general decline.[75] Eastern Europe experienced more than 150
famines in a 200-year period between 1501 to 1700.[76]

Battle of Vienna in 1683 broke the advance of the Ottoman Empire into Europe

The Renaissance and the New Monarchs marked the start of an Age of Discovery, a period of
exploration, invention, and scientific development. In the 15th century, Portugal and Spain, two of
the greatest naval powers of the time, took the lead in exploring the world.[77][78]Christopher
Columbus reached the New World in 1492, and soon after the Spanish and Portuguese began
establishing colonial empires in the Americas.[79] France, the Netherlands and England soon
followed in building large colonial empires with vast holdings in Africa, the Americas, and Asia.

18th and 19th centuries

Main article: Modern history
See also: Industrial Revolution, French Revolution, and Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment was a powerful intellectual movement during the eighteenth century
promoting scientific and reason-based thoughts.[80][81][82] Discontent with the aristocracy and
clergy's monopoly on political power in France resulted in the French Revolution and the
establishment of the First Republic as a result of which the monarchy and many of the nobility
perished during the initial reign of terror.[83] Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power in the aftermath of
the French Revolution and established the First French Empire that, during the Napoleonic Wars,
grew to encompass large parts of Europe before collapsing in 1815 with the Battle of Waterloo.[84]
[85]
The Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain

Napoleonic rule resulted in the further dissemination of the ideals of the French Revolution,
including that of the nation-state, as well as the widespread adoption of the French models
of administration, law, and education.[86][87][88] The Congress of Vienna, convened after Napoleon's
downfall, established a new balance of power in Europe centred on the five "Great Powers":
the United Kingdom, France, Prussia, Habsburg Austria, and Russia.[89]

This balance would remain in place until the Revolutions of 1848, during which liberal uprisings
affected all of Europe except for Russia and Great Britain. These revolutions were eventually put
down by conservative elements and few reforms resulted.[90] In 1867, the Austro-Hungarian
empire was formed; and 1871 saw the unifications of both Italy and Germany as nation-
states from smaller principalities.[91]

The Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain in the last part of the 18th century and spread
throughout Europe. The invention and implementation of new technologies resulted in rapid urban
growth, mass employment, and the rise of a new working class.[92] Reforms in social and
economic spheres followed, including the first laws on child labour, the legalisation of trade
unions,[93] and the abolition of slavery.[94] In Britain, the Public Health Act 1875 was passed, which
significantly improved living conditions in many British cities.[95] Europe’s population doubled
during the 18th century, from roughly 100 million to almost 200 million, and doubled again during
the 19th century.[96] In the 19th century, 70 million people left Europe in migrations to various
European colonies abroad and to the United States.[97]

20th century to present

Main articles: Modern era and History of Europe
See also: World War I, Great Depression, Interwar period, World War II, Cold War, and History of
the European Union
European military alliances during WWI:Central Powers purplish-red, Entente powers grey and neutral countries
yellow

Two World Wars and an economic depression dominated the first half of the 20th century. World
War I was fought between 1914 and 1918. It started when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of
Austria was assassinated by the Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip.[98] Most European nations were
drawn into the war, which was fought between the Entente
Powers (France, Belgium, Serbia, Portugal, Russia, the United Kingdom, and
laterItaly, Greece, Romania, and the United States) and the Central Powers (Austria-
Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire). The War left around 40 million civilians
and military dead.[99] Over 60 million European soldiers were mobilised from 1914–1918.[100]

Partly as a result of its defeat Russia was plunged into the Russian Revolution, which threw down
the Tsarist monarchy and replaced it with the communist Soviet Union.[101] Austria-Hungary and
the Ottoman Empire collapsed and broke up into separate nations, and many other nations had
their borders redrawn. The Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended World War I in 1919, was
harsh towards Germany, upon whom it placed full responsibility for the war and imposed heavy
sanctions.[102]

Economic instability, caused in part by debts incurred in the First World War and 'loans' to
Germany played havoc in Europe in the late 1920s and 1930s. This and the Wall Street Crash of
1929 brought about the worldwide Great Depression. Helped by the economic crisis, social
instability and the threat of communism, fascist movements developed throughout Europe
placing Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany, Francisco Franco of Spain and Benito Mussolini of Italy in
power.[103][104]
By the end of World War II, the European economy had collapsed with 70% of the industrial infrastructure
destroyed.

