The america and the europe social system,(high standards and the low standards )

1. America and the Europe social system
(High Standards and the low standards)
America and the social standards analysis:
 Royals
 High standards
 Low standards
 Jungle
Racial and ethnic groups
Main article: Race and ethnicity in the United States
2010 U.S. Census
Self-identified race
Percent of
population
White alone 72.4%
Black or African American 12.6%
Asian 4.8%
American Indians and Alaska
Natives
0.9%
Native Hawaiians and Other
Pacific Islanders
0.2%
Two or more races 2.9%
Some other race 6.2%
Total 100.0%
Hispanic and Latino Americans (of any race): 16.3%
The United States of America is a diverse country, racially, and ethnically. Six races are
officially recognized by the U.S. Census Bureau for statistical purposes: White, American
Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian and Other
Pacific Islander, and people of two or more races. "Some other race" is also an option in the
census and other surveys.
The United States Census Bureau also classifies Americans as "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not
Hispanic or Latino", which identifies Hispanic and Latino Americans as a racially
diverse ethnicity that comprises the largest minority group in the nation.
White and European Americans
Main articles: European Americans, White Americans, and White Hispanic and Latino
Americans
People of European descent, or White Americans (also referred to as Caucasian Americans),
constitute the majority of the 308 million people living in the United States, with 72.4% of
the population in the 2010 United States Census. They are considered people who trace

2. their ancestry to the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Of those
reporting to be White American, 7,487,133 reported to be Multiracial; with largest
combination being white and black. Additionally, there are 29,184,290 White Hispanics or
Latinos. Non-Hispanic Whites are the majority in 46 states. There are four minority-
majority states: California, Texas, New Mexico, and Hawaii. In addition, the District of
Columbia has a non-white majority. The state with the highest percentage of non-Hispanic
White Americans is Maine.
The largest continental ancestral group of Americans are that of Europeans who have
origins in any of the original peoples of Europe. This includes people via African, North
American, Caribbean, Central American or South American and Oceanian nations that have
a large European descended population.
The Spanish were some of the first Europeans to establish a continuous presence in what is
now the United States in 1565. Martín de Argüelles born 1566, San Agustín, La Florida then
a part of New Spain, was the first person of European descent born in what is now the
United States. Twenty-one years later, Virginia Dare born 1587 Roanoke Island in present-
day North Carolina, was the first child born in the original Thirteen Colonies to English
parents.
In the 2017 American Community Survey, German Americans (13.2%), Irish
Americans (9.7%), English Americans (7.1%) and Italian Americans (5.1%) were the four
largest self-reported European ancestry groups in the United States forming 35.1% of the
total population. However, the English Americans and British Americans demography is
considered a serious under-count as they tend to self-report and identify as simply
"Americans" (since the introduction of a new "American" category in the 1990 census) due
to the length of time they have inhabited America. This is highly over-represented in
the Upland South, a region that was settled historically by the British.
Overall, as the largest group, European Americans have the lowest poverty rate and the
second highest educational attainment levels, median household income, and
median personal income of any racial demographic in the nation.
European ancestry in the US by county
White and European Americans by ancestry group
Rank Ancestry group % of total population Pop. estimates Ref(s)
1 German 13.2% 43,093,766 [78]
2 Irish 9.7% 31,479,232 [78]

3. 3 English 7.1% 23,074,947 [78]
4 American 6.1% 20,024,830 [78]
5 Italian 5.1% 16,650,674 [78]
6 Mexican 5.4% 16,794,111 [88]
7 Polish 2.8% 9,012,085 [78]
8 French (except Basque)
French Canadian
2.4%
0.6%
7,673,619
2,110,014
[78]
9 Scottish 1.7% 5,399,371 [78]
10 Norwegian 1.3% 4,295,981 [78]
11 Dutch 1.2% 3,906,193 [78]
Total White and European American 59.34% 231,040,398 [73]
Source: 2010 census & 2017 ACS
Middle Easterners and North Africans
Main articles: Middle Eastern Americans, North Africans in the United States, Iranian
Americans, Arab Americans, Jewish Americans, and Armenian Americans
According to the American Jewish Archives and the Arab American National Museum, some
of the first Middle Easterners and North Africans (viz. Jews and Berbers) arrived in the
Americas between the late 15th and mid-16th centuries. Many were fleeing ethnic
or ethnoreligious persecution during the Spanish Inquisition, and a few were also taken to
the Americas as slaves.

4. In 2014, The United States Census Bureau began finalizing the ethnic classification of
MENA populations. According to the Arab American Institute (AAI), Arab Americans have
family origins in each of the 22 member states of the Arab League. Following consultations
with MENA organizations, the Census Bureau announced in 2014 that it would establish a
new MENA ethnic category for populations from the Middle East, North Africa and the Arab
world, separate from the "white" classification that these populations had previously
sought in 1909. The expert groups, felt that the earlier "white" designation no longer
accurately represents MENA identity, so they successfully lobbied for a distinct
categorization. This new category would also include Jewish Americans. The Census
Bureau does not currently ask about whether one is Sikh, because it views them as
followers of a religion rather than members of an ethnic group, and it does not combine
questions concerning religion with race or ethnicity.[101] As of December 2015, the
sampling strata for the new MENA category includes the Census Bureau's working
classification of 19 MENA groups, as well
as Turkish, Sudanese, Djiboutian, Somali, Mauritanian, Armenian, Cypriot, Afghan, Azerbaij
ani and Georgian groups. In January 2018, it was announced that the Census Bureau would
not include the grouping in the 2020 Census.
Middle Eastern Americans in the 2000 - 2010 U.S. Census, the Mandell L. Berman
Institute, and the North American Jewish Data Bank
Ancestry 2000
2000 (% of US
population)
2010
2010 (% of US
population)
Arab 1,160,729 0.4125% 1,697,570 0.5498%
Armenian 385,488 0.1370% 474,559 0.1537%
Iranian 338,266 0.1202% 463,552 0.1501%
Jewish 6,155,000 2.1810% 6,543,820 2.1157%
Total 8,568,772 3.036418% 9,981,332 3.227071%
Hispanic and Latino Americans
Main article: Hispanic and Latino Americans

