european history

european history

Brief History of Europe

INTRODUCTION
 Europe, one of the six continents that make up the Earth's land surface according to custom, but in reality is only the fifth most western part of the Eurasian landmass, composed mostly of Asia. In general, modern geographers the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, part of the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus Mountains form the main border between Europe and Asia. The term derives from Europe Europe perhaps, the name of the daughter of Agenor in Greek mythology, or possibly Ereb, Phoenician word meaning 'sunset'.


Europe, the second smallest continent on Earth, has an area of ​​approximately 10,359,358 km2, but is second in population of all continents, with approximately 699,774,000 inhabitants (estimate for 1993). The northernmost point of the European continent is Cape Nordkinn in Norway, and the southernmost tip of Tarifa, southern Spain. It extends west to east from Cape da Roca in Portugal, to north-east side of the Urals, Russia.

Europe has long been an area in which there have been major cultural and economic achievements. The ancient Greeks and Romans created major civilizations, famous for his contributions to philosophy, literature, art, and government systems. The revival, which began in the fourteenth century was a period of great success for European artists and architects, and the Age of Discovery, which began in the fifteenth century, European sailors traveled to the most remote areas of the world known to the date. Later, European nations, particularly Spain, Portugal, France and Britain, built large colonial empires with vast holdings in Africa, America and Asia. In the eighteenth century began the development of modern forms of organization and industry. During the twentieth century, the two world wars devastated much of Europe. After World War II, which ended in 1945, the continent was divided into two major political and economic blocs: the countries of Eastern Europe, under the domination of the Soviet Union and the countries of Western Europe, under the influence of USA. However, between 1989 and 1991 the Eastern bloc disintegrated and left the Communist leaders to give way to democratic-type regimes in most Eastern European countries. The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic were reunited. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union dissolved, the military and economic multilateral ties between Eastern Europe and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) were reduced or eliminated, and the USSR itself ceased to exist.
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
 Europe is a very fragmented landmass covering some large peninsulas, such as Scandinavia, the Iberian and Italian, as well as some small, as Jutland and Britain. It also includes many offshore islands, particularly Iceland, the British Isles, the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, Sicily and Crete. Its coastline extends to the Arctic Ocean, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea to the north, the southeast Caspian Sea, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The continent's highest point is Mount Elbrus (5,642 m), in the Caucasus in southwestern Russia. The lowest point of Europe is along the northern coast of the Caspian Sea, approximately 28 m below sea level.
Physiographic RegionsFrom a geological point of view, Europe is made, from north to south by a former stable crystalline rock mass, a wide belt of sedimentary materials relatively level, an area of ​​mixed geological structures, created by the action of faults, folds and volcanoes, and a newly formed mountain region compared to the previous. This geological structure has contributed to numerous physiographic regions that constitute the landscape of Europe.

In Finland and much of the rest of the Scandinavian Peninsula lies the Finno-Scandinavian shield, emerged during the Precambrian. Tilt the east, as the mountains of western Sweden and Finland plateau. The ice has carved the deep fjords of the Norwegian coast and eroded surface of the plateau Finnish. The movement of a segment of the earth's crust shield against Caledonian Orogeny stable (for 500 million to 395 million years ago) created mountains of Ireland, Wales, Scotland and western Norway. Subsequent erosion has rounded and worn these mountains in the British Isles, but Norway still peaks reach 2472 m.

The second prominent geological region, a belt of sedimentary materials, extends in an arc from southwestern France to the north and east, through the Netherlands, Germany and Poland to reach into western Russia. It also covers part of southeast England. Although distorted in places to form basins, such as London and Paris, these sedimentary rocks, covered by a layer of pebbles deposited in the ice ages are generally leveled enough to form the Great European Plain. Some of the best soils in Europe are in the plain, especially along its southern margin, which has been deposited loess, a windblown materials. The plain has more width in the east.
South of the Great European Plain, a strip of different geological structures extending across Europe and make more intricate landscapes of the continent, Central European mountains. Throughout the region the forces of folding (Jura Mountains), failures (Vosges, Black Forest), volcanoes (Massif Central), and elevations (Central Plateau) have interacted to create mountains, plateaus and valleys alternate.
The main physiographic region of Europe, southernmost, is also the most recent training. In the mid-Tertiary, 40 million years ago approximately (see Oligocene), Afro-Arab plate collided with the Eurasian plate and triggered the Alpine Orogeny (see Plate Tectonics). The compressive forces generated by this collision elevated masses of Mesozoic sediments and created mountain ranges such as the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Apennines, the Carpathians and the Caucasus, not only are the highest mountains in Europe but also the steepest. Frequent earthquakes orogenic indicate that changes are still taking place.

HydrographyThe peninsular nature of the European continent has given basin radial structure, in which most of the rivers flow outward from the core of the continent, often from nearby headers. The longest river in Europe, the Volga, flows mainly south, to the Caspian Sea, and the second longest, the Danube, flowing from west to east before emptying into the Black Sea. Among the rivers of central and western Europe highlights the Rhone and the Po, which empty into the Mediterranean Sea, and the Loire, the Seine, the Rhine and the Elbe, which flow into the Atlantic Ocean or the North Sea. The Vistula and the Oder flow north to the Baltic Sea. The radial structure facilitates interconnection basin of rivers by canals. Some Spanish rivers by length and flow, are noteworthy, as the Ebro, the Duero, the Tagus, the Guadiana and Guadalquivir.
There are lakes in mountainous areas, as in Switzerland, Italy and Austria, and flat regions, as in Sweden, Poland and Finland. The freshwater lake is Europe's largest lake Ladoga in northwestern Russia.
ClimateWhile much of Europe is located in northern latitudes, the seas surrounding the continent, relatively warm, provide most of central and western Europe a moderate climate, with cold winters and warm summers. Westerly winds, dominant, partly heated by passing over the North Atlantic ocean current, bringing rainfall for most of the year. In the Mediterranean climate zone (Spain, Italy and Greece), the summer months are usually hot and dry, and most of the precipitation is collected in autumn and spring. Approximately from central Poland to the east, reducing the moderating effect of the oceans and, therefore, the climate is cold and dry. The northern parts of the continent also have this kind of weather. Annual rainfall varies between 510 and 1,530 mm.
FloraAlthough much of the continent, particularly the West, was originally covered with forests, the flora has been transformed by human expansion and clearing. Only forests of northern and mountainous areas of northern and central areas of European Russia have remained relatively untouched by human activity. Moreover, Europe is covered mostly planted forests or returned to occupy land cleared. The largest vegetation zone of Europe, which cuts in half the continent from the Atlantic to the Urals, is a belt of deciduous and coniferous trees: oaks, maples and elms mixed with pine and fir. The arctic regions of northern Europe and the upper slopes of the highest mountains are characterized by tundra vegetation, consisting mainly of lichens, shrubs and wildflowers. Temperatures inside northern Europe, softer but still cold, creating an environment favorable to the development of coniferous forests as spruce and pine, but there are birch and poplar. Most of the great European plain is covered with meadows, areas of relatively high grasses; Ukrainian steppe is characterized by a flat, dry area with short grass. The lands bordering the Mediterranean known for some of the fruits of trees and shrubs, especially olives, citrus, figs and grapes.
FaunaIn the past, Europe was home to a variety of animals, such as deer, elk, bison, boar, wolf and bear. However, humans have occupied or developed so many European territory that many animal species have become extinct or reduced their numbers. The deer, elk, wolf and the bear can be found in the wild and in significant amounts only in the north, in Scandinavia and Russia, and the Balkan Peninsula. Elsewhere living mostly in protected reserves. The Saami (Lapps) northernmost breeding reindeer (domesticated caribou). Chamois and ibex (ibex) lives in the highest peaks of the Pyrenees and the Alps. In Europe there are still many small animals such as the weasel, ferret, rabbit, rabbit, hedgehog, lemming, fox and squirrel, and many native birds such as eagles, falcons, finch, the nightingale, owl, pigeon, sparrow and thrush. It is believed that storks bring good luck to the houses where they nest, especially in the Netherlands, and swans adorn the European rivers and lakes. Salmon from Scotland, Ireland and the Rhine are prized by Europeans and marine coastal waters are a variety of fish, including commercially important specimens such as cod, mackerel, herring and tuna. In the Black Sea and Caspian's sturgeon, from which caviar is extracted.
Mineral resourcesIn Europe there is a wide variety of mineral resources. There are large coal deposits in various parts of the UK, in the Ruhr region of Germany and Poland, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, France and Ukraine. Today the largest European sources are iron ore mines of Kiruna (Northern Sweden), the Lorraine region (France) and Ukraine. In parts of Europe oil and gas occurs naturally in small amounts, but the two most important in this regard are the North Sea (which operate mostly Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and Norway) and the former republics Soviet, especially Russia. Among many highlights mineral deposits of copper, lead, tin, bauxite, mercury, manganese, nickel, gold, silver, potassium, clay, gypsum, dolomite and salt.
European peoplesAlthough no one knows exactly when they settled in Europe, the first human groups probably migrated from the east in several waves, mostly via a land bridge that no longer exists, from Asia Minor to the Balkans and through northern prairies of the Black Sea and from the south, through the Iberian peninsula. Around 4000 B.C. parts of Europe already had a considerable population. Geographical barriers such as forests, mountains and marshes contributed to divide people into groups remained separated for long periods. However, as a result there was a constant migration miscegenation.
EthnologyIn Europe there is a wide variety of ethnic groups (people united by a common culture, based mainly on the tongue). Most European nations are composed of a dominant group, as the Germans in Germany and the French in France. In several countries, especially in southern and central Europe, there are ethnic minorities, in addition, most countries contain smaller groups, such as the Saami (Lapps) of Norway. In addition, a considerable number of Turks, Arabs and black Africans living in Western Europe, most of them as temporary workers. From 1989 to 1991 there was the breakup of the USSR into 15 different republics, each with its dominant ethnic group. The Croats, Slovenes and Macedonians, who constituted the majority of the population of their respective republics in Yugoslavia, voted in favor of secession from Yugoslavia in 1991 to become independent states. Bosnia-Herzegovina, with a variety of much more diverse ethnic groups, became the scene of a dramatic ethnic conflict that followed the declaration of independence of these republics in 1992.


