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History of Western civilization From Wikipedia

History of Western civilization From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Western civilization describes the development of human civilization beginning in the Middle East, and generally spreading westwards, and it is generally contrasted with Eastern civilization. In its broader sense, its roots may be traced back to 9000 BCE, when humans existing in hunter-gatherer societies began to settle into agricultural societies. Farming became prominent around the headwaters of the Euphrates, Tigris and Jordan Rivers, spreading outwards into and across Europe; in this sense, the West produced the world's first cities, states, and empires.[1] However,Western civilization in its more strictly defined European sphere traces its roots back to classical antiquity. From European and Mediterranean origins, it has spread to produce the dominant cultures of modern North America, South America, and much of Oceania, and has had immense global influence in recent centuries. The civilizations of Classical Greece (Hellenic), pagan Germanic/Celtic/Slavic/Baltic/the Roman Empire (Italic or Latin) cultures and early Ancient Israel/Christendom are considered seminal periods in Western history. From Greece sprang belief in democracy, and the pursuit of intellectual inquiry into such subjects as truth and beauty; from Rome came lessons in government administration, martial organisation, engineering and law; and from Ancient Israel sprang Christianity with its ideals of the brotherhood of humanity. Following the 5th century Fall of Rome, Europe entered the Middle Ages, during which period the Christian Church and Pope filled the power vacuum left in the West by the fallen Roman Empire. Feudalism developed as the system of government and society, with serfdom providing a manual workforce and medieval knights evolving as the elite military units, bound by a code of chivalry, and from whom were drawn the soldiers of the ill-fated Crusades. By the 12th century, Western Europe was experiencing a great flowering of art and learning, propelled by the construction of great cathedrals and establishment of medieval universities. A merchant class grew out of city states and Christian unity was finally broken by the Reformation from the 14th century. Europe then experienced the Renaissance from the 14th to the 17th century, heralding an age of technological and artistic advance and ushering in the Age of Discovery which saw the rise of such global European Empires as that of Spain and Britain, which helped shape the modern world. The Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the 18th century and the Age of Revolution emerged out of the United States and France as part of the transformation of the West into its industrialised, democratised modern form. In the Modern era, some Western nations experimented with Fascism and Communism and most were heavily involved in the First and Second World Wars and protracted Cold War. World War II saw Fascism defeated in Europe, and the emergence of the United States and Soviet Union as rival global powers. Other than in Russia, the European Empires disintegrated after World War II and civil rights movements and widescale multi-ethnic, multi-faith migrations to Europe, the Americas and Oceania altered the earlier predominance of ethnic Europeans in Western culture. The Cold War ended around 1990 with the collapse of Soviet imposed Communism in Eastern Europe and European nations have been moving closer through the expanding European Union. In the 21st century, the West retains significant global economic power and influence. At different times imperial, feudal, monarchical, republican and democratic, the West has contributed a great many technological, political, philosophical, artistic and religious aspects to modern international culture: having been a crucible of Christianity, democracy, feminism and industrialisation; the first major civilisation to seek to abolish slavery during the 19th century, the first toenfranchise women (beginning in Australasia at the end of the 19th century) and the first to put to use such technologies as steam, electric and nuclear power. The West invented cinema,television, the personal computer and the Internet; produced such artists as Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Mozart and The Beatles; and transported humans to an astronomical object for the first time with the 1969 Apollo 11 Lunar Landing. Contents [hide] 1 Antiquity: before AD 500 o 1.1 Origins of the notion of "East" and "West" o 1.2 The Mediterranean and the Ancient West o 1.3 Rise of Christendom o 1.4 Fall of Rome 2 The Middle Ages o 2.1 Early Middle Ages: 500–1000 o 2.2 High Middle Ages: 1000–1300 o 2.3 Late Middle Ages: 1300–1500 3 Renaissance & Reformation o 3.1 The Renaissance: 14th to 17th century o 3.2 The Reformation: 1500–1650 4 Rise of Western empires: 1500–1800 5 Enlightenment o 5.1 Absolutism and the Enlightenment: 1500–1800 o 5.2 Revolution: 1770–1815 o 5.3 Napoleonic Wars 6 Rise of the English-speaking world: 1815–1870 o 6.1 Industrial Revolution in the English-speaking world o 6.2 United Kingdom: 1815–1870  6.2.1 British Empire: 1815–1870  6.2.2 Canada: 1815–1870  6.2.3 Australia and New Zealand: 1815-1870 o 6.3 United States: 1815–1870 o 6.4 Hawaii: 1815–1870 7 Continental Europe: 1815–1870 8 Culture, Arts and sciences 1815-1914 9 New imperialism: 1870–1914 10 Great powers and the First World War: 1870–1918 o 10.1 United States: 1870–1914 o 10.2 Europe: 1870–1914 o 10.3 British dominions: 1870–1914 o 10.4 New alliances o 10.5 World War I 11 Inter-war years: 1918–1939 o 11.1 United States in the inter-war years o 11.2 Europe in the inter-war years o 11.3 British dominions in the inter-war years o 11.4 Rise of totalitarianism 12 Second World War and its aftermath: 1939–1950 13 Fall of the Western empires: 1945–1970 14 Cold War: 1945–1991 15 Western countries: 1945–1980 o 15.1 North America: 1945–1980 o 15.2 Europe o 15.3 Australia and New Zealand: 1945–1980 o 15.4 Western culture: 1945–1980 16 Western nations: 1980–present o 16.1 Western nations and the world o 16.2 Western society and culture (since 1980) 17 See also 18 References 19 Further reading 20 Further media [edit]Antiquity: before AD 500 A fresco found at the Minoan site of Knossos, indicating a sport or ritual of "bull leaping". TheMinoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. The Parthenon, located on the Acropolis inAthens, one of the cradles of Western civilization. [edit]Origins of the notion of "East" and "West" The opposition of a European "West" to an Asiatic "East" has its roots in Classical Antiquity, with the Persian Wars where the Greek city states were opposing the expansion of the Achaemenid Empire. The Biblical opposition of Israel and Assyria from a European perspective was recast into these terms by early Christian authors such as Jerome, who compared it to the "barbarian" invasions of his own time (see also Assyria and Germany in Anglo-Israelism). The "East" in the Hellenistic period was the Seleucid Empire, with Greek influence stretching as far as Bactria and India, besides Scythia in thePontic steppe to the north. In this period, there was significant cultural contact between the Mediterranean and the East, giving rise to syncretisms like Greco-Buddhism. The establishment of the Byzantine Empire around the 4th century established a political division of Europe into East and West and laid the foundations for divergent cultural directions, confirmed centuries later with the Great Schism between Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholic Christianity. [edit]The Mediterranean and the Ancient West The earliest civilizations which influenced the development of the West were those of Mesopotamia, the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran: the cradle of civilization. An agricultural revolution began here around 10,000 years ago with the domestication of animals like sheep and goats and the appearance of new wheat hybrids, notably bread wheat, at the completion of the last Ice Age, which allowed for a transition from nomadism to village settlements and then cities likeJericho. [2] The Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians all flourished in this region. Soon after the Sumerian civilization began, the Nile Rivervalley of ancient Egypt was unified under the Pharaohs in the 4th millennium BC, and civilization quickly spread through the Fertile Crescent to the west coast of the Mediterranean Sea and throughout the Levant. The Phoenicians, Israelites and others later built important states in this region. The ancient peoples of the Mediterranean heavily influenced the origins of Western civilisation. The Mediterranean Sea provided reliable shipping routes linking Asia, Africa and Europe along which political and religious ideas could be traded along with raw materials such as timber, copper, tin, gold and silver as well as agricultural produce and necessities such as wine, olive oil, grain and livestock. By 3100BC, the Egyptians were employing sails on boats on the Nile River and the subsequent development of the technology, coupled with knowledge of the wind and stars allowed naval powers such as the Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians and Romans to navigate long distances and control large areas by commanding the sea. Cargo galleys often also employed slave oarsmen to power their ships and slavery was an important feature of the ancient Western economy.[3] Thus, the great ancient capitals were linked — cities such as: Athens, home to Athenian democracy, and the Greek philosophers Aristotle, Plato and Socrates; the city of Jerusalem, the Jewish capital, where Jesus of Nazareth preached and was executed around AD 30; and the city of Rome, which gave rise to the Roman Empire which encompassed much of Western Europe and the Mediterranean. Knowledge of Greek, Roman and Judeo-Christian influence on the development of Western civilization is well documented because it attached to literate cultures, however, Western history was also strongly influenced by less literate groups such as the Germanic, Scandinavian and Celtic peoples who lived in Western and Northern Europe beyond the borders of the Roman world. Nevertheless, the Mediterranean was the centre of power and creativity in the development of ancient Western civilisation. Around 1500 BC, metallurgists learned to smelt iron ore, and by around 800BC, iron tools and weapons were common along the Aegean Sea, representing a major advance for warfare, agriculture and crafts in Greece.[3] The earliest urban civilizations of Europe belong to the Bronze Age Minoans of Crete and Mycenaean Greece, which ended around the 11th century BC as Greece entered the Greek Dark Ages. [4] Ancient Greece was the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. Classical Greece flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Under Athenian leadership, Greece successfully repelled the military threat of Persian invasion at the battles of Marathon and Thermopylae. The Athenian Golden Age ended with the defeat of Athens at the hands of Sparta in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC. The Greek philosophers Plato andAristotle in The School of Athens byRaphael. By the 6th century BC, Greek colonists had spread far and wide — from the Russian Black Sea coast to the Spanish Mediterranean and through modern Italy, North Africa, Crete, Cyprus and Turkey. The Ancient Olympic Games are said to have begun in 776BC and grew to be a major cultural event for the citizens of the Greek diaspora, who met every four years to compete in such sporting events as running, throwing, wrestling and chariot driving. Trade flourished and by 670BC the barter economy was being replaced by a money economy, with Greeks minting coins in such places as the island of Aegina. Poultry arrived from India around 600BC and would grow to be a European staple. The Hippocratic Oath, historically taken by doctors swearing to practice medicine ethically, is said to have been written by the Greek Hippocrates, often regarded as the father of western medicine, inIonic Greek (late 5th century BC),[5] The Greek city states competed and warred with each other, with Athens rising to be the most impressive. Learning from the Egyptians, Athenian art and architecture shone from 520 to 420BC and the city completed the Parthenon around 447BC to house a statue of their city goddess Athena. The Athenians also experimented with democracy. Property owners assembled almost weekly to make speeches and instruct their temporary rulers: a council of 500, chosen by lot or lottery, whose members could only serve a total of 2 years in a lifetime, and a smaller, high council from whom one man was selected by lottery to preside from sunset to the following sunset.[3] Thus, the citizens' assembly shared power and prevented lifetime rulers from taking control. Military chiefs were exempt from the short term requirement however and were elected, rather than chosen by lot. Eloquent oratory became a Greek art form as speakers sought to sway large crowds of voters. Athenians believed in 'democracy' but not in equality and excluded women, slaves, the poor and foreign from the assembly. Notions of a general "brotherhood of man" were yet to emerge.[3] Tragic Comic Masks of Ancient Greek Theatre represented in the Hadrian's Villamosaic. Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC and continued through the Hellenistic period, at which point Ancient Greece was incorporated into the Roman Empire. It dealt with a wide variety of subjects, including political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, ontology, logic, biology, rhetoric, and aesthetics. Plato was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician and writer of philosophical dialogues. He was the founder of the Academy inAthens which was the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Inspired by the admonition of his mentor, Socrates, prior to his unjust execution that "the unexamined life is not worth living", Plato and his student, the political scientist Aristotle, helped lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science.[6] Plato's sophistication as a writer is evident in his Socratic dialogues. In classical tradition, Homer is the ancient Greek epic poet, author of the Iliad, the Odyssey and other works. Homer's epics stand at the beginning of the western canon of literature, exerting enormous influence on the history of fiction and literature in general. Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great (356BC-323BC) was a Greek king of Macedon and the creator of one of the largest empires in ancient history. He was tutored by the philosopher Aristotle and, as ruler, broke the power of Persia, overthrew the Persian king Darius III and conquered the Persian Empire. ii[›] HisMacedonian Empire stretched from the Adriatic sea to the Indus river. He died in Babylon in 323 BC and his empire did not long survive his death. Nevertheless, the settlement of Greek colonists around the region had long lasting consequence and Alexander features prominently in Western history and mythology.[7] The city of Alexandria in Egypt, which bares his name and was founded in 330BC, became the successor to Athens as the intellectual cradle of the Western World. The city hosted such leading lights as the mathematician Euclid and anatomist Herophilus; constructed the great Library of Alexandria; and translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek (called the Septuagint for it was the work of 70 translators).[3] The ancient Greeks excelled in engineering, science, logic, politics and medicine. Classical Greek culture had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire, which carried a version of it to many parts of the Mediterranean region and Europe, for which reason Classical Greece is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of Western civilization. [8][9][10] Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community, founded on the River Tiber, on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, and centered at the city of Rome, the Roman Empire became one of the largest empires in theancient world. [11] In its centuries of existence, Roman civilization shifted from a monarchy to an oligarchic republic to an increasingly autocratic empire. It came to dominate South-Western Europe, South-Eastern Europe/Balkans and the Mediterranean region through conquest and assimilation. Pont du Gard in France is a Roman aqueduct built in c. 19 BC. Originally ruled by Kings who ruled the settlement and a small area of land nearby, the Romans established a republic in 509BC that would last for five centuries. Initially a small number of families shared power, later representative assemblies and elected leaders ruled. Rome remained a minor power on the Italian peninsula, but found a talent for producing soldiers and sailors and, after subduing the Sabines, Etruscans and Piceni began to challenge the power Carthage. By 240BC, Rome controlled the formerly Greek controlled island of Sicily. Following the 207BC defeat of the bold Carthaginian general Hannibal, who had led an army spearheaded by war elephants over the Alps into Italy, the Romans were able to expand their overseas empire into North Africa. Roman engineers built arterial roads throughout their empire, beginning with the Appian Way through Italy in 312BC. Along such roads marched soldiers, merchants, slaves and citizens to all corners of a flourishing mercantile empire. Roman engineering was so formidable that roads, bridges and aqueducts survive in impressive scale and quantity to the present day. According to the historian Geoffrey Blainey, the population of the Imperial capital was probably the first in the world to approach one million people. It eventually consisted of monumental public buildings, such as the Colosseum (dedicated to sport), the bathhouses (dedicated to leisure) and the Roman Forum dedicated to civic affairs. Slavery helped power the economy, but also created occasional tension — as in the slave rebellion led by Spartacus which was put down in 71BC.[3] The Roman Emperor Augustus Julius Caesar (100BC-44BC) was a Roman general and statesman who played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. Conspirators who feared he was seeking to reestablish a monarchy assassinated him on the floor of the Roman Senate in 44BC. His anointed successor Augustus Caesar outmaneuvered his opponents to reign as a defacto emperor from 27BC. His successors became all-powerful and demanded veneration as gods. Rome entered its period of Imperial rule and stability (albeit often marred by occasional bouts of apparent insanity by various god-emperors) returned to the Empire.[3] Roman civilization and history contributed greatly to the development of government, law, war, art, literature, architecture, technology, religion, and language in the Western world. Ecclesiastical Latin, the Roman Catholic Church’s official language, remains a living legacy of the classical world to the contemporary world but the Classical languages of the Ancient Mediterranean influenced every European language, imparting to each a learned vocabulary of international application. It was, for many centuries, the international lingua franca and Latin itself evolved into the Romance languages, while Ancient Greek evolved intoModern Greek. Latin and Greek continue to influence English, not least in the specialised vocabularies of science, technology and the law. [edit]Rise of Christendom Moses with the Ten Commandments.A painting byRembrandt (1659). Madonna of Loreto by Raphael. Depictions of the infant Jesuswith his mother, Mary, have been a major theme of Western art. Judaism claims a historical continuity spanning around 4000 years. Originally herders, who probably originated from thePersian Gulf or nearby deserts, the Hebrews (the name signified 'wanderer')[3] formed one of the most enduring monotheisticreligions,[12] and the oldest to survive into the present day.