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WikiPedia Information About EuropeInformation from the WikiPedia.Com Website for Europe/_TheTownGuide/Index_Layout_Leaders_wiki_Process.xsl {{Otheruses}} {{pp-semi-indef}}{{pp-move-indef}} {{Infobox Continent image = File:Europe (orthographic projection).svg 200px area = 10,180,000 km2 (3,930,000 sq mi){{cref o}} population = 731,000,000{{cref o}} density = 70/km2 (181/sq mi) demonym = Ethnic groups in Europe European countries = 50 list_countries = List of European countries languages = Languages of Europe List of languages time = UTC to UTC+5 internet = .eu (European Union) cities = List of metropolitan areas in Europe by population List of cities }} '''Europe''' ({{IPA-en 'j???p }}, {{respell YOOR ?p}}) is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural (river) Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains (or the Kuma-Manych Depression),{{cite web last=Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Encyclopaedia 2009 title="Europe" url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/195686/Europe accessdate=21 August 2009}} and the Black Sea to the southeast.{{cite book title=National Geographic Atlas of the World edition=7th year=1999 location=Washington, DC publisher=National Geographic Society National Geographic isbn=0-7922-7528-4}} "Europe" (pp. 68-9); "Asia" (pp. 90-1): "A commonly accepted division between Asia and Europe ... is formed by the Ural Mountains, Ural River, Caspian Sea, Caucasus Mountains, and the Black Sea with its outlets, the Bosporus and Dardanelles." 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 term ''continent'' can refer to a human geography cultural and political distinction or a physical geography physiographic one. Europe is the world's Continent#Area and population 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 6ǔ% of its land area. Of Europe's approximately 50 states, Russia is the largest by both area and population, while Vatican City is the smallest. Europe is the third-most populous continent after Asia and Africa, with a Demographics of Europe population of 731 million or about 11% of the World population world's population. However, according to the United Nations (medium estimate), Europe's share may fall to about 7% by 2050. In 1900, Europe's share of the world's population was 25%.[http://www.prb.org/Educators/Te achersGuides/HumanPopulation/PopulationGrowth.aspx?p=1 World Population Growth, 1950–2050]. Population Reference Bureau. Europe, in particular Ancient Greece, is the birthplace of Western culture.{{harvnb Lewis Wigen 1997 page=226}} 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 European colonisation of the Americas the Americas, Colonisation of Africa 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 Union took prominence.National Geographic, 534. 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 History of the Soviet Union (1985–1991) fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Definitionthumb right A medieval T and O map from 1472 showing the division of the world into 3 continents, allocated to the three sons of Noah The use of the term "Europe" has developed gradually throughout history.{{Cite journal title=The myth of continents: a critique of metageography first=Martin W. last= Lewis first2= Kären last2= Wigen year= 1997 isbn= 0-520-20743-2 publisher=University of California Press}}{{Cite book title=The European culture area: a systematic geography first=Terry G. last= Jordan-Bychkov first2=Bella Bychkova last2= Jordan publisher=Rowman & Littlefield year= 2001 isbn=0742516288}} 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 Phasis (river) river Phasis forming their boundaries—though he also states that some considered the Don River (Russia) River Don, rather than the Phasis, as the boundary between Europe and Asia.Herodotus, 4:45 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 Cadiz, separating it from Africa, and the Don, separating it from Asia.{{Cite book title=Genesis and the Jewish antiquities of Flavius Josephus first= Thomas W. last= Franxman publisher=Pontificium Institutum Biblicum year= 1979 isbn=8876533354 pages=101–102}} This division—as much cultural as geographical—was used until the Late Middle Ages, when it was challenged by the Age of Discovery.{{harvnb Lewis Wigen 1997 p=23–2 5}}[http://books.google.com/book s?id=jrVW9W9eiYMC&pg=PA8&dq=%22suggested+that+Europe%27s+boundary%22 Europe: A History, by Nirman Davies, p. 8] The problem of redefining Europe was finally resolved in 1730 when, instead of waterways, the Sweden Swedish geographer and cartographer Philip Johan von Strahlenberg von Strahlenberg proposed the Ural Mountains as the most significant eastern boundary, a suggestion that found favour in Tsardom of Russia Russia and throughout Europe.