DemographyThe distribution of the European population has been stable over long periods, although the increase was notorious throughout history, due to the difference between the birth and death rates and migration of all kinds. At the beginning of the Christian era, the most densely populated part of Europe bordering the Mediterranean Sea. In the 1980s, Europe had the population density highest in the world. The most densely populated area was the belt that began in Britain and continued eastward through the Netherlands, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the European USSR. In northern Italy there was also a high population density.
The average annual growth rate of the European population during the period between 1980 and 1987 was only 0.3% (in the same period the population of Asia grew by about 0.8% per year, and the U.S. a 0 , 9% a year). At the same time, there were large variations in the growth rate as European countries. So, in the late 1980s, Albania had an annual growth rate of approximately 1.9% and Spain 0.5%, while rates of cities in Britain did not change significantly and the former Republic East Germany declined. Overall, the slow population growth rate was mainly due to the low birth rate. Generally, Europeans enjoy the birth of one of the highest life expectancy rates, about 75 years in most countries, when compared with the same rates in India and most African countries, below 60 years.
Population movements, voluntary or involuntary, have been a constant feature in European life. In the late twentieth century highlighted two movements: the migration of people in search of work as "guest workers" (in German Gastarbeiter) and migration from rural to urban areas. Workers Italian, Yugoslav, Greek, Spanish and Portuguese (like Asian Turks, North Africans and other non-European areas) moved, mostly without the intention of settling permanently, Germany, France, Switzerland, Britain and other countries in search of jobs. In addition, many Europeans migrated from rural areas to cities within national borders. Between 1950 and 1975, the urban population in western Europe increased from about 70% to almost 80% in Eastern Europe grew from 35% to 60%. Moreover, compared with the migrations of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, very few Europeans left the continent. Most of the people who left Europe in the late twentieth century emigrated to South America, Canada or Australia.
In most European countries the nation's capital is the largest city, but there are many other major cities. Many European cities have great economic and cultural importance and host numerous historic sites. Among the most famous cities are Berlin, Budapest, London, Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Moscow, Paris, Prague, Rome, Stockholm and Vienna.
LanguagesEuropeans speak a variety of languages. The main language families are composed of the Slavic languages, including Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Polish, Slovenian, Macedonian and Serbo-Croatian, the Germanic languages, which encompass English, German, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Icelandic, the Romance languages, among which are Italian, French, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese and Romanian. These languages ​​have basically the same origins and are classified within Indo-European languages, which also include Greek, Albanian and Celtic languages ​​such as Gaelic, Welsh and Breton. Besides Indo-European languages, the continent's peoples speaking Finno-Ugric languages, and other languages, such as Basque (Euskera) and Turkish. Many Europeans use English, German, Spanish or French as a second language.
ReligionIn the late 1980s the majority of Europeans declared themselves Christians. The largest religious group, Catholic, living mainly in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Belgium, southern Germany and Poland. Another large group consists Protestant denominations, concentrated in the North and Central Europe, including England, Scotland, Northern Germany, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries. The third group was the most important Christian Orthodox, especially in Russia, Georgia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro. In addition, there were Jewish communities in most European countries (the largest in Russia), while the people of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Turkey were mostly Muslims.
Culture
 In Europe there is a great cultural tradition reflected in the quality of its literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, music and dance. In the late twentieth century Paris, Rome, London, Berlin, Barcelona, ​​Madrid and Moscow were especially famous cultural centers, but many cities also kept museums, music and theater groups and other cultural institutions. The media (radio, television and film) of most of the European countries have developed greatly. There are also excellent educational systems and the literacy rate is high in most cities. Some of the oldest and best universities in the world such as Cambridge, Oxford, Paris, Heidelberg, Prague, Upsala, Bologna, Salamanca and Moscow are in Europe.
ECONOMYFor a long time, Europe has led global economic activities. As the birthplace of modern science and the Industrial Revolution, acquired a technological superiority over the rest of the world, which gave him an unquestioned dominance in the nineteenth century. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain in the eighteenth century and from there spread throughout the world, involving the use of complex machinery and led to a large increase in agricultural production and new forms of economic organization. As of mid-twentieth century, creating major supranational organizations like the European Union, the European Free Trade Association and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has stimulated economic growth.
AgricultureIn general, European agriculture is of mixed type: there are several types of crops and livestock in the same region. The European part of the former USSR is one of the few large regions dominated monoculture. Mediterranean nations hold a different kind of agriculture, dominated by the production of cereals, oil and citrus. In most of these countries agriculture has more importance in the national economy than in northern countries. In Western Europe the industries of meat and dairy products are the most relevant. The importance of growing crops as it progresses eastward, and in the Balkan peninsula, which account for approximately 60% of agricultural production, and in Ukraine, where cereal production outshines any other type of crop . Europe as a whole is distinguished by its high production of wheat, barley, oats, rye, corn, potatoes (potatoes), beans, peas (peas) and sugar beet (beet). Besides cattle, large quantities are raised pigs, goats and farm animals.
In the late twentieth century, Europe was self-sufficient in agricultural commodities. In much of the arable land is used advanced farming techniques, such as the application of modern machinery and chemical fertilizers, but in southern and southeastern Europe still dominated the traditional techniques inefficient. For much of the period in which the communist regimes were in power in Eastern Europe, agriculture in these countries (with the exception of Poland and Yugoslavia) was based on large state farms and communes.
Forestry and FishingNorthern forests, extending from northern Norway through the European Russia, are the main source of forest products in Europe. Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia have relatively large forest industries that produce pulp, timber and other items. In southern Europe, mainly Spain and Portugal, will manufacture a variety of products extracted from the cork oak. Although all European countries have some coastal fishing industry, fishing is very important in northern countries, especially Norway and Denmark. Spain, Russia, Great Britain and Poland are leading fishing nations.
MiningThe current distribution of the population in much of Europe has been shaped by ancient mining, especially coal mining. Coal zones, as the Midlands (in Britain), the Ruhr (Germany) and Ukraine attracted industries and stimulated the creation of industrial structures that remain today. Although the number of people engaged in mining is declining in Europe, mainly because of mechanization, there are still several important: the Ruhr (Germany), Silesia (Poland) and Ukraine are major coal producers. Iron ore is produced in abundance in northern Sweden, in eastern France and Ukraine. Extract large variety and quantity of other minerals, such as bauxite, copper, manganese, nickel, potassium and mercury (in Spain). One of the most recent and important extractive industries on the continent is the production of oil and natural gas in areas near the coast in the North Sea. It has long been extracted large amounts of these products in the southern part of European Russia, especially in the Volga region.
IndustrySince the Industrial Revolution, the secondary sector radically transformed economic structures and helped in the formation of a new life and cultural patterns in Europe. The central and northern parts of England soon became centers of modern industry, like regions of the Ruhr and Saxony (Germany), northern France, Silesia (Poland) and Ukraine. Iron and steel, fabricated metals, textiles, ships, motor vehicles and rolling stock have been key products in the European industry for a long time. The production of chemicals and electronic equipment and other high-tech goods has spurred the growth of the industry during the period after World War II. Overall, activity is concentrated especially in the central part of the continent (an area that spans England, southern and eastern France, northern Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic , Slovakia, southern Norway and southern Sweden) and in European Russia and Ukraine.
EnergyEurope consumes a lot of energy. The main energy sources are coal, lignite, oil, natural gas and nuclear energy and hydropower. In Norway, Sweden, France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Spain's major hydroelectric facilities, which provide much of the annual electricity production. Nuclear energy is important in France, Britain, Germany, Belgium, Lithuania, Ukraine and other former Soviet republics, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland and Bulgaria. Ireland differs from other European countries in the use of peat as the main source of energy for domestic use and is also used to generate electricity.

TransportThe European transport system is well developed, and is denser in the central part of the continent. Scandinavia, Europe and the former USSR southern Europe have less developed transport infrastructure. There is large number of private vehicles and most of the goods are transported by road. Rail networks are in good condition in most European countries and are important for the transport of both people and goods. Maritime transport plays an important role in the European economy. Several countries, such as Greece, Britain, Italy, France, Norway and Russia have large fleets of merchant ships. Rotterdam (in the Netherlands) is one of the busiest ports in the world. Other important ports are Antwerp (Belgium), Marseille (France), Hamburg (Germany), London (UK), Genoa (Italy), Gdansk (Poland), Bilbao (Spain) and Göteborg (in Sweden). Much of the goods are transported by waterways within; European rivers with outstanding commercial traffic are the Rhine, the Scheldt, the Seine, the Elbe, the Danube, the Volga and the Dnieper. Also, in Europe there are several important channels. Almost all European countries have national airlines, and some, such as Air France, British Airways, Swissair, Iberia, Lufthansa (Germany) and KLM (the Netherlands) has global significance. Most transport systems in European countries are state. Since World War II have been built many pipelines to transport oil and natural gas. The European Union (EU) has encouraged the development of major trans-European networks through its member countries.
International tradeMost of the European countries have a significant international trade. Much of this trade is internal in nature, especially among members of the European Union, but the Europeans also trade on a large scale with countries in other continents. Germany, France, Britain, Italy and the Netherlands are among the world's major trading nations. Much European intercontinental trade is based on the export of industrial products and the import of raw materials.
HISTORYFrom prehistory to the present, Europe has been occupied by many peoples. The following summary will affect only those events, developments, trends and individuals who have been responsible for transitions or decisive changes in Europe over the centuries. To some extent, the history sections of articles of European countries contain more detailed data on the origin, growth and present state of Western civilization. These sections also refer the reader to a variety of articles dealing with the broader aspects of European civilization. Moreover, several articles contain references to other entries related to continental events. A review of all relevant material may be required before the proper understanding of Europe at any time.
Prehistory and antiquityModern man (Homo sapiens sapiens) first appeared in Europe in the late Paleolithic (Old Stone Age). Hunters and gatherers left behind notable examples of rock art (between 25,000 and 10,000 years ago), have been found in more than 200 caves, mainly in France and Spain. About 10,000 years ago, at the end of the Pleistocene (the most recent glacial periods) the weather began to improve gradually and approached to current conditions. Over time, the Neolithic people developed agricultural economies that replaced hunting and gathering. During the sixth millennium BC, agriculture spread to most of Western Europe. Some of these Neolithic cultures, who were born around the year 5000 BC, erected enormous stone monuments (megaliths), as well as structures funerals, memorials well as notable events. The early Neolithic development was particularly strong in the areas of the Danube and the Balkans, calls Starcevo cultures (near Belgrade, in Serbia today) and Danube. In the southern Balkans, culture Sesklo (Thessaly) had developed proto-urban complex forms around the year 5000 BC This, in turn, led to the culture of Dimini (also in Thessaly), characterized by the fortified villages. Excavations in the Balkans have shown that the area was used copper in 4000 BC approximately during the Vinca culture (circa 4500-3000 BC). At this time, trade, especially of amber from the Baltic Sea, was becoming increasingly important. Large deposits of copper and tin in Central Europe (Bohemia) allowed the development of bronze technology in the third millennium BC The aristocratic tombs typical of this period were covered with mounds or tumuli, but at the end of the second millennium BC there was a change: cremation became common, and burials in urns (that led to the so-called culture of Urnfield) became an established custom.