In 1933, Hitler became the leader of Germany and began to work towards his goal of building
Greater Germany. Germany re-expanded and took back the Saarland and Rhineland in 1935 and
1936. In 1938, Austria became a part of Germany too, following the Anschluss. Later that year,
Germany annexed the German Sudetenland, which had become a part of Czechoslovakia after
the war. This move was highly contested by the other powers, but ultimately permitted in the
hopes of avoiding war and appeasing Hitler.

Shortly afterwards, Poland and Hungary started to press for the annexation of parts of
Czechoslovakia with Polish and Hungarian majorities. Hitler encouraged the Slovaks to do the
same and in early 1939, the remainder of Czechoslovakia was split into the Protectorate of
Bohemia and Moravia, controlled by Germany, and the Slovak Republic, while other smaller
regions went to Poland and Hungary. With tensions mounting between Germany and Poland over
the future of Danzig, the Germans turned to the Soviets, and signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, prompting France and the United Kingdom to
declare war on Germany on 3 September, opening the European theatreof World War II.[105]
[106]
The Soviet invasion of Poland started on 17 September and Poland fell soon thereafter.

The "Big Three" at the Yalta Conferencein 1945; seated (from the left): Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt,
and Joseph Stalin
On 24 September, the Soviet Union attacked the Baltic countries and later, Finland. The British
hoped to land at Narvik and send troops to aid Finland, but their primary objective in the landing
was to encircle Germany and cut the Germans off from Scandinavian resources. Nevertheless,
the Germans knew of Britain's plans and got to Narvik first, repulsing the attack. Around the same
time, Germany moved troops into Denmark, which left no room for a front except for where the
last war had been fought or by landing at sea. The Phoney War continued.

In May 1940, Germany attacked France through the Low Countries. France capitulated in June
1940. However, the British refused to negotiate peace terms with the Germans and the war
continued. By August Germany began a bombing offensive on Britain, but failed to convince the
Britons to give up.[107] In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the ultimately
unsuccessful Operation Barbarossa.[108] On 7 December 1941 Japan's attack on Pearl
Harbor drew the United States into the conflict as allies of the British Empire and
other allied forces.[109][110]

After the staggering Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, the German offensive in the Soviet Union turned
into a continual fallback. In 1944, British and American forces invaded France in the D-
Day landings, opening a new front against Germany. Berlin finally fell in 1945, ending World War
II in Europe.

The war was the largest and most destructive in human history, with 60 million dead across the
world.[111] More than 40 million people in Europe had lost their lives by the time World War II
ended,[112] including between 11 and 17 million people who perished during the Holocaust.
[113]
The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people during the war, about half of all World War II
casualties.[114] By the end of World War II, Europe had more than 40 millionrefugees.
[115]
Several post-war expulsions in Central and Eastern Europe displaced a total of about
20 million people.[116]

Refugees arrive in Travnik, centralBosnia, during the Yugoslav wars, 1993.

World War I and especially World War II diminished the eminence of Western Europe in world
affairs. After World War II the map of Europe was redrawn at the Yalta Conference and divided
into two blocs, the Western countries and the communist Eastern bloc, separated by what was
later called by Winston Churchill an "iron curtain". The United States and Western Europe
established the NATO alliance and later the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe established
the Warsaw Pact.[117]

The two new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, became locked in a fifty-year
long Cold War, centred on nuclear proliferation. At the same time decolonisation, which had
already started after World War I, gradually resulted in the independence of most of the European
colonies in Asia and Africa.[6] In the 1980s the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev and
the Solidarity movement in Poland accelerated the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the end of the
Cold War. Germany was reunited, after the symbolic fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the maps
of Eastern Europe were redrawn once more.[118] European integration also grew in the post-World
War II years. The Treaty of Rome in 1957 established the European Economic
Community between six Western European states with the goal of a unified economic policy and
common market.[119] In 1967 the EEC, European Coal and Steel Community and Euratom formed
the European Community, which in 1993 became the European Union. The EU established
a parliament, court and central bank and introduced the euro as a unified currency.[120] In 2004
and 2007, Eastern European countries began joining, expanding the EU to its current size of 27
European countries, and once more making Europe a major economical and political centre of
power.[121]

Geography and extent

Main article: Geography of Europe
Further information: List of countries spanning more than one continent
Further information: Borders of the continents

Reconstruction of Herodotus world map

Satellite image of Caucasus Mountains,Black Sea (l.) and Caspian Sea (r.)