[13][14] Abraham is traditionally considered as the father of the Jewish people, and Moses the law giver, who, according to the Hebrew Bible, led them out of slavery in Egypt and delivered them to the "Promised Land" of Israel. While the historicity of these accounts is not considered precise, the stories of the Hebrew Bible have been an inspiration for vast quantities of Western art, literature and scholarship. Depiction of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount by Carl Heinrich Bloch. Around 1000BC, the Israelites had a period of power under King David who captured Jerusalem. His son King Solomon constructed the first magnificent Temple at Jerusalem for the worship of God. The Jews rejected the polytheism common to that age and would worship only God, whose Ten Commandments instructed them on how to live. These commandments remain influential in the West and prohibited theft, lying and adultery; called for worship of only one God; and for respect and honour for parents and neighbours. The Jews observed Sabbath as a "day of rest" (called "one of the first wide-ranging laws of social-welfare in the world" by the historian Geoffrey Blainey). In 587BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire of Nebuchadnezzar II destroyed the Temple and the Jewish leaders went into exile to return a century later to face a succession of foreign rulers: Persian and Greek.[3] Judaism's texts, traditions and values play a major role in laterAbrahamic religions, including Christianity, Islam and the Baha'i Faith. [14][15] Many aspects of Judaism have also influenced secular Western ethics and law.[16] In 63BC, Judea became part of the Roman Empire and, around 6BC Jesus was born to a Jewish family in the town of Nazareth, as a consequence of which, worship of the God of Israel would come to spread through, and later dominate, the Western World.[3] Later the Western calendar would be divided into Before Christ (BC) (meaning before Jesus was born) and Anno Domini (AD). Christianity began as a Jewish sect in the mid-1st century arising out of the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. The life of Jesus is recounted in the New Testament of the Bible, one of the bedrock texts of Western Civilisation.[17] According to the New Testament, Jesus was raised as the son of the Nazarenes Mary (called the "Blessed Virgin" and "Mother of God") and her husband Saint Joseph (a carpenter). Jesus' birth is commemorated in the festival of Christmas. Jesus learned the texts of the Hebrew Bible and like his contemporary John the Baptist, became an influential wandering preacher. He gathered Twelve Disciples to assist in his work. He was a persuasive teller of parables and moral philosopher. In orations such as his Sermon on the Mount and stories such as The Good Samaritan and his declaration against hypocrisy "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone", Jesus called on followers to worship God, act without violence or prejudice and care for the sick, hungry and poor. He criticized the privilege and hypocrisy of the religious establishment which drew the ire of religious and civil authorities, who persuaded the Roman Governor of the province of Judaea, Pontius Pilate, to have him executed for subversion. In Jerusalem, around AD 30 Jesus was crucified (nailed alive to a wooden cross) and died.[3] According to the Bible, his body disappeared from his tomb three days later, because he had been resurrected from the dead. The festival ofEaster recalls this event. Saint Peter and Saint Paul by the artist El Greco. Icon depicting the Roman Emperor Constantine (centre) and the bishops of the First Council of Nicaea (325) holding the Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed of 381. The early followers of Jesus, including Saints Paul and Peter carried a new theology concerning him throughout the Roman Empire and beyond, sowing the seeds of such institutions as the Catholic Church, of which Saint Peter is remembered as the first Pope. Saint Paul, in particular, emphasised the universality of the faith and the religion moved beyond the Jewish population of the Empire and Asia Minor. Later Jesus was called "Christ" (meaning "anointed one" in Greek), and thus his followers became known as Christians. Christians often faced persecution from authorities or antagonistic populations during these early centuries, particularly for their refusal to join in worshiping the emperors. The Emperor Nero famously blamed them for the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64 and condemned them toDamnatio ad bestias, a form of capital punishment in which people were maimed to death by animals in the circus arena.[3] Nevertheless, carried through the synagogues, merchants and missionaries across the known world, the new religion quickly grew in size and influence.Emperor Constantine's Edict of Milan in AD 303 ended the persecutions and his own conversion to Christianity was a significant turning point in history.[18] In AD 325, Constantine conferred the First Council of Nicaea to gain consensus and unity within Christianity, with a view to establishing it as the religion of the Empire. The council composed the Nicean Creed which outlined a profession of the Christian faith. Constantine instigated Sunday as Sabbath and "day of rest" for Roman society (though initially this was only for urban dwellers). The population and wealth of the Roman Empire had been shifting east, and the division of Europe into a Western (Latin) and an Eastern (Greek) part was prefigured in the division of the Empire by the Emperor Diocletian in AD 285. Around 330, Constantine established the city of Constantinople as a new imperial city which would be the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Possessed of mighty fortifications and architectural splendour, the city would stand for another thousand years as a "Roman Capital". The Hagia Sophia Cathedral (later converted to a mosque following the Fall of Constantinople in 1453) is one of the greatest surviving examples of Byzantine architecture, with its vast dome and interior of mosaics and marble pillars, it was so richly decorated that the Emperor Justinian, the last emperor to speak Latin as a first language, is said to have proclaimed upon its completion in 562: "Solomon, I have surpassed thee!". The city of Rome itself never regained supremacy and was sacked by the Visigoths in 410 and the Vandals in 455. Although cultural continuity and interchange would continue between these Eastern and Western Roman Empires, the history of Christianity and Western culture took divergent routes, with a final Great Schism separating Roman and Eastern Christianity in 1054. When the Western Roman Empire was starting to disintegrate, St Augustine was Bishop of Hippo Regius. He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologianwho lived in the Roman Africa Province. His writings were very influential in the development of Western Christianity and he developed the concept of the Church as a spiritual City of God (in a book of the same name), distinct from the material Earthly City.[19] His book Confessions, which outlines his sinful youth and conversion to Christianity, is widely considered to be the first autobiography written in the canon of Western Literature. Augustine profoundly influenced the coming medieval worldview.[20] [edit]Fall of Rome In 476 the western Roman Empire, which had ruled modern-day Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and England for centuries, collapsed due to a combination of economic decline, and drastically reduced military strength which allowed invasion by barbarian tribes originating in southern Scandinavia and modern-day northern Germany. Historical opinion is divided as to the reasons for the Fall of Rome, but the societal collapse encompassed both the gradual disintegration of the political, economic, military, and other social institutions of Rome as well as the barbarian invasions of Western Europe. In England, several Germanic tribes invaded, including the Angles and Saxons. In Gaul (modern-day France, Belgium and parts of Switzerland) and Germania Inferior (The Netherlands), theFranks settled, in Iberia the Visigoths invaded and Italy was conquered by the Ostrogoths. The slow decline of the Western Empire occurred over a period of roughly three centuries, culminating in 476, when Romulus Augustus, the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was deposed by Odoacer, a Germanic chieftain. Some modern historians question the significance of this date,[21] and not simply because Julius Nepos, the legitimate emperor recognized by the East Roman Empire, continued to live in Salona, Dalmatia, until he was assassinated in 480. More importantly, the Ostrogoths who succeeded considered themselves upholders of the direct line of Roman traditions and, as the historian Edward Gibbon noted, the Eastern Roman Empire continued until the Fall of Constantinople on May 29, 1453. [edit]The Middle Ages [edit]Early Middle Ages: 500–1000 Further information: Muslim conquests Europe in 998. While the Roman Empire and Christian religion survived in an increasingly Hellenised form in the Byzantine Empire centered at Constantinople in the East, Western civilization suffered a collapse of literacy and organization following the fall of Rome in AD 476. Gradually however, the Christian religion re-asserted its influence over Western Europe. The Book of Kells. Danish seamen, painted mid-twelfth century. The Viking Agesaw Norseman explore, raid, conquer and trade through wide areas of the West. After the Fall of Rome, the papacy served as a source of authority and continuity. In the absence of a magister militum living in Rome, even the control of military matters fell to the pope. Gregory the Great (c 540–604) administered the church with strict reform. A trained Roman lawyer and administrator, and a monk, he represents the shift from the classical to the medieval outlook and was a father of many of the structures of the later Roman Catholic Church. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, he looked upon Church and State as cooperating to form a united whole, which acted in two distinct spheres, ecclesiastical and secular, but by the time of his death, the papacy was the great power in Italy:[22] “ [ Pope Gregory the Great ] made himself in Italy a power stronger than emperor or exarch, and established a political influence which dominated the peninsula for centuries. From this time forth the varied populations of Italy looked to the pope for guidance, and Rome as the papal capital continued to be the center of the Christian world. ” According to tradition, it was a Romanized Briton, Saint Patrick who took Christianity to Ireland around the 5th century, though Roman legions never controlled Ireland. Following the collapse of Roman Britain, Christianity survived in Ireland. As the Western Roman Empire collapsed, Monks had sought out refuge at the far fringes of the known world: like Cornwall, Ireland, or the Hebrides. Disciplined scholarship carried on in isolated outposts like Skellig Michael in Ireland, where literate monks became some of the last preservers in Western Europe of the poetic and philosophical works of Western antiquity. [23] By around 800 they were producing illuminated manuscripts such as the Book of Kells. The Hiberno-Scottish mission led by Irish and Scottish monks like StColumba spread Christianity back into Western Europe during the Middle Ages, establishing monasteries through Anglo-Saxon England and the Frankish Empire during the Middle Ages. Thomas Cahill, in his 1995 book How the Irish Saved Civilization, credited Irish Monks with having "saved" Western Civilization during this period.[24] According to art historian Kenneth Clarke, for some five centuries after the fall of Rome, virtually all men of intellect joined the Church and practically nobody in western Europe outside of monastic settlements had the ability to read or write.[23] Around AD 500, Clovis I, the King of the Franks, became a Christian and united Gaul under his rule. Later in the 6th century, the Byzantine Empire restored its rule in much of Italy and Spain. Missionaries sent from Ireland by the Pope helped to convert England to Christianity in the 6th century as well, restoring that faith as the dominant in Western Europe. Muhammed, the founder and Prophet of Islam was born in Mecca in AD 570. Working as a trader he encountered the ideas of Christianity and Judaism on the fringes of the Byzantine Empire, and around 610 began preaching of a new monotheistic religion, Islam, and in 622 became the secular and spiritual leader ofMedina, soon after conquering Mecca in 630. Dying in 632, Muhammed's new creed conquered first the Arabian tribes, then the great Byzantine cities ofDamascus in 635 and Jerusalem in 636. A multiethnic Islamic empire was established across the formerly Roman Middle East and North Africa. By the early 8th century, Iberia and Sicily had fallen to the Muslims. By the 9th century, Sardinia, Malta, Cyprus and Crete had fallen — and for a time the South of France and Italy.[3] Only in 732 was the Muslim advance into Europe stopped by the Frankish leader Charles Martel, saving Gaul and the rest of the West from conquest by Islam. From this time, the "West" became synonymous with Christendom, the territory ruled by Christian powers, as Oriental Christianity fell to dhimmi status under the Muslim Caliphates. The cause to liberate the "Holy Land" remained a major topos throughout medieval history, fuelling many consecutive crusades, only the first of which was successful. Charlemagne ("Charles the Great" in English) became king of the Franks. He conquered the Low Countries (modern-day Belgium, the Netherlands, andLuxembourg), Saxony, and northern and central Italy. In 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor. Under his rule, his subjects in non-Christian lands like Germany converted to Christianity. After his reign, the empire he created broke apart into the kingdom of France (from Francia meaning "land of the Franks") and the Holy Roman Empire. Starting in the late 8th century, the Vikings began seaborne attacks on the towns and villages of Europe. Eventually, they turned from raiding to conquest, and conquered Ireland, most of England, and northern France (Normandy). These conquests were not long-lasting, however. In 954 Alfred the Great drove the Vikings out of England, which he united under his rule, and Viking rule in Ireland ended as well. In Normandy the Vikings adopted French culture and language, became Christians and were absorbed into the native population. By the beginning of the 11th century Scandinavia was divided into three kingdoms, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, all of which were Christian and part of Western civilization. Norse explorers reached Iceland, Greenland, and even North America, however only Iceland was permanently settled by the Norse. A period of warm temperatures from around 1000-1200 enabled the establishment of a Norse outpost in Greenland in 985, which survived for some 400 years as the most westerly oupost of Christendom. From here, Norseman attempted their short-lived European colony in North America, five centuries before Columbus. [3] In the 10th century another marauding group of warriors swept through Europe, the Magyars. They eventually settled in what is today Hungary, converted to Christianity and became the ancestors of the Hungarian people. A West Slavic people, the Poles, formed a unified state by the 10th century and having adopted Christianity also in the 10th century [25][26] but with pagan rising in the 11th century. By the start of the second millennium AD, the West had become divided linguistically into three major groups. The Romance languages, based on Latin, the language of the Romans, theGermanic languages, and the Celtic languages. The most widely spoken Romance languages were French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Four widely-spoken Germanic languages wereEnglish, German, Dutch, and Danish. Irish and Scots Gaelic were two widely-spoken Celtic languages in the British Isles. [edit]High Middle Ages: 1000–1300 Further information: Christendom and Crusades The Mongol invasion of Russia: Sacking of Suzdal by Batu Khan (1238). From the medieval Russian annals. Art historian Kenneth Clark wrote that Western Europe's first "great age of civilisation" was ready to begin around the year 1000. From 1100, he wrote: "every branch of life — action, philosophy, organisation, technology [experienced an] extraordinary outpouring of energy, an intensification of existence". Upon this period rests the foundations of many of Europe's subsequent achievements. By Clarke's account, the Catholic Church was very powerful, essentially internationalist and democratic in it structures and run by monastic organisations generally following Benedictine rule. Men of intelligence usually joined religious orders and those of intellectual, administrative or diplomatic skill could advance beyond the usual restraints of society — leading churchmen from faraway lands were accepted in local bishoprics, linking European thought across wide distances. Complexes like the Abbey of Cluny became vibrant centres with dependencies spread throughout Europe. Ordinary people also treked vast distances on pilgrimages to express their piety and pray at the site of holy relics. Monumental abbeys and cathedrals were constructed and decorated with sculptures, hangings, mosaics and works belonging one of the greatest epochs of art and providing stark contrast to the monotonous and cramped conditions of ordinary living. Abbot Suger of the Abbey of St. Denis is considered an influential early patron of Gothic architecture and believed that love of beauty brought people closer to God: "The dull mind rises to truth through that which is material". Clarke calls this "the intellectual background of all the sublime works of art of the next century and in fact has remained the basis of our belief of the value of art until today".[23] By the year 1000 feudalism had become the dominant social, economic and political system. At the top of society was the monarch, who gave land tonobles in exchange for loyalty. The nobles gave land to vassals, who served as knights to defend their monarch or noble. Under the vassals were thepeasants or serfs. The feudal system thrived as long as peasants needed protection by the nobility from invasions originating inside and outside of Europe. So as the 11th century progressed, the feudal system declined along with the threat of invasion. The Abbey of St. Denis, France. Abbot Suger of this Abbey was an eary patron of the extraordinary artistic achievements of the epoch. Barons forced King John of England to sign the Magna Cartalaying early foundations for the evolution of constitutional monarchy. Saint Thomas Aquinas was one of the great scholars of the Medieval period. In 1054, after centuries of strained relations, the Great Schism occurred over differences in doctrine, splitting the Christian world between the Catholic Church, centered in Rome and dominant in the West, and the Orthodox Church, centered in Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. The last pagan land in Europe was converted to Christianity with the conversion of the Baltic peoples in the High Middle Ages, bringing them into Western civilization as well. As the Medieval period progressed, the aristocratic military ideal of Chivalry and institution of knighthood based around courtesy and service to others became culturally important. Large Gothic cathedrals of extraordinary artistic and architectural intricacy were constructed throughout Europe, includingCanterbury Cathedral in England, Cologne Cathedral in Germany and Chartres Cathedral in France (called the "epitome of the first great awakening in European civilisation" by Kenneth Clarke[23]). The period produced ever more extravagant art and architecture, but also the virtuous simplicity of such as St Francis of Assisi (expressed in the Prayer of St Francis) and the epic poetry of Dante's Divine Comedy. As the Church grew more powerful and wealthy, many sought reform. The Dominican and Franciscan Orders were founded, which emphasized poverty and spirituality. Women were in many respects excluded from political and mercantile life, however, leading churchwomen were an exception. Medieval abbesses and female superiors of monastic houses were powerful figures whose influence could rival that of male bishops and abbots: "They treated with kings, bishops, and the greatest lords on terms of perfect equality;. . . they were present at all great religious and national solemnities, at the dedication of churches, and even, like the queens, took part in the deliberation of the national assemblies...".[27] The increasing popularity of devotion to the Virgin Mary (the mother of Jesus) secured maternal virtue as a central cultural theme of Catholic Europe. Kenneth Clarke wrote that the 'Cult of the Virgin' in the early 12th century "had taught a race of tough and ruthless barbarians the virtues of tenderness and compassion".