5. Hispanic or Latino Americans (of any race) constitute the largest ethnic minority in the
United States. They form the second largest group after non-Hispanic Whites in the United
States, comprising 16.3% of the population according to the 2010 United States Census.
Hispanic/Latino Americans are very racially diverse, and as a result form an ethnic
category, rather than a race.
People of Spanish or Hispanic descent have lived in what is now the United States since the
founding of St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. In the State of
Texas, Spaniards first settled the region in the late 1600s and formed a unique cultural
group known as Tejanos (Texanos).
Hispanic and Latino American population by national origin
Rank National origin % of total population Pop.
1 Mexican 10.29% 31,798,258
2 Puerto Rican 1.49% 4,623,716
3 Cuban 0.57% 1,785,547
4 Salvadoran 0.53% 1,648,968
5 Dominican 0.45% 1,414,703
6 Guatemalan 0.33% 1,044,209
7 Colombian 0.3% 908,734
8 Spanish 0.2% 635,253
9 Honduran 0.2% 633,401

6. 10 Ecuadorian 0.1% 564,631
All other 2.64% 8,162,193
Hispanic and Latino American (total) 16.34% 50,477,594
2010 United States Census
Black and African Americans
Main articles: African Americans and Black Hispanic and Latino Americans
Black and African Americans are citizens and residents of the United States with origins
in Sub-Saharan Africa. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the grouping
includes individuals who self-identify as African American, as well as persons who
emigrated from nations in the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa. The grouping is thus
based on geography, and may contradict or misrepresent an individual's self-identification
since not all immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa are "Black". Among these racial outliers
are persons from Cape Verde, Madagascar, various Arab states and Hamito-
Semitic populations in East Africa and the Sahel, and the Afrikaners of Southern Africa.
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, and formerly as
American Negroes) are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of
the black populations of Africa. According to the 2009 American Community Survey, there
were 38,093,725 Black and African Americans in the United States, representing 12.4% of
the population. In addition, there were 37,144,530 non-Hispanic blacks, which comprised
12.1% of the population. This number increased to 42 million according to the 2010 United
States Census, when including Multiracial African Americans, making up 14% of the total
U.S. population. Black and African Americans make up the second largest group in the
United States, but the third largest group after White Americans and Hispanic or Latino
Americans (of any race). The majority of the population (55%) lives in the South; compared
to the 2000 Census, there has also been a decrease of African Americans in
the Northeast and Midwest.
Most African Americans are the direct descendants of captives from West Africa, who
survived the slavery era within the boundaries of the present United States. As an adjective,
the term is usually spelled African-American. The first West African slaves were brought
to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. The English settlers treated these captives as indentured
servants and released them after a number of years. This practice was gradually replaced
by the system of race-based slavery used in the Caribbean. All the American colonies had
slavery, but it was usually the form of personal servants in the North (where 2% of the
people were slaves), and field hands in plantations in the South (where 25% were slaves);
by the beginning of the American Revolutionary War 1/5th of the total population was
enslaved. During the revolution, some would serve in the Continental Army or Continental

7. Navy, while others would serve the British Empire in Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment,
and other units. By 1804, the northern states (north of the Mason–Dixon line)
had abolished slavery. However, slavery would persist in the southern states until the end
of the American Civil War and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. Following the end
of the Reconstruction Era, which saw the first African American
representation in Congress, African Americans became disenfranchised and subject to Jim
Crow laws, legislation that would persist until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of
1964 and Voting Rights Act due to the Civil Rights Movement.
According to US Census Bureau data, very few African immigrants self-identify as African
American. On average, less than 5% of African residents self-reported as "African
American" or "Afro-American" on the 2000 US Census. The overwhelming majority of
African immigrants (~95%) identified instead with their own respective ethnicities. Self-
designation as "African American" or "Afro-American" was highest among individuals from
West Africa (4%-9%), and lowest among individuals from Cape Verde, East Africa and
Southern Africa (0%-4%). African immigrants may also experience conflict with African
Americans.
Black and African American population by ancestry group
Rank Ancestry group Percentage
of total est.
population
Pop.
estimates
1 Jamaican 0.31% 986,897
2 Haitian 0.28% 873,003
3 Nigerian 0.08% 259,934
4 Trinidadian and Tobagonian 0.06% 193,233
5 Ghanaian 0.03% 94,405
6 Barbadian 0.01% 59,236

8. Sub-Saharan African (total) 0.92% 2,864,067
West Indian (total) (except Hispanic
groups)
0.85% 2,633,149
Black and African American (total) 13.6% 42,020,743
2010 United States Census & 2009–2011 American Community Survey
Asian Americans
Main articles: Asian Americans and Asian Hispanic and Latino Americans
Another significant population is the Asian American population, comprising 17.3 million
in 2010, or 5.6% of the U.S. population. California is home to 5.6 million Asian Americans,
the greatest number in any state. In Hawaii, Asian Americans make up the highest
proportion of the population (57 percent). Asian Americans live across the country, yet are
heavily urbanized, with significant populations in the Greater Los Angeles Area, New York
metropolitan area, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
They are by no means a monolithic group. The largest sub-groups are immigrants or
descendants of immigrants from Cambodia, Mainland China, India, Japan, Korea, Laos,
Pakistan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Asians overall have higher
income levels than all other racial groups in the United States, including whites, and the
trend appears to be increasing in relation to those groups. Additionally, Asians have
a higher education attainment level than all other racial groups in the United States. For
better or for worse, the group has been called a model minority.
While Asian Americans have been in what is now the United States since before
the Revolutionary War, relatively large waves of Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese
immigration did not begin until the mid-to-late 19th century. Immigration and significant
population growth continue to this day. Due to a number of factors, Asian Americans have
been stereotyped as "perpetual foreigners".
Asian American ancestries
Rank Ancestry Percentage
of total population
Pop.
1 Chinese 1.2% 3,797,379

