The Brenner Pass is a mountain pass through the Alps which forms the border between Italy and Austria. It is one of the principal passes of the Eastern Alpine range and has the lowest altitude among Alpine passes of the area. Dairy cattle graze in alpine pastures throughout the summer in valleys beneath the pass and on the mountains above it. At lower altitudes, farmers log plant crops and harvest hay for winter fodder. Many of the high pastures are at an altitude of over 1,500 metres; the central section of the Brenner Pass covers a four-lane motorway and railway tracks connecting Bozen/Bolzano in the south and Innsbruck to the north. The village of Brenner consists of an outlet shopping centre, fruit stores, cafés, hotels and a gas station, it has a population of 400 to 600. Older, obsolete theories suggested a connection of the name Brenner with the ancient tribe of the Breuni or the Gaulish chieftain Brennus, but since the pass name appears for the first time only in the 14th century, a more recent etymology is far more likely.

Prenner was the name of a nearby farm, which itself was named after its former owner. The farm of a certain Prennerius is mentioned in documents in 1288, a certain Chunradus Prenner de Mittenwalde is mentioned in 1299; the German word Prenner refers to somebody who uses slash-and-burn techniques for land clearing. A name for the pass itself appears for the first time in 1328 as ob dem Prenner; the Romans regularised the mountain pass at Brenner, under frequent use during the prehistoric eras since the most recent Ice Age. The Brenner Pass, was not the first trans-Alpine Roman road to become regularised under the Roman Empire; the first Roman road to cross the Alpine range, Via Claudia Augusta, connected Verona in northern Italy with Augusta Vindelicorum in the Roman province of Raetia. Via Augusta was completed in 46–47 AD; the Roman road that physically crossed over the Brenner Pass did not exist until the 2nd century AD. It took the "eastern" route through the Puster Valley and descended into Veldidena, where it crossed the Inn and into Zirl and arrived at Augsburg via Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

The Alamanni crossed the Brenner Pass southward into modern-day Italy in 268 AD, but they were stopped in November of that year at the Battle of Lake Benacus. The Romans kept control over the mountain pass until the end of their empire in the 5th century. During the High Middle Ages, Brenner Pass was a part of the important Via Imperii, an imperial road linking the Kingdom of Germany north of the Alps with the Italian March of Verona. In the carolingian Divisio Regnorum of 806 the Brenner region is called per alpes Noricas, the transit through the Noric Alps. Since the 12th century, the Brenner Pass was controlled by the Counts of Tyrol within the Holy Roman Empire. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa made frequent uses of the Brenner Pass to cross the Alps during his imperial expeditions into Italy; the 12th-century Brenner Pass was a trackway for mule carts. Modernisation of the Brenner Pass started in 1777, when a carriage road was laid out at the behest of Empress Maria Theresa. Modernisation further took place under the Austrian Empire and the Brenner Railway, completed in stages from 1853 to 1867.

It became the first trans-Alpine railway at high altitude. Completion of the railway enabled the Austrians to move their troops more efficiently. At the end of World War I in 1918, the control of the Brenner Pass became shared between Italy and Austria under the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye; the Treaty of London secretly awarded Italy the territories south of the Brenner Pass for supporting the Entente Powers. Welschtirol/Trentino, along with the southern part of County of Tyrol, was transferred to Italy, Italian troops occupied Tyrol and arrived at the Brenner Pass in 1919 to 20. During World War II, German Führer Adolf Hitler and Italian Duce Benito Mussolini met at the Brenner Pass to celebrate their Pact of Steel on 18 March 1940; the Brenner Pass was part of the ratlines that were used by some fleeing Nazis after the German surrender in 1945. The motorway E45, Brenner Autobahn/Autostrada del Brennero, begins in Innsbruck, runs through the Brenner Pass, Bozen/Bolzano and finishes outside Modena.

