1.
Gothic Revival architecture
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Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. Gothic Revival draws features from the original Gothic style, including decorative patterns, finials, scalloping, lancet windows, hood mouldings, the Gothic Revival movement emerged in 19th-century England. Its roots were intertwined with deeply philosophical movements associated with a re-awakening of High Church or Anglo-Catholic belief concerned by the growth of religious nonconformism, ultimately, the Anglo-Catholicism tradition of religious belief and style became widespread for its intrinsic appeal in the third quarter of the 19th century. The Gothic Revival was paralleled and supported by medievalism, which had its roots in antiquarian concerns with survivals, as industrialisation progressed, a reaction against machine production and the appearance of factories also grew. Proponents of the such as Thomas Carlyle and Augustus Pugin took a critical view of industrial society. To Pugin, Gothic architecture was infused with the Christian values that had been supplanted by classicism and were being destroyed by industrialisation, poems such as Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson recast specifically modern themes in medieval settings of Arthurian romance. In German literature, the Gothic Revival also had a grounding in literary fashions, guarino Guarini, a 17th-century Theatine monk active primarily in Turin, recognized the Gothic order as one of the primary systems of architecture and made use of it in his practice. Some of the earliest evidence of a revival in Gothic architecture is from Scotland, inveraray Castle, constructed from 1746, with design input from William Adam, displays the incorporation of turrets. These were largely conventional Palladian style houses that incorporated some features of the Scots baronial style. The eccentric landscape designer Batty Langley even attempted to improve Gothic forms by giving them classical proportions, a younger generation, taking Gothic architecture more seriously, provided the readership for J. Brittens series of Cathedral Antiquities, which began appearing in 1814. In 1817, Thomas Rickman wrote an Attempt. to name and define the sequence of Gothic styles in English ecclesiastical architecture, the categories he used were Norman, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular. It went through numerous editions and was still being republished by 1881. The largest and most famous Gothic cathedrals in the U. S. A. are St. Patricks Cathedral in New York City and Washington National Cathedral on Mount St. Alban in northwest Washington, D. C. One of the biggest churches in Gothic Revival style in Canada is Basilica of Our Lady Immaculate in Ontario, Gothic Revival architecture was to remain one of the most popular and long-lived of the Gothic Revival styles of architecture. The revived Gothic style was not limited to architecture, classical Gothic buildings of the 12th to 16th Centuries were a source of inspiration to 19th-century designers in numerous fields of work. Architectural elements such as pointed arches, steep-sloping roofs and fancy carvings like lace ant lattice work were applied to a range of Gothic Revival objects. Sir Walter Scotts Abbotsford exemplifies in its furnishings the Regency Gothic style, parties in medieval historical dress and entertainment were popular among the wealthy in the 1800s but has spread in the late 20th century to the well-educated middle class as well. By the mid-19th century, Gothic traceries and niches could be inexpensively re-created in wallpaper, the illustrated catalogue for the Great Exhibition of 1851 is replete with Gothic detail, from lacemaking and carpet designs to heavy machinery
2.
Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church
3.
Pomeranian Voivodeship
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Pomeranian Voivodeship, Pomorskie Region, or Pomerania Province, is a voivodeship, or province, in north-central Poland. It comprises most of Pomerelia, as well as an area east of the Vistula River, the western part of the province, around Słupsk, belonged historically to Farther Pomerania, while Pomerelia and the eastern bank of the Vistula belonged to the historical region of Prussia. The central parts of the province are known as Kashubia. The voivodeship was established on January 1,1999, out of the voivodeships of Gdańsk, Elbląg and Słupsk. It is bordered by West Pomeranian Voivodeship to the west, Greater Poland and Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeships to the south, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship to the east, and it also shares a short land border with Russia, on the Vistula Spit. Gdańsk, the capital, is one of the three members of the Tricity of Sopot, Gdańsk, and Gdynia. The voivodeship also includes the narrow Hel Peninsula and the Polish half of the Vistula Spit, other tourist destinations include Sopot, Jurata, Łeba, Władysławowo, Puck, Krynica Morska, Ustka, Jastarnia, Kuźnica, Bytów and many fishing ports and lighthouses. The name Pomerania comes from the Slavic po more, which means Land at the Sea, the voivodeship contains 42 cities and towns. These are listed below in descending order of population, Pomeranian Voivodeship is divided into 20 counties,4 city counties, and 16 land counties. These are further divided into 123 gminas, the counties are listed below in order of decreasing population. SKM Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa Airport Obwodnica Trójmiejska Autostrada A1 Pomorska Kolej Metropolitalna Protected areas in Pomeranian Voivodeship include two National Parks and nine Landscape Parks, the Greatest Tourist Attractions - Brochure Pomerania Development Agency Co
4.