The arrival of the Indo-EuropeansThe research has not yet determined exactly where Indo-European languages ​​originated spoken in much of Europe today. Some researchers believe that the culture of the Kurgan (mound), which started north of the Black Sea circa 2500 BC, was an early Indo-European culture. According to this theory, in the year 2220 B.C. about these Indo-Europeans invaded and spread throughout the Balkans, and introduced the horses in the region, then spread throughout Europe. Consequently, in the mid-Bronze Age peoples of the Balkans and Central Europe may have spoken Indo-European languages. However, with the exception of the civilizations of Crete and Greece in the second millennium BC, most of Europe know how to write.
The first civilization that matured in Europe was that of Crete in the second millennium BC Call Minoan civilization by the legendary King Minos, this society controlled the Bronze Age Aegean around 1600 BC (See Aegean Civilization). The date of the arrival of the first Greek invaders to Greece is unreliable. Many scholars agree that it was around 1900 BC Around 1400 B.C. about these Greeks (Mycenaean called for its main city, Mycenae) Cretans had conquered domains. The Mycenaean civilization maintained business contacts with the Middle East and Britain. However, after 1200 BC, Mycenaean society was almost totally destroyed by the invasion of the northern people, probably of Greek Dorians, who, despite having a less advanced culture, had learned to make iron weapons. The beginning of the Iron Age was characterized by a cultural regression.
Cultures of the Iron AgeIn the late Bronze Age, the population began to increase rapidly in other parts of Europe. In the early Iron Age, which began around 1000 BC, the tribes of the culture of the Central European Urnfield began its expansion along the major rivers and led to major groups such as the Celts and Slavs, like the Italians and the Illyrians. In northern Italy, the culture of Villanova (about 1000-700 BC) became important, and a similar culture, the Halstatt (about 750-450 BC) spread to much of western Europe with the expansion of the Celts between the seventh and IV BC The Celts also identify with the culture of La Tène (about 450-58 BC), which was the immediate predecessor of Halstatt. Around 500 BC, the Germans began to expand from southern Scandinavia and the Baltic. In the Iberian Peninsula, the Celts were 900 BC with the Iberians, who had been installed on it much earlier, from the south. It was the first major peninsular mestizaje.
The supremacy of GreeceAround 800 B.C. Greek civilization began its resurgence after the shock of the Dorian invasion, but in a different form of Mycenaean culture. This was due in large part to the Phoenicians, who had established trading posts on the Mediterranean and distributed elements of civilization in the Middle East to the West. The Greeks took from them the Phoenician alphabet, which added full voice. In the eighth century B.C. Greek city-states began to expand, establishing colonies in the western Mediterranean, in the following century, the Hellenic civilization had reached maturity. The creation of colonies increased trade and prosperity between these settlements and other peoples resulted in the spread of Greek civilization. Most of these new Greek cities, although almost independent, were united by a common culture. They were aware of their Hellenic heritage and regarded the other barbarians. Most ethnic groups in the western Mediterranean (including the Etruscans, who had replaced members of the Villanova culture) soon adopted elements of Greek culture. Most major urban centers in the area, Greek or not, went from monarchies to create aristocratic regimes, which ultimately led to business oligarchs (plutocrats).
Approximately in the V century. C. some Greek centers, like Athens, had become democracies. At that time, Greece began to be threatened by the expansion of the Persian Empire, founded in the previous century. Soon the Persians conquered all of Asia Minor, and in 490 BC, Greece attacked. After the Persians were definitively rejected (479 BC), democratic Athens emerged as the greatest power in the Greek world. Athenian empire was established in the Aegean that precipitated the economic and cultural integration of the region, the V century BC was the golden age of classical Greek civilization. However, Athenian expansionist policies and economic and political rivalries led to the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) in which much of Greece was devastated; wars between Greek cities continued into the next century.
Macedonia, north of Greece, was not originally part of the Greek world. Around the fourth century BC, however, the ruling class had been Hellenized. Under Philip II, Macedonia conquered much of Greece, and his son, Alexander the Great Persian Empire added to these possessions. After his death, his successors divided the empire, so that the centers of gravity for the next period (known as Hellenistic) moved to cities such as Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch, Turkey. Finally, Macedonia and Greece were conquered by Rome in the second century BC
Roman ruleUnlike Greece, early iron age Italy was fragmented into numerous ethnic and linguistic groups. Mixed among the earliest Neolithic cultures, there were several groups of Indo-Europeans who infiltrated northern Italy at the end of the second millennium BC and subsequently spread throughout the peninsula. The largest of these groups were the Italians. A major culture of the Iron Age (the Villanova) was developed in the north and had a great impact in neighboring regions. Probably during the tenth century BC, the Etruscans, or at least its ruling class, emigrated from Asia Minor. They settled in central and northern Italy and created a civilization composed villanovianos and eastern elements. To this was added the strong influence of Greek civilization, including the alphabet, from the Greek colonies of southern.
Around this time, the traditional date is 753 BC, Rome was founded by the River Tiber. The Romans were a people belonging to the group latin italic. Rome (at first a simple village) was occupied and civilized by the Etruscans until the late sixth century BC Later, the Romans began conquering neighboring areas, and at the beginning of the fourth century BC, had conquered the important Etruscan city of Veii. After a temporary setback caused by the invasion of the Gauls (a Celtic tribe), the Romans continued annexing large parts of Italy, in the early third century BC most of central and northern Italy was Roman. Unlike the Greeks, the Romans connected their domains with roads and guaranteed citizenship to full or partial settlements outside Rome, a policy that eventually resulted in a language and a culture more or less uniform.
The expansion of RomeIn calls Pyrrhic War (280-271 BC), Rome gained control of Greece and southern Italy, to absorb this area, partly Hellenized. Conquering Rome put in direct confrontation with Carthage, a former Phoenician colony in North Africa, for control of the western Mediterranean. In subsequent wars with Carthage (see Punic Wars), was victorious Rome and Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, and North Africa fell under its sphere of influence. Roman rule in the Iberian peninsula was not easy and between episodes of resistance became famous defense of Numancia, where people chose to die before surrendering. Faced with the Romans, the hero Viriato peninsular invented a kind of military action that became famous, guerrilla warfare. In the middle of the second century BC, Carthage was destroyed by Rome, who also conquered Macedonia and Greece. The Romans cleared the seas of pirates and extended their roads throughout the region, which facilitated communication and cultural union favored. This Roman-Hellenistic cultural amalgam was bilingual Latin dominated west and the Greek east.
The Roman EmpireAfter a period of civil war and strife, the Roman Republic became an Empire under Emperor Augustus, around the beginning of the Christian era. In the 200 years following the level of prosperity of the Mediterranean reached such a degree that in many ways could not be matched until 1500 years later. The Roman Empire assimilated many peoples, moreover, in the year 212 AD, most free men born within the confines of the Empire became Roman citizens. This concept of universal citizenship was unique in the ancient world. Beyond the borders of the Empire, certain elements of Roman culture also influenced Celtic and Germanic tribes. The Iberian peninsula suffered a profound process of Romanization. He says it was 'the granary of Rome' and one of its richest provinces. Romans celebrities were born on the peninsula Quintilian, the poet Lucan and the philosopher Seneca.
The third century A.D. was a time of collapse of imperial structures, after which the emperor Diocletian reorganized the Empire. Many of his economic and social reforms anticipated the Middle Ages and administrative changes ended the supremacy of Italy. In the fourth century under Constantine the Great, Constantinople (now Istanbul) replaced Rome as capital, and Christianity became in fact, if not officially, the state religion. In the V century, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire against Germanic invaders groups, which led to the establishment of a number of Germanic kingdoms, the Church preserved Roman heritage. The Romanization of the Empire had been so complete that today the languages ​​derived from the Latin spoken in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland and parts of Romania.
The great migrationsWhile civilization was consolidated in the Mediterranean, in other parts of Europe there were great changes. The cultures of the Bronze Age and Iron peripheral regions were mainly pastoral and agricultural communities, much less stable than the Greco-Roman settlements. The migration from poorer areas to richer areas were continuous, and the movement of a people or tribe moved in turn to other people and often caused chain reactions. The first to start such movements during the final centuries of the pre-Christian era and the beginning of the Christian era were the Germanic tribes. These tribes had occupied parts of southern Scandinavia and northern Germany in the late Bronze Age. During the Iron Age began migrating south, perhaps because of a worsening climate. In the second century BCE two Germanic tribes, the Cimbri and Teutons, reached the area that today is Provence, but were finally rejected by the Romans. The Swabians were more successful and occupied part of Germany today. The Celtic tribes of that region were pushed westward for many years later conquered by the Romans under the command of Julius Caesar. Roman expansion into Germanic territory was interrupted in AD 9, when Germanic troops led by Arminius (Hermann) crushed the Roman legions in the forest Teoburgo. As a result, Rome established a buffer zone east of the Rhine and north of the Danube. About the year 150 AD, and later migrations of peoples dislocations intensified again and threatened the imperial frontiers. Emperor Marcus Aurelius fought successfully against the Marcomanni and the Quadi, as against a non-German people, the yacigos, an example of the characteristics of this period is that Marcus Aurelius spent much of his reign fighting the invading tribes. At the beginning of the third century AD, the Alemanni had penetrated north of the Roman border, and east the Goths began their infiltration into the Balkan Peninsula. After his defeat by the imperial troops, the Goths became mercenaries of Rome.
During the second half of the third century, Germanic groups (including Swiss) entered the Empire. Great efforts were made to strengthen the inner defenses. Under Emperor Aurelian built a wall around Rome itself, Dacia was abandoned, and increasingly recruited Germanic mercenaries to form part of the Roman armies. Roma could only weather the crisis of the third century by restructuring the empire by Diocletian, made in principle to deal with the Germanic tribes more efficiently. After half of the fourth century the situation seemed to be under control, but a new people, the Huns invaded Europe from Central Asia and claimed another series of reactions. The Goths were pushed into the Balkans and defeated the Romans at Adrianople in 378. In 410 the Visigoths of Alaric I sacked Rome and caused a stir throughout the Empire. Shortly after the Vandals, after crossing the Iberian Peninsula, entered North Africa under Roman rule and established a kingdom. In 451 a Roman army, formed largely by Visigoths, defeated the Huns of Attila, but years later Rome was sacked again, this time by vandals. At that time Britain, Gaul and Spain were occupied by Germanic tribes. The end of the Western Empire came in 476, when Germanic mercenaries deposed Emperor Romulus Augustus and became their leader, Odoacer, king of Italy. At this time, and was dominated Hispania by the Visigoths, who had embraced the Arian heresy, which did not accept that Christ was part of the Holy Trinity, considering just a prophet. From Roman rule, flourished martyrs and saints.
Beginnings of the Middle AgesRomulus Augustus was deposed in 476 without having designated heir, as Zeno, Emperor of the Eastern Empire, he was advised that there was no immediate reason to appoint a successor, the suggestion seemed reasonable. In theory, in law and in the hearts of the people, the Empire was invulnerable. Many reigns of emperors had been short, and many had ended violently warring Germanic peoples were present in Roman political life for over a century. No one could have imagined at the time that Romulus Augustus (ironically named after the legendary founder of Rome) was to be the last Roman emperor of the West and that an era had ended.
The Roman-Germanic conflictWith the end of the fourth century the Germanic peoples of the north and east of the Roman Empire had begun a movement to the west and south. They were agricultural and pastoral peoples, and like all pastoral peoples with a high degree of nomadism, had a long history of migration.
To address Germanic migration, Rome, with serious economic problems, followed a policy of pragmatic adaptation. The Empire, whose length was excessive, could afford to lose territory which immediately yielded to the Germans, but the emperors decided to defend vital strategic points, such as the Mediterranean ports of southern Europe which depended imperative to get the North African wheat. In mid V century, however, the Germanic groups had political control of the Western Empire. The Franks invaded Gaul early V century, the Italian Peninsula became a Gothic kingdom at the invitation of the Emperor, the Visigoths conquered the Iberian Peninsula around AD 507 and the Vandals had invaded the provinces of North Africa, rich in cereals , in 428 or so. In the Iberian Peninsula, the conversion to Christianity of the Visigoths Recaredo (587) resolved the conflict that pitted the church hispanorromana with invasive dominant elite. Recaredo accepted that project established a political-territorial unit, incorporating peninsular peoples in the political system of the Visigothic monarchy.
The Germanic tribes wanted land and wealth, but also wanted to live like Romans, and what is considered conventionally as 'barbarización' of the Western Empire should be regarded as firmly Romanization of barbarians. The basic conflict between the two peoples was religious.
The West Germans were pagans who worshiped a pantheon of gods and heavenly nature deities. The East Germans had been converted to Christianity through the intense missionary activity developed by Bishop Ulfilas, a follower of the doctrine of Arianism, which held that Christ was fully human and divine nature had not. In 380 this theory was considered a heresy. Thus, the Germanic peoples were hated and feared less as political enemies of Rome as having a heretical version of Christianity.
The origins of the power of the ChurchThe religious opposition to the pagan invaders and Arians gave new meaning to the Church and the papacy during this period. The church government was organized much like a Roman provincial administration: the control was in the hands of local independent bishops. However, three bishoprics, Alexandria, Antioch and Rome, occupied positions comparable to those of provincial governors, to monitor not only the congregations of their own cities, but also from neighboring areas. The three figures were highly respected and each received the honorary title of pope (father). The Pope of Rome had the added prestige of being the direct heir of St. Peter, the first bishop of Rome. In principle the influence of the Papacy grew by the enormous activity of several Roman popes, but compromise, paralysis and eventual collapse of the Roman government in the West was a more important reason: the political authority disintegrated, bishops stood firm in what they considered the truth and the old order, and the last representative of the order in Rome were no longer the emperor or the Senate but the pope, who occupied the chair of St. Peter.
The Byzantine EmpireHowever, even a Roman emperor led the Eastern Empire and its successors continue to reign for another 1,000 years. Constantinople was now the city that ruled the Roman provinces of the eastern Mediterranean, but the Empire had become such that modern historians have called Byzantine rather than Roman.
All the basic elements of the Byzantine Empire were present at the time of the great sixth century Emperor Justinian I. The trend of the Empire, present throughout the history of Rome, to become a military autocracy definitely was eliminated during his reign. The government became entirely in a civil and professional body, centered in the imperial palace and, most importantly, in the emperor himself. Roman law was codified systematically. The economy and tax revenues were centralized. Justinian's religious policy also contributed to centralization. In a time of intense religious conflict and revision of the doctrine, the Byzantine Empire became the orthodox religion of the emperor in the official state religion.
In the early years of his reign, Justinian embarked on an attempt to reconquer the West Arian. The Vandal kingdom of Africa fell quickly, as the italics of the Lombards and the eastern part of the kingdom of the Visigoths in the Iberian Peninsula. However, due to the continued pressure of the Sassanids of Persia, the Empire lost its military power in the Iberian Peninsula, which emerged as a Visigothic kingdom with a culture and a particular political organization. In Italy, the imperial forces retreated to their stronghold Sicily and the Adriatic, Ravenna, leaving the rest of the peninsula to the Lombards. The Balkans were completely devastated by the Avars and the Slavs.
Indeed, the western conquests of Justinian medieval Europe gave its characteristic cultural structure. European territories were separated northern Mediterranean, economically and culturally underdeveloped. They were actually part of the Middle East, a development which was consummated in the seventh century, when North Africa and southwestern Europe (Iberian Peninsula and parts of southeastern France) fell before the Muslim armies.