Physiographically, Europe is the northwestern constituent of the larger landmass known

asEurasia, or Afro-Eurasia: Asia occupies the eastern bulk of this continuous landmass and all
share a common continental shelf. Europe's eastern frontier is now commonly delineated by
the Ural Mountains in Russia.[15]

The first border definition was intoduced in 5th Century B.C. by the "father of history" Herodotus,
when he regarded Europe to be extending to the Eastern Ocean, and being as long as (and much
larger than) Africa and Asia together. He marked the borders between Europe and Asia on Kura
River and Rioni River in Transcaucasia.[122] The first century AD geographer Strabo, took
the River Don "Tanais" to be the boundary to the Black Sea,[123] as did early Judaic sources.[citation
needed]

The southeast boundary with Asia is not universally defined, with the Ural River, or alternatively,
theEmba River most commonly serving as possible boundaries. The boundary continues to
the Caspian Sea, the crest of the Caucasus Mountains or, alternatively, the Kura River in
the Caucasus, and on to the Black Sea; the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, the Dardanelles, and
the Aegean Sea conclude the Asian boundary. The Mediterranean Sea to the south separates
Europe from Africa. The western boundary is the Atlantic Ocean; Iceland, though nearer
toGreenland (North America) than mainland Europe, is generally included in Europe.

Because of sociopolitical and cultural differences, there are various descriptions of Europe's
boundary; in some sources, some territories are not included in Europe, while other sources
include them. For instance, geographers from Russia and other post-Soviet states generally
include the Urals in Europe while including Caucasia in Asia. Similarly, Cyprus is approximate
to Anatolia (or Asia Minor), but is often considered part of Europe and currently is a member state
of the EU. In addition, Malta was considered an island of Africa for centuries.[124]

Physical geography
Relief map of Europe and surrounding regions

Land relief in Europe shows great variation within relatively small areas. The southern regions are
more mountainous, while moving north the terrain descends from the
high Alps, Pyrenees and Carpathians, through hilly uplands, into broad, low northern plains,
which are vast in the east. This extended lowland is known as the Great European Plain, and at
its heart lies the North German Plain. An arc of uplands also exists along the north-western
seaboard, which begins in the western parts of the islands of Britain and Ireland, and then
continues along the mountainous, fjord-cut, spine of Norway.

This description is simplified. Sub-regions such as the Iberian Peninsula and the Italian
Peninsula contain their own complex features, as does mainland Central Europe itself, where the
relief contains many plateaus, river valleys and basins that complicate the general trend. Sub-
regions like Iceland, Britain and Ireland are special cases. The former is a land unto itself in the
northern ocean which is counted as part of Europe, while the latter are upland areas that were
once joined to the mainland until rising sea levels cut them off.

Climate
Main article: Climate of Europe

Biomes of Europe and surrounding regions:

tundra alpine tundra taiga montane forest

temperate broadleaf forest mediterranean forest temperate steppe dry steppe

Europe lies mainly in the temperate climate zones, being subjected to prevailing westerlies.

The climate is milder in comparison to other areas of the same latitude around the globe due to
the influence of the Gulf Stream.[125] The Gulf Stream is nicknamed "Europe's central heating",
because it makes Europe's climate warmer and wetter than it would otherwise be. The Gulf
Stream not only carries warm water to Europe's coast but also warms up the prevailing westerly
winds that blow across the continent from the Atlantic Ocean.

Therefore the average temperature throughout the year of Naples is 16 °C (60.8 °F), while it is
only 12 °C (53.6 °F) in New York City which is almost on the same latitude. Berlin, Germany;
Calgary, Canada; and Irkutsk, in the Asian part of Russia, lie on around the same latitude;
January temperatures in Berlin average around 8 °C (15 °F) higher than those in Calgary, and
they are almost 22 °C (40 °F) higher than average temperatures in Irkutsk.[125]

Geology
Main article: Geology of Europe

The Geology of Europe is hugely varied and complex, and gives rise to the wide variety of
landscapes found across the continent, from the Scottish Highlands to the rolling plains of
Hungary.[126]

Europe's most significant feature is the dichotomy between highland and mountainous Southern
Europe and a vast, partially underwater, northern plain ranging from Ireland in the west to
the Ural Mountains in the east. These two halves are separated by the mountain chains of
the Pyrenees and Alps/Carpathians. The northern plains are delimited in the west by
theScandinavian Mountains and the mountainous parts of the British Isles. Major shallow water
bodies submerging parts of the northern plains are the Celtic Sea, the North Sea, the Baltic
Sea complex and Barents Sea.

