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PreviewAdvancedSpecial charactersHelpHeadingLevel 2Level 3Level 4Level 5FormatInsertLatinLatin extendedIPASymbolsGreekGreek extendedCyrillicArabicArabic extendedHebrewBanglaTamilTeluguSinhalaDevanagariGujaratiThaiLaoKhmerCanadian AboriginalRunesÁáÀàÂâÄäÃãǍǎĀāĂ㥹ÅåĆćĈĉÇçČčĊċĐđĎďÉéÈèÊêËëĚěĒēĔĕĖėĘęĜĝĢģĞğĠġĤĥĦħÍíÌìÎîÏïĨĩǏǐĪīĬĭİıĮįĴĵĶķĹĺĻļĽľŁłŃńÑñŅņŇňÓóÒòÔôÖöÕõǑǒŌōŎŏǪǫŐőŔŕŖŗŘřŚśŜŝŞşŠšȘșȚțŤťÚúÙùÛûÜüŨũŮůǓǔŪūǖǘǚǜŬŭŲųŰűŴŵÝýŶŷŸÿȲȳŹźŽžŻżÆæǢǣØøŒœßÐðÞþƏəFormattingLinksHeadingsListsFilesDiscussionReferencesDescriptionWhat you typeWhat you getItalic''Italic text''Italic textBold'''Bold text'''Bold textBold & italic'''''Bold & italic text'''''Bold & italic textDescriptionWhat you typeWhat you getReferencePage text.<ref>[https://www.example.org/ Link text], additional text.</ref>Page text.[1]Named referencePage text.<ref name="test">[https://www.example.org/ Link text]</ref>Page text.[2]Additional use of the same referencePage text.<ref name="test" />Page text.[2]Display references<references />↑ Link text, additional text.↑ Link text==History== {{Main|History of Europe}} ===Prehistory=== {{Main|Prehistoric Europe}} [[Image:Europe20000ya.png|thumb|[[Last Glacial Maximum refugia]], c. 20,000 years ago<br /> {{legend|#c54b00|[[Solutrean]] culture}} {{legend|#ca00b0|[[Epigravettian]] culture<ref name="Nature-2023"/>}} ]] [[File:Lascaux painting.jpg|thumb|Paleolithic cave paintings from [[Lascaux]] in [[France]] ({{c.}} 15,000 BCE)]] [[File:Stonehenge, Condado de Wiltshire, Inglaterra, 2014-08-12, DD 09.JPG|thumb|[[Stonehenge]] in the [[United Kingdom]] (Late Neolithic from 3000 to 2000 BCE)]] During the 2.5 million years of the [[Pleistocene]], numerous cold phases called [[Glacial period|glacials]] ([[Quaternary glaciation|Quaternary ice age]]), or significant advances of continental ice sheets, in Europe and North America, occurred at intervals of approximately 40,000 to 100,000 years. The long glacial periods were separated by more temperate and shorter [[interglacial]]s which lasted about 10,000–15,000 years. The last cold episode of the [[last glacial period]] ended about 10,000 years ago.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/prehistoric-world/quaternary|title=Quaternary Period|magazine=National Geographic|date=6 January 2017|access-date=30 July 2022|archive-date=29 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201129042714/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/prehistoric-world/quaternary/|url-status=dead}}</ref> Earth is currently in an interglacial period of the Quaternary, called the [[Holocene]].<ref>{{cite news |title=How long can we expect the present Interglacial period to last? |url=https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-long-can-we-expect-present-interglacial-period-last |work=U.S. Department of the Interior |access-date=30 July 2022 |archive-date=26 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220726044340/http://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-long-can-we-expect-present-interglacial-period-last |url-status=live }}</ref> ''[[Homo erectus georgicus]]'', which lived roughly 1.8 million years ago in [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]], is the earliest [[Hominini|hominin]] to have been discovered in Europe.<ref>{{Cite journal|author1=A. Vekua |author2=D. Lordkipanidze |author3=G.P. Rightmire |author4=J. Agusti |author5=R. Ferring |author6=G. Maisuradze |s2cid=32726786 | year = 2002 | title = A new skull of early ''Homo'' from Dmanisi, Georgia | journal = Science | volume = 297 | pages = 85–89 | doi = 10.1126/science.1072953 | pmid = 12098694 | issue = 5578 |display-authors=etal|bibcode=2002Sci...297...85V }}</ref> [[Homo antecessor|Other]] hominin remains, dating back roughly 1 million years, have been discovered in [[Archaeological Site of Atapuerca|Atapuerca]], [[Spain]].<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6256356.stm The million year old tooth from ] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210922200046/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6256356.stm |date=22 September 2021 }} [[Atapuerca Mountains|Atapuerca]], [[Spain]], found in June 2007</ref> [[Neanderthal man]] (named after the [[Neandertal (valley)|Neandertal valley]] in [[Germany]]) appeared in Europe 150,000 years ago (115,000 years ago it is found already in the territory of present-day [[Poland]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/10/health/neanderthal-child-eaten-by-giant-bird/index.html|title=Bones reveal Neanderthal child was eaten by a giant bird|first=Ashley|last=Strickland|website=CNN|date=10 October 2018|access-date=30 July 2022|archive-date=7 July 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220707235740/https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/10/health/neanderthal-child-eaten-by-giant-bird/index.html|url-status=live}}</ref>) and disappeared from the fossil record about 40,000 years ago,<ref>{{cite news |title=Neanderthals Died Out 10,000 Years Earlier Than Thought, With Help From Modern Humans |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/140820-neanderthal-dating-bones-archaeology-science |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210218071546/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/140820-neanderthal-dating-bones-archaeology-science |url-status=dead |archive-date=18 February 2021 |work=National Geographic |date=21 August 2014}}</ref> with their final refuge being the Iberian Peninsula. The Neanderthals were supplanted by modern humans ([[Cro-Magnons]]), who appeared in Europe around 43,000 to 40,000 years ago.<ref name="natgeo 21">National Geographic, 21.</ref> Homo sapiens arrived in Europe around 54,000 years ago, some 10,000 years earlier than previously thought.<ref>{{cite journal | doi=10.1038/d41586-022-01593-3 | title=My work digging up the shelters of our ancestors | year=2022 | last1=Fleming | first1=Nic | journal=Nature | volume=606 | issue=7916 | page=1035 | pmid=35676354 | bibcode=2022Natur.606.1035F | s2cid=249520231 | doi-access=free }}</ref> The earliest sites in Europe dated 48,000 years ago are [[Riparo Mochi]] (Italy), [[Geissenklösterle]] (Germany) and [[Isturitz]] (France).<ref name=range>{{cite journal |last1=Fu |first1=Qiaomei |display-authors=etal|title=The genome sequence of a 45,000-year-old modern human from western Siberia |journal=Nature |volume=514 |issue=7523 |pages=445–449 |date=23 October 2014 |doi=10.1038/nature13810|pmid=25341783 |pmc=4753769 |bibcode=2014Natur.514..445F |hdl=10550/42071 }}</ref><ref>42.7–41.5 ka ([[68–95–99.7 rule|1σ CI]]). {{cite journal | last1 = Douka | first1 = Katerina | display-authors = etal | year = 2012| title = A new chronostratigraphic framework for the Upper Palaeolithic of Riparo Mochi (Italy) | journal = Journal of Human Evolution | volume = 62 | issue = 2| pages = 286–299 | doi = 10.1016/j.jhevol.2011.11.009 | pmid = 22189428 }}</ref> 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 7000 BCE in [[Greece]] and the [[Balkans]], probably influenced by earlier farming practices in [[Anatolia]] and the [[Near East]].<ref name="Borza">{{Citation | last = Borza | first = E.N. | title = In the Shadow of Olympus: The Emergence of Macedon | page = 58 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=614pd07OtfQC&pg=PA58 | publisher = Princeton University Press | year = 1992 | isbn = 978-0-691-00880-6 | access-date = 30 July 2022 | archive-date = 1 August 2020 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200801114047/https://books.google.com/books?id=614pd07OtfQC&pg=PA58 | url-status = live }}</ref> It spread from the Balkans along the valleys of the [[Danube]] and the [[Rhine]] ([[Linear Pottery culture]]), and along the [[Mediterranean coast]] ([[Cardial Ware|Cardial culture]]). Between 4500 and 3000 BCE, these central European neolithic cultures developed further to the west and the north, transmitting newly acquired skills in producing copper artifacts. In Western Europe the Neolithic period was characterised not by large agricultural settlements but by field monuments, such as [[causewayed enclosure]]s, [[burial mound]]s and [[megalithic tomb]]s.<ref>{{Cite book|first=Chris|last=Scarre|author-link=Chris Scarre|title=The Oxford Companion to Archaeology|editor-first=Brian M.|editor-last= Fagan|publisher= [[Oxford University Press]]|year=1996|pages=215–216|isbn=978-0-19-507618-9|editor-link=Brian M. Fagan}}</ref> The [[Corded Ware]] cultural horizon flourished at the transition from the Neolithic to the [[Chalcolithic]]. During this period giant [[megalithic]] monuments, such as the [[Megalithic Temples of Malta]] and [[Stonehenge]], were constructed throughout Western and Southern Europe.<ref>[[Richard J. C. Atkinson|Atkinson, R.J.C.]], ''Stonehenge'' ([[Penguin Books]], 1956)</ref><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Prehistory|title=European Megalithic|volume=4 |editor1-first=Peter Neal|editor1-last=Peregrine|editor1-link=Peter N. Peregrine|editor2-first=Melvin|editor2-last=Ember|editor2-link=Melvin Ember|publisher=Springer|year= 2001 |isbn=978-0-306-46258-0|pages=157–184}}</ref> The modern native populations of Europe largely descend from three distinct lineages:<ref name="Indo-European"/> Mesolithic [[hunter-gatherer]]s, descended from populations associated with the Paleolithic [[Epigravettian]] culture;<ref name="Nature-2023">{{cite journal |last1=Posth|last2= Yu|last3=Ghalichi|title=Palaeogenomics of Upper Palaeolithic to Neolithic European hunter-gatherers |journal=[[Nature (journal)|Nature]] |date=2023 |volume=615 |issue=2 March 2023 |pages=117–126 |doi=10.1038/s41586-023-05726-0 |pmid=36859578 |pmc=9977688 |bibcode=2023Natur.615..117P }}</ref> Neolithic [[Early European Farmers]] who migrated from Anatolia during the [[Neolithic Revolution]] 9,000 years ago;<ref>{{cite news |title=When the First Farmers Arrived in Europe, Inequality Evolved |url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-the-first-farmers-arrived-in-europe-inequality-evolved/ |work=Scientific American |date=1 July 2020}}</ref> and [[Yamnaya culture|Yamnaya]] [[Western Steppe Herders|Steppe herders]] who expanded into Europe from the [[Pontic–Caspian steppe]] of Ukraine and southern Russia in the context of [[Indo-European migrations]] 5,000 years ago.<ref name="Indo-European">{{Cite journal|last1=Haak |first1=Wolfgang |last2=Lazaridis |first2=Iosif |last3=Patterson |first3=Nick |last4=Rohland |first4=Nadin |last5=Mallick |first5=Swapan |last6=Llamas |first6=Bastien |last7=Brandt |first7=Guido |last8=Nordenfelt |first8=Susanne |last9=Harney |first9=Eadaoin |last10=Stewardson |first10=Kristin |last11=Fu |first11=Qiaomei |date=11 June 2015 |title=Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe |journal=[[Nature (journal)|Nature]] |volume=522 |issue=7555 |pages=207–211 |doi=10.1038/nature14317 |issn=0028-0836 |pmc=5048219 |pmid=25731166 |bibcode=2015Natur.522..207H |arxiv=1502.02783}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gibbons |first1=Ann |title=Thousands of horsemen may have swept into Bronze Age Europe, transforming the local population |journal=Science |date=21 February 2017 |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/thousands-horsemen-may-have-swept-bronze-age-europe-transforming-local-population}}</ref> The [[European Bronze Age]] began c. 3200 BCE in Greece with the [[Minoan civilization|Minoan civilisation]] on [[Crete]], the first advanced civilisation in Europe.