July 6
The Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck gains possession of Glücksburg and changes his title to Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. The line of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg later becomes the royal house of Greece, Denmark and Norway.
The U.S. Senate ratifies treaties with the Cheyenne tribe.
July 16 – The U.S. Senate ratifies treaties with the Hunkpapa tribe.
July 18 – The U.S. Senate ratifies treaties with the Ricara tribes.
July 30
Malden Island (an uninhabited island in the central Pacific Ocean) is discovered by George Byron, 7th Baron Byron.
The U.S. Senate ratifies treaties with the Mandan, Belantae, Eloa and Minnetaree tribes.
August 4 – The U.S. Senate ratifies treaties with the Ricara tribes.
August 6 – Bolivia gains its independence from Spain as a republic, at the instigation of Simón Bolívar.
August 11 – The U.S. Senate ratifies treaties with the Crow tribe.
August 18 – Scottish adventurer Gregor MacGregor issues a £300,000 loan with 2.5% interest, through the London bank of Thomas Jenkins & Company, for the fictitious Central American republic of Poyais. His actions lead to the Panic of 1825, the first modern stock market crash, in England.
August 22 – The National Mexican Rite is created in Mexico City.
August 25 – Uruguay is declared independent of the Empire of Brazil by the Thirty-Three Orientals, a militant revolutionary group led by Juan Antonio Lavalleja.
September – The Lady Margaret Boat Club is founded by 12 members of St John's College, Cambridge.
September 25 – General Hendrik Merkus de Kock lifts the siege of Jogjakarta, the first major action of the Java War.
September 26 – The U.S. Senate ratifies treaties with the Missouri and Ottoe tribes.
September 27 – The world's first modern railway, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, opens in England.
September 30 – The U.S. Senate ratifies treaties with the Pawnee tribe.


On August 1 of this year the 1929 Palestine riots broke out between Palestinians and Jews over control of the Western Wall. The rioting, initiated in part when British police tore down a screen the Jews had constructed in front of the Wall, continued until the end of the month. In total, 133 Jews and 116 Palestinians were killed. Two of the more famous incidents occurring during these riots were the August 23–24 1929 Hebron massacre, in which almost 70 Jews were killed by Palestinians and the remaining Jews are forced to stay at Hebron. The Palestinians had been told that Jews were killing Palestinians. Jews would not return to Hebron until after the Six-Day War in 1967. The other major clash was the 1929 Safed massacre, in which 18–20 Jews were killed by Palestinians in Safed in similar fashion. Elsewhere in the Middle East, Iraq took a big step toward gaining independence from the British. The Iraqi government had, since the end of World War I and the beginning of the British Mandate in the Middle East, consistently resisted British hegemony. In September, Great Britain announced it would support Iraq's inclusion in the League of Nations, signaling the beginning of the end of their direct control of the region.
Early in 1929, the Afghan Civil War saw the Afghan leader King Amanullah lose power to the Saqqawists under Habibullāh Kalakāni. Kalakani's rule, however, only lasted nine months. Nadir Shah replaced him in October, starting a line of monarchs which would last 40 years. In India, a general strike in Bombay continued throughout the year despite efforts by the British. On December 29, the All India Congress in Lahore declared Indian independence from Britain, something it had threatened to do if Britain did not grant India dominion status. China and Russia engaged in a minor conflict after China seized full control of the Manchurian Chinese Eastern Railway. Russia counterattacked and took the cities of Hailar and Manchouli after issuing an ultimatum demanding joint control of the railway to be reinstated. The Chinese agreed to the terms on November 26. The Japanese would later see this defeat as a sign of Chinese weakness, leading to their taking control of Manchuria. The Far East began to experience economic problems late in the year as the effects of the Great Depression began to spread. Southeast Asia was especially hard hit as its exports (spice, rubber, and other commodities) were more sensitive to economic problems. In the Pacific, on December 28 – "Black Saturday" in Samoa – New Zealand colonial police killed 11 unarmed demonstrators, an event which led the Mau movement to demand independence for Samoa.