Vehicle registration plates of Poland
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Polish vehicle registration plates indicate the region of registration of the vehicle encoded in the number plate. According to Polish law, the plate is tied to the vehicle. There is no possibility for the owner to keep the number for use on a different car. The licence plates are issued by the powiat of the vehicle owners registered address of residence, if it is owned by a legal person, the place of registration is determined by the address of its seat. Vehicles leased under operating leases and many de facto finance leases will be registered at the seat of the lessor, when a vehicle changes hands, the new owner must apply for new vehicle registration document bearing his or her name and registered address. The new owner may obtain a new licence plate although it is not necessary when new owners residence address lies in the area as the previous owners. In such a situation the licence plates are carried over to the new owner. If the car has a pre- May 1,2006 plate, the plaque cannot be replaced if destroyed. The change of the set is required. The change in system shown below in 2001 is related to the reduction in the year of the number of voivodeships in Poland from 49 to 16. The pre-2001 licence plates can be used indefinitely, but since they are obsolete they have to be replaced in case of change of vehicles ownership. In the pre-2001 model, there were not sufficient letters in the Polish alphabet for each of the old voivodeships to have a single letter, only the standard latin alphabet were used, the specific Polish characters with diacritics were excluded in order to make the plates fully internationally readable. Therefore, two letters had to be used to indicate the vehicles origin, since the change, the first letter denotes the new voivodeship. One additional letter is used in cities with rights of powiat, two additional letters are used in any other powiat. It is not necessary for EU citizens to re-register the vehicles they have brought them, which are duly registered and taxed elsewhere in the EU. This emerges from European law, although local regulations have to not been changed to reflect the law. If in doubt, refer to your Embassy, if the vehicle uses only one licence plate the excessive sticker must be attached to the registration papers. Each powiat uses a two or three letter code, with the first letter denoting the powiats voivodeship
5.
Town
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A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size definition for what constitutes a town varies considerably in different parts of the world, the word town shares an origin with the German word Zaun, the Dutch word tuin, and the Old Norse tun. The German word Zaun comes closest to the meaning of the word. An early borrowing from Celtic *dunom, in English and Dutch, the meaning of the word took on the sense of the space which these fences enclosed. In England, a town was a community that could not afford or was not allowed to build walls or other larger fortifications. In the Netherlands, this space was a garden, more specifically those of the wealthy, in Old Norse tun means a place between farmhouses, and is still used in a similar meaning in modern Norwegian. If there was any distinction between toun and burgh as claimed by some, it did not last in practice as burghs, for example, Edina Burgh or Edinburgh was built around a fort and eventually came to have a defensive wall. In some cases, town is a name for city or village. Sometimes, the town is short for township. A places population size is not a determinant of urban character. In many areas of the world, as in India at least until recent times, in the United Kingdom, there are historical cities that are far smaller than the larger towns. Some forms of settlement, such as temporary mining locations, may be clearly non-rural. Towns often exist as governmental units, with legally defined borders. In the United States these are referred to as incorporated towns, in other cases the town lacks its own governance and is said to be unincorporated. Note that the existence of a town may be legally set forth through other means. In the case of planned communities, the town exists legally in the form of covenants on the properties within the town. Australian geographer Thomas Griffith Taylor proposed a classification of towns based on their age, although there is no official use of the term for any settlement. In Albanian qytezë means small city or new city, while in ancient times small residential center within the walls of a castle
6.
