- For links to the history of individual countries in Europe see the end of this article.
Neanderthals settled
Europe long before the emergence of modern humans,
Homo sapiens.
The earliest appearance of modern people in Europe
has been dated to
35,000 B.C[?]. Evidence of permanent settlement dates from
7,000 B.C.
The first well-known civilization in Europe was that of the Minoans of the island of Crete and the Achaeans in the adjacent parts of Greece, starting at the beginning of the 2nd millennium B.C. Around the same time, the Celts spread over most of the interior as far as Iberic Peninsula (in our days Spain and Portugal), and later Anatolia. As they did not use a written language, knowledge of them is piecemeal. The Romans encountered them and recorded a great deal about them; these records and the results of archaeological digs form our primary understanding of this extremely influential culture. The Celts posed a formidable, if disorganized, competition to the Roman state, that later colonized and conquered much of the southern portion of Europe.
At the end of the
Bronze Age the older Greek kingdoms collapsed and a brilliant new civilization grew up in their place. The
Hellenic civilization took the form of a collection of city-states (the most important being
Athens and
Sparta), many having vastly differing types of government and cultures, including what are more-or-less unprecedented developments in various governmental forms,
philosophy,
science,
politics,
sports,
theater and
music. The Hellenic city-states founded a large number of colonies on the shores of the
Black Sea and all over the
Mediterranean sea, Asia Minor, Sicily and Southern Italy, but in the 4th century B.C. their internal wars made them an easy prey for king
Philip II of
Macedonia. 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 developments, known as
Hellenism.
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 real challenge to Roman ascent came from the
Phoenician colony of
Carthage, but its defeat in the end of the
3rd century B.C. marked the start of Roman hegemony. First governed by kings, then as a senatorial republic (see
Roman republic),
Rome finally became an empire at the end of the
1st century B.C., 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 the
Rhine and
Danube rivers; under emperor
Trajan (
2nd century A.D.) the empire reached its maximum expansion, including
England,
Rumania and parts of
Mesopotamia. The empire brought peace, civilization and an efficient centralized government to the subject territories, but in the
3rd century A.D. 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-sponsored persecution of Christians in
324 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).
Western
Europe emerged as the site of a distinct civilization after the fall of the Western
Roman Empire in the
5th century, as
barbarian invasions separated it from the rest of the Mediterranean, where the
Eastern Roman Empire (a.k.a.
Byzantine Empire) survived for another millennium. In the
7th century the
Arab expansion brought
Islamic cultures to the southern Mediterranean shores (from Turkey to
Sicily and Spain), further enlarging the differences between the various Mediterranean civilizations. Huge amounts of technology and learning were lost, trade languished and people returned to local agrarian communities.
Feudalism replaced the centralized Roman administration. The only institution surviving the collapse of the Roman Empire was the
Church, which preserved part of the Roman cultural inheritance and remained the only source of learning at least until the
13th century; the bishop of
Rome, known as the
Pope, became the leader of the western church (in the east his supremacy
was never accepted).
The Holy Roman Empire emerged around 800 AD, as Charlemagne, king of the Franks, subdued western Germany, large parts of Italy and chunks of surrounding countries; he received substantial help from an alliance with the Pope, who wanted to cut the remaining ties with the Byzantine Empire; in this way the domains of the Pope became an independent state in central Italy.
The subsequent period, ending around 1000 A.D., saw the further growth of feudalism, which weakened the Holy Roman Empire and the development of the
Church as a major power.
Early signs of the rebirth of western civilization 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 and
Spain, although the process of their formation (usually marked by rivalry between the monarchy, the aristocratic feudal lords and the church) actually took several centuries. 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.
One of the largest catastrophes to have hit Europe was the Black Death. There were numerous outbreaks, but the most severe in the mid-1300s is estimated to have killed a third of Europe's population. (? keep it ?)
The conventional end of the Middle Ages is usually associated with the fall of Constantinople and of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The Turks made the city (with the new name of Istanbul) the capital of their Ottoman Empire, which lasted until 1919 and also included Egypt, Syria and most of the Balkans.
In the
15th century, at the end of the
Middle Ages, powerful
nation states[?] had appeared. Contrariwise, the Church was losing much of its power because of corruption, internal conflicts, and the spread of culture leading to the
artistic,
philosophical,
scientific and
technological improvements of the
Renaissance era.
The new national states were frequently in a state of political flux and war. In particular, after Martin Luther started the Reformation in 1518, wars of politics and religion ravaged the continent: the schism of the dominant western church was to have major political, social and cultural implications for Europe. What became the split between Catholicism and Protestantism was particularly pronounced in England (where the king Henry VIII severed ties with Rome and proclaimed himself head of the church), and in Germany (where the Reformation united the various Protestant princes against the Catholic Hapsburg emperors).
The numerous wars did not prevent the new states from exploring and conquering wide portions of the world, particularly in Asia (Siberia) and in the newly-discovered
America. In the early
16th century Spain and
Portugal, who led the way in geographical exploration, were the first states to set up colonies in
South America and trade stations on the shores of
Africa and
Asia, but they were soon followed by France, England and the
Netherlands.