In May, Joseph Stalin consolidated his power in the Soviet Union by sending Leon Trotsky into exile. The only country that would grant Trotsky asylum was Turkey, in return for his help during Turkey's civil war. He and his family left the USSR aboard ship on February 12. Stalin turned on his former political ally, Nikolai Bukharin, who was the last real threat to his power. By the end of the year Bukharin had been defeated. Once Stalin was in power, he turned his former support for Lenin's New Economic Policy into opposition. In November, Stalin declared that it "The Year of the Great Breakthrough" and stated that the country would focus on industrial programs as well as on collectivizing the grain supply. He hoped to surpass the West not only in agriculture, but in industry. Millions of Soviet farmers were removed from their private farms, their property was collected, and they were moved to state-owned farms. Stalin emphasized in 1929 a campaign demonizing kulaks as a plague on society. Kulak property was taken and they were deported by cattle train to areas of frozen tundra.
The timber market in Finland began to decline in 1929 due to the Great Depression, as well as the Soviet Union's entrance into the market. Financial and political problems culminated in the birth of the fascist Lapua Movement on November 23 in a demonstration in Lapua. The movement's stated aim was Finnish democracy and anti-communism. The Finnish legislature received heavy pressure to remove basic rights from Communist groups. Politics in Lithuania was heated, as President Voldemaras was unpopular in some quarters, and survived an assassination attempt in Kaunas. Later, while attending a meeting of the League of Nations, he was ousted in a coup by President Smetona, who made himself dictator. Upon Voldemaras' removal from office, Geležinis Vilkas went underground and received aid and encouragement in its activities from Germany. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was renamed the "Kingdom of Yugoslavia" as King Alexander sought to unite the South Slavs under his rule. The state's new Monarchy replaced the old parliament, which had been dominated by Serbs.


Literature of the time reflected the memories many harbored of the horrors of World War I. A major seller was All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. Remarque was a German who had fought in the war at age eighteen and been wounded in the Third Battle of Ypres. He stated that he intended the book to tell the story "of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war." Another 1929 book reflecting on World War I was Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, as well as Good-Bye to All That by Robert Graves. In lighter media, a few stars of the comic industry made their debut, including Tintin, a comic book character created by Hergé, who would appear in over 200 million comic books in 60 languages. Popeye, another comic strip character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, also appeared in this year.
Within the film industry, on May 16 the 1st Academy Awards were presented at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, with Wings winning Best Picture. Also, Hallelujah! became the first Hollywood film to contain an entirely black cast, and Atlantic, a film about the Titanic, is an early sound-on-film movie. The arts were in the midst of the Modernist movement, as Pablo Picasso painted two cubist works, Woman in a Garden and Nude in an Armchair, during this year. The surrealist painters Salvador Dalí and René Magritte completed several works, including The First Days of Spring and The Treachery of Images. On November 7 in New York City, the Museum of Modern Art opened to the public. The latest in modern architecture was also represented by the Barcelona Pavilion in Spain, and the Royal York Hotel in Toronto, at its completion the tallest building in the British Empire.


1929
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1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1929th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 929th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 29th  year of the 20th century, and the  10th  and last year of the 1920s decade.

This year marked the end of a period known in American history as the Roaring Twenties after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in a worldwide Great Depression. In the Americas, an agreement was brokered to end the Cristero War, a Catholic counter-revolution in Mexico. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, a British high court, ruled that Canadian women are persons in the Edwards v. Canada (Attorney General) case. The 1st Academy Awards for film were held in Los Angeles, while the Museum of Modern Art opened in New York City. The Peruvian Air Force was created.
In Asia, the Republic of China and the Soviet Union engaged in a minor conflict after the Chinese seized full control of the Manchurian Chinese Eastern Railway, which ended with a resumption of joint administration. In the Soviet Union, General Secretary Joseph Stalin expelled Leon Trotsky and adopted a policy of collectivization. The Grand Trunk Express began service in India. Rioting between Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem over access to the Western Wall took place in the Middle East. The centenary of Western Australia was celebrated. The Afghan Civil War, which started in November in the preceding year, continued until October.
The Kellogg–Briand Pact, a treaty renouncing war as an instrument of national policy, went into effect. In Europe, the Holy See and the Kingdom of Italy signed the Lateran Treaty. The Idionymon law was passed in Greece to outlaw political dissent. Spain hosted the Ibero-American Exposition which featured pavilions from Latin American countries. The German airship LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin flew around the world in 21 days.


In October 1929, the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council overturned a ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada that women could not be members of the legislature. This case, which came to be known as the Persons Case, had important ramifications not just for the rights of women but because in overturning the case, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council engendered a radical change in the Canadian judicial approach to the Canadian constitution, an approach that has come to be known as the "living tree doctrine". The five women who initiated the case are known in Canada as the Famous Five. In November, the 1929 Grand Banks earthquake occurred off the south coast of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean. It registered as a Richter magnitude 7.2 submarine earthquake centered on Grand Banks, broke 12 submarine transatlantic telegraph cables and triggered a tsunami that destroyed many south coast communities in the Burin Peninsula area, killing 28 (as of 1997, Canada's most lethal earthquake). Ross-Loos Medical Group is established in downtown Los Angeles by two physicians, Donald E. Ross and H. Clifford Loos - the first HMO in the United States.
The Mexican Cristero War continued in 1929 as clerical forces attempted an assassination of the provisional president in a train bombing in February. The attempt failed. Plutarco Calles, at the center of power for the anti-clerics, continued to gather power in Mexico City. His government was considered an enemy to more conservative Mexicans who held to traditional forms of government and more religious control. Calles founded the National Revolutionary Party early in the year to increase his power; a party which was, ironically, seen by foreigners as fascist and which was in opposition to the Mexican Right. A special election was held in this year, which Jose Vasconselos lost to Ortiz Rubio.  By this time, the war had ended. The last group of rebels was defeated on June 4, and in the same month US Ambassador Dwight Morrow initiated talks between parties. On June 21 an agreement was brokered ending the Cristero War. On June 27, church bells rang and mass was held publicly for the first time in three years. The agreement heavily favored the government, as priests were required to register with the government and religion was banned from schools.
The major event of the year for the United States was the stock market crash on Wall Street, which was to have international effects. On September 3, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) peaked at 381.17, a height it would not reach again until November 1954. Then, from October 24–October 29, stock prices suffered three multi-digit percentage drops, wiping out more than $30 billion from the New York Stock Exchange (10 times greater than the annual budget of the federal government). On December 3 U.S. President Herbert Hoover announced to the U.S. Congress that the worst effects of the recent stock market crash were behind the nation, and that the American people had regained faith in the economy.