Vistula
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The Vistula is the longest and largest river in Poland, at 1,047 kilometres in length. The drainage basin area of the Vistula is 194,424 km2, the remainder is in Belarus, Ukraine and Slovakia. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in the south of Poland,1,220 meters above sea level in the Silesian Beskids, where it begins with the White Little Vistula and the Black Little Vistula. It empties into the Vistula Lagoon or directly into the Gdańsk Bay of the Baltic Sea with a delta, the name was first recorded by Pomponius Mela in AD40 and by Pliny in AD77 in his Natural History. Mela names the river Vistula, Pliny uses Vistla, the root of the name Vistula is Indo-European *u̯eis- to ooze, flow slowly and is found in many European rivernames. The diminutive endings -ila, -ula, were used in many Indo-European languages, in writing about the Vistula River and its peoples, Ptolemy uses the Greek spelling Ouistoula. Other ancient sources spell it Istula, ammianus Marcellinus refers to the Bisula, note the absence of the -t-. Jordanes uses Viscla, while the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith refers to it as the Wistla, the Vistula river basin covers 194,424 square kilometres, its average altitude rising to 270 metres above sea level. In addition, the majority of its basin is located at heights of 100 to 200 m above sea level. The highest point of the basin lies at 2,655 metres. The asymmetry of the basin is 73–27%. The most recent glaciation of the Pleistocene epoch, which ended around 10,000 BC, is called the Vistulian glaciation or Weichselian glaciation in regard to north-central Europe. The river forms a delta called the Żuławy Wiślane around the town of Biała Góra near Sztum, about 50 km from the mouth. In the city of Gdańsk the Head of the Leniwka branch separates again into the Szkarpawa branch, the so-called Dead Wisła divides again into the Przegalinie branch flowing into Gdańsk Bay. Until the 14th century the Vistula was divided into an eastern branch, the Elbląg Vistula, and the smaller western branch. Since 1371 the Vistula of Gdańsk is the main artery. After the flood in 1840 an additional branch formed called the Śmiała Wisła, in 1890 through 1895, additional waterworks were carried out up the Świbna. The history of the River Vistula and her valley spans over 2 million years, the river is connected to the geological period called the Quaternary, in which distinct cooling of the climate took place
7.
Teutonic Order
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The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, commonly the Teutonic Order, is a Catholic religious order founded as a military order in the 12th century in Acre. Purely religious since 1929, it still confers limited honorary knighthoods, the order was formed to aid Christians on their pilgrimages to the Holy Land and to establish hospitals. Formed in the year 1190 in Acre, in the Levant, after Christian forces were defeated in the Middle East, the Order moved to Transylvania in 1211 to help defend the South-Eastern borders of the Kingdom of Hungary against the Kipchaks. Starting from there, the Order created the independent Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights, adding continuously the conquered Prussians territory, the Order theoretically lost its main purpose in Europe with the Christianization of Lithuania. However, it initiated numerous campaigns against its Christian neighbours, the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Novgorod Republic. The Teutonic Knights had an economic base, and so hired mercenaries from throughout Europe to augment their feudal levies. In 1410, a Polish-Lithuanian army decisively defeated the Order and broke its military power at the Battle of Grunwald, however, the capital of the Teutonic Knights was successfully defended in the following Siege of Marienburg and the Order was saved from collapse. In 1515, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I made an alliance with Sigismund I of Poland-Lithuania. Thereafter, the empire did not support the Order against Poland, in 1525, Grand Master Albert of Brandenburg resigned and converted to Lutheranism, becoming Duke of Prussia as a vassal of Poland. Soon after, the Order lost Livonia and its holdings in the Protestant areas of Germany, the Order did keep its considerable holdings in Catholic areas of Germany until 1809, when Napoleon Bonaparte ordered its dissolution and the Order lost its last secular holdings. However, the Order continued to exist as a charitable and ceremonial body and it was outlawed by Adolf Hitler in 1938, but re-established in 1945. Today it operates primarily with charitable aims in Central Europe, the Knights wore white surcoats with a black cross. A cross pattée was sometimes used as their coat of arms, the motto of the Order was, Helfen, Wehren, Heilen. The full name of the Order in German is Orden der Brüder vom Deutschen Haus St. Mariens in Jerusalem or in Latin Ordo domus Sanctæ Mariæ Theutonicorum Hierosolymitanorum, thus, the term Teutonic refers to the German origins of the order in Latin. It is commonly known in German as the Deutscher Orden, historically also as Deutscher Ritterorden, Deutschherrenorden, Deutschritterorden or Die Herren im weißen Mantel. However, based on the model of the Knights Templar, it was transformed into an order in 1198. It received papal orders for crusades to take and hold Jerusalem for Christianity, during the rule of Grand Master Hermann von Salza the Order changed from being a hospice brotherhood for pilgrims to primarily a military order. The Order was founded in Acre, and the Knights purchased Montfort, northeast of Acre, the Order also had a castle at Amouda in Armenia Minor
8.