The Rise of the Franks
 In northern European history from V to IX century was dominated by a group of West Germanic tribes collectively francs. Unlike the East Germans, the Franks became directly from its ancient paganism to Catholic Christianity, without an intervening period of Arianism. The Salian Franks began their final conversion 496, after his chief warrior Clovis I was baptized by the Christian rite along with many of his followers. Clovis I, a descendant of Merovech or Merowig (reigned between 448 and 458) and part of the ruling family of the Salian Franks, was the first king of the Merovingian dynasty. With numerous victories against other peoples and success in a long series of complex family disputes frank characteristics of culture, became the supreme ruler of all the Franks.
At the death of Clovis, by the traditional law of the Salian Franks, the lands under their control were divided among his four sons. These, in turn, would leave their land to all his male heirs, so that all government Merovingian era was characterized by alternating periods of fragmentation and consolidation, depending on the number and skills of the heirs.
This era came to an end in the eighth century. Historically the last Merovingian kings earned the nickname fainéants rois ("lazy kings"). Gradually the power concentrated in the office of mayor of the palace and the king, until, in 751, King Childeric III and his only son were imprisoned. His long hair (symbolism of nobility) was cut and the mayor of the palace, Pepin the Short, son of the great warrior Charles Martel, was proclaimed king of the Franks, the first of the Carolingian dynasty to assume the royal title.
The Carolingian coup would never have happened without the active intervention of the pope. In several letters to both leaders crossed between 740 and 750, the Carolingian king inquired about the desirability of improving the government of the kingdom, in which all power was not in the hands of the monarch, the pope responded by citing the biblical precedent David, anointed by the prophet Samuel as King Saul was still alive. Moreover, the pope followed the precedent and anointed Pepin and his descendants would anointing a royal consecration ritual.
CharlemagneThe largest of the Carolingian kings was Charlemagne (742-814) in his own time was a legendary and mythical figure. His reign marked the culmination of the development franc. Under his rule, the Franks, through a series of conquests, became the owners of the West and the guarantors of the papal power in Italy. Charlemagne defeated the Lombards in Italy, the Frisians in the north, to the Saxons in the east, annexed the duchy of Bavaria and drove the Muslims in the south of France. Consolidated its power over this vast territory to get members of the landowning sectors ally themselves with each other and with himself by special oaths of loyalty, which occasionally rewarded with lands newly conquered areas and absolute jurisdiction over his subjects. This policy-the first major example of the growing ties of personal dependence connected with political power called feudalism Charlemagne not only provided a steady supply of warriors, but also contributed to more easily control their territory. The vassals of the king and his closest subordinates and vassals of them, became in turn delegates and representatives of the monarch.

The increased sense of Christian mission of Charlemagne was inseparable from the military and political consolidation. He founded monasteries in border areas that functioned as local settlers who underwent forests and swamps (the imposing home of the ancient pagan gods) to Christian control and made arable. They were also centers of missionary and educational, for the spread of Christianity required a trained clergy, a rite homogenized and important book production. The key was education, and the practical work of the foundation and staffing of monastic and cathedral schools demanded foreign aid. Charlemagne found in Rome and the Lombard lands of Italy, where ancient educational traditions had not died completely. However, the greatest contribution to education reform Carolingian Anglo-Irish, as the great monasteries of England and Ireland were rich in books and in their preparation, in fact, the chief adviser of Charlemagne was the English scholar Alcuin of York.