James Townsend Saward, English barrister, forger
Domnița Rallou Caragea, Greek princess, independence activist (d. 1870)


1799 (MDCCXCIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1799th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 799th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 99th  year of the 18th century, and the  10th  and last year of the 1790s decade. As of the start of 1799, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


January 9 – Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Italian mathematician (b. 1718)
January 18 – Heinrich Johann Nepomuk von Crantz, Luxembourgian botanist (b. 1722)
January 22 – Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, Swiss aristocrat, alpinist (b. 1740)
January 26 – Gabriel Christie (British Army officer), British Army general (b. 1722)
February 6 – Étienne-Louis Boullée, French architect (b. 1728)
February 7 – Qianlong Emperor of China (b. 1711)
February 9 – Johann Baptist Babel, Swiss sculptor (b. 1716)
February 12
František Xaver Dušek, Czech composer (b. 1731)
Lazzaro Spallanzani, Italian biologist, physiologist (b. 1729)
February 16 – Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria (b. 1724)
February 19 – Jean-Charles de Borda, French mathematician, physicist, political scientist, and sailor (b. 1733)
February 22 – Heshen, Manchu official under Qianlong (b. 1750)
February 24 – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, German scientist, satirist, and Anglophile (b. 1742)
March 13 – Richard Hotham, English property developer and politician (b. 1722)
March 17 – Sir Charles Thompson, 1st Baronet, British admiral, politician (b. c. 1740)
March 18
Charles Guillaume Le Normant d'Étiolles, French official, husband of Madame de Pompadour (b. 1717)
Adam Friedrich Oeser, German etcher (b. 1717)
March 28 – Etta Palm d'Aelders, Dutch-French feminist (b. 1743)
March 29 – Helena Dorothea von Schönberg, German industrialist (d. 1729)
April 3 – Pierre Charles Le Monnier, French astronomer (b. 1715)
April 6 – Alexander Bezborodko, Grand Chancellor of Russia, architect of Catherine the Great's foreign policy (b. 1747)
April 28 – Matthew Griswold (governor), 17th Governor of Connecticut (1784–1786) (b. 1714)
May 2 – Guemes Padilla Horcasitas, the Viceroy of New Spain (b. 1740)
May 4 – Tipu Sultan, Indian ruler (b. 1750)
May 18 – Pierre Beaumarchais, French writer (b. 1732)
May 22 – Toypurina, Medicine woman of the Tongva nation and rebel leader (b. 1750)
May 26 – James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, Scottish jurist (b. 1714)
May 30 – Robert McQueen, Lord Braxfield, Scottish advocate and judge (b. 1722)
June 6 – Patrick Henry, American revolutionary politician, Governor of Virginia (b. 1736)
June 10 – Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Guadeloupe-born French musician (b. 1745)
June 24 – Dunbar Douglas, 4th Earl of Selkirk, Scottish peer (b. 1722)
June 30 – Francesco Caracciolo, Neapolitan admiral, revolutionist (b. 1752)


After winning the Battle of Hastings, William, Duke of Normandy was crowned King of England in newly completed Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066. William built the Tower of London, the first of many such in England rebuilt in stone in the south-eastern corner of the city, to intimidate the inhabitants. In 1097, William II began building Westminster Hall, close by the abbey of the same name. It became the basis of a new Palace of Westminster.
In the 12th century, the institutions of central government, which had hitherto followed the royal English court around the country, grew in size and sophistication and became increasingly fixed, for most purposes at Westminster, although the royal treasury, having been moved from Winchester, came to rest in the Tower. While the City of Westminster developed into a true governmental capital, its distinct neighbour, the City of London, remained England's largest city and principal commercial centre and flourished under its own unique administration, the Corporation of London. In 1100, its population was some 18,000; by 1300 it had grown to nearly 100,000. Disaster struck in the form of the Black Death in the mid-14th century, when London lost nearly a third of its population. London was the focus of the Peasants' Revolt in 1381.
London was also a centre of England's Jewish population before their expulsion by Edward I in 1290. Violence against Jews occurred in 1190, when it was rumoured that the new king had ordered their massacre after they had presented themselves at his coronation. In 1264 during the Second Barons' War, Simon de Montfort's rebels killed 500 Jews while attempting to seize records of debts.