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/cultures/europe/ancient_greece.aspx |publisher=British Museum |title=Ancient Greece |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120615141437/http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/cultures/europe/ancient_greece.aspx |archive-date=15 June 2012 }}</ref> The Minoans were followed by the [[Mycenean Greece|Myceneans]], who collapsed suddenly around 1200 BCE, ushering the [[European Iron Age]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/classical-archaeology-periods.html|title=Periods – School of Archaeology|publisher=University of Oxford|access-date=25 December 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181119063421/http://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/classical-archaeology-periods.html|archive-date=19 November 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref> Iron Age colonisation by the [[Greeks]] and [[Phoenicians]] gave rise to early [[Mediterranean basin|Mediterranean]] cities. Early [[Iron Age Italy]] and [[Archaic Greece|Greece]] from around the 8th century BCE gradually gave rise to historical Classical antiquity, whose beginning is sometimes dated to 776 BCE, the year of the first [[ancient Olympic Games|Olympic Games]].<ref>{{Citation | first = John R. | last = Short | title = An Introduction to Urban Geography | page = 10 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=uGE9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA10 | publisher = Routledge | year = 1987 | isbn = 978-0-7102-0372-4 | access-date = 30 July 2022 | archive-date = 20 March 2022 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220320034104/https://books.google.com/books?id=uGE9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA10 | url-status = live }}</ref> ===Classical antiquity=== {{Main|Classical antiquity}} {{See also|Ancient Greece|Ancient Rome}} [[File:The Parthenon in Athens.jpg|thumb|The [[Parthenon]] in [[Athens]] (432 BCE)]] Ancient Greece was the founding culture of Western civilisation. Western [[democracy|democratic]] and [[rationalism|rationalist culture]] are often attributed to Ancient Greece.<ref name="Daly2013">{{cite book|first=Jonathan|last=Daly|title=The Rise of Western Power: A Comparative History of Western Civilization|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9aZPAQAAQBAJ|year=2013|publisher=A&C Black|isbn=978-1-4411-1851-6|pages=7–9|access-date=30 July 2022|archive-date=28 April 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220428191428/https://books.google.com/books?id=9aZPAQAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> The Greek city-state, the [[polis]], was the fundamental political unit of classical Greece.<ref name="Daly2013"/> In 508 BCE, [[Cleisthenes]] instituted the world's first [[Athenian democracy|democratic]] system of government in [[Athens]].<ref name="BKDunn1992">{{Citation | first = John | last = Dunn | title = Democracy: the unfinished journey 508 BCE – 1993 CE | publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 1994 | isbn = 978-0-19-827934-1}}</ref> The 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]];<ref name="natgeo 76">National Geographic, 76.</ref> in drama with [[Sophocles]] and [[Euripides]]; in medicine with [[Hippocrates]] and [[Galen]]; and in science with [[Pythagoras]], [[Euclid]] and [[Archimedes]].<ref name="Heath">{{Cite book| first=Thomas Little | last=Heath| author-link= T. L. Heath| title=A History of Greek Mathematics, Volume I| publisher=[[Dover Publications]]| year=1981| isbn=978-0-486-24073-2}}</ref><ref name="Heath_Vol_2">{{Cite book| first=Thomas Little| last=Heath| author-link= T. L. Heath| title=A History of Greek Mathematics, Volume II| publisher=Dover publications| year=1981| isbn=978-0-486-24074-9}}</ref><ref>Pedersen, Olaf. ''Early Physics and Astronomy: A Historical Introduction''. 2nd edition. Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]], 1993.</ref> In the course of the 5th century BCE, several of the Greek [[city states]] would ultimately check the [[Achaemenid Empire|Achaemenid Persian]] advance in Europe through the [[Greco-Persian Wars]], considered a pivotal moment in world history,<ref name="Strauss2005">{{cite book|first=Barry|last=Strauss|title=The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter That Saved Greece – and Western Civilization|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nQFtMcD5dOsC|year=2005|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=978-0-7432-7453-1|pages=1–11|access-date=30 July 2022|archive-date=23 June 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220623162126/https://books.google.com/books?id=nQFtMcD5dOsC|url-status=live}}</ref> as the 50 years of peace that followed are known as [[Fifth-century Athens|Golden Age of Athens]], the seminal period of ancient Greece that laid many of the foundations of Western civilisation. [[File:Roman Republic Empire map.gif|thumb|Animation showing the growth and division of [[Ancient Rome]] (years CE) ]] Greece was followed by [[Ancient Rome|Rome]], which left its mark on [[Roman law|law]], [[politics]], [[Latin|language]], [[Roman engineering|engineering]], [[Roman architecture|architecture]], [[Centralized government|government]] and many more key aspects in western civilisation.<ref name="Daly2013"/> By 200 BCE, Rome had conquered [[Roman Italy|Italy]] and over the following two centuries it conquered [[Ancient Greece|Greece]] and [[Hispania]] ([[Spain]] and [[Portugal]]), the [[North Africa]]n coast, much of the [[Middle East]], [[Gaul]] ([[France]] and [[Belgium]]) and [[Roman Britain|Britannia]] ([[England]] and [[Wales]]). Expanding from their base in central Italy beginning in the third century BCE, the Romans gradually expanded to eventually rule the entire Mediterranean Basin and Western Europe by the turn of the millennium. The [[Roman Republic]] ended in 27 BCE, when [[Augustus]] proclaimed the [[Roman Empire]]. The two centuries that followed are known as the ''[[pax romana]]'', a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity and political stability in most of Europe.<ref name="mieawl">{{Cite book|last=McEvedy|first=Colin|title=The Penguin Atlas of Medieval History|publisher=Penguin Books|year=1961}}</ref> The empire continued to expand under emperors such as [[Antoninus Pius]] and [[Marcus Aurelius]], who spent time on the Empire's northern border fighting [[Germanic peoples|Germanic]], [[Picts|Pictish]] and [[Scottish people|Scottish]] tribes.<ref name="natgeo 123">National Geographic, 123.</ref><ref>Foster, Sally M., ''Picts, Gaels, and Scots: Early Historic Scotland.'' Batsford, London, 2004. {{ISBN|0-7134-8874-3}}</ref> [[Christianity]] was [[Constantine the Great and Christianity|legalised]] by [[Constantine I]] in 313 CE after three centuries of [[Persecution of early Christians in the Roman Empire|imperial persecution]]. Constantine also permanently moved the capital of the empire from Rome to the city of [[Byzantium]] (modern-day [[Istanbul]]) which was renamed [[Constantinople]] in his honour in 330 CE. Christianity became the sole official religion of the empire in 380 CE and in 391–392 CE, the emperor [[Theodosius I|Theodosius]] outlawed pagan religions.<ref name="FriellWilliams2005">{{cite book|first1=Stephen|last1=Williams|first2=Gerard|last2=Friell|title=Theodosius: The Empire at Bay|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I8KRAgAAQBAJ|year=2005|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-78262-7|page=105|access-date=30 July 2022|archive-date=30 May 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220530232720/https://books.google.com/books?id=I8KRAgAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> This is sometimes considered to mark the end of antiquity; alternatively antiquity is considered to end with the [[fall of the Western Roman Empire]] in 476 CE; the closure of the pagan [[Platonic Academy|Platonic Academy of Athens]] in 529 CE;<ref>{{cite book |title=A History of Greek Literature |last=Hadas |first=Moses |year=1950 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-01767-1 |pages=273, 327 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dOht3609JOMC&pg=PA273 |access-date=30 July 2022 |archive-date=21 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220521051042/https://books.google.com/books?id=dOht3609JOMC&pg=PA273 |url-status=live }}</ref> or the rise of Islam in the early 7th century CE. During most of its existence, the [[Byzantine Empire]] was one of the most powerful economic, cultural, and military forces in Europe.<ref>{{Harvnb|Laiou|Morisson|2007|pp=130–131}}; {{Harvnb|Pounds|1979|p=124}}.</ref> ===Early Middle Ages=== {{Main|Late Antiquity|Early Middle Ages}} {{See also|Dark Ages (historiography){{!}}Dark Ages|Age of Migrations}} {{Multiple image | align = left | direction = vertical | width = 240 | image1 = Europe around 650.jpg | caption1 = Europe c. 650 | image2 = Frankish Empire 481 to 814-en.svg | footer = [[Carolingian Empire|Charlemagne's empire]] in 814: {{Legend0|#3CB371|Francia}}, {{Legend0|#FAEBD7|Tributaries}} }} 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 (tribe)|Angles]], [[Saxons]], [[Slavs]], [[Pannonian Avars|Avars]], [[Bulgars]] and, later on, the [[Vikings]], [[Pechenegs]], [[Cumans]] and [[Magyars]].<ref name="mieawl"/> [[Renaissance]] thinkers such as [[Petrarch]] would later refer to this as the "Dark Ages".<ref>''Journal of the History of Ideas'', Vol. 4, No. 1. (January 1943), pp. 69–74.</ref> 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 Western Europe, though they were preserved in the east, in the Byzantine Empire.<ref>[[Norman Cantor|Norman F. Cantor]], ''The Medieval World 300 to 1300''.</ref> While the Roman empire in the west continued to decline, Roman traditions and the Roman state remained strong in the predominantly Greek-speaking [[Eastern Roman Empire]], also known as the [[Byzantine Empire]]. During most of its existence, the Byzantine Empire was the most powerful economic, cultural and military force in Europe. Emperor [[Justinian I]] presided over Constantinople's first golden age: he established a [[Code of Justinian|legal code]] that forms the basis of many modern legal systems, funded the construction of the [[Hagia Sophia]] and brought the Christian church under state control.<ref name="natgeo 135">National Geographic, 135.</ref> From the 7th century onwards, as the Byzantines and neighbouring [[Sasanids|Sasanid Persians]] were severely weakened due to the protracted, centuries-lasting and frequent [[Byzantine–Sasanian wars]], the Muslim Arabs began to make inroads into historically Roman territory, taking the Levant and North Africa and making inroads into [[Asia Minor]]. In the mid-7th century, following the [[Muslim conquest of Persia]], Islam penetrated into the [[Caucasus]] region.