The kingdom of the Franks, as a result, territorial and culturally integrated Europe that had not been done since the Roman Empire. On Christmas Day 800, Charlemagne went to hear Mass at the Cathedral of St. Peter in Rome. By all accounts, as he rose from prayer, the pope placed a crown on his head, bowed before him and proclaimed imperator augustus et before the people. So not only Charlemagne became the emperor of the Franks, but also of Rome. The power of the new state (which is called Holy Roman Empire), the organization of the Church and the ancient traditions of Rome had become indistinguishable.
New invasionsThe last years of Charlemagne's reign was marked by political tensions continued in the reigns of his descendants. To the south there was the Muslim invasion, which initially had the support of the Jews who lived in many lands of North Africa and the Iberian peninsula. 711 Islamic troops crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and spread throughout the peninsula, reaching the south of France. In the late ninth and tenth-century Europe was the scene of renewed political disintegration and a series of disastrous invasions, this time of the Vikings (Scandinavians from the north) and the Magyars who, from Asia, moved into the West, through the plains of the Danube. The borderlands stopped cultivation, trade and travel was interrupted were dangerous even for short distances.
During this period there were several trends. On the one hand, Europe experienced another great wave of political fragmentation, but even those in favor of political centralization were weak, it can not be said of the power of local landed families. It was also a time domain Benedictine monasteries, large landowners who were embroiled in feudal alliance network. Finally, the papacy became its own right in a secular power exerted direct political control over much of central and northern Italy. Gradually developed a device central authority over regional churches and monasteries, and, through its diplomatic expansion and administration of justice, also accumulated considerable political power across Europe.
High and Late Middle AgesIn approximately 1050, Europe was entering a period of great and rapid change. The conditions of material life that produced these changes are not yet entirely clear, but the following reasons can be cited for certain: the long period of Germanic and Asian migration was over and Europe enjoyed a stable population level and continued, had begun and would continue expansion of the population of staggering proportions. Urban life, never ceased altogether during the previous centuries, experienced remarkable growth and development, and thus broke the medieval trend toward economic self-sufficiency. The economy and trade, particularly in the Mediterranean lands of Italy and the south of France and in the Netherlands, was increased in amount, regularity and extension. In the Iberian Peninsula, the northern Christian kingdoms emerging initiated a long war against successive invasions Almoravids and Almohads, a reconquest which lasted for seven centuries.
Ferment and intellectual growthWhile the European economy became more complex, social and political institutions also diversified. In every branch of public affairs, local government, justice, trade regulation and development of educational personnel necessary to provide each administration according to its regulations, appeared similar in structure and development complexity.
The new challenges of this complex social life produced an unprecedented intellectual ferment in European history. This ferment, present in all areas of the sciences, has ended up being known as the Renaissance of the twelfth century. The ecclesiastical and secular laws were systematized, discussed and challenged as never before. The rhetoric and logic became under review in its own right and led to investigations of classical culture, long forgotten. The theological doctrine was explored and promoted new methods of criticism. Meanwhile, in Cordoba, Muslim capital, there was a significant religious and cultural syncretism, and lived in this city for centuries Muslims, Jews and Christians in peace and harmony. Through Cordoba, Europe met Greek philosophy and classical literature through Arabic translations and Toledo School of Translators, also thanks to them medicine, astronomy, and ancient and modern science entered the continent. Arabs mathematics transmitted to Europe, and introduced products like paper, rice and sugar cane.

This favored Western Europeans who began to think of themselves in a new way, a change that was reflected in the innovations in the creative arts. In literature, the love lyric and courtly romance appeared in the vernacular emerging, and there was a brilliant revival of writing in Latin. Painting and sculpture devoted new attention to the natural world and made an unprecedented attempt to represent extreme emotional and vital. The architecture flourished with the building, along pilgrimage routes which traveled frequently, of churches in a style that combined materials and Greco-Roman techniques with a whole new aesthetic.
There were also far-reaching changes in the spiritual life. In the twelfth century new religious orders were established, as the Cistercians (who tried to purify the traditions of Benedictine monasticism) and orders of mendicant friars, who sought to adjust to the new monastic ideal urban life. In all of them was a new sense of common individual piety, based not on the ritual, but in individual identification with the suffering of Christ. The development of the cult of the Virgin Mary, a relatively minor figure in the preceding centuries, had a similar spirit.
Political EvolutionAt the same time, people began to identify themselves as members of groups and communities with interests other than those of its neighbors. The political events of the period had an intimate relationship with these new identities.
One of the most important was the rapid rise of the Normans hegemonic. Descendants of the Vikings who settled in northern France during the ninth and tenth centuries and turned into vassals of the king of France, the Normans arrived on the scene in the history of Europe in 1066, the year that saw the Battle of Hastings, by which conquered England under the command of William the Conqueror, who secured his conquest with an intensive resettlement program, the Normans, whose language was the same as the Franks, became the ruling class of England, together with Guillermo by land grants and feudal obligations. This feudalisation systematic policy and the imposition of other institutions Normans took England to the mainstream of political and social development of the continent. The fact that the Duke of Normandy (a fief under the King of France) was also king of England, becoming a character in the same position and more power, illustrates the growing complexity of the European world. The political conflict, and with it the idea of ​​the state as an autonomous institution, was inevitable.
In Germanic and Italian territories of the Holy Roman Empire, the new activity of the papacy as an actual governing body came into conflict with the power of the emperor in a tangle of events collectively known as the Investiture. During the first period of the Empire had been a strict separation in theory or in practice between ecclesiastical and political fields. From the time of the Carolingian historical alliance with the Pope, the Emperor was no longer considered only a secular figure. Similarly, the bishops were secular powers in their own right, directors or servants of feudal kings and emperors. No questioning the secular power should take part in the election of bishops and actively take part in the coronation or episcopal investiture. Precisely this practice caused the fight when Pope Gregory VII declared the primacy of the Church in the election and consecration of its own officials.
The most important result of the controversy was that questioned all relations between Church and State. In theology, law and political theory, the state as secular entity, was critically examined, like the Church, not only as a community of devout Christians, but also as an administrative aristocracy of bishops in the service of the Pope. At the end of the twelfth century the Church became a European great power politics with different emerging secular states.
The cultural unity
 Material and cultural forces released in the twelfth century extended their impact for the next 200 years. Europe had become a cultural unit, which is institutionally expressed what was the thinking of the Christian Church. This unit was reflected more clearly than ever in a series of military expeditions (the Crusades) in which it was intended to wrest Islam Christian holy places in the Middle East. The hierarchy of the Church preached in favor of the Crusades, which won the support of the new monastic orders, for which the 'military pilgrimage' represented the path to individual and collective salvation. The idea of ​​holy war, however, went beyond social divisions and attracted both traditional warrior aristocracy and the peasantry, new classes of artisans and urban workers arising from the growth of urban society. In the Iberian Peninsula, the traditional tolerance between Muslims, Jews and Christians lived times of crisis and, as the Christian kingdoms stretched southward monarchs and the Church had to intervene frequently to appease popular, they blamed the Jews, including converts or 'new Christians', guilt and responsibility for all disasters. It was incubating the gravest crisis of national identity, origin of the Inquisition and the expulsion of Jews and Moors, which occurred in the late fifteenth and sixteenth century respectively.
The growing intolerance of non-Christian populations within and outside the borders of Europe had the same importance as an expression of cultural unity Christian. Islam, the infidel enemy of the distant Jerusalem was also the enemy at the borders, and in Sicily centuries of trade and intellectual came to an end. Also in the period between the twelfth and fourteenth intolerance toward Jews who had settled in Europe spread and became more virulent. Punitive decrees restricting Jewish settlement and colonization coincided with riots and mass atrocities against the Jewish population, and laid the foundations of ideological anti-Semitism: Jews, as strange creatures and demonic conspiracies involved in international and guilty of the death ritual Christian children, entered the folklore of the European imagination. Finally, during this period there was an increase of heresies, an expression of the intellectual and social concerns of the time, and the political and military efforts to destroy them, reflected especially in the south of France crusade against heresy Albigensians.
Thus the European cultural unity was not without conflict. Instead, he was in a precarious state of balance, and its elements, in continuous development, inevitably came into conflict with each other in the following centuries. Towns and cities continued economic and population growth. In Italy, England and the Netherlands began to fight for political autonomy. The fighting was particularly cruel in Italy, where cities were among the conflicting political designs of the Empire and the Papacy. They were also featured infighting between different urban social groups. As a result, intensified political and social thought that today is called humanism, while the people trying to articulate their own positions.