February 7 – Enrique de Cardona y Enríquez, Spanish Catholic cardinal and bishop (b. 1485)
February 24 – Properzia de' Rossi, Italian Renaissance sculptor (b. c. 1490)
April 12 – Joanna la Beltraneja, princess of Castile (b. 1462)
May 3 – Stephen VII Báthory, Hungarian nobleman and military commander
June 4 – Maximilian Sforza, Duke of Milan (b. 1493)
June 5 – Mercurino di Gattinara, Italian statesman and jurist (b. 1465)
June 6 – Boniface IV, Marquess of Montferrat, Italian nobleman (b. 1512)
June 28 – Margaret of Münsterberg, Duchess consort and regent of Anhalt (b. 1473)
August 2 – Kanō Masanobu, chief painter of the Ashikaga shogunate (b. 1434)
August 3
Francesco Ferruccio, Florentine captain (b. 1489)
Philibert of Chalon, French nobleman (b. 1502)
August 6 – Jacopo Sannazaro, Italian poet (b. 1458)
August 10 – Konstanty Ostrogski, Grand Hetman of Lithuania (b. 1460)
August 28 – Gerold Edlibach, Swiss historian (b. 1454)
August 29 – Moise of Wallachia
September 13 – Queen Jeonghyeon, Korean royal consort (b. 1462)
September 15 – Maria Paleologa, Italian noblewoman (b. 1508)
October 10 – Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of Dorset, English noble (b. 1477)
November 24 – Mingyi Nyo, founder of the Toungoo Dynasty of Burma (Myanmar) (b. 1459)
November 29 – Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, British statesman (b. c. 1473)
December 1 – Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands (b. 1480)
December 22 – Willibald Pirckheimer, German humanist (b. 1470)
December 26 – Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire (b. 1483)
date unknown
Quentin Matsys, Flemish painter (b. 1466)
Estienne de La Roche, French mathematician (b. 1470)
Søren Norby, Danish naval commander
Tuskaloosa, Mississippian Paramount Chief
Andrea del Sarto, Italian painter (b. 1487)


Despite its name, most of Rhode Island is on the mainland of the United States. Prior to 2020, its official name was State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, derived from the merger of four Colonial settlements. The settlements of Rhode Island (Newport and Portsmouth) were on what is commonly called Aquidneck Island today but was called Rhode Island in Colonial times. Providence Plantation was the name of the colony founded by Roger Williams in the state's capital of Providence. This was adjoined by the settlement of Warwick; hence the plural Providence Plantations.
It is unclear how the island came to be named Rhode Island, but two historical events may have been influential:
Explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano noted the presence of an island near the mouth of Narragansett Bay in 1524 which he likened to the island of Rhodes off the coast of Greece. Subsequent European explorers were unable to precisely identify the island Verrazzano described, but the colonists who settled the area assumed it was this island.
Adriaen Block passed by the island during his expeditions in the 1610s, and he described it in a 1625 account of his travels as "an island of reddish appearance", which was "een rodlich Eylande" in 17th-century Dutch, meaning a red or reddish island, supposedly evolving into the designation Rhode Island. Historians have theorized this "reddish appearance" resulted from either red autumn foliage or red clay on portions of the shore.
The earliest documented use of the name "Rhode Island" for Aquidneck was in 1637 by Roger Williams. The name was officially applied to the island in 1644 with these words: "Aquethneck shall be henceforth called the Isle of Rodes or Rhode-Island." The name "Isle of Rodes" is used in a legal document as late as 1646. Dutch maps as early as 1659 call the island "Red Island" (Roodt Eylandt).