The northern plain contains the old geological continent of Baltica, and so may be regarded
geologically as the "main continent", while peripheral highlands and mountainous regions in the
south and west constitute fragments from various other geological continents. Most of the older
geology of Western Europe existed as part of the ancient microcontinent Avalonia.

Geological history
Main article: geological history of Europe

The geological history of Europe traces back to the formation of the Baltic Shield (Fennoscandia)
and the Sarmatian craton, both around 2.25 billion years ago, followed by the Volgo-Uralia shield,
the three together leading to the East European craton (≈ Baltica) which became a part of
the supercontinent Columbia. Around 1.1 billion years ago, Baltica and Arctica (as part of
the Laurentia block) became joined to Rodinia, later resplitting around 550 million years ago to
reform as Baltica. Around 440 million years ago Euramerica was formed from Baltica and
Laurentia; a further joining with Gondwana then leading to the formation of Pangea. Around
190 million years ago, Gondwana and Laurasia split apart due to the widening of the Atlantic
Ocean. Finally, and very soon afterwards, Laurasia itself split up again, into Laurentia (North
America) and the Eurasian continent. The land connection between the two persisted for a
considerable time, via Greenland, leading to interchange of animal species. From around
50 million years ago, rising and falling sea levels have determined the actual shape of Europe,
and its connections with continents such as Asia. Europe's present shape dates to the
late Tertiary period about five million years ago.[127]

Biodiversity
See also: Fauna of Europe

Biogeographic regions of Europe and bordering regions

Floristic regions of Europe and neighbouring areas, according to Wolfgang Frey and Rainer Lösch
Having lived side-by-side with agricultural peoples for millennia, Europe's animals and plants
have been profoundly affected by the presence and activities of man. With the exception
of Fennoscandia and northern Russia, few areas of untouched wilderness are currently found in
Europe, except for various national parks.

The main natural vegetation cover in Europe is mixed forest. The conditions for growth are very
favourable. In the north, the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift warm the continent. Southern
Europe could be described as having a warm, but mild climate. There are frequent summer
droughts in this region. Mountain ridges also affect the conditions. Some of these
(Alps, Pyrenees) are oriented east-west and allow the wind to carry large masses of water from
the ocean in the interior. Others are oriented south-north (Scandinavian
Mountains, Dinarides, Carpathians, Apennines) and because the rain falls primarily on the side of
mountains that is oriented towards sea, forests grow well on this side, while on the other side, the
conditions are much less favourable. Few corners of mainland Europe have not been grazed
by livestock at some point in time, and the cutting down of the pre-agricultural forest habitat
caused disruption to the original plant and animal ecosystems.

Probably eighty to ninety per cent of Europe was once covered by forest.[128] It stretched from the
Mediterranean Sea to the Arctic Ocean. Though over half of Europe's original forests disappeared
through the centuries of deforestation, Europe still has over one quarter of its land area as forest,
such as the taiga of Scandinavia and Russia, mixed rainforests of the Caucasus and the Cork
oak forests in the western Mediterranean. During recent times, deforestation has been slowed
and many trees have been planted. However, in many cases
monoculture plantations of conifers have replaced the original mixed natural forest, because
these grow quicker. The plantations now cover vast areas of land, but offer poorer habitats for
many European forest dwelling species which require a mixture of tree species and diverse forest
structure. The amount of natural forest in Western Europe is just 2–3% or less, in European
Russia 5–10%. The country with the smallest percentage of forested area (excluding
the micronations) is Iceland (1%), while the most forested country is Finland (77%).[129]

In temperate Europe, mixed forest with both broadleaf and coniferous trees dominate. The most
important species in central and western Europe are beech and oak. In the north, the taiga is a
mixed spruce–pine–birch forest; further north within Russia and extreme northern Scandinavia,
the taiga gives way to tundra as the Arctic is approached. In the Mediterranean, many olive trees
have been planted, which are very well adapted to its arid climate; Mediterranean Cypress is also
widely planted in southern Europe. The semi-arid Mediterranean region hosts much scrub forest.
A narrow east-west tongue of Eurasian grassland (thesteppe) extends eastwards
from Ukraine and southern Russia and ends in Hungary and traverses into taiga to the north.
Cave lion became extinct in southeastern Europe about 2,000 years ago