Malbork Castle
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The Castle of the Teutonic Order in Malbork, located in the Polish town of Malbork, is the largest castle in the world measured by land area. It was originally built by the Teutonic Knights, a German Roman Catholic religious order of crusaders, the town which grew around it was also named Marienburg. In 1466, both castle and town became part of Royal Prussia, a province of Poland, heavily damaged after World War II, the castle was renovated under the auspices of modern-day Poland in the second half of the 20th century and most recently in 2016. Nowadays, the castle hosts exhibitions and serves as a museum, the castle is a classic example of a medieval fortress and, on its completion in 1406, was the worlds largest brick castle. UNESCO designated the Castle of the Teutonic Order in Malbork and the Malbork Castle Museum a World Heritage Site in December 1997 and it is one of two World Heritage Sites in the region with origins in the Teutonic Order. The other is the Medieval Town of Toruń, founded in 1231 as the site of the castle Thorn, Malbork Castle is also one of Polands official national Historic Monuments, as designated September 16,1994. Its listing is maintained by the National Heritage Board of Poland, the castle was built by the Teutonic Order after the conquest of Old Prussia. Its main purpose was to strengthen their own control of the following the Orders 1274 suppression of the Great Prussian Uprising of the Baltic tribes. The work lasted until around 1300, under the auspices of Commander Heinrich von Wilnowe, the castle is located on the southeastern bank of the river Nogat. It was named Marienburg after Mary, patron saint of the religious Order, the Order had been created in Acre. When this last stronghold of the Crusades fell to Muslim Arabs, Malbork became more important in the aftermath of the Teutonic Knights conquest of Gdańsk and Pomerania in 1308. The Orders administrative centre was moved to Marienburg from Elbing, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, Siegfried von Feuchtwangen, who arrived in Marienburg from Venice, undertook the next phase of the fortress construction. In 1309, in the wake of the persecution of the Knights Templar. He chose the site of Marienburg conveniently located on the Nogat in the Vistula Delta, as with most cities of the time, the new centre was dependent on water for transportation. The castle was expanded several times to house the number of Knights. Soon, it became the largest fortified Gothic building in Europe, the castle has several subdivisions and numerous layers of defensive walls. It consists of three separate castles - the High, Middle and Lower Castles, separated by dry moats. The castle once housed approximately 3,000 brothers in arms, the outermost castle walls enclose 21 ha, four times the enclosed area of Windsor Castle
9.
Fortification
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Fortifications are military constructions or buildings designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and also used to solidify rule in a region during peace time. Humans have constructed defensive works for many thousands of years, in a variety of increasingly complex designs, the term is derived from the Latin fortis and facere. From very early history to modern times, walls have been a necessity for cities to survive in a changing world of invasion. Some settlements in the Indus Valley Civilization were the first small cities to be fortified, in ancient Greece, large stone walls had been built in Mycenaean Greece, such as the ancient site of Mycenae. A Greek Phrourion was a collection of buildings used as a military garrison. These construction mainly served the purpose of a tower, to guard certain roads, passes. Though smaller than a fortress, they acted as a border guard rather than a real strongpoint to watch. The art of setting out a camp or constructing a fortification traditionally has been called castramentation since the time of the Roman legions. Fortification is usually divided into two branches, permanent fortification and field fortification, there is also an intermediate branch known as semi-permanent fortification. Castles are fortifications which are regarded as being distinct from the fort or fortress in that they are a residence of a monarch or noble. Roman forts and hill forts were the antecedents of castles in Europe. The Early Middle Ages saw the creation of towns built around castles. Medieval-style fortifications were made obsolete by the arrival of cannons in the 14th century. Fortifications in the age of black powder evolved into much lower structures with greater use of ditches and earth ramparts that would absorb, Walls exposed to direct cannon fire were very vulnerable, so were sunk into ditches fronted by earth slopes. The arrival of explosive shells in the 19th century led to yet another stage in the evolution of fortification, steel-and-concrete fortifications were common during the 19th and early 20th centuries. However the advances in warfare since World War I have made large-scale fortifications obsolete in most situations. Demilitarized zones along borders are arguably another type of fortification, although a passive kind, many military installations are known as forts, although they are not always fortified. Larger forts may be called fortresses, smaller ones were known as fortalices
10.