March 4 – Mihály Károlyi, Prime Minister and President of Hungary (d. 1955)
March 7 – Maurice Ravel, French composer (d. 1937)
March 8 – Kenkichi Ueda, Japanese general (d. 1962)
March 9 – Juan de Dios Martínez, 23rd President of Ecuador (d. 1955)
March 19 – Zhang Zuolin, Chinese bandit, soldier, and warlord (d. 1928)
March 26 – Syngman Rhee, President of South Korea (d. 1965)
March 28 – Helen Westley, American stage, film actress (d. 1942)
April 1 – Edgar Wallace, English author (d. 1932)
April 2 – Walter Chrysler, American automobile pioneer (d. 1940)
April 4
Samuel S. Hinds, American actor (d. 1948)
Pierre Monteux, French conductor (d. 1964)
April 5 – Mistinguett, French singer (d. 1956)
April 8 – King Albert I of Belgium (d. 1934)
April 15 – James J. Jeffries, American boxer (d. 1953)
April 18 – Abd-ru-shin, German author (d. 1941)


Croatia (/kroʊˈeɪʃə/ (listen), kroh-AY-shə; Croatian: Hrvatska, [xř̩ʋaːtskaː]), officially the Republic of Croatia (Croatian: Republika Hrvatska, (listen)), is a country at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe. It shares a coastline along the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro to the southeast, and shares a maritime border with Italy to the west and southwest. Croatia's capital and largest city, Zagreb, forms one of the country's primary subdivisions, with twenty counties. The country spans an area of 56,594 square kilometres (21,851 square miles), hosting a population of nearly 3.9 million.
The Croats arrived in the late 6th century. By the 9th century, they had organized the territory into two duchies. Croatia was first internationally recognized as independent on 7 June 879 during the reign of Duke Branimir. Tomislav became the first king by 925, elevating Croatia to the status of a kingdom. During the succession crisis after the Trpimirović dynasty ended, Croatia entered a personal union with Hungary in 1102. In 1527, faced with Ottoman conquest, the Croatian Parliament elected Ferdinand I of Austria to the Croatian throne. In October 1918, the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, independent from Austria-Hungary, was proclaimed in Zagreb, and in December 1918, merged into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, most of Croatia was incorporated into a Nazi-installed puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia. A resistance movement led to the creation of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, which after the war became a founding member and constituent of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. On 25 June 1991, Croatia declared independence, and the War of Independence was successfully fought over the subsequent four years.
Croatia is a republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a member of the European Union, NATO, the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization, and a founding member of the Union for the Mediterranean. Croatia is set to replace its national currency, the Croatian kuna with the Euro from 1 January 2023, officially becoming the 20th Eurozone member. An active participant in United Nations peacekeeping, Croatia contributed troops to the International Security Assistance Force and filled a nonpermanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for the 2008–2009 term. Since 2000, the Croatian government has invested in infrastructure, especially transport routes and facilities along the Pan-European corridors.
Croatia is classified by the World Bank as a high-income economy and ranks "very high" on the Human Development Index. Service, industrial sectors, and agriculture dominate the economy, respectively. Tourism is a significant source of revenue for the country, which is ranked among the 20 most popular tourist destinations. The state controls a part of the economy, with substantial government expenditure. The European Union is Croatia's most important trading partner. Croatia provides social security, universal health care, and tuition-free primary and secondary education while supporting culture through public institutions and corporate investments in media and publishing.


Much later, the region was settled by Illyrians and Liburnians, while the first Greek colonies were established on the islands of Hvar, Korčula, and Vis. In 9 AD, the territory of today's Croatia became part of the Roman Empire. Emperor Diocletian was native to the region. He had a large palace built in Split, to which he retired after abdicating in AD 305.
During the 5th century, the last de jure Western Roman Emperor Julius Nepos ruled a small realm from the palace after fleeing Italy in 475. The period ends with Avar and Croat invasions in the first half of the 7th century and the destruction of almost all Roman towns. Roman survivors retreated to more favourable sites on the coast, islands, and mountains. The city of Dubrovnik was founded by such survivors from Epidaurum.


Croatia's name derives from Medieval Latin Croātia, itself a derivation of North-West Slavic *Xərwate, by liquid metathesis from Common Slavic period *Xorvat, from proposed Proto-Slavic *Xъrvátъ which possibly comes from the 3rd-century Scytho-Sarmatian form attested in the Tanais Tablets as Χοροάθος (Khoroáthos, alternate forms comprise Khoróatos and Khoroúathos). The origin is uncertain, but most probably is from Proto-Ossetian / Alanian *xurvæt- or *xurvāt-, in the meaning of "one who guards" ("guardian, protector"). The oldest preserved record of the Croatian ethnonym *xъrvatъ is of the variable stem, attested in the Baška tablet in style zvъnъmirъ kralъ xrъvatъskъ ("Zvonimir, Croatian king"), although it was archaeologically confirmed that the ethnonym Croatorum is mentioned in a church inscription found in Bijaći near Trogir dated to the end of the 8th or early 9th century. The presumably oldest preserved stone inscription is the 9th-century Branimir inscription found near Benkovac, where Duke Branimir is styled Dux Cruatorvm, likely dated between 879 and 892, during his rule. The Latin term Chroatorum is attributed to a charter of Duke Trpimir I of Croatia, dated to 852 in a 1568 copy of a lost original, but it is not certain if the original was indeed older than the Branimir inscription.