{{harvnb Lewis Wigen 1997 p=27–28}} 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) Ural River, and the Caspian Sea; to the southeast, the Caucasus Mountains, the Black Sea and the waterways connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.{{cite web last=Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopaedia 2007 title="Europe" url=http://enc arta.msn.com/encyclopaedia_761570768/Europe.html accessdate=27 December 2007 arc hiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/5kwbxqnne archivedate=31 October 2009 deadurl=yes}} Sometimes, the word 'Europe' is used in a geopolitically limiting waySee, e.g., Merje Kuus, [http://phg.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/472 'Europe's eastern expansion and the reinscription of otherness in East-Central Europe'] ''Progress in Human Geography'', Vol. 28, No. 4, 472–489 (2004), József Böröcz, [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1082435 'Goodness Is Elsewhere: The Rule of European Difference'], ''Comparative Studies in Society and History'', 110–36, 2006, or [http://www.ceupress.com/books/html/OnTheEast-WestSlope.htm Attila Melegh, ''On the East-West Slope: Globalisation, nationalism, racism and discourses on Central and Eastern Europe''], Budapest: Central European University Press, 2006. 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.{{cite web url=http://www.coe.int/T/e/Com/about_coe/ title=About the Council of Europe publisher=Council of Europe accessdate=9 June 2008}} In addition, people living in insular areas such as Republic of Ireland Ireland, the United Kingdom, the North Atlantic and Mediterranean islands and also in Scandinavia may routinely refer to Continental Europe "continental" or "mainland" Europe simply as Europe or "the Continent".{{cite web url=http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=europe title=Europe — Noun publisher=Princeton University accessdate=9 June 2008}} Clickable map of Europe, showing one of the most commonly used geographical boundariesThe map shows one of the most commonly accepted delineations of the geographical boundaries of Europe, as used by National Geographic and Encyclopaedia Britannica. Whether countries are considered in Europe or Asia can vary in sources, for example in the classification of the CIA World Factbook or that of the BBC. (legend: '''blue''' = transcontinental country#Asia and Europe states in both Europe and Asia; '''green''' = sometimes included within Europe but geographically outside Europe's boundaries) {{Europe and Sea}} EtymologyEurope}} In ancient Greek mythology, Europa (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 language Greek: {{polytonic ????p?}}, ''{{Unicode Eur?pe}}''; see also List of traditional Greek place names) was a mythological queen of Crete, not a geographical designation. Later, ''Europa'' stood for Geography of Greece 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.Minor theories, such as the (probably folk-etymological) one deriving Europa from ''e????'' "mould" aren't discussed in the section One theory suggests that it is derived from the Greek language Greek roots meaning broad (''eur-'') and eye (''op-'', ''opt-''), hence ''{{Unicode Eur?pe}}'', "wide-gazing", "broad of aspect" (compare with Athena#Cult and attributes ''glauk'''op'''is'' (grey-eyed) Athena or Hera ''bo'''op'''is'' (ox-eyed) Hera). ''Broad'' has been an epithet of Earth itself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion.{{cite book author=M. L. West title=Indo-European poetry and myth publisher=Oxford University Press location=Oxford [Oxfordshire] year=2007 pages=178–179 isbn=0-19-928075-4 oclc= doi= accessdate=}} Another theory suggests that it is actually based on a Semitic word such as the Akkadian language Akkadian ''erebu'' meaning "to go down, set" (cf. Occident),{{cite web url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=European title=Etymonline: European accessdate=10 September 2006}} cognate to Phoenician '' 'ereb'' "evening; west" and Arabic Maghreb, Hebrew ''ma'ariv'' (see also ''Erebus'', Proto-Indo-European language PIE ''*h1reg?os'', "darkness"). However, M. L. West states that "phonologically, the match between Europa's name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor".{{cite book author=M. L. West title=The east face of Helicon: west Asiatic elements in Greek poetry and myth publisher=Clarendon Press location=Oxford year=1997 pages=451 isbn=0-19-815221-3 oclc= doi= accessdate=}} Most major world languages use words derived from "Europa" to refer to the continent. Chinese, for example, uses the word ''{{Unicode Ouzhou}}'' (??), which is an abbreviation of the translitreated name ''{{Unicode Ouluóba zhou}}'' (????); 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''.