9. 2 Filipino 1.1% 3,417,285
3 Indian 1.0% 3,183,063
4 Vietnamese 0.5% 1,737,665
5 Korean 0.5% 1,707,027
6 Japanese 0.4% 1,304,599
Other Asian 0.9% 2,799,448
Asian American (total) 5.6% 17,320,856
2010 United States Census
American Indians and Alaska Natives
Main article: Native Americans in the United States
See also: Blood quantum laws and Bureau of Indian Affairs
According to the 2010 Census, there are 5.2 million people who are Native Americans
or Alaska Native alone, or in combination with one or more races; they make up 1.7% of the
total population. According to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), an "American
Indian or Alaska Native" is a person whose ancestry have origins in any of the original
peoples of North, Central, or South America. 2.3 million individuals who are American
Indian or Alaskan Native are multiracial; additionally the plurality of American Indians
reside in the Western United States (40.7%). Collectively and historically this race has been
known by several names; as of 1995, 50% of those who fall within the OMB definition
prefer the term "American Indian", 37% prefer "Native American" and the remainder have
no preference or prefer a different term altogether.
Native Americans, whose ancestry is indigenous to the Americas, originally migrated to the
two continents between 10,000-45,000 years ago. These Paleoamericans spread
throughout the two continents and evolved into hundreds of distinct cultures during
the pre-Columbian era. Following the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, the European
colonization of the Americas began, with St. Augustine, Florida becoming the first
permanent European settlement in the continental United States. From the 16th through

10. the 19th centuries, the population of Native Americans declined in the following
ways: epidemic diseases brought from Europe; genocide and warfare at the hands of
European explorers, settlers and colonists, as well as between tribes; displacement from
their lands; internal warfare, enslavement; and intermarriage.
American Indian and Alaska Native population by selected tribal groups
Rank National origin Percentage
of total population
Pop.
1 Cherokee 0.26% 819,105
2 Navajo 0.1% 332,129
3 Choctaw 0.06% 195,764
4 Mexican American Indian 0.05% 175,494
5 Chippewa 0.05% 170,742
6 Sioux 0.05% 170,110
All other 1.08% 3,357,235
American Indian (total) 1.69% 5,220,579
2010 United States Census
Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders
Main article: Pacific Islands Americans
As defined by the United States Census Bureau and the Office of Management and
Budget, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders are "persons having origins in any of
the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands". Previously

11. called Asian Pacific American, along with Asian Americans beginning in 1976, this was
changed in 1997. As of the 2010 United States Census there are 1.2 million who reside in
the United States, and make up 0.4% of the nation's total population, of whom 56%
are multiracial. 14% of the population have at least a bachelor's degree,[171] and 15.1% live
in poverty, below the poverty threshold. As compared to the 2000 United States Census this
population grew by 40%; and 71% live in the West; of those over half (52%) live in
either Hawaii or California, with no other states having populations greater than
100,000. The largest concentration of Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders,
is Honolulu County in Hawaii, and Los Angeles County in the continental United States.
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander by ancestries
Rank Ancestry Percentage Pop.
1 Hawaiian 0.17% 527,077
2 Samoan 0.05% 184,440
3 Chamorro 0.04% 147,798
4 Tongan 0.01% 57,183
Other Pacific Islanders 0.09% 308,697
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (total) 0.39% 1,225,195
2010 United States Census
Two or more races
Main article: Multiracial Americans
The United States has a growing multiracial identity movement. Multiracial Americans
numbered 7.0 million in 2008, or 2.3% of the population; by the 2010 census the
Multiracial increased to 9,009,073, or 2.9% of the total population. They can be any
combination of races (White, Black or African American, Asian, American Indian or Alaska
Native, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, "some other race") and ethnicities. The

12. largest population of Multiracial Americans were those of White and African
American descent, with a total of 1,834,212 self-identifying individuals. Barack Obama,
44th President of the United States, is biracial with his mother being of English and Irish
descent and his father being of Kenyan birth; however, Obama only self-identifies as being
African American.
Population by selected Two or More Races Population
Rank Specific Combinations Percentage
of total population
Pop.
1 White; Black 0.59% 1,834,212
2 White; Some Other Race 0.56% 1,740,924
3 White; Asian 0.52% 1,623,234
4 White; Native American 0.46% 1,432,309
5 African American; Some Other Race 0.1% 314,571
6 African American; Native American 0.08% 269,421
All other specific combinations 0.58% 1,794,402
Multiracial American (total) 2.9% 9,009,073
2010 United States Census
Some other race
See also: Multiracial Americans
According to the 2010 United States Census, 6.2% or 19,107,368 Americans chose to self-
identify with the "some other race" category, the third most popular option. Also, 36.7% or

