1.
Palace of Culture and Science
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Constructed in 1955, the Palace of Culture and Science is a notable high-rise building in Warsaw, Poland. The Palace of Culture and Science is the tallest building in Poland and it is 237 metres tall, including the structural 43-metre high spire. The building was known as the Joseph Stalin Palace of Culture and Science. Stalins name was removed from the colonnade, interior lobby and one of the buildings sculptures, varsovians still commonly use nicknames to refer to the palace, notably Pekin, and Pajac. Other less common names include Stalins syringe, the Elephant in Lacy Underwear, however, only Pekin was the popular alternative name. The four walls of the signpost display the names of large or important cities around the world. Construction started in 1952 and lasted until 1955, a gift from the Soviet Union to the people of Poland, the tower was constructed, using Soviet plans, by 3500–5000 Russian workers and 4000 Polish workers. 16 workers died in accidents during the construction, the Russian builders were housed at a new suburban complex built at Polands expense, with its own cinema, food court, community centre and swimming pool, called Osiedle Przyjaźń. The architecture of the building is related to several similar skyscrapers built in the Soviet Union of the same era. However, the main architect Lev Rudnev incorporated some Polish architectural details into the project after traveling around Poland, the monumental walls are headed with pieces of masonry copied from Renaissance houses and palaces of Kraków and Zamość. Shortly after opening, the hosted the 5th World Festival of Youth. In 1985, it hosted the historic Leonard Cohen concert, surrounded by many political expectations, four 6. 3-metre clock faces were added to the top of the building ahead of the millennium celebrations in 2000. As the citys most visible landmark, the building was controversial from its inception, many Poles initially hated the building because they considered it to be a symbol of Soviet domination, and at least some of that negative feeling persists today. Some have also argued that, regardless of its political connotations and this contrast has been lessened somewhat over the years with the construction of several skyscrapers in the vicinity. Despite the controversies, the Palace became a recognized symbol of Warsaw. The building currently serves as a center and office complex. The terrace on the 30th floor, at 114 metres, is a well-known tourist attraction with a view of the city. The Congress Hall held the finals of Miss World 2006, in 2010, the illumination of the building was modernized and high power LED lights were installed, allowing the Palace to take various colours at night
2.
Warsaw
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Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It stands on the Vistula River in east-central Poland, roughly 260 kilometres from the Baltic Sea and 300 kilometres from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population is estimated at 1.750 million residents within a metropolitan area of 3.101 million residents. The city limits cover 516.9 square kilometres, while the area covers 6,100.43 square kilometres. Once described as Paris of the East, Warsaw was believed to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world until World War II. On 9 November 1939, the city was awarded Polands highest military decoration for heroism, Warsaw is one of Europe’s most dynamic metropolitan cities. In 2012 the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Warsaw as the 32nd most liveable city in the world, in 2017 the city came 4th in the “Business-friendly” category and 8th in the “Human capital and life style”. It was also ranked as one of the most liveable cities in Central, Warsaw is considered an Alpha– global city, a major international tourist destination and a significant cultural, political and economic hub. The city is a significant centre of research and development, BPO, ITO, the Warsaw Stock Exchange is the largest and most important in Central and Eastern Europe. Frontex, the European Union agency for external security, has its headquarters in Warsaw. Together with Frankfurt, London and Paris, Warsaw is also one of the cities with the highest number of skyscrapers in the European Union, the city is the seat of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra and the University of Warsaw. The historic city-centre of Warsaw with its picturesque Old Town in 1980 was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, buildings represent examples of nearly every European architectural style and historical period. Warsaw provides many examples of architecture from the gothic, renaissance, baroque, neoclassical and modern periods, furthermore, the city is positioning itself as Europes chic cultural capital with thriving art and club scenes and renowned restaurants. Folk etymology attributes the city name to a fisherman, Wars, according to legend, Sawa was a mermaid living in the Vistula River with whom Wars fell in love. In actuality, Warsz was a 12th/13th-century nobleman who owned a village located at the site of Mariensztat neighbourhood. See also the Vršovci family which had escaped to Poland, the official city name in full is miasto stołeczne Warszawa. A native or resident of Warsaw is known as a Varsovian – in Polish warszawiak, warszawianin, warszawianka, warszawiacy, other names for Warsaw include Varsovia and Varsóvia, Varsovie, Varsavia, Warschau, װאַרשע /Varshe, Варшава /Varšava /Varshava, Varšuva, Varsó. The first fortified settlements on the site of todays Warsaw were located in Bródno, after Jazdów was raided by nearby clans and dukes, a new similar settlement was established on the site of a small fishing village called Warszowa
3.
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
4.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
5.