<ref>{{cite book |quote=(..) It is difficult to establish exactly when Islam first appeared in Russia because the lands that Islam penetrated early in its expansion were not part of Russia at the time, but were later incorporated into the expanding Russian Empire. Islam reached the Caucasus region in the middle of the seventh century as part of the Arab [[Muslim conquest of Persia|conquest]] of the Iranian Sassanian Empire.|title=Islam in Russia: The Politics of Identity and Security|first=Shireen |last= Hunter | publisher= M.E. Sharpe | date = 2004 |page=3 |display-authors=etal}}</ref> Over the next centuries Muslim forces took [[Cyprus in the Middle Ages|Cyprus]], [[Malta]], [[Emirate of Crete|Crete]], [[Emirate of Sicily|Sicily]] and [[history of Islam in southern Italy|parts of southern Italy]].<ref>Kennedy, Hugh (1995). "The Muslims in Europe". In McKitterick, Rosamund, ''The New Cambridge Medieval History: c. 500 – c. 700'', pp. 249–272. Cambridge University Press. 052136292X.</ref> Between 711 and 720, most of the lands of the [[Visigothic Kingdom]] of [[Iberian Peninsula|Iberia]] was brought under [[Muslim]] rule—save for small areas in the north-west ([[Asturias]]) and largely [[Basque people|Basque]] regions in the [[Pyrenees]]. This territory, under the Arabic name [[Al-Andalus]], became part of the expanding [[Umayyad Caliphate]]. The unsuccessful [[Siege of Constantinople (717–718)|second siege of Constantinople]] (717) weakened the [[Umayyad|Umayyad dynasty]] and reduced their prestige. The Umayyads were then defeated by the [[Francia|Frankish]] leader [[Charles Martel]] at the [[Battle of Tours|Battle of Poitiers]] in 732, which ended their northward advance. In the remote regions of north-western Iberia and the middle [[Pyrenees]] the power of the Muslims in the south was scarcely felt. It was here that the foundations of the Christian kingdoms of [[Kingdom of Asturias|Asturias]], [[Kingdom of Leon|Leon]] and [[Kingdom of Galicia|Galicia]] were laid and from where the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula would start. However, no coordinated attempt would be made to drive the [[Moors]] out. The Christian kingdoms were mainly focused on their own internal power struggles. As a result, the [[Reconquista]] took the greater part of eight hundred years, in which period a long list of Alfonsos, Sanchos, Ordoños, Ramiros, Fernandos and Bermudos would be fighting their Christian rivals as much as the Muslim invaders. [[File:Europe 843ad viking incursions map.png|thumb|250px|[[Viking]] raids and division of the Frankish Empire at the [[Treaty of Verdun]] in 843]] During the Dark Ages, the [[Western Roman Empire]] fell under the control of various tribes. The Germanic and Slav tribes established their domains over Western and Eastern Europe, respectively.<ref name="natgeo 143">National Geographic, 143–145.</ref> Eventually the Frankish tribes were united under [[Clovis I]].<ref name="natgeo 162">National Geographic, 162.</ref> [[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 in 962 to the founding of the [[Holy Roman Empire]], which eventually became centred in the German principalities of central Europe.<ref name="natgeo 166">National Geographic, 166.</ref> [[East Central Europe]] saw the creation of the first Slavic states and the adoption of [[Christianity]] ({{nowrap|{{c.}} 1000 CE)}}. The powerful [[West Slavs|West Slavic]] state of [[Great Moravia]] spread its territory all the way south to the Balkans, reaching its largest territorial extent under [[Svatopluk I of Moravia|Svatopluk I]] and causing a series of armed conflicts with [[East Francia]]. Further south, the first [[South Slavs|South Slavic states]] emerged in the late 7th and 8th century and adopted [[Christianity]]: the [[First Bulgarian Empire]], the [[Principality of Serbia (early medieval)|Serbian Principality]] (later [[Kingdom of Serbia (medieval)|Kingdom]] and [[Serbian Empire|Empire]]) and the [[Duchy of Croatia]] (later [[Kingdom of Croatia (925–1102)|Kingdom of Croatia]]). To the East, [[Kievan Rus']] expanded from its capital in [[Kiev]] to become the largest state in Europe by the 10th century. In 988, [[Vladimir the Great]] adopted [[Russian Orthodox Church|Orthodox Christianity]] as the religion of state.{{sfn|Bulliet|Crossley|Headrick|Hirsch|2011|page=250}}{{sfn|Brown|Anatolios|Palmer|2009|page=66}} Further East, [[Volga Bulgaria]] became an Islamic state in the 10th century, but was eventually absorbed into Russia several centuries later.<ref>Gerald Mako, "The Islamization of the Volga Bulghars: A Question Reconsidered", Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 18, 2011, 199–223.</ref> ===High and Late Middle Ages=== {{Main|High Middle Ages|Late Middle Ages|Middle Ages}} {{See also|Medieval demography}} [[File:Mappa delle Repubbliche marinare italiane con stemmi civici.svg|thumb|180px|The [[maritime republics]] of medieval [[Italy]] reestablished contacts between Europe, Asia and Africa with extensive trade networks and colonies across the Mediterranean, and had an essential role in the [[Crusades]].<ref>Marc'Antonio Bragadin, ''Storia delle Repubbliche marinare'', Odoya, Bologna 2010, 240 pp., {{ISBN|978-88-6288-082-4}}</ref><ref>G. Benvenuti, ''Le Repubbliche Marinare. Amalfi, Pisa, Genova, Venezia'', Newton & Compton editori, Roma 1989</ref>]] The period between the year 1000 and 1250 is known as the [[High Middle Ages]], followed by the [[Late Middle Ages]] until c. 1500. During the High Middle Ages the population of Europe experienced significant growth, culminating in the [[Renaissance of the 12th century]]. Economic growth, together with the lack of safety on the mainland trading routes, made possible the development of major commercial routes along the coast of the [[Mediterranean Sea|Mediterranean]] and [[Baltic Sea]]s. The growing wealth and independence acquired by some coastal cities gave the [[Maritime Republics]] a leading role in the European scene. The Middle Ages on the mainland 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.<ref name="natgeo 158">National Geographic, 158.</ref> A struggle for influence between the [[nobility]] and the [[monarchy]] in England led to the writing of [[Magna Carta]] and the establishment of a [[parliament]].<ref name="natgeo 186">National Geographic, 186.</ref> The primary source of culture in this period came from the [[Roman Catholic Church]]. Through monasteries and [[cathedral school]]s, the Church was responsible for education in much of Europe.<ref name="natgeo 158"/> [[File:Philip II and Tancred meeting in Messina - British Library Royal MS 16 G vi f350r (detail).jpg|thumbnail|upright=0.9|left|[[Tancred of Sicily]] and [[Philip II of France]], during the [[Third Crusade]] (1189–1192)]] The [[Papacy]] reached the height of its power during the High Middle Ages. An [[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]].<ref name="natgeo 192">National Geographic, 192.</ref> In Europe itself, the Church organised the [[Inquisition]] against heretics. In the [[Iberian Peninsula]], the [[Reconquista]] concluded with the [[Granada War#Last stand at Granada|fall of Granada in 1492]], ending over seven centuries of Islamic rule in the south-western peninsula.<ref name="natgeo 199">National Geographic, 199.</ref> In the east, a resurgent Byzantine Empire recaptured Crete and Cyprus from the Muslims, and reconquered the Balkans. Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe from the 9th to the 12th centuries, with a population of approximately 400,000.<ref>{{harvnb|Laiou|Morisson|2007|pp=130–131}}; {{harvnb|Pounds|1979|p=124}}.</ref> The Empire was weakened following the defeat at [[Battle of Manzikert|Manzikert]], and was weakened considerably by the [[Siege of Constantinople (1204)|sack of Constantinople in 1204]], during the [[Fourth Crusade]].<ref name="DuikerSpielvogel2010">{{cite book|first1=William J.|last1=Duiker|first2=Jackson J.|last2=Spielvogel|title=The Essential World History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UJpI18JaEL0C&pg=PA330|access-date=20 January 2013|year=2010|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-0-495-90227-0|page=330|quote=The Byzantine Empire also interacted with the world of Islam to its east and the new European civilization of the west. Both interactions proved costly and ultimately fatal.|archive-date=11 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130511203023/http://books.google.com/books?id=UJpI18JaEL0C&pg=PA330|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Findlay2006">{{cite book|first=Ronald|last=Findlay|title=Eli Heckscher, International Trade, And Economic History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VOE-sRivB6kC&pg=PA179|access-date=20 January 2013|year=2006|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-06251-0|pages=178–179|quote=These Christian allies did not accept the authority of Byzantium, and the Fourth Crusade that sacked Constantinople and established the so-called Latin Empire that lasted until 1261 was a fatal wound from which the empire never recovered until its fall at the hands of the Ottoman Turks in 1453 (Queller and Madden 1997).|archive-date=11 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130511210105/http://books.google.com/books?id=VOE-sRivB6kC&pg=PA179|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Browning1992">{{cite book|first=Robert|last=Browning|title=The Byzantine Empire|url=https://archive.org/details/byzantineempire0000brow|url-access=registration|access-date=20 January 2013|year=1992|publisher=CUA Press|isbn=978-0-8132-0754-4|page=[https://archive.org/details/byzantineempire0000brow/page/253 253]|quote=And though the final blow was struck by the Ottoman Turks, it can plausibly be argued that the fatal injury was inflicted by the Latin crusaders in 1204.|edition=Revised}}</ref><ref name="Byfield2008">{{cite book|first=Ted|last=Byfield|title=A Glorious Disaster: A.D. 1100 to 1300: The Crusades: Blood, Valor, Iniquity, Reason, Faith|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o8hJgj5q5IEC&pg=PA136|access-date=20 January 2013|year=2008|publisher=Christian History Project|isbn=978-0-9689873-7-7|page=136|quote=continue to stand for another 250 before ultimately falling to the Muslim Turks, but it had been irrevocably weakened by the Fourth Crusade.