13. 18,503,103 Hispanic/Latino Americans chose to identify as some other race as these
Hispanic/Latinos may feel the U.S. Census does not describe their European and American
Indian ancestry as they understand it to be. A significant portion of the Hispanic and Latino
population self-identifies as Mestizo, particularly the Mexican and Central American
community. Mestizo is not a racial category in the U.S. Census, but signifies someone who
has both European and American Indian ancestry.
Europe and the social system:
 Royals
 High standards
 Low standards
 Jungle
Homo erectus georgicus, which lived roughly 1.8 million years ago in Georgia, is the
earliest hominid to have been discovered in Europe. Other hominid remains, dating back
roughly 1 million years, have been discovered in Atapuerca, Spain. Neanderthal
man (named after the Neandertal valley in Germany) appeared in Europe 150,000 years
ago (115,000 years ago it is found already in Poland) and disappeared from the fossil
record about 28,000 years ago, with their final refuge being present-day Portugal. The
Neanderthals were supplanted by modern humans (Cro-Magnons), who appeared in
Europe around 43,000 to 40,000 years ago. The earliest sites in Europe dated 48,000 years
ago are Riparo Mochi (Italy), Geissenklösterle (Germany), and Isturitz (France)
Stonehenge in the United Kingdom (Late Neolithic from 3000–2000 BC).
The European Neolithic period—marked by the cultivation of crops and the raising of
livestock, increased numbers of settlements and the widespread use of pottery—began
around 7000 BC in Greece and the Balkans, probably influenced by earlier farming
practices in Anatolia and the Near East. It spread from the Balkans along the valleys of
the Danube and the Rhine (Linear Pottery culture) and along the Mediterranean
coast (Cardial culture). Between 4500 and 3000 BC, these central European neolithic
cultures developed further to the west and the north, transmitting newly acquired skills in
producing copper artifacts. In Western Europe the Neolithic period was characterised not
by large agricultural settlements but by field monuments, such as causewayed
enclosures, burial mounds and megalithic tombs. The Corded Ware cultural horizon
flourished at the transition from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic. During this period
giant megalithic monuments, such as the Megalithic Temples of Malta and Stonehenge,
were constructed throughout Western and Southern Europe.
The European Bronze Age began c. 3200 BC in Greece with the Minoan civilisation on Crete,
the first advanced civilisation in Europe. The Minoans were followed by the Myceneans,
who collapsed suddenly around 1200 BC, ushering the European Iron Age. Iron Age
colonisation by the Greeks and Phoenicians gave rise to early Mediterranean cities.
Early Iron Age Italy and Greece from around the 8th century BC gradually gave rise to

14. historical Classical antiquity, whose beginning is sometimes dated to 776 BC, the year the
first Olympic Games.
Classical antiquity
Main article: Classical antiquity
See also: Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome
The Parthenon in Athens (432 BC)
Ancient Greece was the founding culture of Western civilisation.
Western democratic and rationalist culture are often attributed to Ancient Greece. The
Greeks city-state, the polis, was the fundamental political unit of classical Greece. In 508
BC, Cleisthenes instituted the world's first democratic system of government in Athens. The
Greek political ideals were rediscovered in the late 18th century by European philosophers
and idealists. Greece also generated many cultural contributions:
in philosophy, humanism and rationalism under Aristotle, Socrates and Plato;
in history with Herodotus and Thucydides; in dramatic and narrative verse, starting with
the epic poems of Homer; in drama with Sophocles and Euripides, in medicine
with Hippocrates and Galen; and in science with Pythagoras, Euclid and Archimedes. In the
course of the 5th century BC, several of the Greek city states would ultimately check
the Achaemenid Persian advance in Europe through the Greco-Persian Wars, considered a
pivotal moment in world history, as the 50 years of peace that followed are known
as Golden Age of Athens, the seminal period of ancient Greece that laid many of the
foundations of Western civilisation. The conquests of Alexander the Great brought the
Middle East into the Greek cultural sphere.
In 500 BC, Rome was a small city-state on the Italian Peninsula. By 200 BC, Rome had
conquered Italy, and over the following two centuries it
conquered Greece and Hispania (Spain and Portugal), the North African coast, much of
the Middle East, Gaul (France and Belgium), and Britannia (England and Wales). The forty-
year conquest of Britannia left 250,000 Britons dead, and emperor Antoninus Pius built
the Antonine Wall across Scotland's Central Belt to defend the province from
the Caledonians; it marked the northernmost border of the Roman Empire.
Greece was followed by Rome, which left its mark
on law, politics, language, engineering, architecture, government and many more key
aspects in western civilisation. Rome began as a city-state, founded, according to tradition,
in 753 BC as an elective kingdom. Tradition has it that there were seven kings of
Rome with Romulus, the founder, being the first and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus falling to
a republican uprising led by Lucius Junius Brutus, but modern scholars doubt many of
those stories and even the Romans themselves acknowledged that the sack of Rome by
the Gauls in 387 BC destroyed many sources on their early history.

15. Expanding from their base in central Italy beginning in the 3rd century BC, the Romans
gradually expanded to eventually rule the entire Mediterranean Basin and Western Europe
by the turn of the millennium. The Roman Republic ended in 27 BC,
when Augustus proclaimed the Roman Empire. The two centuries that followed are known
as the pax romana, a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and political stability in
most of Europe.
The empire continued to expand under emperors such as Antoninus Pius and Marcus
Aurelius, who spent time on the Empire's northern border
fighting Germanic, Pictish and Scottish tribes. Christianity was legalised by Constantine I in
313 AD after three centuries of imperial persecution. Constantine also permanently moved
the capital of the empire from Rome to the city of Byzantium, which was
renamed Constantinople in his honour (modern-day Istanbul) in 330 AD. Christianity
became the sole official religion of the empire in 380 AD, and in 391–392 AD, the
emperor Theodosius outlawed pagan religions. This is sometimes considered to mark the
end of antiquity; alternatively antiquity is considered to end with the fall of the Western
Roman Empire in 476 AD; the closure of the pagan Platonic Academy of Athens in 529
AD; or the rise of Islam in the early 7th century AD.
Early Middle Ages
Main articles: Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages
See also: Dark Ages (historiography) and Age of Migrations
Europe c. 650
Charlemagne's empire in 814: Francia, Tributaries
During the decline of the Roman Empire, Europe entered a long period of change arising
from what historians call the "Age of Migrations". There were numerous invasions and
migrations amongst
the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Goths, Vandals, Huns, Franks, Angles, Saxons, Slavs, Avars, Bulgar
s and, later on, the Vikings, Pechenegs, Cumans and Magyars. Renaissance thinkers such
as Petrarch would later refer to this as the "Dark Ages".
Isolated monastic communities were the only places to safeguard and compile written
knowledge accumulated previously; apart from this very few written records survive and
much literature, philosophy, mathematics, and other thinking from the classical period
disappeared from Western Europe though they were preserved in the east, in the
Byzantine Empire.
While the Roman empire in the west continued to decline, Roman traditions and the Roman
state remained strong in the predominantly Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire, also
known as the Byzantine Empire. During most of its existence, the Byzantine Empire was the
most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. Emperor Justinian
I presided over Constantinople's first golden age: he established a legal code that forms the
basis of many modern legal systems, funded the construction of the Hagia Sophia, and
brought the Christian church under state control. He reconquered North Africa, southern