The area known as Croatia today was inhabited throughout the prehistoric period. Neanderthal fossils dating to the middle Palaeolithic period were unearthed in northern Croatia, best presented in Krapina. Remnants of Neolithic and Chalcolithic cultures were found in all regions. The largest proportion of sites is in the valleys of northern Croatia. The most significant are Baden, Starčevo, and Vučedol cultures. Iron Age hosted the early Illyrian Hallstatt culture and the Celtic La Tène culture.


On 29 October 1918 the Croatian Parliament (Sabor) declared independence and decided to join the newly formed State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, which in turn entered into union with the Kingdom of Serbia on 4 December 1918 to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The Croatian Parliament never ratified the union with Serbia and Montenegro. The 1921 constitution defining the country as a unitary state and abolition of Croatian Parliament and historical administrative divisions effectively ended Croatian autonomy.
The new constitution was opposed by the most widely supported national political party—the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) led by Stjepan Radić.
The political situation deteriorated further as Radić was assassinated in the National Assembly in 1928, leading to King Alexander to establish a dictatorship in January 1929. The dictatorship formally ended in 1931 when the king imposed a more unitary constitution and changed the name to Yugoslavia. The HSS, now led by Vladko Maček, continued to advocate federalisation, resulting in the Cvetković–Maček Agreement of August 1939 and the autonomous Banovina of Croatia. The Yugoslav government retained control of defence, internal security, foreign affairs, trade, and transport while other matters were left to the Croatian Sabor and a crown-appointed Ban.


The ethnogenesis of Croats is uncertain. The most accepted theory, the Slavic theory, proposes migration of White Croats from White Croatia during the Migration Period. Conversely, the Iranian theory proposes Iranian origin, based on Tanais Tablets containing Ancient Greek inscriptions of given names Χορούαθος, Χοροάθος, and Χορόαθος (Khoroúathos, Khoroáthos, and Khoróathos) and their interpretation as anthroponyms of Croatian people.
According to the work De Administrando Imperio written by 10th-century Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, Croats arrived in the Roman province of Dalmatia in the first half of the 7th century after they defeated the Avars. However, that claim is disputed, and competing hypotheses date the event between the late 6th-early 7th (mainstream) or the late 8th-early 9th (fringe) centuries, but recent archaeological data established that the migration and settlement of the Slavs/Croats have been in late 6th and early 7th century. Eventually, a dukedom was formed, Duchy of Croatia, ruled by Borna, as attested by chronicles of Einhard starting in 818. The record represents the first document of Croatian realms, vassal states of Francia at the time.
The Frankish overlordship ended during the reign of Mislav two decades later. According to Constantine VII Christianisation of Croats began in the 7th century, but the claim is disputed, and generally, Christianisation is associated with the 9th century. The first native Croatian ruler recognised by the Pope was Duke Branimir, who received papal recognition from Pope John VIII on 7 June 879.
Tomislav was the first king of Croatia, noted as such in a letter of Pope John X in 925. Tomislav defeated Hungarian and Bulgarian invasions. The medieval Croatian kingdom reached its peak in the 11th century during the reigns of Petar Krešimir IV (1058–1074) and Dmitar Zvonimir (1075–1089). When Stjepan II died in 1091, ending the Trpimirović dynasty, Dmitar Zvonimir's brother-in-law Ladislaus I of Hungary claimed the Croatian crown. This led to a war and personal union with Hungary in 1102 under Coloman.


The post-war 1950s and 1960s saw an ideologicial shift in North Korea, as Kim Il-sung sought to consolidate his power. Kim Il-sung was highly critical of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and his de-Stalinization policies, and echoed Chinese critiques of Khrushchev as "revisionist". During the 1956 August Faction Incident, Kim Il-sung successfully resisted efforts by the Soviet Union and China to depose him in favor of Soviet Koreans or the pro-Chinese Yan'an faction. Some scholars believe that the 1956 August incident was an example of North Korea demonstrating political independence. However, most scholars consider the final withdrawal of Chinese troops from North Korea in October 1958 to be the latest date when North Korea became effectively independent. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, North Korea sought to distinguish itself internationally by becoming a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement and promoting the ideology of Juche. In United States policymaking, North Korea was considered among the Captive Nations. Despite its efforts to break out of the Soviet and Chinese spheres of influence, North Korea remained closely aligned with both countries throughout the Cold War.
Industry was the favored sector in North Korea. Industrial production returned to pre-war levels by 1957. In 1959, relations with Japan had improved somewhat, and North Korea began allowing the repatriation of Japanese citizens in the country. The same year, North Korea revalued the North Korean won, which held greater value than its South Korean counterpart. Until the 1960s, economic growth was higher than in South Korea, and North Korean GDP per capita was equal to that of its southern neighbor as late as 1976. However, by the 1980s, the economy had begun to stagnate; it started its long decline in 1987 and almost completely collapsed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, when all Soviet aid was suddenly halted.
An internal CIA study acknowledged various achievements of the North Korean government post-war: compassionate care for war orphans and children in general, a radical improvement in the status of women, free housing, free healthcare, and health statistics particularly in life expectancy and infant mortality that were comparable to even the most advanced nations up until the North Korean famine. Life expectancy in the North was 72 before the famine which was only marginally lower than in the South. The country once boasted a comparatively developed healthcare system; pre-famine North Korea had a network of nearly 45,000 family practitioners with some 800 hospitals and 1,000 clinics.
The relative peace between the North and South following the armistice was interrupted by border skirmishes, celebrity abductions, and assassination attempts. The North failed in several assassination attempts on South Korean leaders, such as in 1968, 1974, and the Rangoon bombing in 1983; tunnels were found under the DMZ and tensions flared over the axe murder incident at Panmunjom in 1976. For almost two decades after the war, the two states did not seek to negotiate with one another. In 1971, secret, high-level contacts began to be conducted culminating in the 1972 July 4th North–South Joint Statement that established principles of working toward peaceful reunification. The talks ultimately failed because in 1973, South Korea declared its preference that the two Koreas should seek separate memberships in international organizations.


