The history of Western civilization traces its roots back to Classical Antiquity and continues to the present era in Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand

Antiquity (before AD 500)

The opposition of an European "West" to an Asiatic "East" has its roots in Classical Antiquity, with then 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 the Pontic 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. It was only with Christianization of the Roman Empire in the 4th century that the Mediterranean world lost interest in the Eastern cultures.

The division of Europe into a Western (Latin) and an Eastern (Greek) part was prefigured in the division of the Roman Empire by Diocletian in 285. The history of Christianity took divergent routes in these spheres from early times, but the final Great Schism separating Roman and Eastern Christianity occurred only in the 11th century.

In 476 A.D. 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, allowing invasion by barbarian tribes originating in southern Scandinavia and modern-day northern Germany. According to many authors, the main causes for the fall of any empire are internal, such as racial, religious or political divisions within the country. Also, warfare and economic crisis may contribute to the empire's collapse. 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), the Franks settled, in Iberia the Visigoths invaded and Italy was conquered by the Ostrogoths. Christianity ceased to be the dominant religion in these lands and much of Roman culture disappeared. Only Ireland, which had never been ruled by Rome, remained Christian throughout this time.

The Early Middle Ages (AD 500-1000)

Around A.D. 500, Clovis I, the King of the Franks, became a Christian and united Gaul under his rule. Later in the 6th century, the Eastern Roman Empire restored its rule in much of Italy and Spain. Missionaries sent from Ireland and by the pope helped to convert England to Christianity in the 6th century as well, restoring that faith as the dominant in Western Europe.

Europe in 998

In the 7th century Islam was founded in Arabia. An Islamic empire was established shortly afterwards and soon spread across the Middle East and North Africa. By the early eighth century, Iberia and Sicily had fallen to the Muslims. 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, since Oriental Christianity had become reduced 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, all of them unsuccessful.

Charlemagne ("Charles the Great" in English) became king of the Franks. He conquered the Low Countries (modern-day Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg), Germany, 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 eighth century, the Vikings began attacking 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. In the eleventh century Norse explorers reached Iceland, Greenland, and even North America, however only Iceland was successfully settled by the Norse.

In the 900s 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 had converted to Christianity in the 11th.

By the start of the second millennium A.D., the West had become divided linguistically into three major groups. The Romance languages, based on Latin, the language of the Romans, the Germanic languages, and the Celtic languages. The most widely spoken Romance languages were French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Four widely-spoken Germanic languages were English, German, Dutch, and Danish. Irish and Scots Gaelic were two widely-spoken Celtic languages in the British Isles.

The High Middle Ages (1000-1300)

By the year 1000 feudalism had become the dominant social, economic and political system in the West. At the top of society was the monarch, who gave land to nobles in exchange for loyalty. The nobles gave land to vassals, who served as knights to defend their monarch or noble. Under the vassals were the peasants 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.

In 1054, after centuries of strained relations between the eastern and western branches of Christianity, 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 Church was one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful institution in Medieval Europe. The Church helped found many of the great universities of Europe and sponsored art, music and architecture. As the Church grew more powerful and wealthy, many sought reform. The Dominican and Franciscan Orders were founded, which emphasized poverty and spirituality. Large Gothic cathedrals were constructed throughout Europe.

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. As monarchies centralized their power as the Middle Ages progressed, nobles tried to maintain their own authority. An important example of this is England, whose monarch was forced to sign the Magna Carta creating the legislative body of Parliament which was made up of nobles and clergy, which limited royal power and laid the foundation for constitutional monarchy.

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.

In 1095, Pope Urban II called for a crusade to conquer the Holy Land from Muslim rule, when the Seljuk Turks prevented Christians from visiting the holy sites there. The crusade was a success and the crusaders established rule over the Holy Land. However, Muslim forces reconquered the land by the eleventh century, and subsequent crusades were not very successful.

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 twelfth 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 Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance (1300-1500)

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.

Another event to devastate Europe in the Later Middle Ages was the Black Plague, which arrived in the 14th century. Europe was overwhelmed by the plague, which was actually an outbreak of bubonic plague, probably brought to Europe by the Mongols who had conquered Kiev in eastern Europe in the 1200s. Up to a third of Europe's population died from the plague before it finally disappeared.

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.

The Renaissance ushered in a new age of scientific and intellectual inquiry and appreciation of ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. One important movement that resulted from the Renaissance was humanism, which 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. Important artists of the time included Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti and Raphael, whose works were more realistic-looking than those created by Medieval artists. Churches began being built in the Romanesque style for the first time in centuries.

Eventually, the Renaissance spread northwards to the rest of the West. Important artists of this period included Bosch, 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. Around 1450, Johannes Gutenberg developed a printing press, which allowed works of literature to spread more quickly. Important thinkers of the Renaissance in Northern Europe included the Dutchman Desiderius Erasmus and the Englishman Thomas More.