|archive-date=11 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130511204709/http://books.google.com/books?id=o8hJgj5q5IEC&pg=PA136|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Golna2004">{{cite book|first=Cornelia|last=Golna|title=City of Man's Desire: A Novel of Constantinople|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xHXGa8HSQIQC&pg=PA424|access-date=20 January 2013|year=2004|publisher=Go-Bos Press|isbn=978-90-804114-4-9|page=424|quote=1204 The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople, destroying and pillaging many of its treasures, fatally weakening the empire both economically and militarily|archive-date=11 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130511214428/http://books.google.com/books?id=xHXGa8HSQIQC&pg=PA424|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Powell2001">{{cite book|first=John|last=Powell|title=Magill's Guide to Military History: A-Cor|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lBYZAQAAIAAJ|access-date=20 January 2013|year=2001|publisher=Salem Press|isbn=978-0-89356-015-7|quote=However, the fifty-seven years of plunder that followed made the Byzantine Empire, even when it retook the capital in 1261, genuinely weak. Beginning in 1222, the empire was further weakened by a civil war that lasted until 1355. ... When the Ottomans overran their lands and besieged Constantinople in 1453, sheer poverty and weakness were the causes of the capital city's final fall.|archive-date=11 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130511212456/http://books.google.com/books?id=lBYZAQAAIAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Irvin2002">{{cite book|first=Dale T.|last=Irvin|title=History of the World Christian Movement: Volume 1: Earliest Christianity To 1453|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C2akvQfa-QMC&pg=PA405|access-date=20 January 2013|date= 2002|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-567-08866-6|page=405|quote=Not only did the fourth crusade further harden the resentments Greek-speaking Christians felt toward the Latin West, but it further weakened the empire of Constantinople, many say fatally so. After the restoration of Greek imperial rule the city survived as the capital of Byzantium for another two centuries, but it never fully recovered.|archive-date=11 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130511205749/http://books.google.com/books?id=C2akvQfa-QMC&pg=PA405|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Frucht2004">{{cite book|first=Richard C.|last=Frucht|title=Eastern Europe: An Introduction to the People, Lands, and Culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lVBB1a0rC70C&pg=PA856|access-date=20 January 2013|year=2004|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-57607-800-6|page=856|quote=Although the empire was revived, the events of 1204 had so weakened Byzantium that it was no longer a great power.|archive-date=11 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130511213734/http://books.google.com/books?id=lVBB1a0rC70C&pg=PA856|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="DuikerSpielvogel2010v2">{{cite book|first1=William J.|last1=Duiker|first2=Jackson J.|last2=Spielvogel|title=The Essential World History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UJpI18JaEL0C&pg=PA386|access-date=20 January 2013|year=2010|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-0-495-90227-0|page=386|quote=Later they established themselves in the Anatolian peninsula at the expense of the Byzantine Empire. ... The Byzantines, however, had been severely weakened by the sack of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade (in 1204) and the Western occupation of much of the empire for the next half century.|archive-date=11 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130511220210/http://books.google.com/books?id=UJpI18JaEL0C&pg=PA386|url-status=live}}</ref> Although it would recover Constantinople in 1261, [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantium]] [[Fall of Constantinople|fell in 1453]] when [[Fall of Constantinople|Constantinople was taken]] by the [[Ottoman Empire]].<ref name="natgeo 211">National Geographic, 211.</ref><ref name="Peters2006">{{cite book|first=Ralph|last=Peters|title=New Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy|url=https://archive.org/details/newgloryexpandin00pete|url-access=registration|access-date=20 January 2013|date=2006|publisher=Sentinel|isbn=978-1-59523-030-0|quote=Western Christians, not Muslims, fatally crippled Byzantine power and opened Islam's path into the West.}}</ref><ref name="Chronicles">{{cite book|title=Chronicles|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ay0RAQAAMAAJ|access-date=20 January 2013|year=2005|publisher=Rockford Institute|quote=two-and-a-half centuries to recover from the Fourth Crusade before the Ottomans finally took Constantinople in 1453, ... They fatally wounded Byzantium, which was the main cause of its weakened condition when the Muslim onslaught came. Even on the eve of its final collapse, the precondition for any Western help was submission in Florence.|archive-date=11 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130511220240/http://books.google.com/books?id=Ay0RAQAAMAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> [[File:Mongols suzdal.jpg|thumb|upright|The sacking of [[Suzdal]] by [[Batu Khan]] in 1238, during the [[Mongol invasion of Europe]] (1220s–1240s)]] In the 11th and 12th centuries, constant incursions by nomadic [[Turkic peoples|Turkic]] tribes, such as the [[Pechenegs]] and the [[Cuman-Kipchak Confederation|Cuman-Kipchaks]], caused a massive migration of [[Slavic peoples|Slavic]] populations to the safer, heavily forested regions of the north, and temporarily halted the expansion of the Rus' state to the south and east.<ref name="Klyuch1">{{Cite book|last=Klyuchevsky|first=Vasily|title=The course of the Russian history|url=http://www.kulichki.com/inkwell/text/special/history/kluch/kluch16.htm|isbn=978-5-244-00072-6|year=1987|publisher="Myslʹ|access-date=2022-07-30|archive-date=2007-10-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071024124216/http://www.kulichki.com/inkwell/text/special/history/kluch/kluch16.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> Like many other parts of [[Eurasia]], these territories were [[Mongol invasion of Rus|overrun by the Mongols]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/citd/RussianHeritage/4.PEAS/4.L/12.III.5.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20110427075859/https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/citd/RussianHeritage/4.PEAS/4.L/12.III.5.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=27 April 2011 |title=The Destruction of Kyiv|publisher=University of Toronto|access-date=10 June 2008}}</ref> The invaders, who became known as [[Tatars]], were mostly Turkic-speaking peoples under Mongol suzerainty. They established the state of the [[Golden Horde]] with headquarters in Crimea, which later adopted Islam as a religion, and ruled over modern-day southern and central Russia for more than three centuries.<ref>"[https://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9037242/Golden-Horde Golden Horde] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080529001039/http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9037242/Golden-Horde |date=29 May 2008 }}", in ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'', 2007.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.accd.edu/sac/history/keller/Mongols/states3.html |title=Khanate of the Golden Horde (Kipchak) |publisher=Alamo Community Colleges |access-date=10 June 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080607055652/http://www.accd.edu/sac/history/keller/Mongols/states3.html |archive-date=7 June 2008 }}</ref> After the collapse of Mongol dominions, the first Romanian states (principalities) emerged in the 14th century: [[Moldavia]] and [[Walachia]]. Previously, these territories were under the successive control of Pechenegs and Cumans.<ref>Spinei, Victor. The Romanians and the Turkic Nomads North of the Danube Delta from the Tenth to the Mid-Thirteenth Century, Brill, 2009, {{ISBN|978-90-04-17536-5}}</ref> From the 12th to the 15th centuries, the [[Grand Duchy of Moscow]] grew from a small principality under Mongol rule to the largest state in Europe, overthrowing the Mongols in 1480, and eventually becoming the [[Tsardom of Russia]]. The state was consolidated under [[Ivan III the Great]] and [[Ivan the Terrible]], steadily expanding to the east and south over the next centuries. 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.<ref>[http://www.oglethorpe.edu/faculty/%7Eb_smith/ou/bs_foundations_chapter9.htm The Late Middle Ages] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151102090226/http://www.oglethorpe.edu/faculty/~b_smith/ou/bs_foundations_chapter9.htm |date=2 November 2015 }}. Oglethorpe University.</ref> The period between 1348 and 1420 witnessed the heaviest loss. The population of [[France in the Middle Ages|France]] was reduced by half.<ref>Baumgartner, Frederic J. ''France in the Sixteenth Century.'' London: [[Macmillan Publishers (United States)|Macmillan Publishers]], 1995. {{ISBN|0-333-62088-7}}.</ref><ref>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''. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061109043743/http://www.historynet.com/magazines/military_history/3031536.html |date=9 November 2006 }}</ref> Medieval Britain was afflicted by 95 famines,<ref>[https://www.telegraph.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]{{dead link|date=July 2021|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}. By James Bartholomew. Telegraph. 7 August. 2004.</ref> and France suffered the effects of 75 or more in the same period.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/201392/famine Famine] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150507160730/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/201392/famine |date=7 May 2015 }}. Encyclopædia Britannica.</ref> Europe was devastated in the mid-14th century by the [[Black Death]], one of the most deadly [[pandemic]]s in human history which killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe alone—a third of the [[Medieval demography|European population]] at the time.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/health-and-human-body/human-diseases/plague-article.html|title=Plague: The Black Death|magazine=National Geographic|access-date=1 April 2012|archive-date=16 February 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120216182517/http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/health-and-human-body/human-diseases/plague-article.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> 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]], [[beggars]] and [[leper]]s.<ref name="natgeo 223">National Geographic, 223.</ref> The plague is thought to have returned every generation with varying [[virulence]] and mortalities until the 18th century.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.infoplease.com/cig/dangerous-diseases-epidemics/bubonic-plague.html |title=Epidemics of the Past: Bubonic Plague – Infoplease.com |publisher=Infoplease.com |access-date=3 November 2008 |archive-date=21 October 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081021133412/http://www.infoplease.com/cig/dangerous-diseases-epidemics/bubonic-plague.html |url-status=live }}</ref> During this period, more than 100 plague [[List of epidemics|epidemics]] swept across Europe.