16. Spain, and Italy. The Ostrogothic Kingdom, which sought to preserve Roman culture and
adopt its values, later changed course and became anti-Constantinople, so Justinian
waged war against the Ostrogoths for 30 years and destroyed much of urban life in Italy,
and reduced agriculture to subsistence farming.
From the 7th century onwards, as the Byzantines and neighbouring Sasanid Persians were
severely weakened due the protracted, centuries-lasting and frequent Byzantine–Sasanian
wars, the Muslim Arabs began to make inroads into historically Roman territory, taking the
Levant and North Africa and making inroads into Asia Minor. In the mid 7th century AD,
following the Muslim conquest of Persia, Islam penetrated into the Caucasus region. Over
the next centuries Muslim forces took Cyprus, Malta, Crete, Sicily and parts of southern
Italy.
Between 711 and 726, the Umayyad Caliphate conquered the Visigothic Kingdom, which
occupied the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania (southwestern France). The
unsuccessful second siege of Constantinople (717) weakened the Umayyad dynasty and
reduced their prestige. The Umayyads were then defeated by the Frankish leader Charles
Martel at the Battle of Poitiers in 732, which ended their northward advance. In the remote
regions of north-western Iberia and the middle Pyrenees the power of the Muslims in the
south was scarcely felt. It was here that the foundations of the Christian kingdoms
of Asturias, Leon and Galicia were laid and from where the reconquest of the Iberian
Peninsula would start. However, no coordinated attempt would be made to drive
the Moors out. The Christian kingdoms were mainly focussed on their own internal power
struggles. As a result, the Reconquista took the greater part of eight hundred years, in
which period a long list of Alfonsos, Sanchos, Ordoños, Ramiros, Fernandos and Bermudos
would be fighting their Christian rivals as much as the Muslim invaders.
One of the biggest threats during the Dark Ages were the Vikings, Norse seafarers who
raided, raped, and pillaged across the Western world. Many Vikings died in battles in
continental Europe, and in 844 they lost many men and ships to King Ramiro in northern
Spain. A few months later, another fleet took Seville, only to be driven off with further
heavy losses. In 911, the Vikings attacked Paris, and the Franks decided to give the Viking
king Rollo land along the English Channel coast in exchange for peace. This land was named
"Normandy" for the Norse "Northmen", and the Norse settlers became known as
"Normans", adopting the French culture and language and becoming French vassals. In
1066, the Normans went on to conquer England in the first successful cross-Channel
invasion since Roman times.
During the Dark Ages, the Western Roman Empire fell under the control of various tribes.
The Germanic and Slav tribes established their domains over Western and Eastern Europe
respectively. Eventually the Frankish tribes were united under Clovis I. In 507, Clovis
defeated the Visigoths at the Battle of Vouillé, slaying King Alaric II and conquering
southern Gaul for the Franks. His conquests laid the foundation for the Frankish
kingdom. Charlemagne, a Frankish king of the Carolingian dynasty who had conquered
most of Western Europe, was anointed "Holy Roman Emperor" by the Pope in 800. This led
in 962 to the founding of the Holy Roman Empire, which eventually became centred in the
German principalities of central Europe.

17. East Central Europe saw the creation of the first Slavic states and the adoption
of Christianity (circa 1000 AD). The powerful West Slavic state of Great Moravia spread its
territory all the way south to the Balkans, reaching its largest territorial extent
under Svatopluk I and causing a series of armed conflicts with East Francia. Further south,
the first South Slavic states emerged in the late 7th and 8th century and
adopted Christianity: the First Bulgarian Empire, the Serbian
Principality (later Kingdom and Empire), and the Duchy of Croatia (later Kingdom of
Croatia). To the East, the Kievan Rus expanded from its capital in Kiev to become the
largest state in Europe by the 10th century. In 988, Vladimir the Great adopted Orthodox
Christianity as the religion of state. Further East, Volga Bulgaria became an Islamic state in
the 10th century, but was eventually absorbed into Russia several centuries later.
High and Late Middle Ages
Main articles: High Middle Ages, Late Middle Ages, and Middle Ages
See also: Medieval demography
The period between the year 1000 and 1300 is known as the High Middle Ages, during
which the population of Europe experienced significant growth, culminating in
the Renaissance of the 12th century. Economic growth, together with the lack of safety on
the mainland trading routes, made possible the development of major commercial routes
along the coast of the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas. The growing wealth and
independence acquired by some coastal cities gave the Maritime Republics a leading role in
the European scene.
Tancred of Sicily and Philip II of France, during the Third Crusade (1189–1192)
The Middle Ages on the mainland were dominated by the two upper echelons of the social
structure: the nobility and the clergy. Feudalism developed in France in the Early Middle
Ages and soon spread throughout Europe. A struggle for influence between the nobility and
the monarchy in England led to the writing of the Magna Carta and the establishment of
a parliament. The primary source of culture in this period came from the Roman Catholic
Church. Through monasteries and cathedral schools, the Church was responsible for
education in much of Europe.
The Papacy reached the height of its power during the High Middle Ages. An East-West
Schism in 1054 split the former Roman Empire religiously, with the Eastern Orthodox
Church in the Byzantine Empire and the Roman Catholic Church in the former Western
Roman Empire. In 1095 Pope Urban II called for
a crusade against Muslims occupying Jerusalem and the Holy Land. In Europe itself, the
Church organised the Inquisition against heretics. In the Iberian Peninsula,
the Reconquista concluded with the fall of Granada in 1492, ending over seven centuries of
Islamic rule in the south-western peninsula.
In the east a resurgent Byzantine Empire recaptured Crete and Cyprus from the Muslims
and reconquered the Balkans. Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe
from the 9th to the 12th centuries, with a population of approximately 400,000. The
Empire was weakened following the defeat at Manzikert and was weakened considerably
by the sack of Constantinople in 1204, during the Fourth Crusade. Although it would