Suffolk (/ˈsʌfək/) is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowestoft, Bury St Edmunds, Newmarket, and Felixstowe which has one of the largest container ports in Europe.
The county is low-lying but can be quite hilly, especially towards the west. It is also known for its extensive farming and has largely arable land with the wetlands of the Broads in the north. The Suffolk Coast & Heaths and Dedham Vale are both nationally designated Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.


West Suffolk, like nearby East Cambridgeshire, is renowned for archaeological finds from the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. Bronze Age artefacts have been found in the area between Mildenhall and West Row, in Eriswell and in Lakenheath.
Many bronze objects, such as swords, spearheads, arrows, axes, palstaves, knives, daggers, rapiers, armour, decorative equipment (in particular for horses), and fragments of sheet bronze, are entrusted to St. Edmundsbury heritage service, housed at West Stow just outside Bury St. Edmunds. Other finds include traces of cremations and barrows.
In the east of the county is Sutton Hoo, the site of one of England's most significant Anglo-Saxon archaeological finds, a ship burial containing a collection of treasures including a sword of state, helmet, gold and silver bowls, jewellery and a lyre.
In 1992 a famous hoard of late Roman gold and silver was discovered in the village of Hoxne. It is still the largest hoard of its kind to have been discovered in Britain.
While carrying out surveys before installing a pipeline in 2014, archaeologists for Anglian Water discovered nine skeletons and four cremation pits, at Bardwell, Barnham, Pakenham and Rougham, all near Bury St Edmunds. Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman and medieval items were also unearthed, along with the 9 skeletons believed to be of the late or post-Roman era (AD 300–500). Experts said the 5-month project had recovered enough artefacts to fill half a shipping container, and that the discoveries had shed new light on their understanding of the development of small rural communities.
A number of 6th century Anglo-Saxon "grub huts" were also found nearby, which are believed to be cellars beneath Saxon buildings.
In 2019, an excavation of a 4th-century Roman cemetery in Great Whelnetham uncovered unusual burial practices. Of 52 skeletons were found, a large number had been decapitated, which archaeologists claimed gave new insight in to Roman traditions. The burial ground includes the remains of men, women and children who likely lived in a nearby settlement. The fact that up to 40% of the bodies were decapitated represents "quite a rare find".
A survey in 2020 named Suffolk the third best place in the UK for aspiring archaeologists, and showed that the area was especially rich in finds from the Roman period, with over 1500 objects found in the preceding year.
In July 2020, metal detectorist Luke Mahoney, found 1061 silver hammered coins estimated to be worth £100,000 in Ipswich. The coins dated back to the 15th–17th century, according to experts.
In September 2020, archaeologists announced the discovery of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery with 17 cremations and 191 burials dating back to the 7th century in Oulton, near Lowestoft. The graves contained the remains of men, women and children, as well as artefacts including small iron knives and silver pennies, wrist clasps, strings of amber and glass beads. According to Andrew Peachey, who carried out the excavations, the skeletons had mostly vanished because of the highly acidic soil. They, fortunately, were preserved as brittle shapes and "sand silhouettes" in the sand.