<ref name="Revill">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/may/16/health.books |title=Black Death blamed on man, not rats | UK news | The Observer |newspaper=The Observer |first=Jo |last=Revill |date=16 May 2004 |access-date=3 November 2008 |location=London |archive-date=12 February 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140212100811/http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/may/16/health.books |url-status=live }}</ref> ===Early modern period=== {{Main|Early modern period}} {{See also|Renaissance|Reformation|Scientific Revolution|Age of Discovery}} [[File:La scuola di Atene.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[School of Athens|''The School of Athens'']] by [[Raphael]] (1511): Contemporaries, such as [[Michelangelo]] and [[Leonardo da Vinci]] (centre), are portrayed as classical scholars of the [[Renaissance]].]] The Renaissance was a period of cultural change originating in [[Florence]], and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The rise of a [[Renaissance humanism|new humanism]] was accompanied by the recovery of forgotten [[Classical Greece|classical Greek]] and Arabic knowledge from [[Monasticism|monastic]] libraries, often translated from Arabic into [[Latin language|Latin]].<ref name="Barrett"/><ref>[[Roberto Weiss|Weiss, Roberto]] (1969) ''The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity'', {{ISBN|1-59740-150-1}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|first=Jacob|last=Burckhardt|orig-year=1878|url=https://archive.org/details/civilizationofre00burc_0|title=The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy|edition=translation by S.G.C Middlemore|year=1990|isbn=978-0-14-044534-3|publisher=Penguin Books|location=London|author-link=Jacob Burckhardt}}</ref> The Renaissance spread across Europe between the 14th and 16th centuries: it saw the flowering of [[Renaissance art|art]], [[philosophy]], [[music]], and the [[History of science in the Renaissance|sciences]], under the joint patronage of [[Royal family|royalty]], the nobility, the [[Roman Catholic Church]] and an emerging merchant class.<ref name="natgeo 254">National Geographic, 254.</ref><ref>Jensen, De Lamar (1992), ''Renaissance Europe'', {{ISBN|0-395-88947-2}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Levey|first=Michael|title=Early Renaissance|publisher=Penguin Books|year=1967}}</ref> Patrons in Italy, including the [[Medici]] family of Florentine bankers and the [[Pope]]s in [[Rome]], funded prolific [[quattrocento]] and [[cinquecento]] artists such as [[Raphael]], [[Michelangelo]] and [[Leonardo da Vinci]].<ref name="natgeo 292">National Geographic, 292.</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Levey|first=Michael|title=High Renaissance|publisher=Penguin Books|year=1971}}</ref> Political intrigue within the Church in the mid-14th century caused the [[Western 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.<ref name="natgeo 193">National Geographic, 193.</ref> In the 15th century, Europe started to extend itself beyond its geographic frontiers. Spain and Portugal, the greatest naval powers of the time, took the lead in exploring the world.<ref>{{Cite book|last=John Morris Roberts|title=Penguin History of Europe|year=1997|publisher=Penguin Books|isbn=978-0-14-026561-3|url=https://archive.org/details/penguinhistoryof00robe_1}}</ref><ref name="natgeo 296">National Geographic, 296.</ref> Exploration reached the [[Southern Hemisphere]] in the Atlantic and the southern tip of Africa. [[Christopher Columbus]] reached the [[New World]] in 1492, and [[Vasco da Gama]] opened the ocean route to the [[Orient|East]] linking the Atlantic and [[Indian Ocean]]s in 1498. The Portuguese-born explorer [[Ferdinand Magellan]] reached Asia westward across the Atlantic and the [[Pacific Ocean]]s in a Spanish expedition, resulting in the first [[Timeline of Magellan's circumnavigation|circumnavigation of the globe]], completed by the Spaniard [[Juan Sebastián Elcano]] (1519–1522). Soon after, the Spanish and Portuguese began establishing large global empires in the [[Americas]], Asia, Africa and Oceania.<ref name="natgeo 338">National Geographic, 338.</ref> France, the [[Netherlands]] and England soon followed in building large colonial empires with vast holdings in Africa, the Americas and Asia. In 1588, a [[Spanish armada]] failed to invade England. A year later [[English Armada|England tried unsuccessfully to invade Spain]], allowing [[Philip II of Spain]] to maintain his dominant war capacity in Europe. This English disaster also allowed the Spanish fleet to retain its capability to wage war for the next decades. However, two more Spanish armadas failed to invade England ([[2nd Spanish Armada]] and [[3rd Spanish Armada]]).<ref>Elliott p.333</ref><ref>Morris, Terence Alan (1998). ''Europe and England in the sixteenth century''. Routledge, p. 335. {{ISBN|0-415-15041-8}}</ref><ref>Rowse, A. L. (1969). ''Tudor Cornwall: portrait of a society''. C. Scribner, p. 400</ref><ref>"One decisive action might have forced Philip II to the negotiating table and avoided fourteen years of continuing warfare. Instead the King was able to use the brief respite to rebuild his naval forces and by the end of 1589 Spain once again had an Atlantic fleet strong enough to escort the American treasure ships home." ''The Mariner's Mirror'', Volumes 76–77. Society for Nautical Research., 1990</ref> [[File:Habsburg dominions 1700.png|thumb|upright=1.2|[[House of Habsburg|Habsburg dominions]] in the centuries following their partition by [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor]]. The principal military base of Philip II in Europe was the Spanish road stretching from the Netherlands to the [[Duchy of Milan]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kamen |first1=Henry |title=Spain's Road to Empire: The Making of a World Power, 1492–1763 |page=221}}</ref>]] The Church's power was further weakened by the [[Protestant reformation|Protestant Reformation]] in 1517 when German theologian [[Martin Luther]] nailed his ''[[Ninety-five Theses]]'' criticising the selling of indulgences to the church door. He was subsequently excommunicated in the papal bull ''[[Exsurge Domine]]'' in 1520 and his followers were condemned in the 1521 [[Diet of Worms]], which divided German princes between [[Protestant]] and Roman Catholic faiths.<ref name="natgeo 256">National Geographic, 256–257.</ref> [[European wars of religion|Religious fighting and warfare]] spread with Protestantism.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/European_History/Religious_Wars_in_Europe|title=European History/Religious Wars in Europe – Wikibooks, open books for an open world|website=en.wikibooks.org|access-date=30 July 2022|archive-date=31 May 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220531224323/https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/European_History/Religious_Wars_in_Europe|url-status=live}}</ref> The plunder of the empires of the Americas allowed Spain to finance [[Spanish Inquisition|religious persecution]] in Europe for over a century.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Humphreys |first1=Kenneth |title=Jesus Never Existed: An Introduction to the Ultimate Heresy}}</ref> The [[Thirty Years War]] (1618–1648) crippled the Holy Roman Empire and devastated much of [[Early Modern history of Germany|Germany]], killing between 25 and 40 percent of its population.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/195896/history-of-Europe/58335/Demographics History of Europe – Demographics] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150101023616/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/195896/history-of-Europe/58335/Demographics |date=1 January 2015 }}. Encyclopædia Britannica.</ref> In the aftermath of the [[Peace of Westphalia]], France rose to predominance within Europe.<ref name="natgeo 269">National Geographic, 269.</ref> The defeat of the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman Turks]] at the [[Battle of Vienna]] in 1683 marked the historic end of [[Ottoman wars in Europe|Ottoman expansion into Europe]].<ref>Virginia Aksan, Ottoman Wars, 1700–1860: An Empire Besieged, (Pearson Education Limited, 2007), 28.</ref> The 17th century in Central and parts of Eastern Europe was a period of general [[The General Crisis|decline]];<ref>{{cite web|url=http://libro.uca.edu/payne1/payne15.htm|title=The Seventeenth-Century Decline|access-date=13 August 2008|publisher=The Library of Iberian resources online|archive-date=27 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170327015606/http://libro.uca.edu/payne1/payne15.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> the region experienced more than 150 famines in a 200-year period between 1501 and 1700.<ref>"''[https://books.google.com/books?id=juvbIDu9ARIC&pg=PA51 Food, Famine And Fertilisers] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417115352/https://books.google.com/books?id=juvbIDu9ARIC&pg=PA51 |date=2022-04-17 }}''". Seshadri Kannan (2009). APH Publishing. p. 51. {{ISBN|81-313-0356-X}}</ref> From the [[Union of Krewo]] (1385) east-central Europe was dominated by the [[Kingdom of Poland (1385–1569)|Kingdom of Poland]] and the [[Grand Duchy of Lithuania]]. The [[hegemony]] of the vast [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]] had ended with the devastation brought by the [[Second Northern War]] ([[Swedish Deluge|Deluge]]) and subsequent conflicts;<ref>{{cite book |last=Frost |first=Robert I. |author-link=Robert I. Frost |date=2004 |title=After the Deluge; Poland-Lithuania and the Second Northern War, 1655–1660 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IfIbP8sfC0wC |location=Cambridge |publisher=University Press |isbn=978-0521544023 |access-date=30 July 2022 |archive-date=30 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220730041935/https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/After_the_Deluge/IfIbP8sfC0wC?hl=en&gbpv=0 |url-status=live }}</ref> the state itself was [[Partitions of Poland|partitioned]] and ceased to exist at the end of the 18th century.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lukowski |first=Jerzy |author-link=Jerzy Lukowski |date=2014 |title=The Partitions of Poland 1772, 1793, 1795 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zm3XAwAAQBAJ |location=New York |publisher=Taylor & Routledge |isbn=978-1317886945 |access-date=30 July 2022 |archive-date=30 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220730041935/https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Partitions_of_Poland_1772_1793_1795/Zm3XAwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 |url-status=live }}</ref> From the 15th to 18th centuries, when the disintegrating khanates of the [[Golden Horde]] were conquered by Russia, [[Crimean Tatars|Tatars]] from the [[Crimean Khanate]] frequently [[Crimean-Nogai raids into East Slavic lands|raided]] Eastern Slavic lands to [[Slavery in the Ottoman Empire|capture slaves]].<ref>W.G. Clarence-Smith (2006). "''[https://books.google.com/books?id=nQbylEdqJKkC Islam And The Abolition Of Slavery] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160429200313/https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=nQbylEdqJKkC&f=false |date=2016-04-29 }}''". Oxford University Press. p. 13. {{ISBN|0-19-522151-6}} – "Lands to the north of the Black Sea probably yielded the most slaves to the Ottomans from 1450. A compilation of estimates indicates that Crimean Tartars seized about 1,750,000 Ukrainians, Poles, and Russians from 1468 to 1694."