18. recover Constantinople in 1261, Byzantium fell in 1453 when Constantinople was taken by
the Ottoman Empire.
The sacking of Suzdal by Batu Khan in 1238, during the Mongol invasion of Europe.
In the 11th and 12th centuries, constant incursions by nomadic Turkic tribes, such as
the Pechenegs and the Cuman-Kipchaks, caused a massive migration of Slavic populations
to the safer, heavily forested regions of the north and temporarily halted the expansion of
the Rus' state to the south and east. Like many other parts of Eurasia, these territories
were overrun by the Mongols. The invaders, who became known as Tatars, were mostly
Turkic-speaking peoples under Mongol suzerainty. They established the state of the Golden
Horde with headquarters in Crimea, which later adopted Islam as a religion and ruled over
modern-day southern and central Russia for more than three centuries. After the collapse
of Mongol dominions, the first Romanian states (principalities) emerged in the 14th
century: Moldova and Walachia. Previously, these territories were under the successive
control of Pechenegs and Cumans. From the 12th to the 15th centuries, the Grand Duchy of
Moscow grew from a small principality under Mongol rule to the largest state in Europe,
overthrowing the Mongols in 1480 and eventually becoming the Tsardom of Russia. The
state was consolidated under Ivan III the Great and Ivan the Terrible, steadily expanding to
the east and south over the next centuries.
In the early 13th century, Athens became a duchy ruled by a French knight of the Crusades,
whose successor hired Catalan mercenaries to fight against a rival state, only to be deposed
by them in 1311. Though its core was a light-armed infantry not very superior in
equipment to the legions of ancient Rome, the Catalan Company of the Orient met and
defeated armies of Turks, Caucasians, Balkan mountain folk, Genoese archers and
cavalry, Thracian, Macedonian, and Asiatic Byzantines, and a representative array
of French chivalry. In doing so they captured large amounts of land, dominating and ruling
most of Greece throughout much of the 14th century.
The Great Famine of 1315–1317 was the first crisis that would strike Europe in the late
Middle Ages. The period between 1348 and 1420 witnessed the heaviest loss. The
population of France was reduced by half. Medieval Britain was afflicted by 95 famines, and
France suffered the effects of 75 or more in the same period. Europe was devastated in the
mid-14th century by the Black Death, one of the most deadly pandemics in human history
which killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe alone—a third of the European
population at the time.
The plague had a devastating effect on Europe's social structure; it induced people to live
for the moment as illustrated by Giovanni Boccaccio in The Decameron (1353). It was a
serious blow to the Roman Catholic Church and led to increased persecution of
Jews, beggars, and lepers. The plague is thought to have returned every generation with
varying virulence and mortalities until the 18th century.[115] During this period, more than
100 plague epidemics swept across Europe.
Early modern period
Main article: Early modern period

19. See also: Renaissance, Protestant Reformation, Scientific Revolution, and Age of Discovery
The School of Athens by Raphael (1511): Contemporaries such
as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci (centre) are portrayed as classical scholars of
the Renaissance.
The Renaissance was a period of cultural change originating in Florence and later
spreading to the rest of Europe. The rise of a new humanism was accompanied by the
recovery of forgotten classical Greek and Arabic knowledge from monastic libraries, often
translated from Arabic into Latin The Renaissance spread across Europe between the 14th
and 16th centuries: it saw the flowering of art, philosophy, music, and the sciences, under
the joint patronage of royalty, the nobility, the Roman Catholic Church, and an emerging
merchant class. Patrons in Italy, including the Medici family of Florentine bankers and
the Popes in Rome, funded prolific quattrocento and cinquecento artists such
as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci.
Political intrigue within the Church in the mid-14th century caused the Western Schism.
During this forty-year period, two popes—one in Avignon and one in Rome—claimed
rulership over the Church. Although the schism was eventually healed in 1417, the papacy's
spiritual authority had suffered greatly. In the 15th century, Europe started to extend itself
beyond its geographic frontiers. Spain and Portugal, the greatest naval powers of the time,
took the lead in exploring the world. Exploration reached the Southern Hemisphere in the
Atlantic and the Southern tip of Africa. Christopher Columbus reached the New World in
1492, and Vasco da Gama opened the ocean route to the East linking the Atlantic and Indian
Oceans in 1498. Ferdinand Magellan reached Asia westward across the Atlantic and
the Pacific Oceans in the Spanish expedition of Magellan-Elcano, resulting in the
first circumnavigation of the globe, completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano (1519–1522). Soon
after, the Spanish and Portuguese began establishing large global empires in
the Americas, Asia, Africa and Oceania. France, the Netherlands and England soon followed
in building large colonial empires with vast holdings in Africa, the Americas, and Asia.
Enriched by conquests in the Americas, Spain financed an aggressive military policy in
Europe. Spain fought a devastating series of wars against France for control over Italy that
involved much of Europe and lasted between 1494 and 1559. Then Charles V of Spain,
elected as Holy Roman Emperor, had to deal with the German Peasants' War. Over the
course of the 16th century, Spanish and Italian troops marched north to fight on Dutch and
German battlefields, dying there in large numbers.
In the Habsburg realm, Spain was a dominant power in a union encompassing present-
day Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Burgundy and much of Italy. Spain's principal
military base in Europe was the Duchy of Milan.
The Church's power was further weakened by the Protestant Reformation in 1517 when
German theologian Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses criticising the selling of
indulgences to the church door. He was subsequently excommunicated in the papal
bull Exsurge Domine in 1520, and his followers were condemned in the 1521 Diet of