Colonial expansion proceeded in the following centuries (with some setbacks, such as the American Revolution and the wars of independence in many South American colonies). Spain had control of a great deal of South America and the Philippines; Britain took the whole of Australia, New Zealand, and India, and large parts of Africa and North America; France held proto-Canada and part of India (both lost to England in 1763), Indochina and large parts of Africa; the
Netherlands gained the East Indies (later known as Indonesia) and islands in the Caribbean; Portugal obtained Brazil and several territories in Africa and Asia; and later, powers like Germany, Belgium, Italy, Russia, the U.S.A. and Japan acquired further colonies.
Concise Overview of the Period:
- France: Wars of Religion/Bourbon Dynasty
- Scotland: Mary Queen of Scots
- England: Absolutism and Constitutionalism
- Commercial Revolution
- International Law
Thirty Years' War ...
the Enlightenment, Invention of the
printing press ...
History of Science and Technology ...
Industrial Revolution ...
At the end of the
18th century the refusal of the king
Louis XVI (endorsed by the nobility and the clergy) to share his political
powers with the so-called
Third Estate led to the
1789 French Revolution, a significant attempt to create a new form of government based on the principles of
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité (freedom, equality and brotherhood). The king was executed, France was proclaimed a
Republic and a sort of democratic government was established. In the subsequent turmoil (associated with the coalition of most European monarchies waging war against republican France) general
Napoleon Bonaparte took power. In the many wars of the
Napoleonic Era, he repeatedly defeated
Austria (whose emperor was forced to resign the title of Emperor of the
Holy Roman Empire),
Russia,
England,
Prussia and other powers. After being proclaimed French emperor in
1804, he was finally defeated in
1815 at
Waterloo.
After the defeat of revolutionary France, the other great powers tried to restore the situation which existed before
1789. 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; on the other hand, the
Industrial Revolution brought important economical and social changes, and the lower classes started to be influenced by
Socialist,
Communist and
Anarchistic ideas, especially those summarized by
Karl Marx in the
Manifesto of the Communist Party[?]. Further instability came from the formation of several
nationalist movements (in Germany, Italy,
Poland 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: even if the revolutionaries were often defeated, in 1871 most European states had become constitutional (rather than absolute) monarchies, and Germany and Italy had developed into nation states.
After the relatively peaceful
belle epoque, the rivalry between European powers exploded in
1914, when
World War I started. On one side were Germany, the
Austro-Hungarian Empire and Turkey (the
Central Powers), while on the other side stood Serbia and the
Triple Entente[?] - the loose alliance of France, Britain and Russia, which were joined by Italy in
1915 and by the United States in
1917. Despite the defeat of Russia in 1917 (the war was one of the major causes of the
Russian Revolution, leading to the formation of the communist
Soviet Union), the
Entente finally prevailed at the end of
1918.
In the Treaty of Versailles (1919) the winners imposed hard conditions on Germany and decided to form a number of new national states (such as Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia) in eastern Europe out of the defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire, with the aim of supporting national self-determination. In the following decades, the fear of Communism and the economic Depression post-1929 led to the rise of extreme governments - Fascist or Nazi - in Italy (1922), Germany (1933), Spain (after a civil war ending in 1939) and other countries such as Hungary.
Realising the impossibility of communism in one isolated country, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin planned wars in Europe and Asia. In the 1930s he supported the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany. In September 1939 they together divided Poland - the start of the invasion marks the beginning of World War II. In 1940 Stalin trained his forces in extreme conditions by attacking Finland (Winter War). Attack in less extreme conditions against a weakened Europe was planned to begin in July 1941. Some weeks earlier Germany declared war on the Soviet Union. Despite enormous losses the Soviet Union survived. With good diplomacy (making alliances with the U.S.A. and the rest of world by proving communism preferable to Nazism) and endless internal resources, the Soviet Union contrived to defend itself (up to battle of Stalingrad in 1942) and then to conquer half of Europe. Allied forces won in North Africa and invaded Italy in 1943 and France in 1944. In the spring of 1945 the Soviets and the other Allies invaded Germany itself in the east and the west respectively; Hitler committed suicide and Germany surrendered in early May. The last Axis power, Japan, surrendered in August 1945, after two atomic bombs destroyed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
World War I and especially
World War II ended the pre-eminent position of western Europe. The map of Europe was redrawn and divided as it became the principal zone of contention in the
Cold War between the two newly emergent world powers, the capitalistic
United States and the communist
Soviet Union. The U.S.A. placed western Europe (Britain, France, Italy,
West Germany, Spain etc.) under their sphere of influence, establishing the
NATO alliance as a protection against a possible Soviet invasion; the Soviet Union claimed eastern Europe (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria,
East Germany) and formed the
Warsaw Pact. Europe was divided by a "
Iron Curtain". This situation lasted until
1989, when the weakening of the
Soviet Union led to
glasnost and the ending of the division of Europe - Soviet satellites were free to remove Communist regimes (and the two Germanies were able to re-unify). In
1991 the Soviet Union itself collapsed, splitting into several
states (the main one remaining the
Russian Federation) and removing communists from most governments.
After the end of World War II, 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 organisations such as the European Union, a process which continues today (2003). See also the History of the European Union.
* Iceland is culturally and politically European, but geographically part of no continent. Iceland is member of the EFTA, and EEA, not of the EU.
* Greenland is politically European (i.e., belonging to Denmark), but it is geographically part of no continent. Greenland left the EEC in 1982.
** Although a small portion of Turkey's territory is in the continent of Europe, it is not clear whether Turkey is culturally European. Some say it is, and some not. Turkey is currently in talks to join the EU.
History of Europe/Towns - populations of cities in 1700 and 1800.