[23] In 1095, Pope Urban II called for a Crusade to re-conquer the Holy Land from Muslim rule, when the Seljuk Turks prevented Christians from visiting the holy sites there. For centuries prior to the emergence of Islam, Asia Minor and much of the Mid East had been a part of the Roman and later Byzantine Empires. The Crusades were originally launched in response to a call from the Byzantine Emperor for help to fight the expansion of the Turks into Anatolia. The First Crusadewas a success and the crusaders established rule over the Holy Land. However, Muslim forces reconquered the land by the 13th century, and subsequent crusades were not very successful. The specific crusades to restore Christian control of the Holy Land were fought over a period of nearly 200 years, between 1095 and 1291. Other campaigns in Spain and Portugal (the Reconquista) and Eastern Europe continued into the 15th century. The Crusades had major far-reaching political, economic, and social impacts on Europe. They further served to alienate Eastern and Western Christendom from each other and ultimately failed to prevent the march of the Turks into Eastern Europe. Cathedral schools began in the Early Middle Ages as centers of advanced education, some of them ultimately evolving into medieval universities. During the High Middle Ages, Chartres Cathedral operated the famous and influential Chartres Cathedral School. The medieval universities of Western Christendom were well-integrated across all of Western Europe, encouraged freedom of enquiry and produced a great variety of fine scholars and natural philosophers, includingRobert Grosseteste of the University of Oxford, an early expositor of a systematic method of scientific experimentation;[28] and Saint Albert the Great, a pioneer of biological field research[29] The University of Bologne is considered the oldest continually operating university. Philosophy in the High Middle Ages focused on religious topics. Christian Platonism, which modified Plato's idea of the separation between the ideal world of the forms and the imperfect world of their physical manifestations to the Christian division between the imperfect body and the higher soul was at first the dominant school of thought. However, in the 12th century the works of Aristotle were reintroduced to the West, which resulted in a new school of inquiry known as scholasticism, which emphasized scientific observation. Two important philosophers of this period were Saint Anselm and Saint Thomas Aquinas, both of whom were concerned with proving God's existence through philosophical means. The Summa Theologica by Aquinas was one of the most influential documents in medieval philosophy and Thomism continues to be studied today in philosophy classes. Theologian Peter Abelard wrote in 1122 "I must understand in order that I may believe... by doubting we come to questioning, and by questioning we perceive the truth".[23] In Normandy, the Vikings adopted French culture and language, mixed with the native population of mostly Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock and became known as the Normans. They played a major political, military, and cultural role in medieval Europe and even the Near East. They were famed for their martial spirit and Christian piety. They quickly adopted the Romance language of the land they settled off, their dialect becoming known as Norman, an important literary language. The Duchy of Normandy, which they formed by treaty with the French crown, was one of the great large fiefs of medieval France. The Normans are famed both for their culture, such as their unique Romanesque architecture, and their musical traditions, as well as for their military accomplishments and innovations. Norman adventurers established a kingdom in Sicily and southern Italy by conquest, and a Norman expedition on behalf of their duke led to theNorman Conquest of England. Norman influence spread from these new centres to the Crusader States in the Near East, to Scotland and Wales in Great Britain, and to Ireland. Relations between the major powers in Western society: the nobility, monarchy and clergy, sometimes produced conflict. If a monarch attempted to challenge church power, condemnation from the church could mean a total loss of support among the nobles, peasants, and other monarchs. Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, one of the most powerful men of the 11th century, stood three days bare-headed in the snow at Canossa in 1077, in order to reverse his excommunication by Pope Gregory VII. As monarchies centralized their power as the Middle Ages progressed, nobles tried to maintain their own authority. The sophisticated Court of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II was based in Sicily, where Norman, Greek, and Islamic civilization had intermingled. His realm stretched through Southern Italy, through Germany and in 1229, he crowned himself King of Jerusalem. His reign saw tension and rivalry with the Papacy over control of Northern Italy.[30] A patron of education, Frederick founded the University of Naples. Plantagenet kings first ruled the Kingdom of England in the 12th century. Henry V left his mark with a famous victory against larger numbers at the Battle of Agincourt, while Richard the Lionheart, who had earlier distinguished himself in the Third Crusade, was later romanticised as an iconic figure in English folklore. A distinctive English culture emerged under the Plantagenets, encouraged by some of the monarchs who were patrons of the "father of English poetry", Geoffrey Chaucer. The Gothic architecture style was popular during the time, with buildings such as Westminster Abbey remodelled in that style. King John's sealing of the Magna Carta was influential in the development of common law and constitutional law. The 1215 Charter required the King to proclaim certain liberties, and accept that his will was not arbitrary — for example by explicitly accepting that no "freeman" (non-serf) could be punished except through the law of the land, a right which is still in existence today. Political institutions such as the Parliament of England and the Model Parliament originate from the Plantagenet period, as do educational institutions including the universities ofCambridge and Oxford. From the 12th century onward inventiveness had re-asserted itself outside of the Viking north and the Islamic south of Europe. Universities flourished, mining of coal commenced, and crucial technological advances such as the lock, which enabled sail ships to reach the thriving Belgian city of Brugges via canals, and the deep sea ship guided by magnetic compass and rudder were invented.[3] [edit]Late Middle Ages: 1300–1500 Saint Joan of Arc The Siege of Constantinople(painted 1499) A cooling in temperatures after about 1150 saw leaner harvests across Europe and consequent shortages of food and flax material for clothing. Famines increased and in 1316 serious famine gripped Ypres. In 1410, the last of the Greenland Norseman abandoned their colony to the ice. From Central Asia, Mongol invasions progressed towards Europe throughout the 13th century, resulting in the vast Mongol Empire which covered much of Asia and Eastern Europe by 1300.[3] The Papacy had its court at Avignon from 1305-78[31] This arose from the conflict between the Papacy and the French crown. A total of seven popes reigned at Avignon; all were French, and all were increasingly under the influence of the French crown. Finally in 1377 Gregory XI, in part because of the entreaties of the mystic Saint Catherine of Sienna, restored the Holy See to Rome, officially ending the Avignon papacy.[32] However, in 1378 the breakdown in relations between the cardinals and Gregory's successor, Urban VI, gave rise to the Western Schism — which saw another line of Avignon Popes set up as rivals to Rome (subsequent Catholic history does not grant them legitimacy).[33] The period helped weaken the prestige of the Papacy in the build up to the Protestant Reformation. In the Later Middle Ages the Black Plague struck Europe, arriving in 1348. Europe was overwhelmed by the outbreak of bubonic plague, probably brought to Europe by the Mongols. The fleas hosted by rats carried the disease and it devastated Europe. Major cities like Paris, Hamburg, Venice and Florence lost half their population. Around 20 million people — up to a third of Europe's population — died from the plague before it receded. The plague periodically returned over coming centuries.[3] The last centuries of the Middle Ages saw the waging of the Hundred Years' War between England and France. The war began in 1337 when the king of France laid claim to English-ruled Gascony in southern France, and the king of England claimed to be the rightful king of France. At first, the English conquered half of France and seemed likely to win the war, until the French were rallied by a peasant girl, who would later become a saint, Joan of Arc. Although she was captured and executed by the English, the French fought on and won the war in 1453. After the war, France gained all of Normandy excluding the city of Calais, which it gained in 1558. Following the Mongols from Central Asia came the Ottoman Turks. By 1400 they had captured most of modern day Turkey and extended their rule into Europe through the Balkans and as far as the Danube, surrounding even the fabled city of Constantinople. Finally, in 1453, Eastern Europe's greatest city fell to the Turks.[3] The Ottomans under the command of Sultan Mehmed II, fought a vastly outnumbered defending army commanded by Emperor Constantine XI — the last "Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire" — and blasted down the ancient walls with the terrifying new weaponry of the canon. The Ottoman conquests sent refugee Greek scholars westward, contributing to the revival of the West's knowledge of the learning of Classical Antiquity. Probably the first clock in Europe was installed in a Milan church in 1335, hinting at the dawning mechanical age.[3] By the 14th century, the middle class in Europe had grown in influence and number as the feudal system declined. This spurred the growth of towns and cities in the West and improved the economy of Europe. This, in turn helped begin a cultural movement in the West known as the Renaissance, which began in Italy. Italy was dominated by city-states, many of which were nominally part of the Holy Roman Empire,and were ruled by wealthy aristocrats like the Medicis, or in some cases, by the pope. [edit]Renaissance & Reformation [edit]The Renaissance: 14th to 17th century The Creation of Adam by Michelangelofrom the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. St. Peter's Basilica from the River Tiber. The dome, completed in 1590, was designed by Michelangelo, architect, painter and poet. Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. William Shakespeare's First Folio The Renaissance ushered in a new age of scientific and intellectual inquiry and appreciation of ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. The merchant cities of Florence, Genoa, Ghent, Nuremberg, Geneva, Zurich,Lisbon and Seville provided patrons of the arts and sciences and unleashed a flurry of activity. The Medici became the leading family of Florence and fostered and inspired the birth of the Italian Renaissance along with other families of Italy, such as the Visconti and Sforza of Milan, the Este of Ferrara, and the Gonzaga of Mantua. Italian artists like Botticelli, Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael produced inspired works — their paintwork was more realistic-looking than had been created by Medieval artists and their marble statues rivalled and sometimes surpassed those of Classical Antiquity. Michelangelo carved his masterpiece David from marble between 1501 and 1504. Churches began being built in the Romanesque style for the first time in centuries. While art and architecture flourished in Italy and then the Netherlands, religious reformers flowered in Germany and Switzerland; printing was establishing itself in the Rhineland and navigators were emarking on extraordinay voyages of discovery from Portugal and Spain.[3] Around 1450, Johannes Gutenberg developed a printing press, which allowed works of literature to spread more quickly. Secular thinkers like Machiavelli re-examined the history of Rome to draw lessons for civic governance. Theologians revisted the works of St Augustine. Important thinkers of the Renaissance inNorthern Europe included the Catholic humanists Desiderius Erasmus, a Dutch theologian, and the English statesman and philosopher Thomas More, who wrote the seminal work Utopia in 1516. Humanism was an important development to emerge from the Renaissance. It placed importance on the study of human nature and worldly topics rather than religious ones. Important humanists of the time included the writers Petrarch and Boccaccio, who wrote in both Latin as had been done in the Middle Ages, as well as the vernacular, in their case Tuscan Italian. As the calendar reached the year 1500, Europe was blossoming — with Leonardo Da Vinci painting his Mona Lisa portrait not long after Christopher Columbusreached the Americas (1492), the Portuguese navigator Vasco Da Gama sailed around Africa into the Indian Ocean and Michelangelo completed his paintings of Old Testament themes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome (the expense of such artistic exuberance did much to spur the likes of Martin Luther in Northern Europe in their protests against the Church of Rome).[3] For the first time in European history, events North of the Alps and on the Atlantic Coast were taking centre stage.[3] Important artists of this period includedBosch, Dürer, and Breugel. In Spain Miguel de Cervantes wrote the novel Don Quixote, other important works of literature in this period were the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer and Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory. The most famous playwright of the era was the Englishman William Shakespearewhose sonnets and plays (including Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth) are considered some of the finest works ever written in the English language. Meanwhile, the Christian kingdoms of northern Iberia continued their centuries-long fight to reconquer the peninsula from its Muslim rulers. In 1492, the last Islamic stronghold, Granada, fell, and Iberia was divided between the Christian kingdoms of Spain and Portugal. Iberia's Jewish and Muslim minorities were forced to convert to Catholicism or be exiled. The Portuguese immediately looked to expand outward sending expeditions to explore the coasts of Africa and engage in trade with the mostly Muslim powers on the Indian Ocean, making Portugal wealthy. In 1492, a Spanish expedition of Christopher Columbusdiscovered the Americas during an attempt to find a western route to East Asia. From the East, however, the Ottoman Turks under Suleiman the Magnificent continued their advance into the heart of Christian Europe — besieging Vienna in 1529.[3] The 16th century saw the flowering of the Renaissance in the rest of the West. In Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicusdeduced that the geocentric model of the universe was incorrect, and that in fact the planets revolve around the sun. The Italian astronomer Galileo developedtelescope technology. Advances in medicine and understanding of the human anatomy also increased in this time. In England, Sir Isaac Newton pioneered the science of physics. These events led to the so-called scientific revolution, which emphasized experimentation. [edit]The Reformation: 1500–1650 The printing press.Gutenberg's invention had a great impact on social and political developments. Martin Luther, a founder ofProtestantism Saint Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits and a leader of theCounter-Reformation. The other major movement in the West in the 16th century was the Reformation, which would profoundly change the West and end its religious unity. The Reformation began in 1517 when the Catholic monk Martin Luther wrote his 95 Theses, which denounced the wealth and corruption of the church, as well as many Catholic beliefs, including the institution of the papacyand the belief that, in addition to faith in Christ, "good works" were also necessary for salvation. Luther drew on the beliefs of earlier church critics, like the Bohemian Jan Hus and the Englishman John Wycliffe. Luther's beliefs eventually ended in his excommunication from the Catholic Church and the founding of a church based on his teachings: the Lutheran Church, which became the majority religion in northern Germany. Soon other reformers emerged, and their followers became known asProtestants. In 1525, Ducal Prussia became the first Lutheran state. In the 1540s the Frenchman John Calvin founded a church in Geneva which forbade alcohol and dancing, and which taughtGod had selected those destined to be saved from the beginning of time. His Calvinist Church gained about half of Switzerlandand churches based on his teachings became dominant in the Netherlands (the Dutch Reformed Church) and Scotland (thePresbyterian Church). In England, when the Pope failed to grant King Henry VIII a divorce, he declared himself head of the Church in England (founding what was evolve into today's Church of England and Anglican Communion. Some Englishmen felt the church was still too similar to the Catholic Church and formed the more radical Puritanism. Many other small Protestant sects were formed, including Zwinglianism, Anabaptism and Mennonism. Although they were different in many ways, Protestants generally called their religious leaders ministers instead of priests, and believed only the Bible, and not Traditionoffered divine revelation. Britain and Holland allowed Protestant dissenters to migrate to their North American colonies — thus the future United States found its early Protestant ethos — while Protestants were forbidden to migrate to the Spanish colonies (thus South America retained its Catholic hue). A more democratic organisational structure within some of the new Protestant movements — as in the Calvinists of New England — did much also to foster a democratic spirit in Britain's American colonies.[3] The Catholic Church responded to the Reformation with the Counter Reformation. Some of Luther and Calvin's criticisms were heeded: the selling of indulgences was reined in by the Council of Trent in 1562. But exuberant baroque architecture and art was embraced as an affirmation of the faith and new seminaries and orders were established to lead missions to far off lands.[3] An important leader in this movement was Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus(Jesuit Order) which gained many converts and sent such famous missionaries as Saints Matteo Ricci to China, Francis Xavier to India and Peter Claver to the Americas. Portrait of Elizabeth I of England, commemorating the defeat of the Spanish Armada(1588). As princes, kings and emperors chose sides in religious debates and sought national unity, religious wars erupted throughout Europe, especially in the Holy Roman Empire. Emperor Charles V was able to arrange the Peace of Augsburg between the warring Catholic and Protestant nobility. However, in 1618, theThirty Years' War began between Protestants and Catholics in the empire, which eventually involved neighboring countries like France. The devastating war finally ended in 1648. In the Peace of Westphalia ending the war, Lutheranism, Catholicism and Calvinism were all granted toleration in the empire. The two major centers of power in the empire after the war were Protestant Prussia in the north and Catholic Austria in the south. The Dutch, who were ruled by the Spanish at the time, revolted and gained independence, founding a Protestant country. In 1588 the staunchly Catholic Spanish attempted to conquer Protestant England with a large fleet of ships (the Spanish Armada), however a storm destroyed the fleet, bringing a famous victory to Queen Elizabeth I of England. The defeat of the Spanish Armada associated her name forever with what is popularly viewed as one of the greatest victories in English history. The Elizabethan erais famous above all for the flourishing of English drama, led by playwrights such as William Shakespeare and for the seafaring prowess of English adventurers such as Sir Francis Drake. Her 44 years on the throne provided welcome stability and helped forge a sense of national identity. One of her first moves as queen was to support the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor of what was to become the Church of England. By 1650, the religious map of Europe had been redrawn: Scandinavia, Iceland, north Germany, part of Switzerland, the Netherlands and Britain were Protestant, while the rest of the West remained Catholic. A byproduct of the Reformation was increasingly literacy as Protestant powers pursued an aim of educating more people to be able to read the Bible. [edit]Rise of Western empires: 1500–1800 Further information: Colonial empire, Great divergence, and European miracle The discovery of the New World by Christoper Columbus The Portuguese explorerVasco Da Gama unlocked the sea route from Europe to India (1497–1499). The Russian conquest of Siberia began in July 1580 when some 540 Cossacks underYermak Timofeyevich invaded the territory of the Voguls, subjects toKüçüm, the Khan of Siberia. The French navigator Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec City, New France (modern Canada) in 1608. The arrival of Jan van Riebeeck, leading the first European settlement in South Africa. Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, became the first British Governorof Bengal and was a key figure in the establishment of British India. From its dawn until modern times, the West had suffered invasions from Africa, Asia, and non-Western parts of Europe. By 1500 Westerners took advantage of their new technologies, expand their power, and become the first civilization to exert influence on the entire planet. The Age of Discovery began, with Western explorers from seafaring nations like Portugal and Spain and later Holland, France and England setting forth from the "Old World" to chart faraway shipping routes and discover "new worlds". In 1492, the Genovese born mariner, Christopher Columbus set out under the auspices of the Spanish Crown to seek an oversea route to the East Indies via the Atlantic Ocean. Rather than Asia, Columbus landed in the Bahamas, in theCaribbean. Spanish colonization followed and Europe established Western Civilization in the Americas. The Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama led the first sailing expedition directly from Europe to India in 1487-1499, opening up the possibility of trade with the East other than via perilous overland routes like the Silk Road. Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer working for the Spanish Crown, led an expedition in 1519–1522 which became the first to sail from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific Ocean and the first to cross the Pacific. It also completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth (although Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines). The Americas were deeply affected by European expansion. The Spanish Conquistadors conquered most of the Caribbeanislands and overran the two great New World empires: the Aztec Empire of Mexico and the Inca Empire of Peru. From there, Spain conquered about half of South America and much of North America. Portugal also expanded in the Americas, conquering half of South America and calling their colony Brazil. These Western powers were aided not only by superior technology like gunpowder, but also by Old World diseases which they inadvertently brought with them, and which wiped out large segments Amerindian population. The natives populations, called Indians by Columbus, since he originally thought he had landed in Asia (but often called Amerindians by scholars today), were converted to Catholicism and adopted the language of their rulers, either Spanish or Portuguese. They also adopted much of Western culture. Many Iberian settlers arrived, and many of them intermarried with the Amerindians resulting in a socalled Mestizopopulation, which became the majority of the population of Spain's American empires. Other powers to arrive in the Americas were the Swedes, Dutch, English, and French. The Dutch, English, and French all established colonies in the Caribbean and each established a small South American colony. The French established two large colonies in North America, Louisiana in the center of the continent andNew France in the northeast of the continent. The French were not as intrusive as the Iberians were and had relatively good relations with the Amerindians, although there were areas of relatively heavy settlement like New Orleans and Quebec. Many French missionaries were successful in converting Amerindians to Catholicism. On North America's Atlantic coast, the Swedes established New Sweden. This colony was eventually conquered by the nearby Dutch colony ofNew Netherland. New Netherland itself was eventually conquered by England and renamed New York. Although England's American empire began in what is today Canada, they soon focused their attention to the south, where they established thirteen colonies on North America's Atlantic coast. The English were unique in that rather than attempting to convert the Amerindians, they simply settled their colonies with Englishmen and pushed the Amerindians off their lands. In the Americas, it seems that only the most remote peoples managed to stave off complete assimilation by Western and Western-fashioned governments. These include some of the northern peoples (i.e., Inuit), some peoples in the Yucatán, Amazonian forest dwellers, and various Andean groups. Of these, theQuechua people, Aymara people, and Maya people are the most numerous- at around 10-11 million, 2 million, and 7 million, respectively. Bolivia is the only American country with a majority Amerindian population. Contact between the Old and New Worlds produced the Columbian Exchange, named after Columbus. It involved the transfer of goods unique to one hemisphere to another. Westerners brought cattle, horses, and sheep to the New World, and from the New World Europeans received tobacco, potatoes, andbananas. Other items becoming important in global trade were the sugarcane and cotton crops of the Americas, and the gold and silver brought from the Americas not only to Europe but elsewhere in the Old World. Much of the land of the Americas was uncultivated, and Western powers were determined to make use of it. At the same time, tribal West African rulers were eager to trade their prisoners of war, and even members of their own tribes as slaves to the West. The West began purchasing slaves in large numbers and sending them to the Americas. This slavery was unique in world history for several reasons. Firstly, since only black Africans were enslaved, a racial component entered into Western slavery which had not existed in any other society to the extent it did in the West.[citation needed] Another important difference between slavery in the West and slavery elsewhere was the treatment of slaves. Unlike in some other cultures, slaves in the West were used primarily as field workers.[citation needed] Western empires differed in how often manumission was granted to slaves, with it being rather common in Spanish colonies, for example, but rare in English ones. Many Westerners did eventually come to question the morality of slavery. This early anti-slavery movement, mostly among clergy and political thinkers, was countered by pro-slavery forces by the introduction of the idea that blacks were inferior to European whites, mostly because they were non-Christians, and therefore it was acceptable to treat them without dignity.[citation needed] This idea resulted in racism in the West, as people began feeling all blacks were inferior to whites, regardless of their religion.[citation needed] Once in the Americas, blacks adopted much of Western culture and the languages of their masters. They also converted to Christianity. After trading with African rulers for some time, Westerners began establishing colonies in Africa. The Portuguese conquered ports in what is today Angola andMozambique. They also established relations with the Kingdom of Kongo in central Africa, and eventually the Kongolese converted to Catholicism. The Dutchestablished colonies in modern-day South Africa, which attracted many Dutch settlers. Western powers also established colonies in West Africa. However, most of the continent remained unknown to Westerners and their colonies were restricted to Africa's coasts. The British navigator CaptainJames Cook led three great voyages of discovery in the Pacific, mapping the East Coast of Australia, sailing into the Antarctic Circle and becoming the first European to reach Hawaii. Westerners also expanded in Asia. The Portuguese controlled port cities in the East Indies, India, Persian Gulf, Sri Lankaand China. During this time, the Dutch began their colonisation of the Indonesian archipelago, which became the Dutch East Indies in the early 19th century, and gained port cities in Sri Lanka and Malaysia. Spain conquered the Philippines and converted the inhabitants to Catholicism. Missionaries from Iberia gained many converts in Japan until Christianity was outlawed by Japan's emperor. Some Chinese also became Christian, although most did not. Most of India was divided up between England and France. As Western powers expanded they competed for land and resources. In the Caribbean, pirates attacked each other and the navies and colonial cities of countries, in hopes of stealing gold and other valuables from a ship or city. This was sometimes supported by governments. For example, England supported the pirate Sir Francis Drake in raids against the Spanish. Between 1652 and 1678, the Anglo-Dutch wars were fought, which England won, and England gained New Netherland and Dutch South Africa. In 1756, theSeven Years' War, or French and Indian War began. It involved several powers fighting on several continents. In North America, English soldiers and colonial troops defeated the French, and in India the French were also defeated by England. In Europe Prussia defeated Austria. When the war ended in 1763, New France and eastern Louisiana were ceded to England, while western Louisiana was given to Spain. France's lands in India were ceded to England. Prussia was given rule over more territory in what is today Germany. The Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon had been the first documented Westerner to land in Australia in 1606[34][35][36] Another Dutchman, Abel Tasman later mapped Tasmania and New Zealand for the first time in the 1640s. The English navigator James Cook became first to map the east coast of Australia in 1770. Cook's extraordinary seamanship greatly expanded European awareness of far shores and oceans: his first voyage reported favourablly on the prospects of colonisation of Australia; his second voyage ventured almost to Antarctica (disproving long held European hopes of an undiscovered Great Southern Continent); and his third voyage explored the Pacific coasts of North America and Siberia and brought him to Hawaii, where an ill-advised return after a lengthy stay saw him clubbed to death by natives.[37] Europe's period of expansion in early modern times greatly changed the world. New crops from the Americas improved European diets. This, combined with an improved economy thanks to Europe's new network of colonies, led to a demographic revolution in the West, with infant mortality dropping, and Europeans getting married younger and having more children. The West became more sophisticated economically, adopting Mercantilism, in which companies were state-owned and colonies existed for the good of the mother country. [edit]Enlightenment [edit]Absolutism and the Enlightenment: 1500–1800 Charles V was ruler of theHoly Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary abdication in 1556. The West in the early modern era went through great changes as the traditional balance between monarchy, nobility and clergy shifted. With the feudal system all but gone, nobles lost their traditional source of power. Meanwhile, in Protestant countries, the church was now often headed by a monarch, while in Catholic countries, conflicts between monarchs and the Church rarely occurred and monarchs were able to wield greater power than they ever had in Western history.[citation needed] Under the doctrine of the Divine right of kings, monarchs believed they were only answerable to God: thus giving rise to absolutism. Louis XVI of France byAntoine-François Callet. At the opening of the 15th century, Europe remained under threat from the Ottoman Turks. The Turks had migrated from central to western Asia and converted to Islam years earlier. Their capture of Constantinople in 1453 was a crowning achievement for the new Ottoman Empire. Renaming the ancient capital "Istanbul", they continued to expand across theMiddle East, North Africa and the Balkans. Under the leadership of the Spanish, a Christian coalition destroyed the Ottoman navy at the battle of Lepanto in 1571 ending their naval control of the Mediterranean. However, the Ottoman threat to Europe was not ended until a Polish lead coalition defeated the Ottoman at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.[38][39] The Turks were driven out of Buda (the eastern part of Budapest they had occupied for a century), Belgrade, and Athens — though Athens was to be recaptured and held until 1829.[3] The 16th century is often called Spain's Siglo de Oro (golden century). From its colonies in the Americas it gained large quantities of gold and silver, which helped make Spain the richest and most powerful country in the world. One of the greatest Spanish monarchs of the era was Charles I (1516–1556, who also held the title of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V). His attempt to unite these lands was thwarted by the divisions caused by the Reformation and ambitions of local rulers and rival rulers from other countries. Another great monarch was Philip II (1556–1598), whose reign was marked by several Reformation conflicts, like the loss of the Netherlands and the Spanish Armada. These events and an excess of spending would lead to a great decline in Spanish power and influence by the 17th century. After Spain began to decline in the 17th century, the Dutch became the greatest world power, leading the 17th century to be called the Dutch Golden Age. The Dutch followed Portugal and Spain in establishing an overseas colonial empire — often under the corporate colonialism model of the East India and West India Companies. After the Anglo-Dutch Wars, France and England emerged as the two greatest powers in the 18th century. Voltaire, French Enlightenment writer, philosopher and wit. Isaac Newton discovereduniversal gravitation and the laws of motion. Louis XIV became king of France in 1643. His reign was one of the most opulent in European history. He built a large palace in the town of Versailles. The Holy Roman Emperor exerted no great influence on the lands of the Holy Roman Empire by the end of the Thirty Years' War. In the north of the empire,Prussia emerged as a powerful Protestant nation. Under many gifted rulers, like King Frederick the Great, Prussia expanded its power and defeated its rivalAustria many times in war. Ruled by the Habsburg dynasty, Austria became a great empire, expanding at the expense of the Ottoman Empire and Hungary. One land where absolutism did not take hold was England. Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry VIII, had left no direct heir to the throne. The rightful heir was actuallyJames VI of Scotland, who was crowned James I of England. James's son, Charles I resisted the power of Parliament. When Charles attempted to shut down Parliament, the Parliamentarians rose up and soon the all of England was involved in a civil war. The English Civil War ended in 1649 with the defeat and execution of Charles I. Parliament declared a kingless commonwealth but soon appointed the anti-absolutist leader and staunch Puritan Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector. Cromwell enacted many unpopular Puritan religious laws in England, like outlawing alcohol and theaters. After his death, the monarchy was restored under Charles's son, who was crowned Charles II. His son, James II succeeded him. James and his infant son were Catholics. Not wanting to be ruled by a Catholic dynasty, Parliament invited James's daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange, to rule as comonarchs. They agreed on the condition James would not be harmed. Realizing he could not count on the Protestant English army to defend him, he abdicated following the Glorious Revolution of 1688. BeforeWilliam and Mary were crowned however, Parliament forced them to sign the English Bill of Rights, which guaranteed some basic rights to all Englishmen, granted religious freedom to non-Anglican Protestants, and firmly established the rights of Parliament. In 1707, the Act of Union of 1707 were passed by the parliaments of Scotland and England, merging Scotland and England into a single Kingdom of Great Britain, with a single parliament. This new kingdom also controlled Ireland which had previously been conquered by England. Following the Irish Rebellion of 1798, in 1801 Ireland was formally merged with Great Britain to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Ruled by the Protestant Ascendancy, Ireland eventually became an English-speaking land, though the majority population preserved distinct cultural and religious outlooks, remaining predomininantly Catholic except in parts of Ulster and Dublin. May 3rd Constitution, by Matejko (1891). King Stanisław August (left) enters St. John's Cathedral, where deputies will swear to uphold the Constitution. Background: Warsaw's Royal Castle, where it has just been adopted. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was an important European center for the development of modern social and political ideas. It was famous for its rare quasi-democratic political system, praised by philosophers such as Erasmus; and, during the Counter-Reformation, was known for near-unparalleled religious tolerance, with peacefully coexisting Catholic, Jewish, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant and Muslim communities. With its political system the Commonwealth gave birth to political philosophers such as Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski (1503– 1572), Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki (1530–1607) and Piotr Skarga (1536–1612). Later, works by Stanisław Staszic (1755–1826) and Hugo Kołłątaj(1750–1812) helped pave the way for the Constitution of May 3, 1791, which historian Norman Daviescalls "the first constitution of its kind in Europe".[40] Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's constitution enacted revolutionary political principles for the first time on the European continent. The Komisja Edukacji Narodowej, Polish for Commission of National Education, formed in 1773, was the world's first national Ministry of Education and an important achievement of the Polish Enlightenment. [citation needed] The intellectual movement called the Age of Enlightenment began in this period as well. Its proponents opposed the absolute rule of the monarchs, and instead emphasized the equality of all individuals and the idea that governments should derive their existence from the consent of the governed. Enlightenment thinkers calledphilosophes (French for philosophers) idealized Europe's classical heritage. They looked at Athenian democracy and the Roman republic as ideal governments. They believed reason held the key to creating an ideal society.[citation needed] Portrait of Peter I of Russia(1672-1725). Under his reign, Russia looked westward. Heavily influenced by advisors from Western Europe, he implemented sweeping reforms aimed at modernizing Russia. David Hume, an important figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. The Englishman Francis Bacon espoused the idea that senses should be the primary means of knowing, while the Frenchman René Descartes advocated using reason over the senses. In his works, Descartes was concerned with using reason to prove his own existence and the existence of the external world, including God. Another belief system became popular among philosophes, Deism, which taught that a single god had created but did not interfere with the world. This belief system never gained popular support and largely died out by the early 19th century. Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy. His 1651 book Leviathan established the foundation for most of Western political philosophy from the perspective of social contract theory.[41] The theory was examined also by John Locke (Second Treatise of Government (1689)) and Rouseau (Du contrat social (1762)). Social contract arguments examine the appropriate relationship between government and the governed and posit that individuals unite into political societies by a process of mutual consent, agreeing to abide by common rules and accept corresponding duties to protect themselves and one another from violence and other kinds of harm. In 1690 John Locke wrote that people have certain natural rights like life, liberty and property and that governments were created in order to protect these rights. If they did not, according to Locke, the people had a right to overthrow their government. The French philosopher Voltaire criticized the monarchy and the Church for what he saw as hypocrisy and for their persecution of people of other faiths. Another Frenchman, Montesquieu, advocated division of government into executive, legislative and judicial branches. The French author Rousseau stated in his works that society corrupted individuals. Many monarchs were affected by these ideas, and they became known to history as the enlightened despots. However, most only supported Enlightenment ideas that strengthened their own power.