{{cite journal author=Davidson, Roderic H. title=Where is the Middle East? journal=Foreign Affairs volume=38 pages=665–675 year=1960}} HistoryHistory of Europe}} PrehistoryPrehistoric Europe}} File:Stonehenge back wide.jpg thumb 180px left Stonehenge File:Ggantija Temples (1).jpg thumb 180px right Ggantija, Malta Island Malta ''Homo georgicus'', which lived roughly 1ǔ million years ago in Georgia (country) Georgia, is the earliest hominid to have been discovered in Europe.{{cite journal author = A. Vekua, D. Lordkipanidze, G. P. Rightmire, J. Agusti, R. Ferring, G. Maisuradze, et al. year = 2002 title = A new skull of early ''Homo'' from Dmanisi, Georgia journal = Science volume = 297 pages = 85–9 doi = 10/science� pmid = 12098694}} Other hominid remains, dating back roughly 1 million years, have been discovered in Atapuerca, Spain 6[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6256356.stm The million year old tooth from Atapuerca Mountains Atapuerca, Spain, found in June 2007] Neanderthal man (named for the Neander Valley in Germany) first migrated to 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.National Geographic, 21. During the European Neolithic, a period of megalith construction took place, with many megalithic monuments, such as StonehengeRichard J. C. Atkinson Atkinson, R J C, ''Stonehenge'' (Penguin Books, 1956) and the Megalithic Temples of Malta, being constructed throughout Western and Southern Europe.{{Cite book title=Encyclopaedia of Prehistory first=Peter Neal last= Peregrine fisrt2= Melvin last2= Ember publisher=Springer year= 2001 isbn=0306462583 pages=157–184}}, European Megalithic The Corded ware cultural horizon flourished at the transition from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic. 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 basin Mediterranean cities. Early Iron Age Iron Age Italy Italy and Archaic Greece Greece from around the 8th century BC gradually gave rise to historical Classical Antiquity. Classical antiquityClassical Antiquity}} {{Seealso Ancient Greece Ancient Rome}} File:Temple of Apollo (2c).jpg thumb left The Greek Temple of Apollo, Paestum, Italy Ancient Greece had a profound impact on Western civilisation. Western democracy democratic and individualism individualistic culture are often attributed to Ancient Greece.National Geographic, 76. The Greeks invented the polis, or city-state, which played a fundamental role in their concept of identity.National Geographic, 82. 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 historiography history with Herodotus and Thucydides; in dramatic and narrative verse, starting with the epic poems of Homer; and in science with Pythagoras, Euclid, and Archimedes.{{Citation first=Thomas Little last=Heath authorlink= T. L. Heath title=A History of Greek Mathematics, Volume I publisher=Dover publications year=1981 isbn=0486240738}}{{Citation first=Thomas Little last=Heath authorlink= T. L. Heath title=A History of Greek Mathematics, Volume II publisher=Dover publications year=1981 isbn=0486240746}}Pedersen, Olaf. ''Early Physics and Astronomy: A Historical Introduction''. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. File:RomanEmpire 117.svg thumb right The Roman Empire at its greatest extent Another major influence on Europe came from the Roman Empire which left its mark on Roman law law, Latin language, Roman engineering engineering, Roman architecture architecture, and centralised government government.National Geographic, 76–77. During the ''pax romana'', the Roman Empire expanded to encompass the entire Mediterranean Basin and much of Europe.{{Cite book last=McEvedy first=Colin title=The Penguin Atlas of Medieval History publisher=Penguin Books year=1961}} Stoicism influenced Roman emperors such as Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, who all spent time on the Empire's northern border fighting Germanic peoples Germanic, Picts Pictish and Scottish people Scottish tribes.National Geographic, 123.Foster, Sally M., ''Picts, Gaels, and Scots: Early Historic Scotland.'' Batsford, London, 2004. ISBN 0-7134-8874-3 Christianity was eventually Constantine I and Christianity legitimised by Constantine I after three centuries of Persecution of early Christians in the Roman Empire imperial persecution. Early Middle AgesLate Antiquity Early Middle Ages}} {{Seealso Dark Ages Age of Migrations}} File:Rolandfealty.jpg thumb right 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, European Avars Avars, Bulgars and, later still, the Vikings and Magyars. Renaissance thinkers such as Petrarch would later refer to this as the "Dark Ages"., ''Journal of the History of Ideas'', Vol. 4, No. 1. (Jan., 1943), pp. 69–74. 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.Norman Cantor Norman F. Cantor, ''The Medieval World 300 to 1300''. 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.National Geographic, 143–145. Eventually the Franks Frankish tribes were united under Clovis I.National Geographic, 162. 