Glaciation during the most recent ice age and the presence of man affected the distribution
of European fauna. As for the animals, in many parts of Europe most large animals and
top predator species have been hunted to extinction. The woolly mammoth was extinct before the
end of the Neolithic period. Today wolves (carnivores) and bears (omnivores) are endangered.
Once they were found in most parts of Europe. However, deforestation and hunting caused these
animals to withdraw further and further. By the Middle Ages the bears' habitats were limited to
more or less inaccessible mountains with sufficient forest cover. Today, the brown bearlives
primarily in the Balkan peninsula, Scandinavia, and Russia; a small number also persist in other
countries across Europe (Austria, Pyrenees etc.), but in these areas brown bear populations are
fragmented and marginalised because of the destruction of their habitat. In addition, polar
bears may be found on Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago far north of Scandinavia. The wolf, the
second largest predator in Europe after the brown bear, can be found primarily in Eastern
Europe and in the Balkans, with a handful of packs in pockets of Western Europe (Scandinavia,
Spain, etc.).

Once roaming the great temperate forests of Eurasia, European bison now live in nature preserves in Poland,
Russia, and other parts of Eastern Europe

European wild cat, foxes (especially the red fox), jackal and different species of martens,
hedgehogs, different species of reptiles (like snakes such as vipers and grass snakes) and
amphibians, different birds (owls, hawks and other birds of prey).
Important European herbivores are snails, larvae, fish, different birds, and mammals, like rodents,
deer and roe deer, boars, and living in the mountains, marmots, steinbocks, chamois among
others.

The extinction of the dwarf hippos and dwarf elephants has been linked to the earliest arrival of
humans on the islands of the Mediterranean.

Sea creatures are also an important part of European flora and fauna. The sea flora is
mainly phytoplankton. Important animals that live in European seas
are zooplankton, molluscs, echinoderms, different crustaceans, squids and octopuses,
fish, dolphins, and whales.

Biodiversity is protected in Europe through the Council of Europe's Bern Convention, which has
also been signed by the European Communityas well as non-European states.

Demographics
Main articles: Demographics of Europe, Ethnic groups in Europe, Immigration to
Europe, Emigration from Europe, and Aging of Europe

Population growth and decline in and around Europe[130]

Since the Renaissance, Europe has had a major influence in culture, economics and social
movements in the world. The most significant inventions had their origins in the Western world,
primarily Europe and the United States.[131] Some current and past issues in European
demographics have included religious emigration, race relations, economic immigration, a
declining birth rate and an aging population.

In some countries, such as Ireland and Poland, access to abortion is currently limited; in the past,
such restrictions and also restrictions on artificial birth control were commonplace throughout
Europe. Abortion remains illegal on the island of Malta where Catholicism is the state religion.
Furthermore, three European countries (the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland) and
theAutonomous Community of Andalusia (Spain)[132][133] have allowed a limited form of voluntary
euthanasia for some terminally ill people.

In 2005, the population of Europe was estimated to be 731 million according to the United
Nations,[3] which is slightly more than one-ninth of the world's population. A century ago, Europe
had nearly a quarter of the world's population. The population of Europe has grown in the past
century, but in other areas of the world (in particular Africa and Asia) the population has grown far
more quickly.[3]Among the continents, Europe has a relatively high population density, second
only to Asia. The most densely populated country in Europe is the Netherlands, ranking third in
the world after Bangladesh and South Korea. Pan and Pfeil (2004) count 87 distinct "peoples of
Europe", of which 33 form the majority population in at least one sovereign state, while the
remaining 54 constitute ethnic minorities.[134]

According to UN population projection, Europe's population may fall to about 7% of world

population by 2050, or 653 million people (medium variant, 556 to 777 million in low and high
variants, respectively).[3] Within this context, significant disparities exist between regions in
relation to fertility rates. The average number of children per female of child bearing age is 1.52.
[135]
According to some sources,[136] this rate is higher among Muslims in Europe. The UN predicts
the steady population decline of vast areas of Eastern Europe.[137] The Russia's population is
declining by at least 700,000 people each year.[138] The country now has 13,000 uninhabited
villages.[139]

