Beginner’s Guide

This guide walks you through the thread of European history across more than 1,200 years, from Charlemagne to the end of World War II. History is not a black-and-white morality play; here we try to present the facts the sources support, and to mark the boundary between legend and fact, so you can judge for yourself how to view these figures.

A Few Things to Know First

European history is not a single straight line but several parallel threads: dynastic succession, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment thought, movements for national independence — often intertwined in the same period. This site’s relationship graph groups the 64 figures into eight blocks by theme and era, so you can first see the overall structure and then go deep into one thread.
The boundary between "legend" and "fact" exists in European history too — the exact arrangement of Charlemagne’s coronation, whether "I am the state" was really Louis XIV’s own words, whether "let them eat cake" truly came from Marie Antoinette’s mouth: for such details this site notes the uncertainty in the "differing versions" column, so that the most widely told version is not taken as necessarily true.
For historical facts of very high scholarly consensus, such as World War II and the Holocaust, this site presents them by direct statement, without softening phrases like "some people believe" — such facts have been amply confirmed by the Nuremberg trials, a vast body of original archives, and survivor testimony, and the seriousness of historical fact should not be diluted by a false "balance of views."
The relationships among European historical figures are often at once "enmity" and "kinship of a kind" — Richard I and Saladin clashed again and again over the holy land yet admired each other; Napoleon and Wellington were the foes who ended each other’s fate. This complexity is itself among the most intriguing parts of European history.

A Few Suggestions

Grasp the broad thread first: the Carolingian empire, the medieval Crusades, the Renaissance and the Age of Exploration, the Reformation, absolutist power, the Enlightenment, Revolution and Napoleon, the unification of the nation-states, the two World Wars. Hold on to this main line and the individual figures naturally find a place to hang.
Do not judge the monarchs of the past simply by modern moral standards — the absolutism of Louis XIV, the forced westernization of Peter the Great, had their own logic in the historical context of the time; but this does not mean the site defends the oppression or atrocities of history. The site’s stance is "understand the context," not "rationalize everything."
For the content on Hitler, Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust, we suggest reading it with the mindset that "this is to be remembered, not consumed as spectacle" — the site’s stance is to state the facts amply confirmed by historians and international tribunals, with no beautifying of any kind.

How to Read

To learn "what actually happened," look at the timeline

This site’s timeline is organized into ten historical stages, each with its concrete events and connected figures — the most direct entry point for learning "who did what, and when."

To learn "how the figures connect," look at the relationship graph

The graph groups the 64 figures into eight blocks by era and theme, so you can see at a glance the inheritance from Charlemagne to the Holy Roman Empire, the patronage between Isabella and Columbus, the distant echo of Darwin and Marx — these links are themselves the best entry into understanding that "history is not a set of isolated events."

To learn "where this history still lives today," look at the modern echoes and the map

From the idiom "meet one’s Waterloo" to the EU anthem Ode to Joy, from the phrase "empire on which the sun never set" to Germany’s ongoing practice of historical education, the marks left by European history are far closer to daily life than one imagines — and the site’s world map also plots real historical coordinates from the field of Hastings to the Auschwitz camp.

Going Deeper: General Histories

Norman Davies, Europe: A HistoryA general history of Europe by a British historian, noted for breaking the "Western-Europe-centered narrative" and giving weight to the history of Eastern and Central Europe — an important introduction to the overall thread of European history.

A History of World Civilizations: The European Volume (Felix Gilbert et al.)A systematic account of Europe’s political, social, and intellectual evolution from the classical age to the modern, well suited to reading chapter by chapter against this site’s division of eras.

Going Deeper: Focused Reading

Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of AugustA Pulitzer Prize-winning work reconstructing in fine detail the chain of diplomatic decisions among the European powers on the eve of the First World War — a classic for understanding "how a single shot at Sarajevo ignited a world war."

Ian Kershaw, Hitler (a two-volume biography)One of the most authoritative scholarly biographies in contemporary Hitler research, systematically tracing his rise and rule on the basis of detailed archives — necessary and careful reading for a serious understanding of this history.

Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924A fine tracing of the social roots and historical course of the Russian Revolution, covering the whole chain from Nicholas II and Rasputin to Lenin’s seizure of power.

A Timeline of Coordinates

The Middle Ages (8th–15th centuries)

800 Charlemagne crowned "Emperor of the Romans"
962 Otto I crowned, the dawn of the Holy Roman Empire
1066 The Battle of Hastings, the Norman Conquest of England
1187 Saladin retakes Jerusalem
1429 Joan of Arc lifts the siege of Orléans

The Renaissance and the Reformation (15th–16th centuries)

1450s Gutenberg prints the Gutenberg Bible
1492 The fall of Granada, Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas
1517 Martin Luther sparks the Reformation (see the "Religions" universe)
1534 Henry VIII issues the Act of Supremacy
1588 England defeats the Spanish Armada

The Scientific Revolution and Absolutist Power (17th century)

1633 Galileo tried by the Inquisition
1649 England executes Charles I, Cromwell sets up a republic
1687 Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy published
1712 Peter the Great moves the capital to St. Petersburg

The Enlightenment and the Revolution (18th century)

1762 Catherine II ascends the throne
1776–1789 Enlightenment thought spreads widely, the eve of the French Revolution
1789 The French Revolution breaks out
1793 Marie Antoinette is executed
1804 Napoleon crowns himself emperor
1815 The Battle of Waterloo, the Congress of Vienna

The Nation-States and the Two World Wars (19th–20th centuries)

1861 The Kingdom of Italy is founded
1871 The German Empire is unified
1914 The Sarajevo assassination, the outbreak of World War I
1917 The Russian Revolution
1939 Hitler invades Poland, the outbreak of World War II
1945 The defeat of Nazi Germany
1946 Churchill delivers the "Iron Curtain speech," the Cold War order takes shape