The rise of national consciousnessThe general struggle for supremacy between church and state became a constant in European history. In the thirteenth and fourteenth European cultural unity in Europe was challenged by local interests, regional and national. This manifested itself in the real increase in power of the king of France and his confrontation with the king of England, in its lower theory. It also emerged in hope, even in the absence of any unifying power potential, independent of Italy Pope and Emperor, and free civic and territorial struggles. Throughout the West was experiencing a sense of renewal, expansion and discovery. In the Iberian Peninsula, completed the reconquest in 1492, with the fall of Granada by the Catholic Monarchs, ensured the territorial unit and established the first state in the modern sense, and similarly to what was happening simultaneously in France and England.
The regional and national awareness and the developed cities, the continued growth of trade within Europe and to the East, the extraordinary intellectual and artistic creativity of the Renaissance and the confusion and social conflict were some of the traits of the end of the age average. Even the terrible appearance of the Black Death in the mid-fourteenth century, and its periodic reappearance not fundamentally alter these trends.
No single event can expose better the anxiety of this period that the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, in the following century. Spurred by national rivalry and commercial interest in opening new trade routes to the East, the Spanish Monarchy coasted speculations and Venetian merchant mariner. The Portuguese king, Henry the Navigator, had rejected the plans of Columbus, so he went to the Spanish Court, where Queen Isabel, beating many questions, and seeking financial support of others, financed the expedition of Columbus. The result was unexpected. There was a new world to the West. The horizons were broadened and the physical and material world had become an object of intellectual curiosity. Europe was ready to increase its operations scenario. The 'encounter' of new lands to the West came at a crucial time for Spain. Finished the wars of reconquest, expelled the Hispano and coinciding with the departure of the Jews who did not accept to be Christians, the kings of Spain saw the conquest subsequent discoveries and the best way to give a natural outlet expansive impulse and accumulated energy the Peninsular Wars.
Home of the modern eraThe century and a half that elapsed between the European arrival to America and the end of the Thirty Years' War was a time of transition and intellectual tension. After 1648, the religion remained important in European history, but did not turn to doubt the priority of secular concerns. Because this change in values ​​and uncertainty raised concern in the beginning, the people of Europe exhibited a deep ambivalence: they were not medieval, but neither were modern.
The birth of a new era
 This ambiguity was reflected in who in the late fifteenth century, began to explore the lands beyond Europe's coasts. Inspired by religious zeal, explorers like Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan made possible a vast missionary effort and discoverer. Also motivated by the desire to obtain material goods, contributed to a commercial revolution and the development of capitalism. Portugal and Spain, as sponsors of the first trips, were the first to reap the economic harvest. Although the huge amount of money that flowed to Spain contributed to a 'price revolution' (rapid devaluation of money and inflation in the long term), initially served to extraordinary power in the hands of King Philip II, who is said that "in his dominions never set the Sun". Heir to the Habsburg dominions in Western Europe and America, Philip proclaimed defender of the Catholic faith. His opposition to the ambitions of the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean not only due to that the Turks were imperial competitors but also they were 'infidels' Muslims. Similarly, his campaigns against the Netherlands and England had both political and religious motives, because in both cases their enemies were Protestant.

The Protestant ReformationThe Protestant Reformation began hated Philip II in 1517, the year Martin Luther exposed to public debate his 99 theses. In search of personal salvation and offended by the sale of papal indulgences, Wittenberg professor had come to a conclusion that differed in some of which had caused the death of Jan Hus a century earlier. Luther resigned to retract even when faced with a bull of excommunication. However, despite its religious character, after proclaiming that salvation comes only through faith, Luther's challenge to the Church was mixed with political aspects. Recognizing the danger of the political implications of his ideas, Luther Charles V put under imperial ban.
Luther's break with the Church could have been an isolated incident if it had not been for the invention of printing. His writings, reproduced in large numbers and widespread, were the catalysts for even more radical reform, that of the Anabaptists. In its determination to recreate the atmosphere of early Christianity, the Anabaptists were against Catholics and Lutherans alike. Reform could not be contained geographically succeeded Zwingli in Switzerland where his ideas prevailed in Zurich. In Geneva, John Calvin, a Frenchman by birth, published the first major work of Protestant theology, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536). Calvinism proved to be the most politically militant Protestant denominations.
Unable to maintain the unity of Western Christianity, the Catholic Church did not give land to Protestants. The Counter, who was not only a response to the Protestant challenge, represented an effort to invigorate the instruments of authority of the Catholic Church. The Council of Trent reaffirmed traditional Catholic dogma, denounced ecclesiastical abuses and strengthened the Inquisition and the Index of prohibited books. With the Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola, the Counter could boast of an organization as militant and dedicated as any Protestant denomination.
Religious warsEncouraged primarily by Spanish monarchs Charles V and Philip II, the struggle between Catholics and Protestants was not limited to the spiritual realm. During the period 1550-1650, the protracted religious wars caused widespread destruction of the continent. However, these religious wars inextricably intertwined with political strife, which eventually took on a major role. In France, a bloody civil conflict between Catholics and Huguenots lasted for 30 years until Henry IV was recognized as king in 1593. By putting the power over secular religious loyalty, the Protestant Henry converted to Catholicism, the religion of the majority of his subjects. In the Netherlands, Catholic Spain and the Dutch provinces, Calvinists, filed a long and brutal war (1567-1609) ended with the victory of the latter. Religion is closely identified with national aspirations, the Dutch leader William of Orange-Nassau, Catholic and Lutheran before becoming Calvinist, gathered his people to call the national resistance above all.
In England the religious struggle was part of a larger effort to secure national independence. Under Queen Elizabeth I issued reasons of state religious policy, as a result, the administrative autonomy Protestant and Catholic ritual were skillfully woven to make a compromise: the Church of England (Anglican Church). Using treacherous storms (the 'Protestant wind'), Elizabethan England refused to the Armada that Philip II of Spain had sent in 1588, which led to a national and religious victory. Knowing that defeat, the Spanish king said: "I sent my ships to fight with men, not against the elements." Spain lost its European leadership, which went to France, its traditional enemy.
The Thirty Years' War was the last war and the first modern religious. Initiated in Bohemia, where the Catholic Habsburgs and Protestant Czechs maintained a fierce opposition, confrontation was fueled by two Lutheran countries, Denmark and Sweden. However, almost from the beginning, his character was ambiguous, but from the beginning the religious passions contributed to its outbreak, in 1635 the war became a political struggle between the Hapsburg and Bourbon dynasties, both Catholic. Example of this period of tension, while transition was Cardinal Richelieu, a member of the Catholic Church whose interests were secular and France involved in the race. At the end of the war, France emerged as the most powerful country on the European continent and the prototype centralized secular state.
The Age of AbsolutismIn the aftermath of the Thirty Years War, absolutism began to take a recognizable form, the state, secular and centralized institutions and replaced the feudal political concepts as an instrument of power and global influence. Through the efforts of Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, France entered the scene as the first great modern power. In 1661, when Louis XIV assumed the government of the country, he realized that only could conquer new territory by mobilizing economic and military resources of the entire state. The series of wars that resulted in Europe could not transform their wildest dreams into reality, but the effort itself would have been impossible without mercantilist economic policies of Jean-Baptiste Colbert and the creation of a large standing army. The vast civil and military bureaucracy that inevitably carried the territorial ambitions of the French monarch unbridled soon began to take their own life, and, though the king may have believed that he was the State, in fact had become their main server. The French aristocracy ran a similar fate. When diversity feudal bureaucratic rationalism fell victim, aristocrats were forced to cede political power to officials in the state bureaucracy, called intendants. In Spain, the death of Charles II without successor led the War of Succession. The arrival of the new Bourbon dynasty coincided with the introduction of absolutism. Philip V abolished the privileges of the various kingdoms, became extinct Courts and centralized power based on a strict bureaucracy.
The centralization of the stateOther European monarchs quickly emulated French absolutism. Tsar Peter the Great devoted his energies to transform Russia into a major military power. As part of this program of westernization created a permanent army and navy, encouraged the study of Western technology and insisted that the nobility were defined by service to the State. He took further steps to streamline government administration. These efforts were crowned with success when Russia defeated Sweden in the Northern War (1700-1721). Peter and his successors, wealthy in his new capital, St. Petersburg, could not be excluded for longer Europe's political equation. Nor Prussia, where the political fruits of their historical development was similar to that of the most centralized states: war and enacted expansionist impulse power concentration, standardization of administrative procedures and the creation of a modern army and permanent .