</ref> Further east, the [[Nogai Horde]] and [[Kazakh Khanate]] frequently raided the Slavic-speaking areas of contemporary Russia and Ukraine for hundreds of years, until the Russian expansion and conquest of most of northern Eurasia (i.e. Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Siberia). The Renaissance and the [[New Monarchs]] marked the start of an Age of Discovery, a period of exploration, invention and scientific development.<ref>{{Cite book | last = Hunt | first = Shelby D. | title = Controversy in marketing theory: for reason, realism, truth, and objectivity | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=07lchJbdWGgC&pg=PA18 | publisher = M.E. Sharpe | year = 2003 | page = 18 | isbn = 978-0-7656-0932-8 | access-date = 30 July 2022 | archive-date = 19 March 2022 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220319180326/https://books.google.com/books?id=07lchJbdWGgC&pg=PA18 | url-status = live }}</ref> Among the great figures of the Western [[scientific revolution]] of the 16th and 17th centuries were [[Copernicus]], [[Kepler]], [[Galileo]] and [[Isaac Newton]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://users.clas.ufl.edu//ufhatch/pages/03-Sci-Rev/SCI-REV-Home/05-sr-lng-timeline.htm |title=Scientific Revolution: Chronological Timeline: Copernicus to Newton |last=Hatch |first=Robert A. |date= |website= |publisher= |access-date=24 March 2023 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130723195302/http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/ufhatch/pages/03-Sci-Rev/SCI-REV-Home/05-sr-lng-timeline.htm |archive-date=23 July 2013}}</ref> According to Peter Barrett, "It is widely accepted that 'modern science' arose in the Europe of the 17th century (towards the end of the Renaissance), introducing a new understanding of the natural world."<ref name="Barrett">Peter Barrett (2004), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=fwxViwX6KuMC&pg=PA14 Science and Theology Since Copernicus: The Search for Understanding] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220422182250/https://books.google.com/books?id=fwxViwX6KuMC&pg=PA14 |date=22 April 2022 }}'', pp. 14–18, [[Continuum International Publishing Group]], {{ISBN|0-567-08969-X}}</ref> ===18th and 19th centuries=== {{Main|Modern history}} {{See also|Industrial Revolution|French Revolution|Age of Enlightenment}} [[File:Europe 1815 map en.png|thumb|The national boundaries within Europe set by the [[Congress of Vienna]]]] The [[Seven Years' War]] brought to an end the [[Grand Alliance (League of Augsburg)|"Old System" of alliances in Europe]]. Consequently, when the [[American Revolutionary War]] turned into a global war between 1778 and 1783, Britain found itself opposed by a strong coalition of European powers, and lacking any substantial ally.<ref>{{cite journal |jstor=2144276 |title=The American Revolution as an Aftermath of the Great War for the Empire, 1754–1763 |journal=Political Science Quarterly |volume=65 |issue=1 |pages=86–104 |last1=Gipson |first1=Lawrence Henry |year=1950 |doi=10.2307/2144276}}</ref> The Age of Enlightenment was a powerful intellectual movement during the 18th century promoting scientific and reason-based thoughts.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Goldie |first1=Mark |title=The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought |last2=Wokler |first2=Robert |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-521-37422-4 |author-link2=Robert Wokler}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Cassirer |first=Ernst |url=https://archive.org/details/philosophyofenli0000cass_u2f3 |title=The Philosophy of the Enlightenment |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1979 |isbn=978-0-691-01963-5 |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref name="natgeo 255">National Geographic, 255.</ref> 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|reign of terror]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Schama|first=Simon|author-link=Simon Schama|publisher=[[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf]]|title=Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution|year=1989|isbn=978-0-394-55948-3|title-link=Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution}}</ref> [[Napoleon|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]].<ref name="natgeo 360">National Geographic, 360.</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=McEvedy|first=Colin|title=The Penguin Atlas of Modern History|publisher=Penguin Books|year=1972|isbn=978-0-14-051153-6}}</ref> [[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]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Lyons|first=Martyn|publisher= [[St. Martin's Press]]|year= 1994|isbn=978-0-312-12123-5|title=Napoleon Bonaparte and the legacy of the French Revolution}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Grab|first=Alexander|title=Napoleon and the Transformation of Europe (European History in Perspective) |publisher=Palgrave MacMillan|year=2003|isbn=978-0-333-68275-3}}</ref><ref name="natgeo 350">National Geographic, 350.</ref> The [[Congress of Vienna]], convened after Napoleon's downfall, established a new [[balance of power (international relations)|balance of power]] in Europe centred on the five "[[Great Power]]s": the UK, France, [[Prussia]], [[Austrian Empire|Austria]] and Russia.<ref name="natgeo 367">National Geographic, 367.</ref> This balance would remain in place until the [[Revolutions of 1848]], during which liberal uprisings affected all of Europe except for Russia and the UK. These revolutions were eventually put down by conservative elements and few reforms resulted.<ref name="natgeo 371">National Geographic, 371–373.</ref> The year 1859 saw the unification of Romania, as a nation state, from smaller principalities. In 1867, the [[Austro-Hungarian empire]] was [[Ausgleich|formed]]; 1871 saw the unifications of both [[Italian unification|Italy]] and [[Unification of Germany|Germany]] as nation-states from smaller principalities.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Davies|first=Norman|title=Europe: A History|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1996|isbn=978-0-19-820171-7|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/europehistory00davi_0}}</ref> In parallel, the [[Eastern Question]] grew more complex ever since the Ottoman defeat in the [[Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774)]]. As the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire seemed imminent, the [[Great Power]]s struggled to safeguard their strategic and commercial interests in the Ottoman domains. The [[Russian Empire]] stood to benefit from the decline, whereas the [[Habsburg monarchy|Habsburg Empire]] and [[United Kingdom|Britain]] perceived the preservation of the Ottoman Empire to be in their best interests. Meanwhile, the [[Serbian Revolution]] (1804) and [[Greek War of Independence]] (1821) marked the beginning of the end of Ottoman rule in the [[Balkans]], which ended with the [[Balkan Wars]] in 1912–1913.<ref>[http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=3044&HistoryID=ac79] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220126020326/http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=3044&HistoryID=ac79|date=26 January 2022}}, ''Ottoman Empire – 19th century'', Historyworld</ref> Formal recognition of the ''de facto'' independent principalities of [[Montenegro]], [[Principality of Serbia|Serbia]] and [[Romania]] ensued at the [[Congress of Berlin]] in 1878. [[File:Marshall's flax-mill, Holbeck, Leeds - interior - c.1800.jpg|thumb|Marshall's [[Temple Works]] (1840); the [[Industrial Revolution]] started in [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]].]] 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.<ref>{{Cite book|first=George Macaulay|last=Trevelyan|title=A shortened history of England|publisher=Penguin Books|year=1988|isbn=978-0-14-010241-3|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/shortenedhistory00geor}}</ref> Reforms in social and economic spheres followed, including the [[Factory Acts|first laws]] on [[child labour]], the legalisation of [[trade union]]s,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Webb|first=Sidney | title=History of Trade Unionism | publisher= AMS Press | year=1976 | isbn=978-0-404-06885-1}}</ref> and the [[abolitionism in the United Kingdom|abolition of slavery]].<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24160 Slavery] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141016025606/http://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24160 |date=16 October 2014 }}, ''Historical survey – Ways of ending slavery'', Encyclopædia Britannica</ref> In Britain, the [[Public Health Act of 1875]] was passed, which significantly improved living conditions in many British cities.<ref>{{Cite book|first=George Macaulay|last=Trevelyan|title=English Social History|publisher=Longmans, Green|year=1942}}</ref> Europe's population increased from about 100 million in 1700 to 400 million by 1900.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/387301/modernisation/12022/Population-change Modernisation – Population Change] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220730041936/https://www.britannica.com/topic/modernization |date=30 July 2022 }}. ''Encyclopædia Britannica''.</ref> The last major famine recorded in Western Europe, the [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Great Famine of Ireland]], caused death and mass emigration of millions of Irish people.<ref>"[https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/famine_01.shtml The Irish Famine] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191109095015/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/famine_01.shtml |date=2019-11-09 }}". BBC – History.</ref> In the 19th century, 70 million people left Europe in migrations to various European colonies abroad and to the United States.<ref>[http://migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/more.php?id=1118_0_5_0 The Atlantic: Can the US afford immigration?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100704173521/http://migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/more.php?id=1118_0_5_0 |date=4 July 2010 }}. ''Migration News''. December 1996.</ref> The industrial revolution also led to large population growth, and the {{not typo|[[Demographics of the world#Shares of world population, AD 1–1998 (% of world total)|share of the world population living in Europe]]}} reached a peak of slightly above 25% around the year 1913.<ref name="ggdc.net">{{cite web|url=http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/other_books/appendix_B.pdf|title=Growth of World Population, GDP and GDP Per Capita before 1820|author=Maddison|website=[[University of Groningen]]|date=27 July 2016 }}</ref><ref name="World Population Growth, 1950–2050">[http://www.prb.org/Educators/TeachersGuides/HumanPopulation/PopulationGrowth.aspx?p=1 World Population Growth, 1950–2050]. Population Reference Bureau. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130722202806/http://www.prb.org/Educators/TeachersGuides/HumanPopulation/PopulationGrowth.aspx?p=1 |date=22 July 2013 }}</ref> ===20th century to the present=== {{Main|Modern era|History of Europe}} {{See also|World War I|Great Depression|Interwar period|Second World War|Cold War|History of the European Union}} [[File:Colonisation 1914.png|thumb|left|upright=1.2|Map of European [[colonial empire]]s throughout the world in 1914]] Two world wars and an economic depression dominated the first half of the 20th century. The First World War was fought between 1914 and 1918. It started when [[Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria]] was assassinated by the [[Yugoslav nationalism|Yugoslav nationalist]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://praguepost.com/world-news/39837-assassin-gavrilo-princip-gets-a-statue-in-sarajevo|title=Assassin Gavrilo Princip gets a statue in Sarajevo|access-date=11 July 2014|publisher=Prague Post|date=28 June 2014|archive-date=10 July 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140710215557/http://praguepost.com/world-news/39837-assassin-gavrilo-princip-gets-a-statue-in-sarajevo|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Gavrilo Princip]].<ref name="natgeo 407">National Geographic, 407.</ref> 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 more than 16 million civilians and military dead.<ref name="natgeo 440">''National Geographic'', 440.</ref> Over 60 million European soldiers were mobilised from 1914 to 1918.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jimmyatkinson.com/papers/versaillestreaty.html |title=The Treaty of Versailles and its Consequences |access-date=10 June 2008 |publisher=James Atkinson |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080512224100/http://www.jimmyatkinson.com/papers/versaillestreaty.html |archive-date=12 May 2008 |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[File:Alliances militaires en Europe 1914-1918-fr.svg|thumb|Map depicting the military alliances of the [[First World War]] in 1914–1918]] Russia was plunged into the [[Russian Revolution]], which threw down the [[Russian Empire|Tsarist monarchy]] and replaced it with the [[communist]] [[Soviet Union]],<ref name="natgeo 480">National Geographic, 480.</ref> leading also to the independence of many former [[Governorate (Russia)|Russian governorates]], such as [[Finland]], [[Estonia]], [[Latvia]] and [[Lithuania]], as new European countries.<ref>{{cite book|author=Heinrich August Winkler|title=The Age of Catastrophe|chapter=The Struggle for Independence: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Finland|page=110|year=2015|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0300204896}}</ref> [[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 the First World War in 1919, was harsh towards Germany, upon whom it placed full responsibility for the war and imposed heavy sanctions.<ref name="natgeo 443">''National Geographic'', 443.</ref> Excess deaths in Russia over the course of the First World War and the [[Russian Civil War]] (including the postwar [[Russian famine of 1921|famine]]) amounted to a combined total of 18 million.<ref>{{cite book| first = Mark| last = Harrison| title = Accounting for War: Soviet Production, Employment, and the Defence Burden, 1940–1945| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=yJcD7_Q_rQ8C&pg=PA167| date = 2002| publisher = Cambridge University Press| isbn = 978-0-521-89424-1| page = 167| access-date = 30 July 2022| archive-date = 17 June 2020| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200617211223/https://books.google.com/books?id=yJcD7_Q_rQ8C&pg=PA167| url-status = live}}</ref> In 1932–1933, under [[Stalin]]'s leadership, confiscations of grain by the Soviet authorities contributed to the [[Soviet famine of 1932-1933|second Soviet famine]] which caused millions of deaths;<ref>"[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6179818.stm Legacy of famine divides Ukraine] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061127110530/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6179818.stm |date=2006-11-27 }}". BBC News. 24 November 2006.</ref> surviving [[kulak]]s were persecuted and many sent to [[Gulag]]s to do [[Unfree labour|forced labour]]. Stalin was also responsible for the [[Great Purge]] of 1937–38 in which the [[NKVD]] executed 681,692 people;<ref>{{cite book| first = Abbott| last = Gleason| title = A companion to Russian history| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=JyN0hlKcfTcC&pg=PA373| year = 2009| publisher = Wiley-Blackwell| isbn = 978-1-4051-3560-3| page = 373| access-date = 30 July 2022| archive-date = 5 September 2015| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150905175409/https://books.google.com/books?id=JyN0hlKcfTcC&pg=PA373| url-status = live}}</ref> millions of people were [[population transfer in the Soviet Union|deported and exiled]] to remote areas of the Soviet Union.<ref>{{cite book | first = Geoffrey A.| last = Hosking| title = Russia and the Russians: a history| url = https://archive.org/details/russiarussianshi00hosk| url-access = registration| year = 2001| publisher = Harvard University Press| isbn = 978-0-674-00473-3| page = [https://archive.org/details/russiarussianshi00hosk/page/469 469] }}</ref> [[File:Serbiancolumnretreat1915.jpg|thumb|left|[[Serbian Campaign of World War I|Serbian war efforts]] (1914–1918) cost the country one quarter of its population.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/116535884/fourth-of-serbias-population-dead/ |title=Fourth of Serbia's Population Dead |first=Pierre |last=Loti |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] |page=49 |date=1918-06-30 |access-date=2023-01-15 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/04/05/102687236.pdf|title=Asserts Serbians Face Extinction; Their Plight in Occupied Districts Worse Than Belgians', Says Labor Envoy |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |location=Washington |page=13 |access-date=2023-01-15|archive-date=15 March 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200315165925/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/04/05/102687236.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/11/05/98273895.pdf|title=Serbia Restored|access-date=19 January 2017|archive-date=16 September 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180916183845/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/11/05/98273895.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/07/28/102728073.pdf| work=New York Times| title=Serbia and Austria| date=28 July 1918| access-date=30 July 2022| archive-date=22 April 2021| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210422071451/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/07/28/102728073.pdf| url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/07/27/102727338.pdf| work=New York Times| title=Appeals to Americans to pray for Serbians| date=27 July 1918| access-date=30 July 2022| archive-date=16 September 2018| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180916183729/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/07/27/102727338.pdf| url-status=live}}</ref>]] [[File:Mussolini and Hitler 1940 (retouched).jpg|upright=0.75|thumb|left|[[Nazi Germany]] began the devastating Second World War in Europe by its leader, [[Adolf Hitler]]. Here Hitler, on the right, with his closest ally, the Italian dictator [[Benito Mussolini]], in 1940.]] The [[social revolution]]s sweeping through Russia also affected other European nations following [[The Great War]]: in 1919, with the [[Weimar Republic]] in Germany and the [[First Austrian Republic]]; in 1922, with [[Benito Mussolini|Mussolini]]'s one-party [[Fascism|fascist]] government in the [[Kingdom of Italy]] and in [[Atatürk]]'s [[Turkey|Turkish Republic]], adopting the Western alphabet and state [[secularism]]. 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]] in power of what became [[Nazi Germany]].<ref name="hobsbawn">{{Cite book|last=Hobsbawm|first=Eric|publisher=Vintage|year=1995|isbn=978-0-679-73005-7|title=The Age of Extremes: A history of the world, 1914–1991|url=https://archive.org/details/ageofextremeshis00hobs_0}}</ref><ref name="natgeo 438">''National Geographic'', 438.</ref> 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 following the [[Anschluss]]. Later that year, following the [[Munich Agreement]] signed by Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy, Germany annexed the [[Sudetenland]], which was a part of [[Czechoslovakia]] inhabited by ethnic Germans, 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]]. At the time, the United Kingdom and France preferred a policy of [[appeasement]]. With tensions mounting between Germany and [[Second Polish Republic|Poland]] over the future of [[Gdańsk|Danzig]], the Germans turned to the Soviets and signed the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]], which allowed the Soviets to invade the Baltic states and parts of Poland and Romania. Germany [[Invasion of Poland|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 the Second World War]].<ref name="reich">{{cite web|url=https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/adolf-hitler-1|title=Adolf Hitler: Rise of Power, Impact & Death|website=History.com|access-date=26 July 2020|archive-date=3 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181003111423/https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/adolf-hitler-1|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="natgeo 465">National Geographic, 465.</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Taylor|first=A. J. P.|title= The Origins of the Second World War|year=1996|publisher=Simon & Schuster| isbn=978-0-684-82947-0}}</ref> The [[Soviet invasion of Poland]] started on 17 September and Poland fell soon thereafter. On 24 September, the Soviet Union attacked the [[Soviet occupation of the Baltic states (1940)|Baltic countries]] and, on 30 November, Finland, the latter of which was followed by the devastating [[Winter War]] for the Red Army.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/winter-war-finland.html|title=The Winter War – When the Finns Humiliated the Russians|first=Ivano|last=Massari|publisher=War History Online|date=18 August 2015|access-date=19 December 2021|archive-date=19 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211219185618/https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/winter-war-finland.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The British hoped to land at [[Battles of Narvik|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. Around the same time, Germany moved troops into Denmark. The [[Phoney War]] continued. In May 1940, Germany [[Battle of France|attacked France]] through the Low Countries. France capitulated in June 1940. By August, Germany had begun a [[Battle of Britain|bombing offensive against the United Kingdom]] but failed to convince the Britons to give up.