20. Worms, which divided German princes between Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths.
Religious fighting and warfare spread with Protestantism. Between 2 and 3 million people
were killed in the French Wars of Religion (1562–1598). The Eighty Years' War (1568–
1648) between Catholic Spain and Dutch Calvinists resulted in the death of hundreds of
thousands of people. The Thirty Years War (1618–1648) crippled the Holy Roman Empire
and devastated much of Germany, killing between 25 and 40 percent of its population. In
the aftermath of the Peace of Westphalia, France rose to predominance within Europe.
France fought a series of wars over domination of Western Europe, including the Franco-
Spanish War, the Franco-Dutch War, the Nine Years' War, and the War of the Spanish
Succession; these wars cost France over a million battle casualties.
The 17th century in central and eastern Europe was a period of general decline. Central
and Eastern Europe experienced more than 150 famines in a 200-year period between
1501 and 1700. From the Union of Krewo (1385) central and eastern Europe was
dominated by Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Between 1648 and 1655
in the central and eastern Europe ended hegemony of the Polish–Lithuanian
Commonwealth. From the 15th to 18th centuries, when the disintegrating khanates of
the Golden Horde were conquered by Russia, Tatars from the Crimean
Khanate frequently raided Eastern Slavic lands to capture slaves. Further east, the Nogai
Horde and Kazakh Khanate frequently raided the Slavic-speaking areas of Russia, Ukraine
and Poland for hundreds of years, until the Russian expansion and conquest of most of
northern Eurasia (i.e. Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Siberia).
The Renaissance and the New Monarchs marked the start of an Age of Discovery, a period
of exploration, invention, and scientific development. Among the great figures of the
Western scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries
were Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Isaac Newton. According to Peter Barrett, "It is
widely accepted that 'modern science' arose in the Europe of the 17th century (towards the
end of the Renaissance), introducing a new understanding of the natural world."
18th and 19th centuries
Main article: Modern history
See also: Industrial Revolution, French Revolution, and Age of Enlightenment
Napoleon's retreat from Russia in 1812
The Age of Enlightenment was a powerful intellectual movement during the 18th century
promoting scientific and reason-based thoughts. Discontent with the aristocracy and
clergy's monopoly on political power in France resulted in the French Revolution and the
establishment of the First Republic as a result of which the monarchy and many of the
nobility perished during the initial reign of terror.Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power in
the aftermath of the French Revolution and established the First French Empire that,
during the Napoleonic Wars, grew to encompass large parts of Europe before collapsing in
1815 with the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleonic rule resulted in the further dissemination of
the ideals of the French Revolution, including that of the nation-state, as well as the
widespread adoption of the French models of administration, law,
and education. The Congress of Vienna, convened after Napoleon's downfall, established a

21. new balance of power in Europe centred on the five "Great Powers": the UK,
France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia. This balance would remain in place until
the Revolutions of 1848, during which liberal uprisings affected all of Europe except for
Russia and the UK. These revolutions were eventually put down by conservative elements
and few reforms resulted. The year 1859 saw the unification of Romania, as a nation-state,
from smaller principalities. In 1867, the Austro-Hungarian empire was formed; and 1871
saw the unifications of both Italy and Germany as nation-states from smaller principalities.
In parallel, the Eastern Question grew more complex ever since the Ottoman defeat in
the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774). As the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire seemed
imminent, the Great Powers struggled to safeguard their strategic and commercial interests
in the Ottoman domains. The Russian Empire stood to benefit from the decline, whereas
the Habsburg Empire and Britain perceived the preservation of the Ottoman Empire to be
in their best interests. Meanwhile, the Serbian revolution (1804) and Greek War of
Independence (1821) marked the beginning of the end of Ottoman rule in the Balkans,
which ended with the Balkan Wars in 1912–1913. Formal recognition of the de
facto independent principalities of Montenegro, Serbia and Romania ensued at
the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Many Ottoman Muslims faced either extermination at the
hands of the newly independent states, or were expelled to the shrinking Ottoman
possessions in Europe or to Anatolia; between 1821 and 1922 alone, more than 5 million
Ottoman Muslims were driven away from their homes, while another 5.5 million died in
wars or due to starvation and disease.
Marshall's Temple Works (1840), the Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain
The Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain in the last part of the 18th century and
spread throughout Europe. The invention and implementation of new technologies
resulted in rapid urban growth, mass employment, and the rise of a new working class.
Reforms in social and economic spheres followed, including the first laws on child labour,
the legalisation of trade unions, and the abolition of slavery. In Britain, the Public Health
Act of 1875 was passed, which significantly improved living conditions in many British
cities. Europe's population increased from about 100 million in 1700 to 400 million by
1900. The last major famine recorded in Western Europe, the Irish Potato Famine, caused
death and mass emigration of millions of Irish people In the 19th century, 70 million people
left Europe in migrations to various European colonies abroad and to the United
States.[163] Demographic growth meant that, by 1900, Europe's share of the world's
population was 25%.
20th century to the present
Main articles: Modern era and History of Europe
See also: World War I, Great Depression, Interwar period, World War II, Cold War,
and History of the European Union
Map of European colonial empires throughout the world in 1914
Two world wars and an economic depression dominated the first half of the 20th century.
World War I was fought between 1914 and 1918. It started when Archduke Franz

22. Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by the Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip. Most
European nations were drawn into the war, which was fought between the Entente
Powers (France, Belgium, Serbia, Portugal, Russia, the United Kingdom, and
later Italy, Greece, Romania, and the United States) and the Central Powers (Austria-
Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire). The war left more than 16 million
civilians and military dead. Over 60 million European soldiers were mobilised from 1914 to
1918.
Map depicting the military
alliances of World War I in
1914–1918
Russia was plunged into
the Russian Revolution,
which threw down
the Tsarist monarchy and
replaced it with the communist Soviet Union. Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire
collapsed and broke up into separate nations, and many other nations had their borders
redrawn. The Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended World War I in 1919, was harsh
towards Germany, upon whom it placed full responsibility for the war and imposed heavy
sanctions.
Excess deaths in Russia over the course of World War I and the Russian Civil
War (including the postwar famine) amounted to a combined total of 18 million. In 1932–
1933, under Stalin's leadership, confiscations of grain by the Soviet authorities contributed
to the second Soviet famine which caused millions of deaths; surviving kulaks were
persecuted and many sent to Gulags to do forced labour. Stalin was also responsible for
the Great Purge of 1937–38 in which the NKVD executed 681,692 people; millions of
people were deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union.
Serbian war efforts (1914–1918) cost the country one quarter of its population.
The social revolutions sweeping through Russia also affected other European nations
following The Great War: in 1919, with the Weimar Republic in Germany, and the First
Austrian Republic; in 1922, with Mussolini's one party fascist government in the Kingdom
of Italy, and in Ataturk's Turkish Republic, adopting the Western alphabet, and
state secularism. Economic instability, caused in part by debts incurred in the First World
War and 'loans' to Germany played havoc in Europe in the late 1920s and 1930s. This and
the Wall Street Crash of 1929 brought about the worldwide Great Depression. Helped by
the economic crisis, social instability and the threat of communism, fascist
movements developed throughout Europe placing Adolf Hitler in power of what
became Nazi Germany.
In 1933, Hitler became the leader of Germany and began to work towards his goal of
building Greater Germany. Germany re-expanded and took back
the Saarland and Rhineland in 1935 and 1936. In 1938, Austria became a part of Germany
following the Anschluss. Later that year, following the Munich Agreement signed by
Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy, Germany annexed the Sudetenland, which

23. was a part of Czechoslovakia inhabited by ethnic Germans, and in early 1939, the
remainder of Czechoslovakia was split into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia,
controlled by Germany, and the Slovak Republic. At the time, Britain and France preferred a
policy of appeasement.
Nazi occupied Europe, September 1943
With tensions mounting between Germany and Poland over the future of Danzig, the
Germans turned to the Soviets, and signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which allowed the
Soviets to invade the Baltic states and parts of Poland and Romania. Germany invaded
Poland on 1 September 1939, prompting France and the United Kingdom to declare war on
Germany on 3 September, opening the European Theatre of World War
II.[182][183] The Soviet invasion of Poland started on 17 September and Poland fell soon
thereafter. On 24 September, the Soviet Union attacked the Baltic countries and later,
Finland. The British hoped to land at Narvik and send troops to aid Finland, but their
primary objective in the landing was to encircle Germany and cut the Germans off from
Scandinavian resources. Around the same time, Germany moved troops into Denmark.
German forces conquered Denmark in one day. The Phoney War continued.
In May 1940, Germany attacked France through the Low Countries. France capitulated in
June 1940. By August Germany began a bombing offensive on Britain, but failed to convince
the Britons to give up. Much of London was destroyed, with 1,400,245 buildings destroyed
or damaged in the Blitz. In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation
Barbarossa. On 7 December 1941 Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor drew the United States
into the conflict as allies of the British Empire and other allied forces.
The "Big Three" at the Yalta Conference in 1945; seated (from the left): Winston
Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin
After the staggering Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, the German offensive in the Soviet Union
turned into a continual fallback. The Battle of Kursk, which involved the largest tank
battle in history, was the last major German offensive on the Eastern Front. In June 1944,
British and American forces invaded France in the D-Day landings, the largest seaborne
invasion in history. In a bid to soften up German forces, 1,570 French cities and towns
were bombed by the Allies between June 1940 and May 1945, killing 68,778 civilians.
Berlin finally fell in 1945, ending World War II in Europe. The war was the largest and most
destructive in human history, with 60 million dead across the world. More than 40 million
people in Europe had died as a result of World War II, including between 11 and 17 million
people who perished during the Holocaust. The Soviet Union lost around 27 million
people (mostly civilians) during the war, about half of all World War II casualties. By the
end of World War II, Europe had more than 40 million refugees. Several post-war
expulsions in Central and Eastern Europe displaced a total of about 20 million people.

24. The Schuman Declaration led to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community. It
began the integration process of the European Union (9 May 1950, at the French Foreign
Ministry).
World War I and especially World War II diminished the eminence of Western Europe in
world affairs. After World War II the map of Europe was redrawn at the Yalta
Conference and divided into two blocs, the Western countries and the communist Eastern
bloc, separated by what was later called by Winston Churchill an "Iron Curtain". The United
States and Western Europe established the NATO alliance and later the Soviet Union and
Central Europe established the Warsaw Pact.
The two new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, became locked in a fifty-
year-long Cold War, centred on nuclear proliferation. At the same time decolonisation,
which had already started after World War I, gradually resulted in the independence of
most of the European colonies in Asia and Africa. In the 1980s the reforms of Mikhail
Gorbachev and the Solidarity movement in Poland accelerated the collapse of the Eastern
bloc and the end of the Cold War. Germany was reunited, after the symbolic fall of the
Berlin Wall in 1989, and the maps of Central and Eastern Europe were redrawn once
more.[180]
Flag of Europe, adopted by the Council of Europe in 1955 as the flag for the whole of
Europe.
European integration also grew after World War II. The Treaty of Rome in 1957 established
the European Economic Community between six Western European states with the goal of
a unified economic policy and common market. In 1967 the EEC, European Coal and Steel
Community and Euratom formed the European Community, which in 1993 became
the European Union. The EU established a parliament, court and central bank and
introduced the euro as a unified currency. Between 2004 and 2013, more Central and
Eastern European countries began joining, expanding the EU to its current size of 28
European countries, and once more making Europe a major economical and political centre
of power. However, in June 2016 the people of the United Kingdom, in a non-binding
referendum on EU membership voted to leave the European Union.