History of Europe
From Metapedia
The history of Europe describes the human events that have taken place on the continent of Europe. From prehistoric to modern times, Europe has had a turbulent, cultured, and much-documented history.
European pre-history began with the settlement of homo erectus, the Neanderthals, and modern humans. Recorded history begins with the Classical period and the Hellenistic culture of Greece, culminating in the conquests of Alexander the Great. Power subsequently shifted to the Roman Empire, which stretched from Turkey to Spain and North Africa to Scotland. The Roman expansion led to the start of a new empire the likes of which had not been seen in Europe. Until the death of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Empire which lasted from 27 BC to 476 AD knew few rivals in the world. It was overrun by a series of barbarian invasions, and eventually began to contract, with its power centre moving from Rome to Constantinople. Although Roman power continued in the East, Northern and Western Europe went through a post-Roman period commonly known as the Dark Ages, characterised by a decline in learning, in the organisation of society, and by the predations of various invaders, particularly the Vikings, Avars, Magyars and Arabs.
The Middle Ages were characterised by the re-establishment of organised society, chiefly on feudal lines, and the domination in the West of the Roman Catholic Church. In the East, Alexius I's appeal to Pope Urban II for mercenaries to help him resist Muslim advances into territory of the Byzantine Empire triggered the Crusades,which ironically, led to the collapse of the Empire as well as deeper incursions into Europe by various Muslim Empires. The Middle Ages were followed by the Renaissance, a rediscovery of classical learning and values, which overlapped with the Reformation, a religious and political movement which saw much of Northern Europe break decisively with the Roman Catholic Church, redefining culture and alliances across the continent. This period overlapped with the growth of colonial expansion, strengthening the Atlantic states of Britain, France, Portugal and Spain, and extending European influence into the Americas, Africa, India and the Far East. This period in turn overlapped the Industrial Revolution and the intellectual period known as the Enlightenment. From the 17th century, various states of Europe became involved in a series of revolutions, of which the most significant is considered to be the French Revolution, which ushered in the conquests of Napoleon.
Napoleon's destruction of existing states and the subsequent reorganisation of Europe under the Congress of Vienna assisted growing nationalism, eventually resulting in the creation of Austria-Hungary, the unification of Germany, the unification of Italy, and tensions in the Balkans, as well as stimulating reforms in the Russian Empire. With Britain and France, and to some extent Turkey, these nations were known as the Great Powers. Unresolved tensions in the Balkans, and a system of alliances known as the Triple Alliance (1882) and the Triple Entente were key causes of the First World War, itself triggering the Russian Revolution, and only ending with the entrance of the United States of America into European affairs. The Armistice left Germany saddled with a heavy burden of reparations, which, coupled with the Great Depression, created conditions in which Adolf Hitler's National Socialist party was able to take control, creating the Third Reich and assisting the rise of nationalist parties in Spain, and Southern Europe. Hitler's invasion of Poland, Belgium and France signalled the beginning of the Second World War.
Allied victory in Europe and the surrender of Japan saw power in Central Europe shared by the Soviet Union, Great Britain, the United States of America and France. However, this quickly coalesced into the East-West blocs of the Cold War, where the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact faced NATO across the so-called Iron Curtain, visibly symbolised by the Berlin Wall. Western Europe was able to go through a prolonged period of economic development, aided by the creation of the European Economic Community and subsequently the European Union, but the Warsaw Pact countries languished, eventually resulting in Russian Perestroika, the collapse of the Pact and the destruction of the Berlin Wall. Europe's post-cold war experience has seen the rise of ethnic conflict again in the Balkans, notably in Serbia, Bosnia and Kosovo, with subsequent intervention by NATO.
As a consequence of the defeat of National Socialist Germany, Europe began a decline, most represented in the falling birth rates followed by the displacement of Europeans with the influx of foreign Third World immigrants.