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 Columbus discovered the Americas during an attempt to find a western route to East Asia.

The Renaissance and Reformation (1500-1650)

The 16th century saw the flowering of the Renaissance in the rest of the West. The astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus deduced that the geocentric model of the universe was incorrect, and that in fact the planets revolve around the sun. The Italian astronomer Galileo developed telescope 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. The most famous playwright of the era was the Englishman William Shakespeare.

The other major movement in the West in the sixteenth 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 papacy and 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 as Protestants. 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 taught God had selected those destined to be saved from the beginning of time. His Calvinist Church gained about half of Switzerland and churches based on his teachings became dominant in the Netherlands (the Dutch Reformed Church) and Scotland (the Presbyterian Church). In England, King Henry VIII declared the Church of England or Anglican Church with himself as its leader when the pope refused to grant him a divorce. Some Englishmen felt the church was still too similar to the Catholic Church and formed the more radical Puritan Church. 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 Tradition offered divine revelation. Catholics countered the Reformation with the Catholic Reformation, which rooted out corruption in the church. An important leader in this movement was Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, an order of priests which gained many converts to the Catholic Church.

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, the Thirty 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 called the Spanish Armada, however a storm destroyed the fleet, saving 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.

The rise of Western empires (1500-1800)

From its dawn until modern times, the West had suffered invasions from Africa, Asia, and non-Western parts of Europe. It had had a small population and was technologically backward. By 1500, however, Europe had caught up to the rest of the world technologically and was beginning to surpass it. Westerners took advantage of new technologies to reverse the trend of the previous centuries, expand their power, and become the first civilization to exert influence on the entire planet. Western explorers like Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus, James Cook, and Ferdinand Magellan (Fernão de Magalhães) charted lands previously unknown both to the West and the Old World as a whole.

The area of the world most affected by European expansion in modern times was the Americas. The Spanish, whose expedition under Columbus had discovered the New World (as the Americas were called by Europeans), conquered most of the Caribbean islands and advanced onto the mainland conquering 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. The leaders of this conquest were called conquistadors (Spanish for conquerors). 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 in their conquests but also by Old World diseases which they inadvertently brought with them like smallpox, an outbreak of which tragically wiped out half of the Americas' already small Amerindian population. The natives populations, called Indians by Columbus, since he originally thought he had landed in Asia, but who are 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 so-called Mestizo population, which became the majority of the population of Spain and Portugal's American empires. Although Church leaders and the monarchy tried to treat the Amerindians with respect, their colonial rulers were often brutal.

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 and New 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 of New 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.

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, and bananas. 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. 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. 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. This idea resulted in racism in the West, as people began feeling all blacks were inferior to whites, regardless of their religion. 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 and Mozambique. They also established relations with the Kingdom of Kongo in central Africa, and eventually the Kongolese converted to Catholicism. The Dutch established 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.

Westerners also expanded in Asia. The Portuguese controlled port cities in the East Indies, India, and China. During this time, the Dutch began their colonisation of the Indonesian archipelago, which became the Dutch East Indies in the early 19th century. 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.

The Pacific Ocean was also explored by Europeans. The Dutch discovered Australia and New Zealand, while the English explored the Hawaiian, or as they were called at the time, the Sandwich Islands and Tahiti.

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, the Seven 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.

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.

Absolutism and Enlightenment (1500-1800)

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. Monarchs during this time referred to their divine right to rule, claiming they were answerable only to God. This new style of rule is often called absolutism by historians.

In the opening years of the century, Europe was under threat from the Muslim Ottoman Turks. They had migrated from central to western Asia and converted to Islam years earlier. In 1453, after years of warfare, they conquered the Byzantine Empire and established the Ottoman Empire under their sultan. From their capital of Istanbul (what they renamed Constantinople), they expanded across the Middle East and North Africa. They then turned their attention to conquering the West. However, the Ottomans failed to capture the Holy Roman city of Vienna after laying siege to it, and under the leadership of the Spanish, a Christian coalition destroyed the Ottoman navy at the battle of Lepanto in the Mediterranean, ending the Ottoman threat to Europe.

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 sixteenth century Western nation. After Spain began to decline in the 17th century, the Dutch became the greatest world power, leading the seventeenth century to be called the Netherlands' golden age. After the Anglo-Dutch Wars, France and England emerged as the two greatest powers in the 18th century.

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.

Louis XIV became king of France in 1643. His reign was one of the most opulent in European history. He built a gigantic 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 rival Austria 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 actually James 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 republic 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 co-monarchs. 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 in 1688. Before William 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 was passed, merging Scotland and England into the United Kingdom of Great Britain. This kingdom also contained the other kingdoms of the British Isles, which had been conquered by England over the course of the Middle Ages. Most of these lands adopted English language, culture, and religion, with one exception, Ireland. Although it eventually became an English-speaking land, Ireland preserved its own culture and remained Catholic.

