History of Europe
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
The history of Europe means all the time when humans lived in the European continent up to the present day.
The first evidence of Homo sapiens in Europe dates back to 35,000 BC. Europe's antiquity (ancient time) dates from Homer's Iliad in Ancient Greece of around 700 BC. The Roman Republic was established in 509 BC, which was usurped by Octavian's new Roman Empire at its first century peak. The Christian religion was adopted in the fourth century, and in the sixth was organized, within the Empire, by Emperor Justinian I (527–565) with five most important cities: Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria. The fall of the Western Roman Empire was followed by a decline of Western Europe followed. The Byzantine Empire kept civilization in the East. A schism within the church's authority in 1054 was added to the earlier division that had persisted since 451 and was followed by Crusades from west to rescue the east from Muslim invasion. Feudal society began to break down, as the Mongol invaders carried the Black Death with them.[1] Constantinople fell in 1453[2], yet the new world was discovered in 1492. Europe awoke from the medieval period through rediscovery of classical learning. The Renaissance was followed by the Protestant Reformation, as German priest Martin Luther attacked Papal authority. The Thirty Years War[3], the Treaty of Westphalia and the Glorious Revolution laid the basis for a new era of expansion and enlightenment.
The Industrial Revolution, beginning in Great Britain, allowed people for the first time to break from material subsistence.[4] The early British Empire split as its colonies in America revolted to establish a representative government. Political change in continental Europe was spurred by the French Revolution, as people cried out for liberté, egalité, fraternité. The French leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, conquered and reformed the social structure of the continent through war up to 1815. As more and more small property holders were granted the vote, in France and the UK, socialist and trade union activity developed and revolution gripped Europe in 1848. The last vestiges of serfdom were abolished in Austria-Hungary in 1848. Russian serfdom was abolished in 1861.[5] The Balkan nations began to regain their independence from the Ottoman Empire. After the Franco-Prussian War, Italy and Germany were formed from the groups of principalities in 1870 and 1871. Conflict spread across the globe, in a chase for empires, until the search for a place in the sun ended with the outbreak of World War I. In the desperation of war, the Russian Revolution promised the people "peace, bread and land". The defeat of Germany came at the price of economic destruction, codified into the Treaty of Versailles, manifested in the Great Depression and the return to a Second World War. With the victory of capitalism and communism over fascism, a cold new world order took shape. Western Europe formed a free trade area, divided by the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Europe signed a new treaty of union, which included 27 European countries in 2007.
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[change] References
- Europe: A History, by Norman Davies, published by Pimlico, ISBN 0-7126-6633-8
- Illustrated History of Europe", by Frederic Delouche, published by Henry Holt & Co ISBN-1-84188-108-2
- European History, by various authors, online book on Wikibooks
