History of Europe

Europe has played a major role in the world history. The society in Europe has developed itself since old times and was influenced by older civilizations like Egypt. The Roman and Greek cultures are partly responsible for the history of the continent. After the period of the Romans, the middle ages followed. The development of the civilization wasn't big at that time, the development started to grow at the Renaissance period. Throughout history, many big and destructive wars have been played in Europe. These wars destroyed countries and cities. Although Europe once consisted of multi ethnical imperia and kingdoms, this changed in the 19th century where successful nationalistic demonstrations created souverain nations within Europe. This caused economic competition and political disputes between nations. Despite these problems, many European nations succeeded in colonize other countries and European countries were created in areas outside Europe.

In modern history there have been 2 world wars in Europe. The first world war started in 1914 and ended in 1918. The second world war started in 1939 and ended in 1945. 

After the second world war, a period of cold war started. Europe was divided into 2 parts: Eastern Europe (dominated by Russia) and Western Europe (dominated by the USA). The boarder of this was a big wall in Berlin, Germany. The relations between east and west improved in the 70's. 

Starting in 1952, several European cooperations started because nobody wanted a new world war anymore and most European countries wanted to cooperate to prevent this. First this was called the European Community with 6 members, nowadays this is called the EU and it has 27 members and is still growing.