Civic Platform
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Civic Platform is a liberal-conservative, Christian democratic, and liberal political party in Poland. Civic Platform came to following the 2007 general election as the major coalition partner in Polands government. Tusk was re-elected as Prime Minister in the 2011 general election, Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz led the party in the 2015 general election but was defeated by the Law and Justice party. On November 16,2015 Civic Platform government stepped down after exactly 8 years in power, in 2010 Civic Platform candidate Bronisław Komorowski was elected as President of Poland, but failed in running for re-election in 2015. PO is the second largest party in the Sejm, with 138 seats, Civic Platform is a member of the European Peoples Party. The party was formed in 2001 as a split from Solidarity Electoral Action, under the leadership of Andrzej Olechowski and Maciej Płażyński, in the 2001 general election, PO emerged as the largest opposition party, behind the ruling centre-left party Democratic Left Alliance. PO remained the second-largest party at the 2005 general election, but this time behind the national-conservative party Law, in 2007, Civic Platform overtook PiS, now established as the two dominant parties, and formed a coalition government with the Polish Peoples Party. Following the Smolensk disaster of April 2010, Bronisław Komorowski became the first President from PO in the 2010 presidential election, since its creation, the party has shown stronger electoral performances in the west and north of Poland. The Civic Platform was founded in 2001 as a split from existing parties, founders Andrzej Olechowski, Maciej Płażyński, and Donald Tusk were sometimes jokingly called the Three Tenors by Polish media and commentators. Olechowski and Płażyński left the party during the 2001–2005 parliamentary term, leaving Tusk as the remaining founder. I can say that I participated in a number of discussions, above all, I had to convince Olechowski and Paweł Piskorski to an idea, I also talked to Donald Tusk, said Czempiński. In the 2001 general election the party secured 12. 6% of the vote and 58 deputies in the Sejm, in 2005, PO led all opinion polls with 26% to 30% of public support. However, in the 2005 general election, in which it was led by Jan Rokita, PO polled only 24. 1% and unexpectedly came second to the 27% garnered by Law and Justice. A centre-right coalition of PO and PiS was deemed most likely to form a government after the election, yet the putative coalition parties had a falling out in the wake of the fiercely contested Polish presidential election of 2005. Lech Kaczyński won the round of the presidential election on 23 October 2005 with 54% of the vote, ahead of Tusk. Due to the demands of PiS for control of all the armed ministries, instead, PiS formed a coalition government with the support of the League of Polish Families and Self-Defense of the Republic of Poland. PO became the opposition to this PiS-led coalition government, the PiS-led coalition fell apart in 2007 amid corruption scandal with Andrzej Lepper and Tomasz Lipiec and internal leadership disputes. These events led to the new elections in 2007, in the 21 October 2007 parliamentary election, PO won 41. 51% of the popular vote and 209 out of 460 seats in the Sejm and 60 out of 100 seats in the Senate of Poland
6.
Law and Justice
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Law and Justice, abbreviated to PiS, is a right-wing national-conservative, and Christian democratic political party in Poland. With 216 seats in the Sejm and 56 in the Senate, the party was founded in 2001 by the Kaczyński twins, Lech and Jarosław. It was formed part of the Solidarity Electoral Action, with the Christian democratic Centre Agreement forming the new partys core. The party won the 2005 election, while Lech Kaczyński won the presidency, Jarosław served as Prime Minister, before calling elections in 2007, in which the party came second to Civic Platform. Several leading members, including Lech Kaczyński, died in a crash in 2010. The party programme is dominated by the Kaczyńskis conservative and law, the party is solidarist and mildly eurosceptic. PiS is a member of the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe European political party, the current sixteen PiS MEPs sit, as well as three other people elected from the PiS register, in the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament. The AWS itself was created from an array of many small right-wing political parties. In the 2001 general election PiS gained 44 seats in the chamber of the Polish Parliament with 9. 5% of votes. In 2002, Lech Kaczyński was elected mayor of Warsaw and he handed the party leadership to his twin brother in 2003. In the 2005 general election, PiS took first place with 27. 0% of votes and it was almost universally expected that the two largest parties, PiS and Civic Platform, would form a coalition government. The putative coalition parties had an out, however, related to a fierce contest for the Polish presidency. In the end, Lech Kaczyński won the round of the presidential election on 23 October 2005 with 54. 0% of the vote, ahead of Donald Tusk. After the 2005 elections, Jarosław should have become Prime Minister, in July 2006 PiS formed a right-wing coalition government with the agrarian populist Self-Defense of the Republic of Poland and nationalist League of Polish Families, headed by Jarosław Kaczyński. Association with these parties, on the margins of Polish politics, when accusations of corruption and sexual harassment against Andrzej Lepper, the leader of Self Defense, surfaced, PiS chose to end the coalition and called for new elections. In the 2007 general election PiS managed to secure 32. 1% of votes, although an improvement over its showing from 2005, the results were nevertheless a defeat for the party, as Civic Platform gathered 41. 5%. The party won 166 out of 460 seats in the Sejm and 39 seats in Polands Senate, on 10 April 2010, its former leader Lech Kaczyński died in the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash. The party won the 2015 parliamentary election, this time with an outright majority—something no Polish party had done since the fall of Communism, in the normal course of events, this should have made Jarosław Kaczyński prime minister for a second time