[citation needed] The Scottish Enlightenment was a period in 18th century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. Scotland reaped the benefits of establishing Europe's first public education system and a growth in trade which followed the Act of Union with England of 1707 and expansion of the British Empire. Important modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion were developed by the philosopher/historianDavid Hume. Adam Smith developed and published The Wealth of Nations, the first work in modern economics. He believed competition and private enterprise could increase the common good. The celebrated bard Robert Burns is still widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland. European cities like Paris, London, and Vienna grew into large metropolises in early modern times. France became the cultural center of the West. The middle class grew even more influential and wealthy. Great artists of this period included El Greco, Rembrandt, and Caravaggio. By this time, many around the world wondered how the West had become so advanced, for example, the Orthodox Christian Russians, who came to power after conquering the Mongols that had conquered Kiev in the Middle Ages. They began westernizing under Czar Peter the Great, although Russia remained uniquely part of its own civilization. The Russians became involved in European politics, dividing up the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth with Prussia and Austria. [edit]Revolution: 1770–1815 The U.S. Constitution French revolutionists storming The Bastille Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. The late 18th century and early 19th century, much of the West experienced a series of revolutions that would change the course of history, resulting in new ideologies and changes in society. The first of these revolutions began in North America. Britain's 13 American colonies had by this time developed their own sophisticated economy and culture, largely based on Britain's. The majority of the population was of British descent, while significant minorities included people of Irish, Dutch and German descent, as well as some Amerindians and many black slaves. Most of the population was Anglican, others were Congregationalist or Puritan, while minorities included other Protestant churches like the Society of Friends and the Lutherans, as well as some Roman Catholics. The colonies had their own great cities and universities and continually welcomed new immigrants, mostly from Britain. After the expense Seven Years' War, Britain needed to raise revenue, and felt the colonists should bare the brunt of the new taxation it felt was necessary. The colonists greatly resented these taxes and protested the fact they could be taxed by Britain but had no representation in the government. After Britain's King George III refused to seriously consider colonial grievances raised at the first Continental Congress, some colonists took up arms. Leaders of a new pro-independence movement were influenced by Enlightenment ideals and hoped to bring an ideal nation into existence. On July 4, 1776, the colonies declared independence with the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence. Drafted primarily by Thomas Jefferson, the document's preamble eloquently outlines the principles of governance that would come to increasingly dominate Western thinking over the ensuing century and a half: “ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just ” powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government. George Washington led the new Continental Army against the British forces, who had many successes early in this American Revolution. After years of fighting, the colonists formed an alliance with France and defeated the British at Yorktown, Virginia in 1781. The treaty ending the war granted independence to the colonies, which became The United States of America. The other major Western revolution at the turn of the 19th century was the French Revolution. In 1789 France faced an economical crisis. The King called, for the first time in more than two centuries, the Estates General, an assembly of representatives of each estate of the kingdom: the First Estate (the clergy), the Second Estate (the nobility), and the Third Estate (middle class and peasants); in order to deal with the crisis. As the French society was gained by the same Enlightenment ideals that led to the American revolution, in which many Frenchmen, such as Lafayette, took part; representatives of the Third Esatate, joined by some representatives of the lower clergy, created the National Assembly, which, unlike the Estates General, provided the common people of France with a voice proportionate to their numbers. The people of Paris feared the King would try to stop the work of the National Assembly and Paris was soon consumed with riots, anarchy, and widespread looting. The mobs soon had the support of the French Guard, including arms and trained soldiers, because the royal leadership essentially abandoned the city. On the fourteenth of July 1789 a mob stormed the Bastille, a prison fortress, which led the King to accept the changes. On 4 August 1789 the National Constituent Assembly abolished feudalism sweeping away both the seigneurial rights of the Second Estate and the tithes gathered by the First Estate. It was the first time in Europe, where feudalism was the norm for centuries, that such a thing happened. In the course of a few hours, nobles, clergy, towns, provinces, companies, and cities lost their special privileges. At first, the revolution seemed to be turning France into a constitutional monarchy, but the other continental Europe powers feared a spread of the revolutionary ideals and eventually went to war with France. In 1792 King Louis XVI was imprisoned after he had been captured fleeing Paris and the Republic was declared. The Imperial and Prussian armies threatened retaliation on the French population should it resist their advance or the reinstatement of the monarchy. As a consequence, King Louis was seen as conspiring with the enemies of France. His 21 January 1793 execution led to more wars with other European countries. During this period France effectively became a dictatorship after the parliamentary coup of the radical leaders, the Jacobin. Their leader, Robespierre oversaw the Reign of Terror, in which thousands of people deemed disloyal to the republic were executed. Finally, in 1794, Robespierre himself was arrested and executed, and more moderate deputies took power. This led to a new government, the French Directory. In 1799, a coup overthrew the Directory and General Napoleon Bonaparte seized power as dictator and even an emperor in 1804. Liberté, égalité, fraternité (French for "Liberty, equality, fraternity"),[42] now the national motto of France, had its origins during the French Revolution, though it was only later institutionalised. It remains another iconic motto of the aspirations of Western governance in the modern world. Some influential intellectuals came to reject the excesses of the revolutionary movement. Political theorist Edmund Burke had supported the American Revolution, but turned against the French Revolution and developed a political theory which opposed governing based on abstract ideas, and preferred 'organic' reform. He is remembered as a father of modern anglo-conservatism. In response to such critiques, the American revolutionary Thomas Painepublished his book The Rights of Man in 1791 as a defence of the ideals of the French Revolution. The spirit of the age also produced early works of feminist philosophy — notably Mary Wollstonecraft's 1792 book: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. [edit]Napoleonic Wars Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo The Napoleonic Wars were a series of conflicts involving Napoleon's French Empire and changing sets of European allies by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionized European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to the application of modern mass conscription. French power rose quickly, conquering most of Europe, but collapsed rapidly after France's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. Napoleon's empire ultimately suffered complete military defeat resulting in therestoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France. The wars resulted in the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and sowed the seeds of nascentnationalism in Germany and Italy that would lead to the two nations' consolidation later in the century. Meanwhile, the Spanish Empire began to unravel as French occupation of Spain weakened Spain's hold over its colonies, providing an opening for nationalist revolutions in Spanish America. As a direct result of the Napoleonic wars, the British Empire became the foremost world power for the next century,[43] thus beginning Pax Britannica. France had to fight on multiple battlefronts against the other European powers. A nationwide conscription was voted to reinforce the old royal army made of noble officers and professional soldiers. With this new kind of army, Napoleon was able to beat the European allies and dominate Europe. The revolutionary ideals, based no more on feudalism but on the concept of a sovereign nation, spread all over Europe. When Napoleon eventually lost and the monarchy reinstated in France these ideals survived and led to the revolutionary waves of the 19th century that bring democracy in many European countries.[citation needed] With the success of the American Revolution, the Spanish Empire also began to crumble as their American colonies sought independence as well. In 1808, when Joseph Bonaparte was installed as the Spanish King by the Napoleonic French, the Spanish resistance resorted to governing Juntas. When the Supreme Central Junta of Seville fell to the French in 1810, the Spanish American colonies developed themselves governing Juntas in the name of the deposed King Ferdinand VII (upon the concept known as "Retroversion of the Sovereignty to the People"). As this process led to open conflicts between independentists and loyalists, the Spanish American Independence Wars immediately ensued; resulting, by the 1820s, in the definitive loss for the Spanish Empire of all its American territories, with the exception of Cuba and Puerto Rico. [citation needed] [edit]Rise of the English-speaking world: 1815–1870 Queen Victoria in her early twenties, by Franz Xaver Winterhalter The years following Britain's victory in the Napoleonic Wars were a period of expansion for the United Kingdom and its former American colonies, which now made up the United States. This period of expansion would help establish Anglicanism as the dominant religion, English as the dominant language, and English and AngloAmerican culture as the dominant culture of two continents and many other lands outside the British Isles. [edit]Industrial Revolution in the English-speaking world A Watt steam engine, the steam enginefuelled primarily by coal that propelled theIndustrial Revolution in Great Britain and the world. Possibly the greatest change in the English-speaking world and the West as a whole following the Napoleonic Wars was the Industrial Revolution. The revolution began in Britain, where Thomas Newcomen developed a steam engine in 1712 to pump seeping water out of mines. This engine at first was powered by water, but later other fuels like coaland wood were used. Steam power had first been developed by the Ancient Greeks[citation needed] , but it was the British that first learned to use steam power effectively. In 1804, the first steam powered railroad locomotive was developed in Britain, which allowed goods and people to be transported at faster speeds than ever before in history. Soon, large numbers of goods were being produced in factories. This resulted in great societal changes, and many people settled in the cities where the factories were located. Factory work could often be brutal. With no safety regulations, people became sick from contaminants in the air in textile mills for, example. Many workers were also horribly maimed by dangerous factory machinery. Since workers relied only on their small wages for sustenance, entire families were forced to work, including children. These and other problems caused by industrialism resulted in some reforms by the mid-19th century. The economic model of the West also began to change, with mercantilism being replaced by capitalism, in which companies, and later, large corporations, were run by individual investor(s). New ideological movements began as a result of the Industrial Revolution, including the Luddite movement, which opposed machinery, feeling it did not benefit the common good, and the socialists, whose beliefs usually included the elimination of private property and the sharing of industrial wealth. Unions were founded among industrial workers to help secure better wages and rights. Another result of the revolution was a change in societal hierarchy, especially in Europe, where nobility still occupied a high level on the social ladder. Capitalists emerged as a new powerful group, with educated professionals like doctors and lawyers under them, and the various industrial workers at the bottom. These changes were often slow however, with Western society as a whole remaining primarily agricultural for decades. [edit]United Kingdom: 1815–1870 The British Empire in 1897 From 1837 until 1901, Queen Victoria reigned over the United Kingdom and the ever expanding British Empire. The Industrial Revolutionhad begun in Britain and during the 19th century it became the most powerful Western nation. Britain also enjoyed relative peace and stability from 1815 until 1914, this period is often called the Pax Britannica, from the Latin "British Peace". This period also saw the evolution of British constitutional monarchy, with the monarch being more a figurehead and symbol of national identity than actual head of state, with that role being taken over by the Prime Minister, the leader of the ruling party in Parliament. Two dominant parties emerging in Parliament in this time were the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party. The Liberal constituency was made up of mostly of businessmen, as many Liberals supported the idea of a free market. Conservatives were supported by the aristocracy and farmers. Control of Parliament switched between the parties over the 19th century, but overall the century was a period of reform. In 1832 more representation was granted to new industrial cities, and laws barring Catholics from serving in Parliament were repealed, although discrimination against Catholics, especially Irish Catholics, continued. Other reforms granted near universal manhood suffrage, and state-supported elementary education for all Britons. More rights were granted to workers as well. Ireland had been ruled from London since the Middle Ages. After the Protestant Reformation the British Establishment began a campaign of discrimination against Roman Catholic and Presbyterian Irish, who lacked many rights under the Penal Laws, and the majority the agricultural land was owned the Protestant Ascendancy. Great Britain and Ireland had become a single nation ruled from London without the autonomous Parliament of Ireland after the Act of Union of 1800 was passed, creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In the mid-19th century, Ireland suffered a devastating Potato Famine, which killed 10% of the population[citation needed] and led to massive emigration: see Irish diaspora. [edit]British Empire: 1815–1870 The British Raj. Throughout the 19th century, Britain's power grew enormously and the sun quite literally "never set" on the British Empire, for it had outposts on every occupied continent. It consolidated control over such far flung territories as Canada and British Guiana in the Americas, Australia and New Zealand in Oceania; Malaya, Hong Kong and Singapore in the Far East and a line of colonial possessions from Egypt to the Cape of Good Hope through Africa. All of India was under British rule by 1870. In 1804, the Shah of the declining Mughal Empire had formally accepted the protection of the British East India Company. Many Britons settled in India, establishing a ruling class. They then expanded into neighbouring Burma. Among the British born in India were the immensely influential writersRudyard Kipling (1865) and George Orwell (1903). In the Far East, Britain went to war with the ruling Manchu Dynasty of China when it tried to stop Britain from selling the dangerous drug opium to the Chinese people. The First Opium War (1840–1842), ended in a British victory, and China was forced to remove barriers to British trade and cede several ports and the island of Hong Kong to Britain. Soon, other powers sought these same privileges with China and China was forced to agree, ending Chinese isolation from the rest of the world. In 1853 an American expedition opened up Japan to trade with first the U.S., and then the rest of the world. In 1833 Britain outlawed slavery throughout its empire after a successful campaign by abolitionists, and Britain had a great deal of success attempting to get other powers to outlaw the practice as well. As British settlement of southern Africa continued, the descendants of the Dutch in southern Africa, called the Boers or Afrikaners, whom Britain had ruled since the Anglo-Dutch Wars, migrated northward, disliking British rule. Explorers and missionaries like David Livingston became national heroes. Cecil Rhodes founded Rhodesia and a British army under Lord Kitchener secured control of Sudan in the 1898 Battle of Omdurman. [edit]Canada: 1815–1870 Territorial expansion of Canada Following the American Revolution, many Loyalists to Britain fled north to what is today Canada (where they were called United Empire Loyalists). Joined by mostly British colonists, they helped establish early colonies like Ontario and New Brunswick. British settlement in North America increased, and soon there were several colonies both north and west of the early ones in the northeast of the continent, these new ones includedBritish Columbia and Prince Edward Island. Rebellions broke out against British rule in 1837, but Britain appeased the rebels' supporters in 1867 by confederating the colonies into the Dominion of Canada, with its own Prime Minister. Although Canada was still firmly within the British Empire, its people now enjoyed a great degree of self-rule. Canada was unique in the British Empire in that it had a French-speaking province, Quebec, which Britain had gained rule over in the Seven Years' War. [edit]Australia and New Zealand: 1815-1870 Main article: History of Australia (1788–1850) Territorial expansion of Australia. The First Fleet of British convicts arrived at New South Wales, Australia in 1788 and established a British outpost and penal colony at Sydney Cove. These convicts were often petty 'criminals', and represented the population spill-over of Britain's Industrial Revolution, as a result of the rapid urbanisation and dire crowding of British cities. Other convicts were political dissidents, particularly from Ireland. The establishment of a wool industry and the enlightenedgovernorship of Lachlan Macquarie were instrumental in transforming New South Wales from a notorious prison outpost into a budding civil society. Further colonies were established around the perimeter of the continent and European explorers ventured deep inland. A free colony was established atSouth Australia in 1836 with a vision for a province of the British Empire with political and religious freedoms. The colony became a cradle of democratic reform. The Australian gold rushes increased prosperity and cultural diversity and autonomous democratic parliaments began to be established from the 1850s onward.