An intellectual movement called the Enlightenment began in this period as well. Its proponents opposed the absolute rule of the monarchs of their day, and instead emphasized the equality of all individuals and the idea that governments derived their existence from the consent of the governed. Enlightenment thinkers called philosophes (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. In 1690 the Englishman 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. Another important writer of this time was the Scot Adam Smith, who believed competition and private enterprise could increase the common good. 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.

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 kingdom of Poland-Lithuania with Prussia and Austria.

Philosophy in this period was dominated by several thinkers. 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.

An age of revolution (1770-1815)

The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the West were dominated by a series of revolutions that would change the West forever, 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 take seriously 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. 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 nineteenth 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.

During all that period 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 nineteenth century that bring democracy in many European countries.

With the success of the American Revolution, the Spanish Empire also began to crumble as their American colonies sought independence as well. As a great admirer of the American Revolution and a great critic of the French Revolution, Simón Bolívar in 1811 began a wave of Latin American wars (Bolivar Wars) for independence from Spain. Mexico declared independence in 1810 and created its first constitution in 1824. However, Spanish resistance to this in South American and French involvement in Mexico caused considerable setbacks, and Western European nations continued to defeat most attempted revolutions and struggles for independence, and ending this era.

The rise of the English-speaking world (1815-1870)

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 Anglo-American culture as the dominant culture of two continents and many other lands outside the British Isles.

The Industrial Revolution in the English-speaking 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 coal and wood were used. Steam power had first been developed by the Ancient Greeks, 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-1800s. 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.

The United Kingdom (1815-1870)

British Territory in 1897

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 became a single nation ruled from London without the autonomous Parliament of Ireland after the Act of Union of 1800 was passed. This incorporated Ireland with Great Britain, 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 and led to massive emigration: see Irish diaspora.

The United States (1815-1870)

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.

Territorial expansion of the United States

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 or free 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 of Pennsylvania. However, the war began to turn around, with the defeat of Confederates at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and at Vicksburg, which gave the Union control of the important Mississippi River. Union forces invaded deep into the South, and the Confederacy's greatest general, Robert E. Lee, surrendered to Ulysses 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.

Hawaii (1815-1870)

In the early nineteenth century, missionaries, mostly from America, converted the Hawaiians to Christianity. They were followed by American entrepreneurs who established sugar and pineapple plantations and a well-developed 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.

Canada (1815-1870)

Australia and New Zealand (1815-1870)

The British became involved in New Zealand early in the 19th century. In 1840 Britain signed a treaty with the natives of New Zealand, the M?ori, in which Britain gained sovereignty over the archipelago. As British settlers arrived, clashes resulted and the British fought several wars before defeating the M?ori. By 1870, New Zealand had a population made up mostly of Britons and their descendants.

The British Empire (1815-1870)

Throughout the nineteenth century, Britain's empire expanded. All of India was under British rule by 1870. Many Britons settled in India, establishing a ruling class. They then expanded into neighbouring Burma.

In the Far East, Britain went to war with 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.

British settlers continued to arrive in southern Africa. 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.

Continental Europe (1815-1870)

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 radical communism, 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 made Napoleon 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.

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 powerful Kingdom 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 the Kingdom 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 1800s 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 German-speaking 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. 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.

After years of dealing with Hungarian nationalists, 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 and culture between 1815 and 1870. In science, Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister made discoveries about bacteria and its effects on humans. The British biologist Charles Darwin developed the theory of evolution. 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. 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. A major cultural movement was Romanticism, which emphasized emotion and nature, and idealized the Middle Ages. Romantic writers included Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Victor Hugo, and Goethe. Important artists and musicians were Franz Schubert, Richard Wagner, Frédéric Chopin, and John Constable. Gothic architecture also came back in style, as evidenced by Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the Houses of Parliament in Britain.

In religion, new churches like the Methodist, Unitarian, and Mormon Churches were founded. In the Anglican Church, the Anglo-Catholic movement began, emphasizing the Catholic traditions of the Church. Many people became less religious in this period, although a majority of people still held traditional Christian beliefs.

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.

The 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 Imperialism were Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States. Two non-Western powers involved in this new era of imperialism were Russia and Japan.

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 nineteenth 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 and Tunisia 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 nineteenth 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 Pacific islands were conquered by Germany, the U.S., Britain, France, and Belgium. In 1893, the ruling class of colonists in Hawaii overthrew Hawaii's monarchy - 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 of Islamism.

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 weren't were often influenced heavily by Western power.

The Great Powers and the First World War (1870-1918)

By the late 19th century, the world was dominated by a few great powers, including 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 and early 20th centuries. 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 entrepreneurs Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. Unions continued to fight for the rights of workers, and by 1914 laws limiting working hours and outlawing child labor had been passed in many Western countries.

Culturally, the English-speaking nations were in the midst of the Victorian Era, named for England'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. 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.

The United States (1870-1914)

Following the 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