Europe is home to the highest number of migrants of all global regions at 70.6 million people,
the IOM's report said.[140] In 2005, the EU had an overall net gain from immigration of 1.8 million
people, despite having one of the highest population densities in the world. This accounted for
almost 85% of Europe's total population growth.[141] The European Union plans to open the job
centres for legal migrant workers from Africa.[142][143]

Emigration from Europe began with Spanish settlers in the 16th century, and French and English
settlers in the 17th century.[144] But numbers remained relatively small until waves of mass
emigration in the 19th century, when millions of poor families left Europe.[145]

Today, large populations of European descent are found on every continent. European ancestry
predominates in North America, and to a lesser degree in South America (particularly in
Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Centro-Sul of Brazil). Also, Australia and New Zealand have large
European derived populations. Africa has no countries with European-derived majorities, but
there are significant minorities, such as the White South Africans. In Asia, European-derived
populations (specifically Russians) predominate in Northern Asia.
Political geography
Main article: Politics of Europe
See also: Demographics of Europe, List of European countries, and List of European countries
by population

Europe according to a widely accepted definition is shown in green (countries sometimes associated with
European culture in dark blue, Asian parts of European states in light blue).

Modern political map of Europe and the surrounding region

Regional grouping according to the UN

Regional grouping according to The World Factbook

European Union and its candidate countries

Council of Europe nations

Map showing European membership of the EU and NATO

According to different definitions, the territories may be subject to various categorisations. The
27 European Union member states are highly integrated economically and politically; the
European Union itself forms part of the political geography of Europe. The table below shows
the scheme for geographic subregions used by the United Nations,[146] alongside the regional
grouping published in the CIA factbook. The socio-geographical data included are per sources in
cross-referenced articles.

Area Population Population density

Name of country, with flag Capital
(km²) (1 July 2002 est.) (per km²)