The secular view of the worldNext to the secularization of politics was a secularization of thought. The scientific revolution of the seventeenth century laid the foundations of a world view that did not depend on the assumptions and Christian categories. Upon release of theology, philosophers found new allies in science and mathematics. For thinkers like Francis Bacon and the French philosopher René Descartes, the soul's destiny was less important to the functioning of the natural world, and although Bacon and Descartes was a rationalist empiricist, both believed that the power of human reason, properly used, is imposed authority.
Among the various creators of modern thought, none was more important or the most celebrated English physicist Isaac Newton, who discovered a mechanical explanation covering the whole universe on the basis of the law of universal gravity. The respect that Newton inspired philosophers of the eighteenth century can hardly be exaggerated. Determined to popularize scientific picture of the world and adapt their methods to the task of social and political criticism, the leading figures of the Enlightenment put the world's problems directly in the center of intellectual activity. In the most famous compendium of Enlightenment thought, the Encyclopedia (1751-1772), Denis Diderot (the editor), Jean d'Alembert, Voltaire and others questioned the religious world and advocated scientific humanism based on natural law .
Enlightened despotism
 During the second half of the eighteenth century, the artwork is allied with absolutism. Inspired by philosophers, absolute monarchs like Frederick II the Great of Prussia, Joseph II of Austria, and Catherine II of Russia, themselves modeled on the ideal of the philosopher king and tried, with varying degrees of success, to use the service the common good. Despite his sincerity, his greatest success was further radicalize absolutism. Under his leadership, the political particularism continued their retreat before the advance of legal uniformity through codes of laws and administrative regulations and bureaucratic. Indeed, there was a resurgence during the century aristocratic, but the aristocrats had their new vitality to its obligation to serve the state. In short, under the enlightened absolute monarchs centralized power developed rapidly, in a genuine effort to improve the welfare of his subjects, the enlightened despots introduced more state power in their daily existence. In Spain, under Charles III flourished arts and letters led governments covered by excellent politicians, like the Count of Aranda, Count of Campomanes, Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos and Count of Floridablanca, friends and supporters of the French Enlightenment and the new British ideologues.
The age of revolutions
 By the late eighteenth century the concentration of power in the hands of the monarch began to be challenged. The European rebellion against absolutism intensified with the success of the War of Independence and the creation of the United States and the rise of the English bourgeoisie, which coincided with the Industrial Revolution. This rebellion crystallized for the first time in France, in 1789, and from there spread throughout the continent over the next century.
The French Revolution The French Revolution included a series of events that transformed the political atmosphere, social and ideological modern Europe. These events began when the aristocracy, who refused to pay taxes, forced King Louis XVI to restore the dying General States in the spring of 1789. Few suspected that this decision would unleash elemental and irresistible forces of discontent. Although they had different purposes, aristocrats, bourgeois, sans-culottes (poor inhabitants of cities) and peasants joined in the decision to alter the conditions of its existence. Along with this statement of their interests, a body of ideas and political theories heterogeneous oriented revolutionary energies, in particular, the doctrine of Jean-Jacques Rousseau of popular sovereignty that influenced the ablest leaders of the Third Estate (the commoners) . When the National Assembly proclaimed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August 1789, intended to warn the rest of Europe had discovered governance principles universally valid.
The Reign of TerrorThe constitutional monarchy had emerged in 1791 was so unsatisfactory to the king and the Jacobins, a faction of revolutionaries. In the Legislative Assembly (1791-1792), these and the Girondins (other less radical revolutionary faction) advocated establishing a republic, while preparing a declaration of war against Austria (April 1792). When French troops suffered initial setbacks, the temperature rose even more revolutionary and, in September, the newly formed National Convention proclaimed the Republic in France. On January 21, 1793, Louis XVI was executed and during the year and a half, the country was ruled by revolutionary leaders, whose dreams of perfection moral hypocrisy and hatred inspired a period known as the Reign of Terror, which turned the guillotine at the command political messianism. The moral fury of the Committee of Public Safety knew no territorial boundaries, and its members carried out an escalating war against a coalition of European powers whose absolutism clashed with his revolutionary ideals. Its success can be attributed in part to the conscription instituted in August 1793, which showed the terrible military potential of a nation in arms. However, fear finally invaded the Committee itself, in July 1794 Maximilien Robespierre, its leader, was arrested and executed. During the subsequent reaction, the French soon forgot 'the republic of virtue' and welcomed a new stage almost as a symbol of freedom.
Arrival of Napoleon to power
 The government of the Board, much maligned, tried to assimilate the less controversial elements of the revolutionary heritage and keep a coup de grace (knockout) Jacobin messianism. The Board determined to encourage careers of men of talent, made possible the rapid rise to power of Napoleon Bonaparte. With the connivance of two directors, Napoleon prepared a coup in November 1799, ruled in an authoritarian and was crowned emperor in 1804. Napoleon, a student who came of age during the Revolution, is considered the last of the absolute monarchs. As part of its plan to extend the principles of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Code enacted, a codified system of laws, and education placed under state control. Among the revolutionary principles of liberty and equality, he chose the latter in the knowledge that it would only be stimulated by a strong central authority.
The Napoleonic WarsIn foreign affairs, Napoleon renewed the expansionism of Louis XIV with a firm conviction of some principles illustrated. He abolished the old feudal privileges and imposed legal equality in the territories, which extended most of continental Europe, and that added to the French Empire by force of arms. In his passion for the centralization of power, historical complexities sacrificed in favor of the demands of administrative convenience, such as the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine
What Napoleon he failed to appreciate was how much larger administrative units and egalitarian reforms promoted national consciousness. Like its success depended on the French national enthusiasm, his fall was caused by the development of national consciousness of the European peoples. The Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815) differed from those of Louis XIV were not just between states but between nation states. After a series of disasters (especially the Russian campaign and the endless 'Peninsular War' in Spain and Portugal), Napoleon was defeated and European power regained a better balance, the so-called Hundred Days (1815) after his flight Elba and culminated in the Battle of Waterloo a year later, were desperate and risky endgame. As leaders of the Revolution, Napoleon had increased centralized state power and added an explosive mix of nationalism.
Liberalism, nationalism and socialismAfter the defeat of Napoleon, the victorious allies met in Vienna, determined to restore the old order (see Congress of Vienna). The Austrian foreign minister Klemens von Metternich, who defended the principle of legitimacy, restored the Bourbons in France, said the Habsburg hegemony in German-speaking areas of Central Europe and Italy and forged a consensus to monitor the continent against any revolutionary change. Metternich tried to help the Spanish absolutist monarch Ferdinand VII in its claims to recover their American dominions, but had to face resistance from the British, who supported the insurgents in Spanish America. However, his authoritarian action was only a holding action. European revolutionary ideas continued to operate in the shadows, conspiring with the help of the rise of industrialization and a rapidly growing population to prevent any attempt to turn back.
The Romantics
 The romantic imagination was affected by the poignant drama of revolution and war. The Romantics, who rejected the rational calculation and control classic, invented an idealized Napoleon conferred liberalism, socialism and nationalism emotional fervor. As heirs of the Enlightenment and representatives of the bourgeoisie, the Liberals (a term coined in the Cortes of Cadiz in 1812) campaigned for constitutional government, secular education and the market economy, which would free the productive forces of capitalism . His call, though real, was limited to a relatively small segment of the population and was soon eclipsed by the rival ideologies message, in part because of their indifference to the social question, which utopian socialists like Charles Fourier, Henri Saint Simon and Robert Owen offered provocative, although fantastic responses. And what's more, liberalism failed to generate the kind of enthusiasm that emerged exalted with the emergence of national consciousness. Activated by the French Revolution, Napoleon and the works of the German historian Johann Gottfried von Herder, romantic nationalism surpassed all ideologies at stake, especially east of the Rhine As Christianity began to lose their influence on individual lives, leaders as Giuseppe Mazzini, Italy and Adam Mickiewicz in Poland were able to impose on the national consciousness a messianic character. In Spain, the liberal revolution that implanted the first constitution was short lived. King Ferdinand VII returned to establish absolutism in 1814 and had to deal with the revolt of the Liberals, who managed to impose its policy between 1820 and 1823, during the so-called Liberal Triennium.
Revolutions and scientific socialism
 Although surveillance of Metternich, some of these ideologies could not be eliminated between 1815 and 1848 and Europe was shaken by three revolutionary crises. In 1848 the flames of revolt spread throughout Europe, with the exception of Great Britain, Russia and the Iberian Peninsula. However, when the ashes finally cooled, it was clear that the romantic revolution had burned herself. Indeed, Metternich had been expelled from Austria and France had proclaimed the Second French Republic, but most failed uprisings and revolutionary dreams had been dashed to become realities. However, the time of the Restoration ended. The railroads, industrialization and prosperous urban population were altering the landscape of Europe while materialistic thinking began to challenge the primacy of romantic poetry and philosophy. Science was becoming a slogan, the inexorable progress warranty. In 1851, the Great Exhibition of London paid tribute to the technical achievements of the century. Charles Darwin, despite his vision of a wilderness, preached the "survival of the fittest". Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels German revolutionary socialist scoffed utopian socialism developed a 'scientific' based on the most radical transformation of society.
Pragmatic policy
 In politics, the torch passed to the advocates of realpolitik (in German, 'pragmatic policy'). Thus, the liberal, but pragmatic, Camillo Benso di Cavour succeeded where Mazzini had failed; unified Italy by combining skillful diplomacy with the use of regular armies. In rejecting the challenge ended commitments Hungarian revolutionary Lajos Kossuth, the Hungarian Ferenc Deák negotiated political autonomy of Hungary in the context of the Habsburg monarchy. In France, Napoleon III forged an authoritarian government which brought together economic development (industrialization) and social (welfare programs) with political discipline and social order. Moreover, there was the most important event of the third quarter of the century, when Otto von Bismarck unified Germany. Convinced that the great problems of his time could only be solved by "blood and iron", used the wars against Denmark, Austria and France to make the new German nation state in one of the major powers of Europe. However, even the legendary chancellor, a Prussian patriot indifferent to ideology, was forced to make concessions to the Socialists and the Liberals. His ultimate failure in efforts to isolate the national passion diplomacy paved the way for the First World War.
In Spain, the nineteenth century, after the death of Fernando VII, the loss of all the American colonies and the confrontation between liberals and conservatives was a time of serious political upheaval. The Glorious Revolution of 1868 brought down the monarchy of Isabel II, the advent of the First Republic and the Restoration of the monarchy in 1874, with the reign of Alfonso XII, son of Isabel II.
The twentieth centuryFor most Europeans the period between 1871 and 1914 was the Belle Époque. Science had made life more comfortable and safe, initially representative government had gained wide acceptance and confidently expected continued progress. Proud of their achievements and convinced that history had assigned a civilizing mission, European powers claimed vast territories in Africa and Asia to become their colonies. However, some believed that Europe was on the brink of a volcano. The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, the Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud and the German sociologist Max Weber warned of easy optimism and rejected the liberal conception of a rational humanity. Such omens began to seem less eccentric in light of the doubts raised contemporary liberal consensus. A new and virulent strain of anti-Semitism emerged in the political life of Austria-Hungary, Russia and France, in the cradle of the revolution, the Dreyfus affair threatened to overthrow the Third Republic. National rivalries were exacerbated by imperialist competition and the problem of nationalities in the Hungarian half of the Dual Monarchy intensified because Magyarisation policy of the Hungarian government and the influence of German and Italian unifications in the Slavic peoples.
Meanwhile, the industrial working class grew in number and organized force, Marxist and social democratic parties were pressuring European governments to level the playing field and job opportunities. Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany left her side to Bismarck in 1890. For two decades, the 'Iron Chancellor' had served as the "honest broker" in Europe, performing with great skill an amazing international alliance policy that allowed the maintenance of peace on the continent. None of his successors possessed the skill necessary to preserve the system of Bismarck, and when Emperor incompetent discarded in favor of realpolitik Weltpolitik (imperial policy), Britain, France and Russia formed the Triple Entente.
The World WarsThe German danger, with the rivalry between Russia and Austria in the Balkans, involving diplomatic activity that presented difficulties too great for the mediocre officials who ran the European foreign ministers on the eve of 1914. When the Serbian terrorist Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Habsburg on June 28, 1914, but did not ignite the powder keg that was based on Europe.
World War IThe enthusiasm with which the people of Europe greeted the outbreak of hostilities soon turned to horror when the casualty lists grew and became irrelevant limited objectives. What was planned as a brief war between powers, became a four-year struggle between peoples. In the last weeks of 1918, when the war finally ended, empires German, Austrian and Russian were gone, and most of a generation of young men died. The president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, was the leading figure in the Paris Peace Conference (1919) proved to be a sign of what was to come. Determined to make the world "safe for democracy," Wilson had involved the United States in the war against Germany in 1917. While proclaiming his call for a democratic Europe, Lenin, the Bolshevik leader in the same year he seized power in Russia, called the European proletariat in the class struggle and laid the key ideological socialist revolution. Ignoring both ideological premises, France and Britain insisted on peace with economic repairs, and Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey were forced to sign treaties that had nothing to do with messianic dreams.
Spain, which had remained neutral, was dragging a profound identity crisis, after the disaster of 1898, the war with the United States, the loss of Cuba and the Philippines, and his repeated military failures in Morocco. But despite neutrality, deeply divided society into two camps: the 'aliadófilos' versus 'Germanophiles'.
The interwar period
 In the aftermath of the disastrous war and a flu epidemic which caused twenty million deaths worldwide, many Europeans believed, by the philosopher Oswald Spengler, who were witnesses of the 'decline of the West'. Of course, they could still find signs of hope had founded the League of Nations and it was said that in eastern and central Europe had won the principle of self-determination. Russia had broken free of the tsarist autocracy and Germany had become a republic. However, the League had little influence, and nationalism continued to be a double-edged sword. The creation of national states in Central Europe necessarily carried with it the existence of national minorities, because ethnicity could not be the sole criterion for the construction of defensible borders. The czars were replaced by the Bolsheviks, who refused to recognize the legitimacy of any European government. Most importantly, perhaps, that the Treaty of Versailles, to establish that there was a guilty of war, was wounded German national pride, while the Italians were convinced that they were denied their rightful share of the spoils of war.
Benito Mussolini, to exploit the national discontent and fear of communism, established a fascist dictatorship in 1922. Although his political doctrine was vague and contradictory, he realized that, in a time when the policy to the masses was in full swing, a mixture of nationalism and socialism had the greatest revolutionary potential. In Germany, inflation and depression gave Adolf Hitler the opportunity to combine both revolutionary ideologies. Despite its nihilism, Hitler never doubted that the German National Socialist Party was the vehicle promised his ambition. Meanwhile, Lenin's successor, Stalin, subordinated the internationalist ideology of the revolution to the concept of the Russian homeland defense, and to proclaim 'socialism in one country', erected a government apparatus never equaled in omnipresence.
The Spanish crisis led to the overthrow of the monarchy peaceful, after the municipal elections of 1931. But the Republic was answered from the beginning by the conservative and the most radical of anarcho-syndicalism, the powers, the Church and the landowners, led to its continued grave obstacles vetoes and political and social confrontation. In 1936, a bloody civil war broke out, they immediately divided public opinion worldwide. It ended in 1939 with the victory of General Francisco Franco, who had been the decisive support of Hitler and Mussolini.
The World War IITo address the growing belligerence of these totalitarian states and U.S. isolation confirmed, European democracies were defensive. Under the leadership of Neville Chamberlain, Britain and France adopted a policy of appeasement, which was abandoned only after the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. When World War II began, the German army quick victories persuaded almost everyone except Winston Churchill, that the 'new order' of Hitler was the fate of Europe. But after 1941, when Hitler ordered the attack on the Soviet Union and the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Soviet and U.S. joined Britain in a common effort to force Germany to surrender unconditionally. The tide of war changed in 1942 and 1943 and after the landing and the Battle of Normandy, Germany and its allies succumbed remaining at the end of a terrible struggle in the eastern and western fronts. In the spring of 1945, Hitler committed suicide and Germany surrendered razed to the Allied powers.
The postwar eraIn the final days of the war, the military units of the United States and the Soviet Union were in their advance near the German city of Torgau. This eloquent meeting symbolized the decline of European power and the division of the continent into two spheres of influence, American and Soviet. Soon, the tension and suspicion engendered by the geographical proximity of the two global superpowers took the form of Cold War, a test of nerves that was particularly harsh in the birth of the atomic age.
East-West confrontationHaving suffered tremendous losses during the war, the USSR was determined to establish a security zone that separated Eastern European capitalist world. Between 1945 and 1948, dictators supported by the Soviet Union came to power in the heart of Europe, torn by war. In Germany, the Allied occupation zones began to become political entities, in 1949, the governments of West Germany and East Germany had already been created, which symbolized the division of the continent. Alarmed by the establishment of communist governments in Eastern Europe and the vulnerability of Western Europe, which was in financial ruin, the Secretary of State of the United States, George C. Marshall, proposed a long-range aid to accelerate the economic recovery in Europe (see Marshall Plan). This, rejected by the governments of Eastern Europe under the hegemony of the Soviet Union, allowed a miraculous economic recovery in Western Europe. The creation of the Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) further showed Europe's dependence on the United States.
In rejecting Hitler's invitation to participate in the war, General Franco managed to stay neutral, but failed to win the sympathy of the 'allies', which denied benefits and Marshall Plan aid. Between 1945 and 1953 the Spanish government had to support international ostracism after being rejected its presence in international organizations in the Western world.
European states, no longer owned their destinations, especially France and Britain were forced to dismantle their empires. During the first two decades after the war there was an impressive process of decolonization, which was prepared in part by the rise of national movements in Asia, Africa and the Middle East in the interwar period. This decline of imperialism and colonialism reflected the European crisis, both spiritual and political. The crushing revelations regarding the Nazi concentration camps and the painful memories of collaboration became widespread feeling guilty. For many, the French existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre represented the last word in regard to the human condition.

