Europe History

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ESSENTIAL HISTORICAL

BACKGROUND

For our purposes it is convenient to divide the history of Europe into three

periods. The first spans about a thousand years, from 500 BC, when Athens began to

emerge as the dominant intellectual and cultural centre of Greece, to AD 500. It is

the period of antiquity, of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The second period,

also a millennium long, from AD 500 to AD 1500, is that of Christian Europe. It

began after the collapse of the Western Empire, which is officially dated in 476. In

that year the Germanic general Odoaker deposed the last Roman emperor and did

not even bother to lay claim to the imperial throne. The Christian faith and its

church filled the gap left by the disappearance of the imperial systems of

administration, organisation and communication. The period ended when the Roman

Church was successfully challenged by religious reformers, a new scientific and

humanistic spirit agitated the intellectual scene, and European monarchs embarked

on a policy of absolutism at home and of conquering the newly discovered

continents in search of riches and colonies. Thus, AD 1500 is a convenient date to

mark the beginning of the period of modernity, which continues to this day.

On the next pages the reader will find an outline of European history, with

marginal references to important thinkers and currents of thought. The outline lists

in a rough chronological order some of the major events and transformations that

have played a part in the genesis of the world in which we now live. The focus

throughout is on the European continent, but when we get to the nineteenth and the

twentieth century, it will be necessary to refer to what happened elsewhere.

Frank van Dun, Maastricht 1995

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THE FIRST MILLENNIUM ANTIQUITY (500 BC - AD 500)

GREECE

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500-320: THE RISE AND FALL OF HELLAS.

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320 BC-AD 150: THE PERIOD OF HELLENISTIC CULTURE

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ROME

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500-30: THE ROMAN REPUBLIC

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