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.National Geographic, 166. The predominantly medieval Greek Greek speaking Eastern Roman Empire became known in the west as the Byzantine Empire. Its capital was Constantinople. Emperor Justinian I presided over Constantinople's first golden age: he established a Code of Justinian legal code, funded the construction of the Hagia Sophia and brought the Christian church under state control.National Geographic, 135. Fatally weakened by the sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade, the Byzantines fell in 1453 when they were conquered by the Ottoman Empire.National Geographic, 211. Middle AgesHigh Middle Ages Late Middle Ages Middle Ages}} {{See also Medieval demography}} File:Richard3.jpg thumbnail left Richard I and Philip II of France 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 in France in the Early Middle Ages and soon spread throughout Europe.National Geographic, 158. 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.National Geographic, 186. 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. 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 Crusades crusade against Muslims occupying Jerusalem and the Holy Land.National Geographic, 192. 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.National Geographic, 199. File:Battle of crecy froissart.jpg thumb The Battle of Crécy in 1346, from a manuscript of Jean Froissart's Froissart's Chronicles ''Chronicles''; the battle established England as a military power. In the 11th and 12th centuries, constant incursions by nomadic Turkic peoples Turkic tribes, such as the Pechenegs and the Kipchaks, caused a massive migration of Slavic peoples Slavic populations to the safer, heavily forested regions of the north.{{cite book last=Klyuchevsky first=Vasily title=The course of the Russian history location=vǍ url=http://www.kulichki.c om/inkwell/text/special/history/kluch/kluch16.htm isbn=5-244-00072-1 year=1987 publisher="Mysl'}} Like many other parts of Eurasia, these territories were Mongol invasion of Rus overrun by the Mongols.{{citeweb url=https://tspace.library.utoronto.c a/citd/RussianHeritage/4.PEAS/4.L/12.IIIǑ.html title=The Destruction of Kiev publisher=University of Toronto accessdate=10 June 2008}} 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.{{cite web url=http://www.accd.edu/sac/history/keller/Mongols/states3.html title=Khanate of the Golden Horde (Kipchak) publisher=Alamo Community Colleges accessdate=10 June 2008}} The Great Famine of 1315–1317 was the first Crisis of the Late Middle Ages crisis that would strike Europe in the late Middle Ages. [http://www.oglethorpe.edu/faculty/%7Eb_smith/ou/bs_foundations_chapter9.htm The Late Middle Ages]. Oglethorpe University. The period between 1348 and 1420 witnessed the heaviest loss. The population of France in the Middle Ages France was reduced by half.Baumgartner, Frederic J. ''France in the Sixteenth Century.'' London: Macmillan, 1995. ISBN 0-333-62088-7.Don O'Reilly. "[http://www.historynet.com/magazines/military_history/3031536.html Hundred Years' War: Joan of Arc and the Siege of Orléans]". ''TheHistoryNet.com''. Medieval Britain was afflicted by 95 famines,[http://www&# 46telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml =/opinion/2004/08/08/do0809.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2004/08/08/ixop.html Poor studies will always be with us]. By James Bartholomew. Telegraph. 7 August. 2004. and France suffered the effects of 75 or more in the same period. [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/201392/famine Famine]. Encyclopædia Britannica. 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 Medieval demography European population at the time.{{cite web url=http://science.nationalgeographic.com/s cience/health-and-human-body/human-diseases/plague-article.html title=Plague, Plague Information, Black Death Facts, News, Photos{{–}} National Geographic publisher=Science.nationalgeographic.com date= accessdate=3 November 2008}} The plague had a devastating effect on Europe's social structure; it induced people to live for the moment as illustrated by Giovanni Boccaccio in ''The Decameron'' (1353). It was a serious blow to the Roman Catholic Church and led to increased persecution of Jews, foreigners, beggars and lepers.National Geographic, 223. The plague is thought to have returned every generation with varying virulence and mortalities until the 1700s.{{cite web url=http://www&# 46infoplease.com/cig/dangerous-diseases-epidemics/bubonic-plague.html title=Epidemics of the Past: Bubonic Plague — Infoplease.com publisher=Infoplease.com date= accessdate=3 November 2008}} During this period, more than 100 plague List of epidemics epidemics swept across Europe.