Resistance to Soviet controlEurope, however, proved to be very resistant. Almost from the beginning, the Soviet leaders learned that the strong national pride that encourages the peoples of Eastern Europe could not be removed easily. In 1948 they were unable to prevent Josip Broz Tito (a communist resistance fighter), embark on a different adventure: the self-managed socialism in Yugoslavia (see Communist Parties). In 1953, the year of Stalin's death, the East Germans rebelled, and in 1956 the Hungarians fought a heroic battle (doomed to failure) against the Soviets. In 1968, again the Soviet control was tested in Czechoslovakia, where the Communist leader Alexander Dubcek began liberalization of Czech life during the brief period known as the Prague Spring. Again Soviet military forces, along with troops from other Warsaw Pact countries, crushed the experiment of "socialism with a human face ', but voices of resistance and reform continued making their voices heard. The USSR itself faced nationalist pressures when some of its republics began to reject the central government.
In Spain, from 1953, General Franco was able to take advantage of its proclaimed anti-communism, and managed to resume relations and contacts with Western governments and start your entry in all organisms, starting with UNESCO in the same year.
Resistance to American influence
 The Americans, who had been much better received than the Soviets tried to Europeans as allies in NATO. Some, however, perceived the dangers of U.S. influence. This was the case of General Charles de Gaulle, who became president of the V Republic of France in 1959. By refusing to grant the United States a permanent presence in Western Europe, De Gaulle interrupted French collaboration with NATO and began developing its own nuclear deterrent. Because of the special relationship with Britain then kept U.S., French President vetoed the British application to the European Economic Community (EEC) or Common Market De Gaulle, who saw extended Europe Atlantic to the Urals, advocated a unstable federation of independent states (L'Europe des patries). This view is opposed those who felt it was necessary and possible a more integrated union. The first step in this direction was taken in 1951, when France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands have agreed to establish a common market for coal and steel. This was followed in 1957 the formation of the European Economic Community. Although he had a considerable economic success, the Common Market did not evolve towards European political union as quickly as some of its founders had hoped (see European Union).
In 1975, after the death of Francisco Franco in Spain began a transition period, culminating in the first free elections in 1977 and the proclamation of a democratic constitution in 1978.
The future of Europe In the early 1980s, when the Polish trade union Solidarity was in full swing, the government, with Soviet support, declared martial law and jailed many of the anti-communist dissident. At the end of the decade, however, the Eastern European economic conditions deteriorated so rapidly that communist governments could not hold any longer the wave of public protests. During 1989 and 1990, free elections led to democratic governments in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. In late 1989 the line between East and West, the Berlin Wall was torn down, the regime of the German Democratic Republic was dissolved, and in October 1990, East Germany was absorbed by West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany). In September 1991 the independence of three Baltic republics of the Soviet Union, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, was recognized internationally, the USSR also agreed before the end of 1991 independence from the rest of the Soviet republics, which meant its total disintegration. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), formed in December 1991 by almost all former Soviet republics, was the successor to the USSR.
The political developments in Europe and the former USSR led to a significant change affecting the U.S. military presence on the continent. In late 1995, the U.S. Army had reduced its military facilities in Europe with a total of 893-319.
In Western Europe, the end of the Cold War raised hopes of full cooperation and even friendship between East and West. These prospects are clouded, however, with the growing instability of the former Soviet republics and the outbreak of the war between Serbs and Croats in Croatia, and Serbs, Croats and Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In April 1992, four of the six constituent republics of Yugoslavia (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia) declared their independence, and the remaining two (Serbia and Montenegro) had united and formed a new Yugoslavia. Instead, the international community refused to recognize it as a sovereign state. The war continued until 1996, after the signing of the Dayton agreement between the warring parties.
On January 1, 1993, also, Czechoslovakia split into two separate republics, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Meanwhile, members of the European Community (now European Union) had initially established the 1 January 1993 deadline for economic integration. The Treaty on European Union, or Maastricht Treaty, designed to strengthen political and economic integration of the European Community, was finally ratified by the twelve members of the European Union in 1993. This eliminated most internal trade borders and allowed the free movement of EU citizens, in addition to choosing the German city of Frankfurt to host the new European Monetary Institute. But plans to adopt a common defense policy through the Western European Union and create a single currency by the end of the twentieth century have been delayed. In May 1994, Finland, Sweden and Austria applied for membership in the European Union (EU), which became effective in 1995. The December 15, 1996 approved the legal status of the euro (previous year name adopted for future European currency), the new European Monetary System (EMS) and the so-called Stability Pact, by which member states must continue their convergence policies once, in 1999, begin to use the euro.

In 1993 Europe suffered an economic recession and high unemployment. In addition, the flow of exiles and refugees from Southeast Europe and North Africa caused an escalation of racist and xenophobic nationalism and rejection against immigrants, especially in reunited Germany. But the irreversible process aimed at the elimination of borders within the European Union, the membership application by the same countries of the former Eastern bloc and the opening in 1994 of the Tunnel Channel Tunnel, linking Dover and Calais, after more than five years of construction, are good examples of the spirit favorable to cooperation and understanding among the peoples and citizens of Europe.




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