[44] The native inhabitants of Australia, called the Aborigines, lived as hunter gatherers before European arrival. The population, never large, was largely dispossessed without treaty agreements nor compensations through the nineteenth century by the expansion of European agriculture, and, as had occurred when Europeans arrived in North and South America, faced superior European weaponry and suffered greatly from exposure to old worlddiseases such as smallpox, to which they had no biological immunity. From the early 19th century, New Zealand was being visited by explorers, sailors, missionaries, traders and adventurers and was administered by Britain from the nearby colony at New South Wales. In 1840 Britain signed the Treaty of Waitangi with the natives of New Zealand, the Māori, in which Britain gained sovereignty over the archipelago. As British settlers arrived, clashes resulted and the British fought several wars before defeating the Māori. By 1870, New Zealand had a population made up mostly of Britons and their descendants. [edit]United States: 1815–1870 Territorial expansion of the United States President Abraham Lincoln Following independence from Britain, the United States began expanding westward, and soon a number of new states had joined the union. In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France, whose emperor, Napoleon I, had regained it from Spain. Soon, America's growing population was settling the Louisiana Territory, which geographically doubled the size of the country. At the same time, a series of revolutions and independence movements in Spain and Portugal's American empires resulted in the liberation of nearly all of Latin America, as the region composed of South America, most of the Caribbean, and North America from Mexico south became known. At first Spain and its allies seemed ready to try to reconquer the colonies, but the U.S. and Britain opposed this, and the reconquest never took place. From 1821 on, the U.S. bordered the newly independent nation of Mexico. An early problem faced by the Mexican republic was what to do with its sparsely populated northern territories, which today make up a large part of the American West. The government decided to try to attract Americans looking for land. Americans arrived in such large numbers that both the provinces of Texas and California had majority white, English-speaking populations. This led to a culture clash between these provinces and the rest of Mexico. When Mexico became a dictatorship under General Antonio López de Santa Anna, the Texans declared independence. After several battles, Texas gained independence from Mexico, although Mexico later claimed it still had a right to Texas. After existing as a republic modeled after the U.S. for several years, Texas joined the United States in 1845. This led to border disputes between the U.S. and Mexico, resulting in the Mexican-American War. The war ended with an American victory, and Mexico had to cede all its northern territories to the United States, and recognize the independence of California, which had revolted against Mexico during the war. In 1850, California joined the United States. In 1848, the U.S. and Britain resolved a border dispute over territory on the Pacific coast, called the Oregon Country by giving Britain the northern part and the U.S. the southern part. In 1867, the U.S. expanded again, purchasing the Russian colony of Alaska, in northwestern North America. Politically, the U.S. became more democratic with the abolishment of property requirements in voting, although voting remained restricted to white males. By the mid-19th century, the most important issue was slavery. The Northern states generally had outlawed the practice, while the Southern states not only had kept it legal but came to feel it was essential to their way of life. As new states joined the union, lawmakers clashed over whether they should be slave states orfree states. In 1860, the anti-slavery candidate Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Fearing he would try to outlaw slavery in the whole country, several southern states seceded, forming the Confederate States of America, electing their own president and raising their own army. Lincoln countered that secession was illegal and raised an army to crush the rebel government. The Confederates had a skilled military that even succeeded in invading the northern state ofPennsylvania. However, the war began to turn around, with the defeat of Confederates at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and at Vicksburg, which gave the Unioncontrol of the important Mississippi River. Union forces invaded deep into the South, and the Confederacy's greatest general, Robert E. Lee, surrendered toUlysses S. Grant of the Union in 1865. After that, the south came under Union occupation, ending the American Civil War. Lincoln was tragically assassinated in 1865, but his dream of ending slavery, exhibited in the wartime Emancipation Proclamation, was carried out by his Republican Party, which outlawed slavery, granted blacks equality and black males voting rights via constitutional amendments. However, although the abolishment of slavery would not be challenged, equal treatment for blacks would be. The Gettysburg Address, Lincoln's most famous speech and one of the most quoted political speeches in United States history, was delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on November 19, 1863, during the Civil War, four and a half months after the Battle of Gettysburg. Describing America as "nation conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal"[cite this quote] , Lincoln famously called on those gathered: “ [We here] highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain;that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. ” [edit]Hawaii: 1815–1870 In the early 19th century, missionaries, mostly from America, converted the Hawaiians to Christianity. They were followed by American entrepreneurs who established sugar and pineapple plantations and a welldeveloped economy on the island, becoming a new ruling class, although the native Hawaiian monarchy continued to rule. Eventually, English-speaking Americans and their descendants made up the majority of Hawaii's population. [edit]Continental Europe: 1815–1870 Further information: Decline of the Ottoman Empire The Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo, the battle which brought an end to the Napoleonic wars The years following the Napoleonic Wars were a time of change in Europe. The Industrial Revolution, nationalism, and several political revolutions transformed the continent. Industrial technology was imported from Britain. The first lands affected by this were France, the Low Countries, and western Germany. Eventually the Industrial Revolution spread to other parts of Europe. Many people in the countryside migrated to major cities like Paris, Berlin, and Amsterdam, which were connected like never before by railroads. Europe soon had its own class of wealthy industrialists, and large numbers of industrial workers. New ideologies emerged as a reaction against perceived abuses of industrial society. Among these ideologies were socialism and the more radicalcommunism, created by the German Karl Marx. According to communism, history was a series of class struggles, and at the time industrial workers were pitted against their employers. Inevitably the workers would rise up in a worldwide revolution and abolish private property, according to Marx. Communism was also atheistic, since, according to Marx, religion was simply a tool used by the dominant class to keep the oppressed class docile. Several revolutions occurred in Europe following the Napoleonic Wars. The goal of most of these revolutions was to establish some form of democracy in a particular nation. Many were successful for a time, but their effects were often eventually reversed. Examples of this occurred in Spain, Italy, and Austria. Several European nations stood steadfastly against revolution and democracy, including Austria and Russia. Two successful revolts of the era were the Greek and Serbian wars of independence, which freed those nations from Ottoman rule. Another successful revolution occurred in the Low Countries. After the Napoleonic Wars, the Netherlands was given control of modern-day Belgium, which had been part of the Holy Roman Empire. The Dutch found it hard to rule the Belgians, due to their Catholic religion and French language. In the 1830s, the Belgians successfully overthrew Dutch rule, establishing the Kingdom of Belgium. In 1848 a series of revolutions occurred in Prussia, Austria, and France. In France, the king, Louis-Philippe, was overthrown and a republic was declared. Louis Napoleon, nephew of Napoleon I was elected the republic's first president. Extremely popular, Napoleon was madeNapoleon III (since Napoleon I's son had been crowned Napoleon II during his reign), Emperor of the French, by a vote of the French people, ending France's Second Republic. Revolutionaries in Prussia and Italy focused more on nationalism, and most advocated the establishment of unified German and Italian states, respectively. Victor Emmanuel II meets Garibaldi near Teano. The Italian Risorgimento saw Italy unite as one kingdom. In the city-states of Italy, many argued for a unification of all the Italian kingdoms into a single nation. Obstacles to this included the many Italian dialects spoken by the people of Italy, and the Austrian presence in the north of the peninsula. Unification of the peninsula began in 1859. The powerfulKingdom of Sardinia (also called Savoy or Piedmont) formed an alliance with France and went to war with Austria in that year. The war ended with a Sardinian victory, and Austrian forces left Italy. Plebiscites were held in several cities, and the majority of people voted for union with Sardinia, creating the Kingdom of Italy under Victor Emmanuel II. In 1860, the Italian nationalist Garibaldi led revolutionaries in an overthrow of the government of theKingdom of the Two Sicilies. A plebiscite held there resulted in a unification of that kingdom with Italy. Italian forces seized the eastern Papal States in 1861. In 1866 Venetia became part of Italy after Italy's ally, Prussia, defeated that kingdom's rulers, the Austrians, in Austro-Prussian War. In 1870, Italian troops conquered the Papal States, completing unification. Pope Pius IX refused to recognize the Italian government or negotiate settlement for the loss of Church land. Prussia in the middle and late parts of the 19th century was ruled by its king, Wilhelm I, and its skilled chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. In 1864, Prussia went to war with Denmark and gained several Germanspeaking lands as a result. In 1866, Prussia went to war with the Austrian Empire and won, and created a confederation of it and several German states, called the North German Confederation, setting the stage for the 1871 formation of the German Empire. After years of dealing with Hungarian revolutionist, whose kingdom Austria had conquered centuries earlier, the Austrian emperor, Franz Joseph agreed to divide the empire into two parts: Austria and Hungary, and rule as both Emperor of Austria and king of Hungary. The new Austro-Hungarian Empire was created in 1867. The two peoples were united in loyalty to the monarch and Catholicism. There were changes throughout the West in science, religion and culture between 1815 and 1870. Europe in 1870 differed greatly from its state in 1815. Most Western European nations had some degree of democracy, and two new national states had been created, Italy and Germany. Political parties were formed throughout the continent and with the spread of industrialism, Europe's economy was transformed, although it remained very agricultural. [edit]Culture, Arts and sciences 1815-1914 English writer Charles Dickensat his desk in 1858 Self portrait by influential Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky. French writer Victor Hugo. Polish–French physicist–chemist Marie Curie, famous for her pioneering research onradioactivity. The British naturalist, Charles Darwin. The nineteenth and early 20th Centuries saw important contributions to the process of modernisation of Western art andLiterature and continuing evolution in the role of religion in Western societies. Napoleon re-established the Catholic Church in France through the Concordat of 1801. [45] The end of the Napoleonic wars, signaled by the Congress of Vienna, brought Catholic revival and the return of the Papal States.[46] In 1801, a new political entity was formed, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which merged the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, thus increasing the number of Catholics in the new state. Pressure for abolition of anti-Catholic laws grew and in 1829 Parliament passed the Catholic Emancipation Act, giving Catholics almost equal civil rights, including the right to vote and to hold most public offices. While remaining a minority religion in the British Empire, a steady stream of new Catholics would continue to convert from the Church of England and Ireland, notably John Henry Newman and the poets Gerard Manley Hopkins and Oscar Wilde. The Anglo-Catholic movement began, emphasizing the Catholic traditions of the Aglican Church. New churches like the Methodist, Unitarian, and LDS Churches were founded. Many Westerners became less religious in this period, although a majority of people still held traditional Christian beliefs. The 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species, by the English naturalist Charles Darwin, provided an alternative hypothesis for the development, diversification, and design of human life to the traditional poetic scriptural explanation known asCreationism. According to Darwin, only the organisms most able to adapt to their environment survived while others went extinct. Adaptations resulted in changes in certain populations of organisms which could eventually cause the creation of new species. Modern genetics started with Gregor Johann Mendel, a German-Czech Augustinian monk who studied the nature of inheritance in plants. In his 1865 paper "Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden" ("Experiments on Plant Hybridization"), Mendel traced the inheritance patterns of certain traits in pea plants and described them mathematically.[47] Louis Pasteur and Joseph Listermade discoveries about bacteria and its effects on humans. Geologists at the time made discoveries indicating the world was far older than most believed it to be. Early batteries were invented and a telegraph system was also invented, allowing global communication. In 1869 Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleevpublished his Periodic table. The success of Mendeleev's table came from two decisions he made: The first was to leave gaps in the table when it seemed that the corresponding element had not yet been discovered. The second decision was to occasionally ignore the order suggested by the atomic weights and switch adjacent elements, such as cobalt and nickel, to better classify them into chemical families. At the end of the 19th century, a number of discoveries were made in physics which paved the way for the development of modern physics — including Marie Curie's work on radioactivity. In Europe by the 19th century, fashion had shifted away from such the artistic styles as Mannerism, Baroque and Rococo which followed the Renaissance and sought to revert to the earlier, simpler art of the Renaissance by creating Neoclassicism. Neoclassicism complemented the intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment, which was similarly idealistic. Ingres, Canova, and Jacques-Louis David are among the best-known neoclassicists.[48] Just as Mannerism rejected Classicism, so did Romanticism reject the ideas of the Enlightenment and the aesthetic of the Neoclassicists. Romanticism emphasized emotion and nature, and idealized the Middle Ages. Important musicians were Franz Schubert, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Richard Wagner, Frédéric Chopin, and John Constable. Romantic art focused on the use of color and motion in order to portray emotion, but like classicism used Greek and Roman mythology and tradition as an important source of symbolism. Another important aspect of Romanticism was its emphasis on nature and portraying the power and beauty of the natural world. Romanticism was also a large literary movement, especially in poetry. Among the greatest Romantic artists were Eugène Delacroix, Francisco Goya, Karl Bryullov, J.M.W. Turner, John Constable, Caspar David Friedrich, Ivan Aivazovsky, Thomas Cole, and William Blake. [48]Romantic poetry emerged as a significant genre, particularly during the Victorian Era with leading exponents including William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Burns, Edgar Allan Poe and John Keats. Other Romantic writers included Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Alexander Pushkin, Victor Hugo, andGoethe. Some of the best regarded poets of the era were women. Mary Wollstonecraft had written one of the first works of feminist philosophy, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman which called for equal education for women in 1792 and her daughter, Mary Shelley became an accomplished author best known for her 1818 novel Frankenstein, which examined some of the frightening potential of the rapid advances of science. Portrait of Fyodor Dostoevsky. In early 19th century Europe, in response to industrialization, the movement of Realism emerged. Realism sought to accurately portray the conditions and hardships of the poor in the hopes of changing society. In contrast with Romanticism, which was essentially optimistic about mankind, Realism offered a stark vision of poverty and despair. Similarly, while Romanticism glorified nature, Realism portrayed life in the depths of an urban wasteland. Like Romanticism,Realism was a literary as well as an artistic movement. The great Realist painters include Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin, Gustave Courbet, Jean-François Millet, Camille Corot, Honoré Daumier, Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas (both considered as Impressionists), Ilya Repin, and Thomas Eakins, among others. Writers also sought to come to terms with the new industrial age. The works of the Englishman Charles Dickens (including his novels Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol) and the Frenchman Victor Hugo (including Les Miserables) remain among the best known and widely influential. The first great Russian novelist was Nikolai Gogol (Dead Souls). Then came Ivan Goncharov, Nikolai Leskov and Ivan Turgenev. Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace, Anna Karenina) andFyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov) soon became internationally renowned to the point that many scholars such as F. R. Leavis have described one or the other as the greatest novelist ever. In the second half of the century Anton Chekhov excelled in writing short stories and became perhaps the leading dramatist internationally of his period. American literature also progressed with the development of a distinct voice: Mark Twainproduced his masterpieces Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In Irish Literature, the Anglo-Irish tradition produced Bram Stoker and Oscar Wildewriting in English and a Gaelic Revival had emerged by the end of the 19th century. The poetry of William Butler Yeats prefigured the emergence of the 20th century Irish literary giants James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Patrick Kavanagh. In Britain's Australian colonies, bush balladeers such as Henry Lawson andBanjo Paterson brought the character of a new continet to the pages of world literature. The response of architecture to industrialisation, in stark contrast to the other arts, was to veer towards historicism. The railway stations built during this period are often called "the cathedrals of the age". Architecture during the Industrial Age witnessed revivals of styles from the distant past, such as the Gothic Revival— in which style the iconic Palace of Westminster in London was re-built to house the mother parliament of the British Empire. Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral in Paris was also restored in the Gothic style, following its desecration during the French Revolution. Out of the naturalist ethic of Realism grew a major artistic movement, Impressionism. The Impressionists pioneered the use of light in painting as they attempted to capture light as seen from the human eye. Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, were all involved in the Impressionist movement. As a direct outgrowth of Impressionism came the development of PostImpressionism. Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat are the best known PostImpressionists. In Australia the Heidelberg School was expressing the light and colour of Australian landscape with a new insight and vigour. The Industrial Revolution which began in Britain in the 18th century brought increased leisure time, leading to more time for citizens to attend and follow spectator sports, greater participation in athletic activities, and increased accessibility. The bat and ball sport of cricket was first played in England during the 16th century and was exported around the globe via the British Empire. A number of popular modern sports were devised or codified in Britain during the 19th century and obtained global prominence — these include Ping Pong, [49][50] modern tennis, [51] Association Football, Netball and Rugby. The United States also developed popular international sports during this period. English migrants took antecedents of baseball to America during the colonial period. American football resulted from several major divergences from rugby, most notably the rule changes instituted by Walter Camp. Basketball was invented in 1891 by James Naismith, a Canadian physical education instructor working in Springfield, Massachusetts in the United States. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, a Frenchman, instigated the modern revival of the Olympic Games, with the first modern Olympics were held at Athens in 1896. [edit]New imperialism: 1870–1914 The years between 1870 and 1914 saw the expansion of Western power across the globe. By 1914, the West dominated the entire planet. The major Western players in this New Imperialismwere Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States. Two non-Western powers involved in this new era of imperialism were Russia and Japan. Western empires as they were in 1910 Although the West had had a presence in Africa for centuries, its colonies were limited mostly to Africa's coast. Europeans, including the Britons Mungo Park and David Livingstone, the German Johannes Rebmann, and the Frenchman René Caillé, explored the interior of the continent, allowing greater European expansion in the later 19th century. The period between 1870 and 1914 is often called the Scramble for Africa, due to the competition between European nations for control of Africa. In 1830, France occupied Algeria in North Africa. Many Frenchman settled on Algeria's Mediterranean coast. In 1882 Britain annexed Egypt. France eventually conquered most of Morocco andTunisia as well. Libya was conquered by the Italians. Spain gained a small part of Morocco and modern-day Western Sahara. West Africa was dominated by France, although Britain ruled several smaller West African colonies. Germany also established two colonies in West Africa, and Portugal had one as well. Central Africa was dominated by the Belgian Congo. At first the colony was ruled by Belgium's king, Leopold II, however his regime was so brutal the Belgian government took over the colony. The Germans and French also established colonies in Central Africa. The British and Italians were the two dominant powers in East Africa, although France also had a colony there. Southern Africa was dominated by Britain. Tensions between the British Empire and the Boer republics led to the Boer Wars, fought on and off between the 1880s and 1902, ending in a British victory. In 1910 Britain united its South African colonies with the former Boer republics and established the Union of South Africa, a dominion of the British Empire. The British established several other colonies in Southern Africa. The Portuguese and Germans also established a presence in Southern Africa. The French conquered the island of Madagascar. By 1914, Africa had only two independent nations, Liberia, a nation founded in West Africa by free black Americans earlier in the 19th century, and the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia in East Africa. Many Africans, like the Zulus, resisted European rule, but in the end Europe succeeded in conquering and transforming the continent. Missionaries arrived and established schools, while industrialists helped establish rubber, diamond and gold industries on the continent. Perhaps the most ambitious change by Europeans was the construction of the Suez Canal in Egypt, allowing ships to travel from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean without having to go all the way around Africa. In Asia, China was defeated by Britain in the Opium War and later Britain and France in the Arrow War, forcing it to open up to trade with the West. Soon every major Western power as well as Russia and Japan had spheres of influence in China, although the country remained independent. Southeast Asia was divided between French Indochina and British Burma. One of the few independent nations in this region at the time was Siam. The Dutch continued to rule their colony of the Dutch East Indies, while Britain and Germany also established colonies in Oceania. India remained an integral part of the British Empire, with Queen Victoria being crowned Empress of India. The British even built a new capital in India, New Delhi. The Middle East remained largely under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and Persia. Britain, however, established a sphere of influence in Persia and a few small colonies in Arabia and coastal Mesopotamia. The Rhodes Colossus, a caricature ofCecil Rhodes after announcing plans for atelegraph line from Cape Town to Cairo. European countries were engaged in aScramble for Africa. The Pacific islands were conquered by Germany, the U.S., Britain, France, and Belgium. In 1893, the ruling class of colonists in Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy of Queen Liliuokalani and established a republic. Since most of the leaders of the overthrow were Americans or descendants of Americans, they asked to be annexed by the United States, which agreed to the annexation in 1898. Latin America was largely free from foreign rule throughout this period, although the United States and Britain had a great deal of influence over the region. Britain had two colonies on the Latin American mainland, while the United States, following 1898, had several in the Caribbean. The U.S. supported the independence of Cuba and Panama, but gained a small territory in central Panama and intervened in Cuba several times. Other countries also faced American interventions from time to time, mostly in the Caribbean and southern North America. Competition over control of overseas colonies sometimes led to war between Western powers, and between Western powers and non-Westerners. At the turn of the 20th century, Britain fought several wars with the Central Asian country of Afghanistan to prevent it from falling under the influence of Russia, which ruled all of Central Asia excluding Afghanistan. Britain and France nearly went to war over control of Africa. In 1898, the United States and Spain went to war after an American naval ship was sunk in the Caribbean. Although today it is generally held that the sinking was an accident, at the time the U.S. held Spain responsible and soon American and Spanish forces clashed everywhere from Cuba to the Philippines. The U.S. won the war and gained several Caribbean colonies including Puerto Rico and several Pacific islands, including Guam and the Philippines. Important resistance movements to Western Imperialism included the Boxer Rebellion, fought against the colonial powers in China, and the Philippine-American War, fought against the United States, both of which failed. The Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) left the Ottoman empire little more than an empty shell, but the failing empire was able to hang on into the 20th century, until its final partition, which left the British and French colonial empires in control of much of the Middle East (British Mandate of Palestine,British Mandate of Mesopotamia, French Mandate of Syria, French Mandate of Lebanon, in addition to the British occupation of Egypt from 1882). Even though this happened centuries after the West had given up its futile attempts to conquer the "Holy Land" under religious pretexts, this fuelled resentment against the "crusaders" in the Islamic world, together with the nationalisms hatched under Ottoman rule contributing to the development ofIslamism. The expanding Western powers greatly changed the societies they conquered. Many connected their empires via railroad and telegraph and constructed churches, schools, and factories. By 1914, even Antarctica was explored by Westerners, and very few parts of the world were not ruled by the West, and those that were not were often influenced heavily by Western power. [edit]Great powers and the First World War: 1870–1918 Cousins Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany with Nicholas II of Russia in 1905, each in the military uniform of the other nation. By the late 19th century, the world was dominated by a few great powers, including Great Britain, the United States, and Germany. France, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Italy were also great powers. Western inventors and industrialists transformed the West in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The American Thomas Edison pioneered electricity and motion picture technology. Other American inventors, the Wright brothers, completed the first successful airplane flight in 1903. The first automobiles were also invented in this period. Petroleum became an important commodity after the discovery it could be used to power machines. Steel was developed in Britain by Henry Bessemer. This very strong metal, combined with the invention of elevators, allowed people to construct very tall buildings, called skyscrapers. In the late 19th century, the Italian Guglielmo Marconi was able to communicate across distances using radio. In 1876, the first telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell, a British expatriate living in America. Many became very wealthy from this Second Industrial Revolution, including the American entrepreneursAndrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. Unions continued to fight for the rights of workers, and by 1914 laws limiting working hours and outlawing child laborhad been passed in many Western countries. Culturally, the English-speaking nations were in the midst of the Victorian Era, named for Britain's queen. In France, this period is called the Belle Epoque, a period of many artistic and cultural achievements. The suffragette movement began in this period, which sought to gain voting rights for women, with New Zealand and Australian parliaments granting women's suffrage in the 1890s. However, by 1914, only a dozen U.S. states had given women this right, although women were treated more and more as equals of men before the law in many countries. Cities grew as never before between 1870 and 1914. This led at first to unsanitary and crowded living conditions, especially for the poor. However, by 1914, municipal governments were providing police and fire departments and garbage removal services to their citizens, leading to a drop in death rates. Unfortunately, pollution from burning coal and wastes left by thousands of horses that crowded the streets worsened the quality of life in many urban areas. Paris, lit up by gas and electric light, and containing the tallest structure in the world at the time, the Eiffel Tower, was often looked to as an ideal modern city, and served as a model for city planners around the world. [edit]United States: 1870–1914 Immigrants at Ellis Island, New York Harbor, 1902 Following the American Civil War, great changes occurred in the United States. After the war, the former Confederate States were put under federal occupation and federal lawmakers attempted gain equality for blacks by outlawing slavery and giving them citizenship. After several years, however, Southern states began rejoining the Union as their populations pledged loyalty to the United States government, and in 1877 Reconstruction as this period was called, came to an end. After being re-admitted to the Union, Southern lawmakers passed segregation laws and laws preventing blacks from voting, resulting in blacks being regarded as second-class citizens for decades to come. Another great change beginning in the 1870s was the settlement of the western territories by Americans. The population growth in the American Westled to the creation of many new western states, and by 1912 all the land of the contiguous U.S. was part of state, bringing the total to 48. As whites settled the West, however, conflicts occurred with the Amerindians. After several Indian Wars, the Amerindians were forcibly relocated to small reservations throughout the West and by 1914 whites were the dominant ethnic group in the American West. As the farming and cattle industries of the American West matured and new technology allowed goods to be refrigerated and brought to other parts of the country and overseas, people's diets greatly improved and contributed to increased population growth throughout the West. America's population greatly increased between 1870 and 1914, due largely to immigration. The U.S. had been receiving immigrants for decades but at the turn of the 20th century the numbers greatly increased, due partly to large population growth in Europe. Immigrants often faced discrimination, because many differed from most Americans in religion and culture. Despite this, most immigrants found work and enjoyed a greater degree of freedom than in their home countries. Major immigrant groups included the Irish, Italians, Russians, Scandinavians, Germans, Poles andJews. The vast majority, at least by the second generation, learned English, and adopted American culture, while at the same time contributing to American culture. For example, the celebration of ethnic holidays and the introduction of foreign cuisine to America. These new groups also changed America's religious landscape. Although it remained mostly Protestant, Catholics especially, as well as Jews and Orthodox Christians, increased in number. The U.S. became a major military and industrial power during this time, gaining a colonial empire from Spain and surpassing Britain and Germany to become the world's major industrial power by 1900. Despite this, most Americans were reluctant to get involved in world affairs, and American presidents generally tried to keep the U.S. out of foreign entanglement. [edit]Europe: 1870–1914 Proclamation of the German Empire at thePalace of Versailles after the Franco-Prussian war The years between 1870 and 1914 saw the rise of Germany as the dominant power in Europe. By the late 19th century, Germany had surpassed Britain to become the world's greatest industrial power. It also had the mightiest army in Europe.[citation needed] From 1870–1871, Prussia was at war with France. Prussia won the war and gained two border territories, Alsace and Lorraine, from France. After the war, Wilhelm took the title kaiser from the Roman title caesar, proclaimed the German Empire, and all the German states other than Austria united with this new nation, under the leadership of Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. After the Franco-Prussian War, Napoleon III was dethroned and France was proclaimed a republic. During this time, France was increasingly divided between Catholics and monarchists and anticlerical and republican forces. In 1900, church and state were officially separated in France, although the majority of the population remained Catholic. France also found itself weakened industrially following its war with Prussia due to its loss of iron and coal mines following the war. In addition, France's population was smaller than Germany's and was hardly growing. Despite all this, France's strong sense of nationhood among other things kept the country together. Between 1870 and 1914, Britain continued to peacefully switch between Liberal and Conservative governments, and maintained its vast empire, the largest in world history. Two problems faced by Britain in this period were the resentment of British rule in Ireland and Britain's falling behind Germany and the United States in industrial production. [edit]British dominions: 1870–1914 South Australian suffragetteCatherine Helen Spence. In 1893, the women of New Zealand gained the right to vote (a world first). in 1895, South Australianwomen became the first to win also the right to stand for Parliament. The European populations of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa all continued to grow and thrive in this period and evolved democraticWestminster system parliaments. Canada united as a dominion of the British Empire under the Constitution Act, 1867 (British North America Acts). The colony of New Zealand gained its own parliament (called a "general assembly") and home rule in 1852.[52] and in 1907 was proclaimed the Dominion of New Zealand. [53] Britain began to grant its Australian colonies autonomy beginning in the 1850s and during the 1890s, the colonies of Australia voted to unite. In 1901 they were federated as an independent nation under the British Crown, known as the Commonwealth of Australia, with a wholly elected bicameral parliament. The Constitution of Australiahad been drafted in Australia and approved by popular consent. Thus Australia is one of the few countries established by a popular vote.[54] The Second Boer War (1899–1902) ended with the conversion of the Boer republics of South Africa into British colonies and these colonies later formed part of the Union of South Africa in 1910. From the 1850s, Canada, Australia and New Zealand had become laboratories of democracy. By the 1870s, they had already granted voting rights to their citizens in advance of most other Western nations. In 1893, New Zealand became the first self-governing nation to extend the right to vote to women and, in 1895, the women of South Australia became the first to obtain also the right to stand for Parliament. During the 1890s Australia also saw such milestones as the invention of the secret ballot, the introduction of a minimum wage and the election of the world's first Labor Party government, prefiguring the emergence of Social Democratic governments in Europe. The old age pension was established in Australia and New Zealand by 1900.[3] From the 1880s, the Heidelberg School of art adapted Western painting techniques to Australian conditions, while writers like Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson introduced the character of a new continent into English literature and antipodean artists such as the opera singer Dame Nellie Melba began to influence the European arts. [edit]New alliances European military alliances prior to the outbreak of war. The Central Powers are depicted in olive, the Triple Entente in dark green and neutral countries in beige. The late 19th century saw the creation of several alliances in Europe. Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary formed a secret defensive alliance called the Triple Alliance. France and Russia also developed strong relations with one another, due to the financing of Russia's Industrial Revolution by French capitalists. Although it did not have a formal alliance, Russia supported the Slavic Orthodox nations ofEastern Europe, which had been created in the 19th century after several wars and revolutions against the Ottoman Empire, which by now was in decline and ruled only parts of the southern Balkan Peninsula. This Russian policy, called Pan-Slavism, led to conflicts with the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, which had many Slavic subjects. FrancoGerman relations were also tense in this period due to France's defeat and loss of land at the hands of Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War. Also in this period, Britain ended its policy of isolation from the European continent and formed an alliance with France, called the Entente Cordiale. Rather than achieve greater security for the nations of Europe, however, these alliances increased the chances of a general European war breaking out. Other factors that would eventually lead to World War I were the competition for overseas colonies, the military buildups of the period, most notably Germany's, and the feeling of intense nationalism throughout the continent. [edit]World War I Australian troops at the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917. On July 28, 1914, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated by Serbian terrorists in the city of Sarajevo, at the time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When Serbia refused to hand over individuals involved in the assassination, Austria-Hungary declared war, beginning World War I. Fearing the conquest of a fellow Slavic Orthodox nation, Russia declared war on Austria-Hungary. Germany responded by declaring war on Russia as well as France, which it feared would ally with Russia. To reach France, Germany invaded neutral Belgium in August, leading Britain to declare war on Germany. The war quickly stalemated, with trenches being dug from the North Sea to Switzerland. The war also made use of new and relatively new technology and weapons, including machine guns, airplanes, tanks, battleships, and submarines. Even chemical weapons were used at one point. The war also involved other nations, with Romania and Greece joining the British Empire and France and Bulgaria and theOttoman Empire joining Germany. The war spread throughout the globe with colonial armies clashing in Africa and Pacific nations such as Japan and Australia, allied with Britain, attacking German colonies in the Pacific. In the Middle East, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed at Gallipoli in 1915 in a failed bid to support an AngloFrench capture of the Ottoman capital of Istanbul. Unable to secure an early victory in 1915, British Empire forces later attacked from further south and conquered Mesopotamia and Palestine from the Ottomans and supported an Arab revolt against the Ottomans centered in the Arabian Peninsula. 