Key dates in Ancient Europe
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| c3000 BC | Bronze Age in southern Europe |
| c4000 BC | Neolithic culture at its height in northern Europe |
| c2000 BC | Iron Age in northern Europe |
| c1700 BC | Construction of palace of King Minos at Knossos, Crete |
| c1550 BC | Earthquakes destroy Minoan civilisation |
| 509 BC | Roman Republic established |
| 431–404 BC | Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta |
| 336–323 BC | Alexander the Great conquers Persia (modern-day Iran) |
| 216 BC | Hannibal defeats Romans at Battle of Cannae |
| 146 BC | Romans destroy Carthage and conquer Greece |
| 49 BC | Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon: Roman civil war |
| 27 BC | Octavian becomes Roman Emperor Augustus |
| AD 313 | Edict of Milan: Constantine accepts Christianity |
| AD 395 | Roman Empire divides in two |
| AD 410 | Rome sacked by Alaric, king of the Visigoths |
| AD 476 | Last western Roman emperor deposed |
Key dates in Europe's Middle Ages
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 529 | St Benedict founds the monastery of Monte Cassino |
| 711 | Muslim invasion of Spain |
| 732 | Charles Martel defeats Arabs at Battle of Poitiers |
| 787 | Viking raid on Lindisfarne |
| 800 | Charlemagne crowned ‘Roman’ emperor in the west |
| 1054 | Schism between ‘Catholic’ Roman Church and ‘Orthodox’ Greek Church |
| 1066 | Norman conquest of England |
| 1071 | Battle of Manzikert: Turks overrun Anatolia |
| 1099 | Jerusalem falls to First Crusade |
| 1204 | Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople |
| 1241 | Mongols overrun eastern Europe |
| 1337 | Start of the Hundred Year’s War |
| AD 313 | Edict of Milan: Constantine accepts Christianity |
| AD 395 | Roman Empire divides in two |
| AD 410 | Rome sacked by Alaric, king of the Visigoths |
| AD 476 | Last western Roman emperor deposed |
| 1346 | Black Death arrives in western Europe |
| 1309–1417 | The Great Schism |
| 1450 | Gutenberg’s printing press |
| 1453 | Fall of Constantinople |
| 1492 | Fall of Granada: Moors expelled from Spain; Columbus lands in the New World |
Key dates in early Modern Europe
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1517 | Luther’s 95 theses launch the Reformation |
| 1526 | Battle of Mohács: Ottoman Turks conquer Hungary |
| 1581 | Dutch declare independence from Spain |
| 1618–48 | Thirty Years’ War |
| 1683 | Turks defeated outside Vienna |
| 1703 | Peter I founds St Petersburg |
| 1713 | Treaty of Utrecht ends War of Spanish Succession |
| 1740 | Frederick II of Prussia invades Silesia |
Key dates in Modern Europe
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1789 | Fall of the Bastille: start of the French Revolution |
| 1804 | Napoleon crowned Emperor of France |
| 1815 | Battle of Waterloo: Napoleon exiled to St Helena |
| 1829 | Greece wins independence from Ottoman Empire |
| 1833 | Slavery abolished in British Empire |
| 1848 | Revolutions across Europe |
| 1854–6 | Crimean War |
| 1860–1 | Unification of Italy |
| 1861 | Alexander II emancipates Russian serfs |
| 1870–1 | Franco-Prussian War; proclamation of German empire |
| 1914–18 | First World War |
| 1917 | Russian Revolution |
| 1919 | Treaty of Versailles |
| 1936–9 | Spanish Civil War |
| 1939–45 | Second World War |
| 1941 | Operation Barbarossa: German invasion of Russia |
| 1949 | Formation of NATO |
| 1956 | Soviet invasion of Hungary; Suez crisis |
| 1957 | Treaty of Rome founds the European Economic Community |
| 1975 | Democracy restored in Spain |
| 1985 | Mikhail Gorbachev in power in Russia |
| 1989 | Fall of the Berlin Wall: anti-communist revolutions across eastern Europe |
| 1992 | Yugoslavia civil war starts |
| 2002 | Adoption of the Euro |
| 2004 | European Union enlarges to 25 member states |