{{cite web url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/may/16/health.books title=Black Death blamed on man, not rats | UK news | The Observer publisher=The Observer author=Jo Revill date= accessdate=3 November 2008}} Early modern periodEarly modern period}} {{Seealso Renaissance Protestant Reformation Scientific Revolution Age of Discovery}} File:Raffael 058.jpg thumb School of Athens The School of Athens by Raphael: Contemporaries such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci (centre) are portrayed as classical scholars The Renaissance was a period of cultural change originating in Italy in the fourteenth century. The rise of a Renaissance humanism new humanism was accompanied by the recovery of forgotten Renaissance#Assimilation of Greek and Arabic knowledge classical and Arabic knowledge from monastic libraries and the Islamic world.National Geographic, 159.Roberto Weiss Weiss, Roberto (1969) ''The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity'', ISBN 1-59740-150-1{{cite book author=Jacob Burckhardt origyear=1878 url=http://www.boisestate.ed u/courses/hy309/docs/burckhardt/burckhardt.html title=The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy edition=translation by S.G.C Middlemore year=1990 isbn=0-14-044534-X publisher=Penguin Books location=London, England}} 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.National Geographic, 254.Jensen, De Lamar (1992), ''Renaissance Europe'', ISBN 0-395-88947-2{{Cite book last=Levey first=Michael title=Early Renaissance publisher=Penguin Books year=1967}} Patrons in Italy, including the Medici family of Florence Florentine bankers and the Popes in Rome, funded prolific quattrocento and cinquecento artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci.National Geographic, 292.{{Cite book last=Levey first=Michael title=High Renaissance publisher=Penguin Books year=1971}} Political intrigue within the Church in the mid-14th century caused the Western Schism Great Schism. During this forty-year period, two popes—one in Avignon and one in Rome—claimed rulership over the Church. Although the schism was eventually healed in 1417, the papacy's spiritual authority had suffered greatly.National Geographic, 193. The Church's power was further weakened by the Protestant Reformation (1517–1648), initially sparked The Ninety-Five Theses by the works of German theologian Martin 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.National Geographic, 256–257. This eventually led to the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), which crippled the Holy Roman Empire and devastated much of Early Modern history of Germany Germany, killing between 25 and 40% of its po pulation.[http://www.britannica.com /EBchecked/topic/195896/history-of-Europe/58335/Demographics#ref=ref310375 History of Europe – Demographics]. Encyclopædia Britannica. In the aftermath of the Peace of Westphalia, France rose to predominance within Europe.National Geographic, 269. The 17th century in southern and eastern Europe was a period of general decline.{{cite web url=http://libro.uca.edu/payne1/payne15.htm title=The Seventeenth-Century Decline accessdate=13 August 2008 publisher=The Library of Iberian resources online}} File:Vienna Battle 1683.jpg thumb left 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.{{Cite book last=John Morris Roberts title=Penguin History of Europe year=1997 publisher=Penguin Books isbn=0140265619}}National Geographic, 296. Christopher Columbus reached the New World in 1492, and soon after the Spanish and Portuguese began establishing colonial empires in the Americas.National Geographic, 338. France, the Netherlands and England soon followed in building large colonial empires with vast holdings in Africa, the Americas, and Asia. 18th and 19th centuriesModern history}} {{Seealso Industrial Revolution French Revolution Age of Enlightenment}} The Age of Enlightenment was a powerful intellectual movement during the eighteenth century promoting scientific and reason-based thoughts.{{Cite book last=Goldie first=Mark last2= Wokler first2=Robert title=The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought publisher=Cambridge University Press year=2006 isbn=0521374227}}{{Cite book last=Cassirer first=Ernst title=The Philosophy of the Enlightenment publisher=Princeton University Press year=1979 isbn=0691019630}}National Geographic, 255. Discontent with the aristocracy and clergy's monopoly on political power in France resulted in the French Revolution and the establishment of the French First Republic First Republic as a result of which the monarchy and many of the nobility perished during the initial reign of terror.{{Cite book last=Schama first=Simon publisher=Knopf title=Citizens: a chronicle of the French revolution year=1989 isbn=0394559487}} Napoleon I of France 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.National Geographic, 360.