It is one of the most important routes of north-south connections in Europe. After the signing of the Schengen Agreement in 1992 and Austria's subsequent entry into the European Union in 1995, customs and immigration posts at the Brenner Pass were removed in 1997. However, Austria reinstituted border checks in 2015 as a response to the European migrant crisis. In April 2016, Austria announced it would build a 370-meter long fence at the Pass but clarify that "it would be used only to "channel" people and was not a barrier." The Europabrücke, located halfway between Innsbruck and the Brenner Pass, is a large concrete bridge carrying the six-lane Brenner Autobahn over

The Battle of Suomenlinna was fought on 7–8 August 1855 between Russian defenders and a joint British/French fleet. It was a part of the Crimean War. Constructed during the Swedish rule of Finland in the 18th century, the fortress of Viapori was the main defensive installation in the Grand Duchy of Finland. After the capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland was moved from Turku to Helsinki in 1812 the value of Viapori only increased. However, by the Crimean War the artillery of the fortress had become obsolete. After the engagements of 1854 Russians expected an attack on Viapori in 1855; the small skirmishes, fought along the coast between Russian and British/French forces in the early summer of 1855 only worsened the fear while bulk of the Russian fleet had become isolated and surrounded in the port and fortress of Kronstadt off Saint Petersburg. British and French naval forces consisting of 77 ships arrayed for the long-expected battle on 6 August 1855, they formed into a battle line more than 3 km off shore beyond the range of the defenders' obsolete artillery.

Three days the bombardment commenced. It continued for 47–48 hours all the while the attacker sat beyond the range of the defenders' guns; the British and French bombarded only the fortress of Viapori and avoided firing at the town of Helsinki directly. While the bombardment caused damage to the structures above ground, including to several gunpowder magazines which exploded, the bulk of the defending forces survived unscathed with their weaponry intact leading to a stalemate with the attackers guns being unable to defeat the defender and defenders guns being unable to reach the attacker. Once the guns had become silenced the ships remained in the same offshore position leading to growing fears of a landing; however British and French forces landed troops neither at Viapori nor Helsinki, withdrew

Nikolai Yurievich Moroshkin is a Russian choreographer and former competitive ice dancer. With Evgenia Kosigina, he won six medals on the ISU Junior Grand Prix series and finished in the top ten at three World Junior Championships. Moroshkin began skating at the age of 5 to improve his health, took up ice dancing at 11, he began skating with Evgenia Kosigina in June 2010. Following the tryout in his hometown of Tolyatti, Moroshkin moved to train with her in Odintsovo, near Moscow, coached by Alexei Gorshkov. During the 2010–2011 season, Kosigina/Moroshkin won bronze at their first JGP event, in Courchevel, France. At their second event, in Dresden, they won a gold medal; these medals qualified them for the Junior Grand Prix Final. At the 2011 Russian Junior Championships, Kosigina/Moroshkin won the bronze medal and placed sixth at the 2011 World Junior Championships. Kosigina/Moroshkin competed in the 2011–12 Junior Grand Prix, winning silver in Latvia and bronze in Estonia, they were not assigned to Junior Worlds.

Kosigina/Moroshkin received additional coaching from Igor Shpilband in preparation for the 2012–13 season. They won a pair of silver medals at their events in Lake Placid, New York and Zagreb and finished sixth at the JGP Final in Sochi, Russia, they won silver at the 2013 Russian Junior Championships and finished sixth at the 2013 World Junior Championships. Kosigina/Moroshkin finished fourth at the 2014 Russian Junior Championships. First alternates, they joined the Russian team to the 2014 World Junior Championships after Alexandra Stepanova / Ivan Bukin withdrew. In 2017-2018, Nikolai Moroshkin worked at the Olympic School St. Petersburg with the students of the coach Roman Usatov, who works as an assistant to Evgeny Rukavicin. Since 2019, Moroshkin has been working at Tamara Moskvina Figure Skating Club with single and pair skaters. CS: Challenger Series.