Albania 28,748 3,600,523 125.2 Tirana

Andorra 468 68,403 146.2 Andorra la Vella

Armenia k[›] 29,800 3,229,900 101 Yerevan

Austria 83,858 8,169,929 97.4 Vienna

Azerbaijan l[›] 86,600 9,000,000 97 Baku

Belarus 207,600 10,335,382 49.8 Minsk

Belgium 30,510 10,274,595 336.8 Brussels

Bosnia and Herzegovina 51,129 4,448,500 77.5 Sarajevo

Bulgaria 110,910 7,621,337 68.7 Sofia

Croatia 56,542 4,437,460 77.7 Zagreb

Cyprus e[›] 9,251 788,457 85 Nicosia

Czech Republic 78,866 10,256,760 130.1 Prague

Denmark 43,094 5,368,854 124.6 Copenhagen

Estonia 45,226 1,415,681 31.3 Tallinn

Finland 336,593 5,157,537 15.3 Helsinki

France h[›] 547,030 59,765,983 109.3 Paris

Georgia m[›] 69,700 4,661,473 64 Tbilisi

Germany 357,021 83,251,851 233.2 Berlin

Greece 131,940 10,645,343 80.7 Athens

Hungary 93,030 10,075,034 108.3 Budapest

Iceland 103,000 307,261 2.7 Reykjavík

Ireland 70,280 4,234,925 60.3 Dublin

Italy 301,230 58,751,711 191.6 Rome

Kazakhstan j[›] 2,724,900 15,217,711 5.6 Astana

Latvia 64,589 2,366,515 36.6 Riga

Liechtenstein 160 32,842 205.3 Vaduz

Lithuania 65,200 3,601,138 55.2 Vilnius

Luxembourg 2,586 448,569 173.5 Luxembourg

Republic of Macedonia 25,713 2,054,800 81.1 Skopje

Malta 316 397,499 1,257.9 Valletta

Moldova b[›] 33,843 4,434,547 131.0 Chişinău

Monaco 1.95 31,987 16,403.6 Monaco

Montenegro 13,812 616,258 44.6 Podgorica

Netherlands i[›] 41,526 16,318,199 393.0 Amsterdam

Norway 324,220 4,525,116 14.0 Oslo

Poland 312,685 38,625,478 123.5 Warsaw

Portugal f[›] 91,568 10,409,995 110.1 Lisbon

Romania 238,391 21,698,181 91.0 Bucharest

Russia c[›] 17,075,400 142,200,000 26.8 Moscow

San Marino 61 27,730 454.6 San Marino

Serbia[147] 88,361 7,495,742 89.4 Belgrade

Slovakia 48,845 5,422,366 111.0 Bratislava

Slovenia 20,273 1,932,917 95.3 Ljubljana

Spain 504,851 45,061,274 89.3 Madrid

Sweden 449,964 9,090,113 19.7 Stockholm

 Switzerland 41,290 7,507,000 176.8 Bern

Turkey n[›] 783,562 71,517,100 93 Ankara

Ukraine 603,700 48,396,470 80.2 Kiev

United Kingdom 244,820 61,100,835 244.2 London

Vatican City 0.44 900 2,045.5 Vatican City

Total 10,180,000o[›] 731,000,000o[›] 70

Within the above-mentioned states are several regions, enjoying broad autonomy, as well as
several de facto independent countries with limited international recognition or unrecognised.
None of them are UN members:

Area Population Population density

Name of territory, with flag Capital
(km²) (1 July 2002 est.) (per km²)

Abkhazia r[›] 8,432 216,000 29 Sukhumi

Åland (Finland) 1,552 26,008 16.8 Mariehamn

Faroe Islands (Denmark) 1,399 46,011 32.9 Tórshavn

Gibraltar (UK) 5.9 27,714 4,697.3 Gibraltar

Guernsey d[›] (UK) 78 64,587 828.0 St. Peter Port

Isle of Man d[›] (UK) 572 73,873 129.1 Douglas

Jersey d[›] (UK) 116 89,775 773.9 Saint Helier

[148]
Kosovo p[›] 10,887 1,804,838 220 Pristina

Nagorno-Karabakh 11,458 138,800 12 Stepanakert

Northern Cyprus 3,355 265,100 78 Nicosia

South Ossetia r[›] 3,900 70,000 18 Tskhinvali

Svalbard and Jan 62,049 2,868 0.046 Longyearbyen

Mayen Islands (Norway)

Transnistria b[›] 4,163 537,000 133 Tiraspol

Economy
European and bordering nations by GDP(nominal) per capita in 2006
Main article: Economy of Europe

As a continent, the economy of Europe is currently the largest on Earth and it is the richest region
as measured by assets under management with over $32.7 trillion compared to North America's
$27.1 trillion.[149] As with other continents, Europe has a large variation of wealth among its
countries. The richer states tend to be in the West; some of the Eastern economies are still
emerging from the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

The European Union, an intergovernmental body composed of 27 European states, comprises

the largest single economic area in the world. Currently, 16 EU countries share the euro as a
common currency. Five European countries rank in the top ten of the worlds largest national
economies in GDP (PPP). This includes (ranks according to the CIA): Germany (5), the UK (6),
Russia (7), France (8), and Italy (10).[150]

Pre–1945: Industrial growth

Capitalism has been dominant in the Western world since the end of feudalism.[151] From Britain, it
gradually spread throughout Europe.[152] The Industrial Revolution started in Europe, specifically
the United Kingdom in the late 18th century,[153] and the 19th century saw Western Europe
industrialise. Economies were disrupted by World War I but by the beginning of World War II they
had recovered and were having to compete with the growing economic strength of the United
States. World War II, again, damaged much of Europe's industries.

1945–1990: The Cold War

Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

After World War II the economy of the UK was in a state of ruin,[154] and continued to suffer
relative economic decline in the following decades.[155] Italy was also in a poor economic condition
but regained a high level of growth by the 1950s. West Germany recovered quicklyand had
doubled production from pre-war levels by the 1950s.[156] France also staged a remarkable
comeback enjoying rapid growth and modernisation; later on Spain, under the leadership
of Franco, also recovered, and the nation recorded huge unprecedented economic growth
beginning in the 1960s in what is called the Spanish miracle.[157] The majority of Eastern
European states came under the control of theUSSR and thus were members of the Council for
Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON).[158]

The states which retained a free-market system were given a large amount of aid by the United
States under the Marshall Plan.[159] The western states moved to link their economies together,
providing the basis for the EU and increasing cross border trade. This helped them to enjoy
rapidly improving economies, while those states in COMECON were struggling in a large part due
to the cost of the Cold War. Until 1990, the European Community was expanded from 6 founding
members to 12. The emphasis placed on resurrecting the West German economy led to it
overtaking the UK as Europe's largest economy.