<ref name="natgeo 510">''National Geographic'', 510.</ref> In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in [[Operation Barbarossa]].<ref name="natgeo 532">''National Geographic'', 532.</ref> On 7 December 1941 [[Empire of Japan|Japan]]'s [[attack on Pearl Harbor]] drew the United States into the conflict as allies of the [[British Empire]], and other [[Allies of World War II|allied]] forces.<ref name="natgeo 511">''National Geographic'', 511.</ref><ref name="natgeo 519">''National Geographic'', 519.</ref> [[File:Yalta Conference (Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin) (B&W).jpg|thumb|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]]]] After the staggering [[Battle of Stalingrad]] in 1943, the German offensive in the Soviet Union turned into a continual fallback. The [[Battle of Kursk]], which involved the largest [[Battle of Prokhorovka|tank battle]] in history, was the last major German offensive on the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]]. In June 1944, British and American forces invaded France in the [[Normandy landings|D-Day landings]], opening a new front against Germany. Berlin finally [[Battle of Berlin|fell in 1945]], ending the Second World War in Europe. The war was the largest and most destructive in human history, with [[World War II casualties|60 million dead across the world]].<ref name="natgeo 439">''National Geographic'', 439.</ref> More than 40 million people in Europe had died as a result of the Second World War,<ref>"[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4526351.stm Europe honours war dead on VE Day] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180316120653/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4526351.stm |date=2018-03-16 }}". ''BBC News''. 9 May 2005.</ref> including between 11 and 17 million people who perished during [[the Holocaust]].<ref>Niewyk, Donald L. and Nicosia, Francis R. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=lpDTIUklB2MC&pg=PP1 The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220521005722/https://books.google.com/books?id=lpDTIUklB2MC&pg=PP1#PPA45,M1 |date=21 May 2022 }}'', [[Columbia University Press]], 2000, pp. 45–52.</ref> The Soviet Union [[World War II casualties of the Soviet Union|lost around 27 million people]] (mostly civilians) during the war, about half of all Second World War casualties.<ref>{{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 | access-date=4 January 2010 | archive-date=22 December 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191222043852/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4530565.stm | url-status=live }}</ref> By the end of the Second World War, Europe had more than 40 million [[refugee]]s.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.unhcr.org/3ebf9ba80.html |title=The State of The World's Refugees 2000: Fifty Years of Humanitarian Action |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2000 |pages=13 |language=en |access-date=30 July 2022 |archive-date=23 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220423195513/https://www.unhcr.org/3ebf9ba80.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Bundy |first=Colin |date=2016 |title=Migrants, refugees, history and precedents {{!}} Forced Migration Review |url=https://www.fmreview.org/destination-europe/bundy |access-date=9 March 2022 |website=www.fmreview.org |archive-date=8 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220308162932/https://www.fmreview.org/destination-europe/bundy |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>"[https://web.archive.org/web/20110424085534/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920455-2,00.html Refugees: Save Us! Save Us!]". ''Time''. 9 July 1979.</ref> Several [[World War II evacuation and expulsion|post-war expulsions]] in Central and Eastern Europe displaced a total of about 20 million people.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Schechtman|first=Joseph B.|date=1953|title=Postwar Population Transfers in Europe: A Survey|journal=The Review of Politics|volume=15|issue=2|pages=151–178|jstor=1405220|doi=10.1017/s0034670500008081|s2cid=144307581 }}</ref> The First World War, and especially the Second World War, diminished the eminence of Western Europe in world affairs. After the Second World War 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 Central Europe established the [[Warsaw Pact]].<ref name="natgeo 530">National Geographic, 530.</ref> Particular hot spots after the Second World War were [[Berlin]] and [[Trieste]], whereby the [[Free Territory of Trieste]], founded in 1947 with the UN, was dissolved in 1954 and 1975, respectively. The [[Berlin blockade]] in 1948 and 1949 and the construction of the [[Berlin Wall]] in 1961 were one of the great international crises of the [[Cold War]].<ref>Jessica Caus "Am Checkpoint Charlie lebt der Kalte Krieg" In: Die Welt 4 August 2015.</ref><ref>Karlo Ruzicic-Kessler "Togliatti, Tito and the Shadow of Moscow 1944/45–1948: Post-War Territorial Disputes and the Communist World", In: Journal of European Integration History, (2/2014).</ref><ref>Christian Jennings "Flashpoint Trieste: The First Battle of the Cold War", (2017), pp 244.</ref> The two new [[superpower]]s, 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 the First World War, gradually resulted in the independence of most of the European colonies in Asia and Africa.<ref name="natgeo 534"/> [[File:Flag_of_Europe.svg|thumb|[[Flag of Europe]], adopted by the [[Council of Europe]] in 1955 as the flag for the whole of Europe<ref>[http://www.coe.int/en/web/about-us/the-european-flag The European flag] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220114105640/https://www.coe.int/en/web/about-us/the-european-flag |date=14 January 2022 }}, Council of Europe. Retrieved 27 October 2016.</ref>]] In the 1980s the [[glasnost|reforms]] of [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] and the [[Solidarity (Polish trade union)|Solidarity]] movement in Poland weakened the previously rigid communist system. The opening of the [[Iron Curtain]] at the [[Pan-European Picnic]] then set in motion a peaceful chain reaction, at the end of which the [[Eastern bloc]], the [[Warsaw Pact]] and other [[Revolutions of 1989|communist states collapsed]], and the Cold War ended.<ref>Thomas Roser: DDR-Massenflucht: Ein Picknick hebt die Welt aus den Angeln (German – Mass exodus of the GDR: A picnic clears the world) In: Die Presse 16 August 2018.</ref><ref>Der 19. August 1989 war ein Test für Gorbatschows" (German – August 19, 1989 was a test for Gorbachev), In: FAZ 19 August 2009.</ref><ref>Michael Frank: Paneuropäisches Picknick – Mit dem Picknickkorb in die Freiheit (German: Pan-European picnic – With the picnic basket to freedom), in: Süddeutsche Zeitung 17 May 2010.</ref> Germany was reunited, after the symbolic [[Berlin Wall#Fall of the Wall|fall of the Berlin Wall]] in 1989 and the maps of Central and Eastern Europe were redrawn once more.<ref>Andreas Rödder, Deutschland einig Vaterland – Die Geschichte der Wiedervereinigung (2009).</ref> This made old previously interrupted cultural and economic relationships possible, and previously isolated cities such as [[Berlin]], [[Prague]], [[Vienna]], [[Budapest]] and [[Trieste]] were now again in the centre of Europe.<ref name="hobsbawn"/><ref>Padraic Kenney "A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989" (2002) pp 109.</ref><ref>Michael Gehler "Der alte und der neue Kalte Krieg in Europa" In: Die Presse 19.11.2015.</ref><ref>Robert Stradling "Teaching 20th-century European history" (2003), pp 61.</ref> [[European integration]] also grew after the Second World War. In 1949 the [[Council of Europe]] was founded, following a speech by Sir [[Winston Churchill]], with the idea of unifying Europe<ref name="europaeu 1945-59"/> to achieve common goals. It includes all European states except for [[Belarus]], [[Russia]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/03/10/russia-quits-europes-rule-of-law-body-sparking-questions-over-death-penalty-a76854|title=Russia Quits Europe's Rule of Law Body, Sparking Questions Over Death Penalty|work=[[The Moscow Times]]|date=10 March 2022|access-date=12 March 2022|archive-date=12 March 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220312015058/https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/03/10/russia-quits-europes-rule-of-law-body-sparking-questions-over-death-penalty-a76854|url-status=live}}</ref> and [[Vatican City]]. 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.<ref name="natgeo 536">National Geographic, 536.</ref> 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.<ref name="natgeo 537">National Geographic, 537.</ref> Between 2004 and 2013, more Central European countries began joining, [[Enlargement of the European Union|expanding the EU]] to 28 European countries and once more making Europe a major economical and political centre of power.<ref name="natgeo 535">National Geographic, 535.</ref> However, the United Kingdom withdrew from the EU on 31 January 2020, as a result of a [[2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum|June 2016 referendum on EU membership]].<ref>{{cite news |title=UK leaves the European Union |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51333314 |access-date=16 July 2020 |work=BBC News |date=1 February 2020 |archive-date=14 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200314050137/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51333314 |url-status=live }}</ref> The [[Russo-Ukrainian War|Russo-Ukrainian conflict]], which has been ongoing since 2014, steeply escalated when Russia launched a [[Russian invasion of Ukraine|full-scale invasion]] of [[Ukraine]] on 24 February 2022, marking the largest humanitarian and refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War<ref>{{cite news |title=Ukrainian exodus could be Europe's biggest refugee crisis since World War II |newspaper=[[El Pais]] |date=3 March 2022 |url=https://english.elpais.com/international/2022-03-03/ukrainian-exodus-could-be-europes-biggest-refugee-crisis-since-world-war-ii.html |access-date=30 July 2022 |archive-date=5 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220405100721/https://english.elpais.com/international/2022-03-03/ukrainian-exodus-could-be-europes-biggest-refugee-crisis-since-world-war-ii.html |url-status=live }}</ref> and the [[Yugoslav Wars]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Protecting Ukrainian refugees: What can we learn from the response to Kosovo in the 90s? |date=7 March 2022 |access-date=29 March 2022 |website=[[British Future]] |url=https://www.britishfuture.org/protecting-ukrainian-refugees-what-can-we-learn-from-kosovo/ |archive-date=7 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220307205755/https://www.britishfuture.org/protecting-ukrainian-refugees-what-can-we-learn-from-kosovo/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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