{{Cite book last=McEvedy first=Colin title=The Penguin Atlas of Modern History publisher=Penguin Books year=1972 isbn=0140511539}} File:Marshall's flax-mill, Holbeck, Leeds - interior - c.jpg thumb right The Industrial Revolution started in Kingdom of Great Britain Great Britain Napoleonic Empire 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 centralised government administration, Napoleonic code law, and Education in France education.{{Cite book last=Lyons first=Martyn publisher= St. Martin's Press year= 1994 isbn=0312121237 title=Napoleon Bonaparte and the legacy of the French Revolution}}{{Cite book last=Grab first=Alexander title=Napoleon and the Transformation of Europe (European History in Perspective) publisher=Palgrave MacMillan year=2003 id=ISBN-0-33-68275-0}}National Geographic, 350. The Congress of Vienna, convened after Napoleon's downfall, established a new Balance of power in international relations balance of power in Europe centred on the five "Great Powers": the United Kingdom, France, Prussia, Austrian Empire Habsburg Austria, and Russia.National Geographic, 367. 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.National Geographic, 371–373. In 1867, the Austro-Hungarian empire was Ausgleich formed; and 1871 saw the unifications of both Italian unification Italy and Unification of Germany Germany as nation-states from smaller principalities.{{Cite book last=Davies first=Norman title=Europe: A History publisher=Oxford University Press year=1996 isbn=0198201710}} The Industrial Revolution started in Kingdom of Great Britain 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.{{Cite book first=George Macaulay last=Trevelyan title=A shortened history of England publisher=Penguin Books year=1988 isbn=0-14-010241-8}} Reforms in social and economic spheres followed, including the Factory Acts first laws on child labour, the legalisation of trade unions,{{Cite book last= Beatrice first= Webb title=History of Trade Unionism publisher= AMS Press year=1976 isbn=0404068855}} and the abolition of slavery& #46[http://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24160 Slavery], ''Historical survey > Ways of ending slavery'', Encyclopædia Britannica In United Kingdom Britain, the Public Health Act 1875 was passed, which significantly improved living conditions in many British cities.{{Cite book first=George Macaulay last=Trevelyan title=English Social History publisher=Longmans, Green year=1942}} Demographics of Europe Europe’s population doubled during the 18th century, from roughly 100 million to almost 200 million, and doubled again during the 19th century.[http://www.bri tannica.com/EBchecked/topic/387301/modernisation/12022/Population-change Modernisation - Population Change]. ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. In the 19th century, 70 million people left Europe in migrations to various European colonies abroad and to the United States. [http://migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/more.php?id=1118_0_5_0 The Atlantic: Can the US afford immigration?]. ''Migration News''. December 1996. 20th century to presentModern era History of Europe}} {{Seealso World War I Great Depression Interwar period World War II Cold War History of the European Union}} File:WWI end.jpg thumb right European military alliances during WWI: Central Powers purplish-red, Allies of World War I 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 Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip.National Geographic, 407. Most European nations were drawn into the war, which was fought between the Entente Powers (French Third Republic France, Belgium, Serbia, Portugal, Russian Empire Russia, the United Kingdom, and later Italy, Greece, Romania, and the United States) and the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, German Empire Germany, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire). The War left around 40 million civilians and military dead.National Geographic, 440. Over 60 million European soldiers were mobilised from 1914–1918.{{cite web url=http://www.jimmyatkinson.com/papers/versaillestreaty.html title=The Treaty of Versailles and its Consequences accessdate=10 June 2008 publisher=James Atkinson}} Partly as a result of its defeat Russia was plunged into the Russian Revolution (1917) Russian Revolution, which threw down the Russian Empire Tsarist monarchy and replaced it with the communist Soviet Union.National Geographic, 480. 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.National Geographic, 443. 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, Fascism fascist movements developed throughout Europe placing Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany, Francisco Franco of Spain and Benito Mussolini of Italy in power.