Europe's History

choi

Jeffrey Collins, Cockpit of the West; The ceaseless efforts by European nations to dominate their rivals shaped the modern world. Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2013
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 85121917413226.html
(book review on Brendan Simms, Europe; The struggle for supremacy from 1453 to the present. Basic, 2013)

Quote: "Europe covers roughly 7% of the land mass of Earth, but by 1800 it ruled 35% of the globe and by 1914 a staggering 84%. This imperial predominance, however, is not the 'struggle for supremacy' that interests Ms. Simms. He is concerned with the ceaseless efforts of various European nations to dominate the Continent itself.

Note:
(1) Leopold von Ranke
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_von_Ranke
(2) "The Ottomans march to the gates of Vienna twice"
(a) Siege of Vienna
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Vienna
(Sept 27-Oct 15, 1529; Result  Ottoman withdrawal)
(b) Battle of Vienna
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna
(Sept 11 and 12, 1683; Result Decisive Holy League victory)
* History of Hungary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Hungary
(section 2.5 Decline (1490–1526): By the early 16th century, the Ottoman Empire became the second most populous state in the world, which opened the door to creation of the largest armies of the era)

(3) "Silesia is seized three times"

Silesia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silesia
(section 2 Etymology; In 1742, most of Silesia was seized [from Austria] by King Frederick the Great of Prussia in the War of the Austrian Succession)

Despite diligent search, I can't find the three seizures. It was Bohemian (part of Holy Roman Empire), then Prussian, and finally Polish.

(4) "Poland partitioned four [times]"

Partitions of Poland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitions_of_Poland
(1772, 1793 and 1795; In Polish historiography, the term "Fourth Partition of Poland" has also been used)

(5) Nine Years' War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Years%27_War
(1688–1697; The War was the second of Louis XIV's three major wars; Louis XIV at last faced a powerful coalition aimed at curtailing his ambitions [and he lost])

(6) second Hundred Years' War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Hundred_Years%27_War
(c 1689-c 1815; The term appears to have been coined by J. R. Seeley in his influential work "The Expansion of England: Two Courses of Lectures" (1883)

(7) "The threat of a 'universal monarchy' advanced and receded like the tide across the centuries. In the 16th century it rose in the colossal Holy Roman Empire of Charles V, which encompassed the German lands, the Low Countries, Spain and Spain's American empire."

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_V,_Holy_Roman_Emperor
(1500-1558; ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I as Holy Roman Emperor and his son Philip II as King of Spain in 1556; view the map)

(8) "Germany, he writes, 'was the semi-conductor linking the various parts of the European balance.'"

This is not semiconductor in electronics, but a (human) conductor of an orchestra.