Mary, mother of Jesus
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Mary, also known by various titles, styles and honorifics, was a 1st-century Galilean Jewish woman of Nazareth and the mother of Jesus, according to the New Testament and the Quran. The gospels of Matthew and Luke in the New Testament and the Quran describe Mary as a virgin, the miraculous birth took place when she was already betrothed to Joseph and was awaiting the concluding rite of marriage, the formal home-taking ceremony. She married Joseph and accompanied him to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, the Gospel of Luke begins its account of Marys life with the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and announced her divine selection to be the mother of Jesus. According to canonical gospel accounts, Mary was present at the crucifixion and is depicted as a member of the early Christian community in Jerusalem. According to the Catholic and Orthodox teaching, at the end of her life her body was assumed directly into Heaven. Mary has been venerated since Early Christianity, and is considered by millions to be the most meritorious saint of the religion and she is claimed to have miraculously appeared to believers many times over the centuries. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches believe that Mary, there is significant diversity in the Marian beliefs and devotional practices of major Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church holds distinctive Marian dogmas, namely her status as the Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, her perpetual virginity, many Protestants minimize Marys role within Christianity, based on the argued brevity of biblical references. Mary also has a position in Islam, where one of the longer chapters of the Quran is devoted to her. Marys name in the manuscripts of the New Testament was based on her original Aramaic name ܡܪܝܡ. The English name Mary comes from the Greek Μαρία, which is a form of Μαριάμ. Both Μαρία and Μαριάμ appear in the New Testament, in Christianity, Mary is commonly referred to as the Virgin Mary, in accordance with the belief that she conceived Jesus miraculously through the Holy Spirit without her husbands involvement. The three main titles for Mary used by the Orthodox are Theotokos, Aeiparthenos as confirmed in the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, Catholics use a wide variety of titles for Mary, and these titles have in turn given rise to many artistic depictions. For example, the title Our Lady of Sorrows has inspired such masterpieces as Michelangelos Pietà, the title Theotokos was recognized at the Council of Ephesus in 431. However, this phrase in Greek, in the abbreviated form ΜΡ ΘΥ, is an indication commonly attached to her image in Byzantine icons. The Council stated that the Church Fathers did not hesitate to speak of the holy Virgin as the Mother of God, some Marian titles have a direct scriptural basis. For instance, the title Queen Mother has been given to Mary since she was the mother of Jesus, the scriptural basis for the term Queen can be seen in Luke 1,32 and the Isaiah 9,6. Queen Mother can be found in 1 Kings 2, 19-20 and Jeremiah 13, other titles have arisen from reported miracles, special appeals or occasions for calling on Mary
11.
Castle
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A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. Usage of the term has varied over time and has applied to structures as diverse as hill forts. Over the approximately 900 years that castles were built, they took on a great many forms with different features, although some, such as curtain walls. A European innovation, castles originated in the 9th and 10th centuries, after the fall of the Carolingian Empire resulted in its territory being divided among individual lords and princes. Although their military origins are often emphasised in castle studies, the structures served as centres of administration. Many castles were built from earth and timber, but had their defences replaced later by stone. Early castles often exploited natural defences, lacking features such as towers and arrowslits, in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, a scientific approach to castle defence emerged. This led to the proliferation of towers, with an emphasis on flanking fire, many new castles were polygonal or relied on concentric defence – several stages of defence within each other that could all function at the same time to maximise the castles firepower. These changes in defence have been attributed to a mixture of castle technology from the Crusades, such as concentric fortification, not all the elements of castle architecture were military in nature, so that devices such as moats evolved from their original purpose of defence into symbols of power. Some grand castles had long winding approaches intended to impress and dominate their landscape, while castles continued to be built well into the 16th century, new techniques to deal with improved cannon fire made them uncomfortable and undesirable places to live. As a result, true castles went into decline and were replaced by artillery forts with no role in civil administration, and country houses that were indefensible. From the 18th century onwards, there was a renewed interest in castles with the construction of castles, part of a romantic revival of Gothic architecture. The word castle is derived from the Latin word castellum, which is a diminutive of the word castrum, meaning fortified place. The Old English castel, Old French castel or chastel, French château, Spanish castillo, Italian castello, the word castle was introduced into English shortly before the Norman Conquest to denote this type of building, which was then new to England. In its simplest terms, the definition of a castle accepted amongst academics is a fortified residence. Feudalism was the link between a lord and his vassal where, in return for service and the expectation of loyalty. Castles served a range of purposes, the most important of which were military, administrative, as well as defensive structures, castles were also offensive tools which could be used as a base of operations in enemy territory
12.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
Poland
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