{{Cite book last=Hobsbawm first=Eric publisher=Vintage year=1995 id=ISBN-978--0-73005-7 unused_data=The Age of Extremes: A history of the world, 1914–1991}}National Geographic, 438. File:Yalta summit 1945 with Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin.jpg thumb left The "Allies of World War II Big Three" at the Yalta Conference in 1945; seated (from the left): Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin 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 appeasement 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 (1939–1945) 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 Invasion of Poland (1939) invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, prompting France and the United Kingdom to declare war on Germany on 3 September, opening the European Theatre of World War II European theatre of World War II.National Geographic, 465.{{Cite book last=Taylor first=A.J.P. title= The Origins of the Second World War year=1996 publisher=Simon & Schuster isbn=0684829479}} The Soviet invasion of Poland started on 17 September and Poland fell soon thereafter. On 24 September, the Soviet Union attacked the Occupation of the Baltic states 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 Battle of Britain bombing offensive on Britain, but failed to convince the Britons to give up.National Geographic, 510. In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the ultimately unsuccessful Operation Barbarossa.National Geographic, 532. On 7 December 1941 Empire of Japan Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour drew the United States into the conflict as allies of the British Empire and other Allies of World War II allied forces.National Geographic, 511.National Geographic, 519. 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 Normandy Landings 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 World War II casualties 60 million dead across the world.National Geographic, 439. More than 40 million people in Europe had lost their lives by the time World War II ended,"[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4526351.stm Europe honours war dead on VE Day]". BBC News. 9 May 2005. including between 11 and 17 million people who perished during the Holocaust.Niewyk, Donald L. and Nicosia, Francis R. ''[http://books.google.ca/books?id=lpDTIUk lB2MC&pg=PP1&dq=Niewyk,+Donald+L.+The+Columbia +Guide+to+the+Holocaust&sig=4igufxQHRCNrkjwRuMt1if_mf5M#PPA45,M1 The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust]'', Columbia University Press, 2000, pp. 45-52. The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people during the war, about half of all World War II casualties.{{cite news url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4530565.stm title=Leaders mourn Soviet wartime dead work=BBC News date=9 May 2005 accessdate=4 January 2010}} By the end of World War II, Europe had more than 40 million refugees."[http://www.time.com /time/magazine/article/0,9171,920455-2,00.html REFUGEES: Save Us! Save Us!]". Time. 9 July 1979. Several World War II evacuation and expulsion post-war expulsions in Central and Eastern Europe displaced a total of about 20 million people.[http://www.jstor.org/pss/1405220 Postwar Population Transfers in Europe: A Survey, by Joseph B. Schechtman] File:Evstafiev-travnik-refugees.jpg thumb left Refugees arrive in Travnik, central Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia, 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.National Geographic, 530. 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. In the 1980s the glasnost 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.{{Cite book last=Hobsbawm first=Eric publisher=Vintage year=1995 isbn=9780730057 unused_data=The Age of Extremes: A history of the world, 1914–1991}} File:European flag in the wind.jpg thumb The flag of Europe used by the Council of Europe and European Union 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.National Geographic, 536. 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 European Parliament parliament, European Court of Justice court and European Central Bank central bank and introduced the euro as a unified currency.National Geographic, 537. In 2004 and 2007, Eastern European countries began joining, Enlargement of the European Union expanding the EU to its current size of 27 European countries, and once more making Europe a major economical and political centre of power.National Geographic, 535. Geography and extentGeography of Europe}} {{See List of countries spanning more than one continent}} File:Kaukasus.jpg thumb left Satellite image of Caucasus Mountains, Black Sea (l.) and Caspian Sea (r.) Physical geography Physiographically, Europe is the northwestern constituent of the larger landmass known as Eurasia, or Afro-Eurasia: Asia occupies the eastern bulk of this continuous landmass and all share a common continental shelf. Europe's eas |
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