HISTORY OF EUROPE

The history of Europe describes the passage of time from humans inhabiting the European continent to the present day. For convenience sake, historians divide long periods into more manageable eras. The first evidence of Homo sapiens in Europe dates back to at least 35,000 BC, the European Paleolithic period. When settlements, agriculture, and domesticated livestock appear would be the start of the Neolithic, which in Europe would be around 7000 BC. From the earliest civilization with writing to the temporary disappearance of civilization around 1200 BC, the preferred metal for tools and weapons was bronze, and historians have labeled this the Bronze Age.Europe's classical antiquity dates from the reappearance of writing in Ancient Greece of around 700 BC. The Roman Republic was established in 509 BC. The Romans expanded their territorial control over Italy, then over the Mediterranean basin and western Europe. The Roman Empire reached its greatest extent around 150.The Christian religion became legal under the emperor Constantine in the early fourth century AD. Within a few generations, Christianity had become the official religion of the empire. The Vulgate Bible in Latin emerged just before the sack of Rome in 410 by a Germanic people, the Visigoths. These were the first of a number of tribes to move west and south from beyond Roman boundaries into former Roman territories. The last Roman emperor in the west was removed from power in 476. Southeastern Europe and some parts of the Mediterranean remained under the increasingly beleaguered Roman Empire, but ruled from Constantinople rather than Rome. Under the Emperor Justinian, Roman armies restored imperial rule to many parts of the Mediterranean, but this expansion began to erode in the later sixth century. As Constantinople's hold on western territories faltered, more Germanic peoples invaded and established kingdoms. Eastern Mediterranean territories remained largely in the hands of the Christian emperor in Constantinople through the sixth century. Historians generally label this remnant of the Roman Empire the Byzantine Empire. A serious threat to its power and lands was to emerge in the seventh century from an unexpected source: the Arabian peninsula and the newly united and converted peoples of Islam.

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