1991–2007: Integration and reunification

The Euro.

With the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1991 the Eastern states had to adapt to a free
market system. There were varying degrees of success with Central European countries such as
Poland, Hungary, and Slovenia adapting reasonably quickly, while eastern states
like Ukraine and Russia taking far longer. Western Europe helped Eastern Europe by forming
economic ties with it.

After East and West Germany were reunited in 1990, the economy of West Germany struggled
as it had to support and largely rebuild the infrastructure of East Germany. Yugoslavia lagged
farthest behind as it was ravaged by war and in 2003 there were still many EU
and NATOpeacekeeping troops in Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, and Bosnia and
Herzegovina, with only Slovenia making any real progress.

By the millennium change, the EU dominated the economy of Europe comprising the five largest
European economies of the time namely Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Spain.
In 1999 12 of the 15 members of the EU joined the Eurozone replacing their former national
currencies by the common euro. The three who chose to remain outside the Eurozone were: the
United Kingdom, Denmark, and Sweden.

2008–2010: Recession
This article or section may be slanted towards recent events. Please try to
keep recent events in historical perspective. (May 2010)

Main article: Late 2000s recession in Europe

The Eurozone entered its first official recession in the third quarter of 2008, official figures
confirmed in January 2009.[160] While beginning in the United States the late-2000s
recessionspread to Europe rapidly and has affected much of the region.[161] The
official unemployment rate in the 16 countries that use the euro rose to 9.5% in May 2009.
[162]
Europe's young workers have been especially hard hit.[163] In the first quarter of 2009, the
unemployment rate in the EU27 for those aged 15–24 was 18.3%.[164]

In early 2010 fears of a sovereign debt crisis[165] developed concerning some countries in Europe,
especially Greece, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal.[166] As a result, measures were taken especially
for Greece by the leading countries of the Eurozone.[167]

Language
Main article: Languages of Europe

European languages mostly fall within three Indo-European language groups: the Romance
languages, derived from the Latin language of the Roman Empire; the Germanic languages,
whose ancestor language came from southern Scandinavia; and the Slavic languages.[127] While
having the majority of its vocabulary descended from Romance languages, the English
language is classified as a Germanic language.

Romance languages are spoken primarily in south-western Europe as well as

in Romania and Moldova. Germanic languages are spoken in north-western Europe and some
parts ofCentral Europe. Slavic languages are spoken in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern
Europe.[127]

Many other languages outside the three main groups exist in Europe. Other Indo-European
languages include the Baltic group (i.e., Latvian and Lithuanian), the Celtic group (i.e.,
Irish,Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton[127]), Greek, Albanian,
and Armenian[dubious – discuss]. A distinct group of Uralic languages are Estonian, Finnish, and
Hungarian, spoken in the respective countries as well as in parts of Romania, Russia, Serbia, and
Slovakia. Other Non-Indo-European languages are Maltese (the only Semitic language official to
the EU), Basque, Georgian, Azerbaijani, Turkish in Eastern Thrace, and the languages of minority
nations in Russia.

Multilingualism and the protection of regional and minority languages are recognised political
goals in Europe today. The Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of
National Minorities and the Council of Europe's European Charter for Regional or Minority
Languages set up a legal framework for language rights in Europe.

Predominant religions in Europe and neighbouring regions: Roman Catholic Christianity Eastern Orthodox

Christianity Protestant Christianity Sunni Islam Shia Islam Buddhism Judaism

Religion
Main article: Religion in Europe

Historically, religion in Europe has been a major influence on European

art, culture, philosophy and law. The majority religion in Europe is Christianity as practiced by
Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant Churches. Following these is Islam concentrated
mainly in the south east (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, North
Cyprus, Turkey and Azerbaijan), and Tibetan Buddhism, found in Kalmykia. Other religions
including Judaism and Hinduism are minority religions. Europe is a relatively secular continent
and has the largest number and proportion of irreligious, agnostic and atheistic people in
the Western world, with a particularly high number of self-described non-religious people in the
Czech Republic, Estonia, Sweden, Germany (East), and France.[168]

Culture
Main article: Culture of Europe

The culture of Europe can be described as a series of overlapping cultures; cultural mixes exist
across the continent. There are culturalinnovations and movements, sometimes at odds with
each other. Thus the question of "common culture" or "common values" is complex.