1916 saw some of the most ferocious fighting in human history with the Somme Offensive on the Western Front alone resulting in 500,000 German casualties, 420,000 British and Dominion, and 200,000 French casualties.[55] 1917 was a crucial year in the war. The United States had followed a policy of neutrality in the war, feeling it was a European conflict. However, during the course of the war many Americans had died on board British ocean liners sunk by the Germans, leading to anti-German feelings in the U.S. What finally led to American involvement in the war, however, was the discovery of the Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany offered to help Mexico conquer part of the United States if it formed an alliance with Germany. In April, the U.S. declared war on Germany. The same year the U.S. entered the war, Russia withdrew. After the deaths of many Russian soldiers and hunger in Russia, a revolution occurred against the Czar,Nicholas II. Nicholas abdicated and a Liberal provisional government was set up. In October, Russian communists, led by Vladimir Lenin rose up against the government, resulting in a civil war. Eventually, the communists won and Lenin became premier. Feeling World War I was a capitalist conflict, Lenin signed a peace treaty with Germany in which it gave up a great deal of its Central and Eastern European lands. Although Germany and its allies no longer had to focus on Russia, the large numbers of American troops and weapons reaching Europe turned the tide against Germany, and after more than a year of fighting, Germany surrendered. The treaties which ended the war, including the famous Versailles Treaty dealt harshly with Germany and its former allies. The Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires were completely abolished and Germany was greatly reduced in size. Many nations regained their independence, including Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. The last Austro-Hungarian emperor abdicated, and two new republics, Austria and Hungary, were created. The last Ottoman sultan was overthrown and the Ottoman homeland of Turkey was declared a republic. Germany's kaiser also abdicated and Germany was declared a republic. Germany was also forced to give up the lands it had gained in the Franco-Prussian War to France, accept responsibility for the war, reduce its military and pay reparations to Britain and France. In the Middle East, Britain gained Palestine, Transjordan (modern-day Jordan), and Mesopotamia as colonies. France gained Syria and Lebanon. An independent kingdom consisting of most of the Arabian peninsula, Saudi Arabia, was also established. Germany's colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific were divided between the British and French Empires. The war had cost millions of lives and led many in the West to develop a strong distaste for war. Few were satisfied with, and many despised the agreements made at the end of the war. Japanese and Italians were angry they had not been given any new colonies after the war, and many Americans felt the war had been a mistake. Germans were outraged at the state of their country following the war. Also, unlike many in the United States for example, had hoped, democracy did not flourish in the world in the post-war period. The League of Nations, an international organization proposed by American president Woodrow Wilson to prevent another great war from breaking out, proved ineffective, especially because the isolationist U.S. wound end up not joining. [edit]Inter-war years: 1918–1939 Main article: Interwar period [edit]United States in the inter-war years Construction on the Empire State Buildingwas a symbol of U.S. economic growth after the First World War. After World War I, most Americans regretted getting involved in world affairs and desired a "return to normalcy". The 1920s were a period of economic prosperity in the United States. Many Americans bought cars, radios, and other appliances with the help of installment payments. Movie theaters sprang up throughout the country, although at first they did not have sound. Also, many Americans invested in the stock market as a source of income. Also in the 1920s, alcoholic beverages were outlawed in the United States. Women were granted the right to vote throughout the United States. Although the United States was arguably the most powerful nation in the post-war period, Americans remained isolationist and elected several conservative presidents in the 1920s. In October 1929 the New York stock market crashed, leading to the Great Depression. Many lost their life's savings and the resulting decline in consumer spending led millions to lose their jobs as banks and businesses closed. In the Midwestern United States, a severe drought destroyed many farmers' livelihoods. In 1932, Americans elected Franklin Roosevelt president. Roosevelt followed a series of policies which regulated the stock market and banks, and created many public works programs aimed at providing the unemployed with work. Roosevelt's policies helped alleviate the worst effects of the Depression, although by 1941 the Great Depression was still ongoing. Roosevelt also instituted pensions for the elderly and provided money to those who were unemployed. Roosevelt was also one of the most popular presidents in U.S. history, earning reelection in 1936, and also in 1940 and 1944, becoming the only U.S. president to serve more than two terms. [edit]Europe in the inter-war years Europe in 1923 Europe was relatively unstable following World War I. Although many prospered in the 1920s, Germany was in a deep financial and economic crisis. Also, France and Britain owed the U.S. a great deal of money. When the United States went into Depression, so did Europe. There were perhaps 30 million people around the world unemployed following the Depression. Many governments helped to alleviate the suffering of their citizens and by 1937 the economy had improved although the lingering effects of the Depression remained. Also, the Depression led to the spread of radical left-wing and right-wing ideologies, like Communism and Fascism. In 1919-1921 Polish-Soviet War took place. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 Russia sought to spread communism to the rest of Europe. This is evidenced by the well-known daily order by marshal Tukhachevsky to his troops: "Over the corpse of Poland leads the road to the world's fire. Towards Wilno, Minsk, Warsaw go!". Poland, whose statehood had just been re-established by the Treaty of Versailles following the Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century achieved an unexpected and decisive victory at the Battle of Warsaw. In the wake of the Polish advance eastward, the Soviets sued for peace and the war ended with a ceasefire in October 1920. A formal peace treaty, the Peace of Riga, was signed on 18 March 1921. According to the British historian A.J.P. Taylor, the Polish–Soviet War "largely determined the course of European history for the next twenty years or more. [...] Unavowedly and almost unconsciously, Soviet leaders abandoned the cause of international revolution." It would be twenty years before the Bolsheviks would send their armies abroad to 'make revolution'. According to American sociologist Alexander Gella "the Polish victory had gained twenty years of independence not only for Poland, but at least for an entire central part of Europe. In 1916 militant Irish republicans staged a rising and proclaimed a republic. The rising was suppressed after six days with leaders of the rising executed. This was followed by the Irish War of Independence in 1919–1921 and the Irish Civil War (1922–1923). After the civil war, the island was divided. Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom, while the rest of the island became the Irish Free State. In 1927 the United Kingdom renamed itself the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In the 1920s the UK was the granting of the right to vote to women. [edit]British dominions in the inter-war years 1926 Imperial Conference: King George Vand the prime ministers of the Commonwealth. Clockwise from centre front: George V, Baldwin (United Kingdom),Monroe (Newfoundland), Coates (New Zealand), Bruce (Australia), Hertzog (South Africa), Cosgrave (Irish Free State), King(Canada). The relationship between Britain and its Empire evolved significantly over the period. In 1919, the British Empire was represented at the all-importantVersailles Peace Conference by delegates from its dominions who had each suffered large casualties during the War.[56] The Balfour Declaration at the1926 Imperial Conference, stated that Britain and its dominions were "equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations". These aspects to the relationship were eventually formalised by the Statute of Westminster in 1931 — a British law which, at the request and with the consent of the dominion parliaments clarified the independent powers of the dominion parliaments, and granted the former colonies full legal freedom except areas where they chose to remain subordinate. Previously the British Parliament had had residual ill-defined powers, and overriding authority, over dominion legislation.[57] It applied to the six dominions which existed in 1931: Canada, Australia, the Irish Free State, the Dominion of Newfoundland, New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa. Each of the dominions remained within the British Commonwealth and retained close political and cultural ties with Britain and continued to recognize the British monarch as head of their own independent nations. Australia, New Zealand, and Newfoundland had to ratify the statute for it to take effect. Australia and New Zealand did so in 1942 and 1947 respectively. Newfoundland united with Canada in 1949 and the Irish Free State came to an end in 1937, when the citizens voted by referendum to replace its 1922 constitution. It was succeeded by the entirely sovereign modern state of Ireland. [edit]Rise of totalitarianism The Inter-war years saw the establishment of the first totalitarian regimes in world history. The first was established in Russia (following the revolution of 1917. The Russian Empire was renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or Soviet Union). The government controlled every aspect of its citizens' lives, from maintaining loyalty to the Communist Party to persecuting religion. Lenin helped to establish this state but it was brought to a new level of brutality under his successor, Joseph Stalin. The rise of Fascism in Europe The first totalitarian state in the West was established in Italy. Unlike the Soviet Union however, this would be a Fascist rather than a Communist state.Fascism is a less organized ideology than Communism, but generally it is characterized by a total rejection of humanism and liberal democracy, as well as very intense nationalism, with government headed by a single all-powerful dictator. The Italian politician Benito Mussolini established the Fascist Party, from which Fascism derives its name following World War I. Fascists won support by many disillusioned Italians, angry over Italy's treatment following World War I. They also employed violence and intimidation against their political enemies. In 1922 Mussolini seized power by threatening to lead his followers on a march on Rome if he was not named Prime Minister. Although he had to share some power with the monarchy, Mussolini ruled as a dictator. Under his rule, Italy's military was built up and democracy became a thing of the past. One important diplomatic achievement of his reign, however, was the Lateran Treaty, between Italy and the Pope, in which a small part of Rome where St. Peter's Basilica and other Church property was located was given independence as Vatican Cityand the Pope was reimbursed for lost Church property. In exchange, the Pope recognized the Italian government. Another Fascist party, the Nazis, would take power in Germany. The Nazis were similar to Mussolini's Fascists but held many views of their own. Nazis were obsessed with racial theory, believing Germans to be part of a master race, destined to dominate the inferior races of the world. The Nazis were especially hateful of Jews. Another unique aspect of Nazism was its connection with a small movement that supported a return to ancient Germanic paganism. Adolf Hitler, a World War I veteran, became leader of the party in 1921. Gaining support from many disillusioned Germans, and by using intimidation against its enemies, the Nazi party had gained a great deal of power by the early 1930s. In 1933, Hitler was named Chancellor, and seized dictatorial power. Hitler built up Germany's military in opposition to the Versailles Treaty and stripped Jews of all rights in Germany. Eventually, the regime Hitler created would lead to theSecond World War. In Spain, a republic had been set up following the abdication of the king. After a series of elections, a coalition of republicans, socialists, Marxists, and anticlericals were brought to power. The army, joined by Spanish Conservatives rose up against the republic. In 1939 the Spanish Civil War ended, and General Francisco Franco became dictator. Franco supported the governments of Italy and Germany, although he was not as strongly committed to Fascism as they were and instead focused more on restoring traditionalism and Catholicism to dominance in Spain. [edit]Second World War and its aftermath: 1939–1950 Main articles: World War II and Pacific War German occupation of continental Europeand northern Africa. Hitler in Paris, 30 July 1940 The late 1930s saw a series of violations of the Versailles Treaty by Germany, however, France and Britain refused to act. In 1938, Hitler annexed Austria in an attempt to unite all German-speakers under his rule. Next, he annexed a German-speaking area of Czechoslovakia. Britain and France agreed to recognize his rule over that land and in exchange Hitler agreed not to expand his empire further. In a matter of months, however, Hitler broke the pledge and annexed the rest of Czechoslovakia. Despite this, the British and French chose to do nothing, wanting to avoid war at any cost. Hitler then formed a secret non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, despite the fact that the Soviet Union was Communist and Germany was Fascist. Also in the 1930s, Italy conquered Ethiopia. The Soviets too began annexing neighboring countries. Japan began taking aggressive actions towards China. After Japan opened itself to trade with the West in the mid-19th century, its leaders learned to take advantage of Western technology and industrialized their country by the end of the century. By the 1930s, Japan's government was under the control ofmilitarists who wanted to establish an empire in the Asia-Pacific region. In 1937, Japan invaded China. Netherlands and AustralianPoWs of the Empire of Japan in 1943. The Fall of Singapore to Japan marked the greatest defeat in British military history. Britain's World War II Prime Minister Winston Churchill (seated centre) with the Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth of Nations at the 1944 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference. The Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by theU.S. Airforce brought the Second World War to an end. The signing of the United Nations Charter in San Franciscoin 1945 In 1939, German forces invaded Poland, and soon the country was divided between the Soviet Union and Germany. France and Britain declared war on Germany, World War II had begun. The war featured the use of new technologies and improvements on existing ones. Airplanes called bombers were capable of travelling great distances and dropping bombs on targets. Submarine, tank and battleship technology also improved. Most soldiers were equipped with hand-held machine guns and armies were more mobile than ever before. Also, the British invention of radar would revolutionize tactics. German forces invaded and conquered the Low Countries and by June had even conquered France. In 1940 Germany, Italy and Japan formed an alliance and became known as the Axis Powers. Germany next turned its attention to Britain. Hitler attempted to defeat the British using only air power. In the Battle of Britain, German bombers destroyed much of the British air force and many British cities. Led by their Prime Minister, the defiant Winston Churchill, the British refused to give up and launched air attacks on Germany. Eventually, Hitler turned his attention from Britain to the Soviet Union. In June 1941, German forces invaded the Soviet Union and soon reached deep into Russia, surrounding Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad. Hitler's invasion came as a total surprise to Stalin; however, Hitler had always believed sooner or later Soviet Communism and what he believed were the "inferior" Slavic peoples had to be wiped out. The United States attempted to remain neutral early in the war. However, a growing number feared the consequences of a Fascist victory. So, President Roosevelt began sending weapons and support to the British, Chinese, and Soviets. Also, the U.S. placed an embargo against the Japanese, as they continued to war with China and conquered many colonies formerly ruled by the French and Dutch, who were now under German rule. Japan responded by launching a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, an American naval base in Hawaii 1941. The U.S. responded by declaring war on Japan. The next day, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. The United States, The British Commonwealth, and the Soviet Union now comprised the Allies, dedicated to destroying theAxis Powers. Other allied nations included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and China. In the Pacific War, British, Indian and Australian troops made a disorganised last stand at Singapore, before surrendering on 15 February 1942. The defeat was the worst in British military history. Around 15,000 Australian soldiers alone became prisoners of war. Allied prisoners died in their thousands interned at Changi Prison or working as slave labourers on such projects as the infamous Burma Railway and the Sandakan Death Marches. Australian cities and bases — notably Darwin suffered air raids and Sydney suffered naval attack. U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, based in Melbourne, Australia became "Supreme Allied Commander of the South West Pacific" and the foundations of the post war Australia-New Zealand-United States Alliance were laid. In May 1942, the Royal Australian Navy and U.S. Navy engaged the Japanese in the Battle of the Coral Sea and halted the Japanese fleet headed for Australian waters. The Battle of Midway in June effectively defeated the Japanese navy. In August 1942, Australian forces inflicted the first land defeat on advacing Japanese forces at the Battle of Milne Bay in the Australian Territory of New Guinea. [58] By 1942, German and Italian armies ruled Norway, the Low Countries, France, the Balkans, Central Europe, part of Russia, and most of North Africa. Japan by this year ruled much of China, South-east Asia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and many Pacific Islands. Life in these empires was cruel — especially in Germany, where The Holocaust was perpetrated. Eleven million people — six million of them Jews — were systematically murdered by the Nazis by 1945. From 1943 on, the Allies gained the upper hand. American and British troops first liberated North Africa