The Industrial Revolution, beginning in Great Britain, allowed masses of people, not just the rich, to escape for the first time from lives of being always poor and barely able to afford either food or shelter. The early British Empire split as its colonies in America revolted to establish their own representative government. Political change in continental Europe was spurred by the French Revolution, as people cried out for "liberté, egalité, fraternité" (liberty, equality, brotherhood). The French leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, conquered and reformed the social structure of the continent through war up to 1815, when he met his final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo and was sent away into exile. As more and more small property holders were granted the vote, especially in France and the UK, socialist and trade union activity developed and revolution gripped Europe in 1848. The last vestiges of serfdom were abolished in Austria-Hungary in 1848. Russian serfdom was abolished in 1861. The Balkan nations began to regain their independence from the Ottoman Empire. After the Franco-Prussian War, Italy and Germany were formed, each from groups of smaller countries which spoke the same languages, in 1870 and 1871.
Conflict intensified across the globe, in a chase for empires, where powerful countries turned less powerful ones into colonies, until the outbreak, in 1914, of the biggest war that had ever been fought up to that point in time. It was called the Great War but now most often called World War I or the First World War. In the desperation of war, the Russian Revolution promised the people "peace, bread and land" and led to the end of the Russian Empire and its replacement by the formation of the Soviet Union. The defeat of Germany came at the price of economic destruction, which was formally written into the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 where it was stated that the First World War had been entirely the fault of Germany and its allies and demanded that they pay back the entire amount the war had cost.
The Great Depression began in 1929, brought about in part by the economic problems caused by the attempt to force Germany to pay for the war and in part by trade restrictions. Millions of people around the world lost their jobs. Governments changed in many countries, some by elections and some by revolutions. The governments soon fell into two main groups, those who believed in freedom and human rights and those who followed fascism. These two deeply different views led to a Second World War, which most people who write history feel began in Europe when Germany invaded Poland in 1939, but soon spread to most of the countries in the world. It took in wars which were already happening in other places, most notably the war between Japan and China. After this war Communism spread to Central and Eastern Europe, including the relatively new Eastern European countries of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, and in Asia North Vietnam and North Korea, and, slightly later, to Cuba in the Carribean Sea very near to North America.
The conflict between the advocates of a capitalist economy and democratic political system and a communistic economy and political system led to the Cold War, a forty-year argument between the United States and the Soviet Union, two of the countries which had worked together to win the Second World War and the two which had come out of it with the most powerful military forces. They led respectively a Western Bloc and an Eastern Bloc, dividing Europe. Each side wanted to promote their type of government. People across the world feared a nuclear war because of the tension, and Europe, divided by the Iron Curtain, was assumed to be a probable battleground.
Communism became less attractive when it became clear that it could promote economic growth less effectively than the capitalistic Western states and that it was not suited for a reform that allowed freedom of speech for everyone. Therefore, the Soviet Union forced Hungary to give up its reform in 1956, it favoured the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and it stopped reform in Czechoslovakia in 1968. When in 1988/89 the Soviet leader Gorbachev made clear that he would not force the countries of the East block to stick to Communism the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989 and the Soviet Union collapsed (1991). Then the United States was the only superpower left.
Europe signed a new treaty of union, which included 27 European countries in 2007.
World Games
World Games are international competition in several sports since first edition in 1981.
Peace of Westphalia
The Peace of Westphalia refers to the pair of peace treaties, the Treaty of Osnabrück and the Treaty of Münster, signed on May 15 and October 24 of 1648, which ended both the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War. The treaties involved the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand III Habsburg, the other German princes, Spain, France, Sweden and representatives of the Dutch Republic. The Treaty of the Pyrenees, signed in 1659, ending the war between France and Spain, is also often considered part of the overall accord.
The peace negotiations were held in the cities of Münster and Osnabrück, which lie about 50 km apart from each other, in the present day German states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony. Sweden had favoured Osnabrück due to its Protestant background, France chose Münster due to its Catholic background. In any case two locations were required because Protestant and Catholic leaders refused to meet each other. The Catholics used Münster, while the Protestants used Osnabrück.
Spain accepted the independence of the Dutch Republic.
The power which Ferdinand III had taken for himself against the Holy Roman Empire's constitution was stripped. That meant that the rulers of the German states were again able to determine the religion of their lands.
There were also territorial adjustments.
Flanimals
Flanimals is a children's and adults' book written by comedian Ricky Gervais. The book was illustrated by Rob Steen. It has 35 different characters described as species of animal which form an imaginary world.
Trolleybus
A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tram or simply trolley) is a bus which runs on electricity. It gets its power for the electric motors that drive the wheels from a pair of power lines above the street.
On the roof of the bus are two "trolley poles" from which electric current flows between the wires and the bus. One wire is for the positive current and the other is for the negative (return) current.
Because trolleybuses do not usually have engines which burn diesel or other fossil fuels, they are much cleaner and quieter than "normal" buses. They also do not use tracks, so they are more flexible than trams. But as these buses often cannot run without power from the wires, their range is still limited compared to ordinary buses.
Trolleybuses cost more money to make than other types of buses, so there are not many companies that build this type of bus. Some of these companies are:
Van Hool
Van Hool is a Belgian company, which builds buses. It was founded in 1947 by Bernard Van Hool.
The headquarters are in Koningshooikt (Antwerp).
They have got 15 different buses for the city. 9 of them have got a normal engine, 4 have got an engine that works with gas, and 2 buses have got an electric engine, they are called Trolleybus.
List of all types of Low-Floor-Bus (Citybus):
Also they have got 13 different kinds of coachbuses.
List of all types of coachbuses:
Battle of Antietam