According to estimates by the Office for National Statistics, the population of Suffolk in 2014 was 738,512, split almost evenly between males and females. Roughly 22% of the population was aged 65 or older, and 90.84% were "White British".
Historically, the county's population has mostly been employed as agricultural workers. An 1835 survey showed Suffolk to have 4,526 occupiers of land employing labourers, 1,121 occupiers not employing labourers, 33,040 labourers employed in agriculture, 676 employed in manufacture, 18,167 employed in retail trade or handicraft, 2,228 'capitalists, bankers etc.', 5,336 labourers (non-agricultural), 4,940 other males aged over 20, 2,032 male servants and 11,483 female servants. The same publication records the total population of the county at 296,304.
Most English counties have nicknames for people from that county, such as a Tyke from Yorkshire and a Yellowbelly from Lincolnshire. A traditional nicknames for people from Suffolk is 'Suffolk Fair-Maids' referring to the supposed beauty of its female inhabitants in the Middle Ages.
Another is 'Silly Suffolk', derived from the Old English word sælig meaning blessed referring to the long history of Christianity in the county, its many fine churches, and the influential Bury Abbey. Use of the term 'Silly Suffolk' can be dated to 1819 with its origins probably being older.
There are several towns in the county with Ipswich being the largest and most populous. At the time of the 2011 census, a population of 730,000 lived in the county with 133,384 living in Ipswich. The table below shows all towns with over 20,000 inhabitants.


The majority of agriculture in Suffolk is either arable or mixed. Farm sizes vary from anything around 80 acres (32 hectares) to over 8,000. Soil types vary from heavy clays to light sands. Crops grown include winter wheat, winter barley, sugar beet, oilseed rape, winter and spring beans and linseed, although smaller areas of rye and oats can be found growing in areas with lighter soils along with a variety of vegetables.
The continuing importance of agriculture in the county is reflected in the Suffolk Show, which is held annually in May at Ipswich. Although latterly somewhat changed in nature, this remains primarily an agricultural show.
Well-known companies in Suffolk include Greene King and Branston Pickle in Bury St Edmunds. Birds Eye has its largest UK factory in Lowestoft, where all its meat products and frozen vegetables are processed. Huntley & Palmers biscuit company has a base in Sudbury. The UK horse racing industry is based in Newmarket. There are two USAF bases in the west of the county close to the A11. Sizewell B nuclear power station is at Sizewell on the coast near Leiston. Bernard Matthews Farms have some processing units in the county, specifically Holton. Southwold is the home of Adnams Brewery. The Port of Felixstowe is the largest container port in the United Kingdom. Other ports are at Lowestoft and Ipswich, run by Associated British Ports. BT has its main research and development facility at Martlesham Heath.
Below is a chart of regional gross value added of Suffolk at current basic prices published by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.


Industrialisation came to Denmark in the second half of the 19th century. The nation's first railways were constructed in the 1850s, and improved communications and overseas trade allowed industry to develop in spite of Denmark's lack of natural resources. Trade unions developed, starting in the 1870s. There was a considerable migration of people from the countryside to the cities, and Danish agriculture became centred on the export of dairy and meat products.


After Sweden permanently broke away from the personal union, Denmark tried on several occasions to reassert control over its neighbour. King Christian IV attacked Sweden in the 1611–1613 Kalmar War but failed to accomplish his main objective of forcing it to return to the union. The war led to no territorial changes, but Sweden was forced to pay a war indemnity of 1 million silver riksdaler to Denmark, an amount known as the Älvsborg ransom. King Christian used this money to found several towns and fortresses, most notably Glückstadt (founded as a rival to Hamburg) and Christiania. Inspired by the Dutch East India Company, he founded a similar Danish company and planned to claim Ceylon as a colony, but the company only managed to acquire Tranquebar on India's Coromandel Coast. Denmark's large colonial aspirations included a few key trading posts in Africa and India. While Denmark's trading posts in India were of little note, it played an important role in the highly lucrative Atlantic slave trade, through its trading outposts in Fort Christiansborg in Osu, Ghana through which 1.5 million slaves were traded. While the Danish colonial empire was sustained by trade with other major powers, and plantations – ultimately a lack of resources led to its stagnation.
In the Thirty Years' War, Christian tried to become the leader of the Lutheran states in Germany but suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Lutter. The result was that the Catholic army under Albrecht von Wallenstein was able to invade, occupy, and pillage Jutland, forcing Denmark to withdraw from the war. Denmark managed to avoid territorial concessions, but King Gustavus Adolphus' intervention in Germany was seen as a sign that the military power of Sweden was on the rise while Denmark's influence in the region was declining. Swedish armies invaded Jutland in 1643 and claimed Scania in 1644. In the 1645 Treaty of Brømsebro, Denmark surrendered Halland, Gotland, the last parts of Danish Estonia, and several provinces in Norway.
Seeing an opportunity to tear up the Treaty of Brømsebro, King Frederick III of Denmark, in 1657, declared war on Sweden, the latter being deeply involved in the Second Northern War (1655–1660), and marched on Bremen-Verden. This led to a massive Danish defeat as the armies of King Charles X Gustav of Sweden conquered Jutland and, following the Swedish March across the frozen Danish straits, occupied Funen and much of Zealand before signing the Peace of Roskilde in February 1658, which gave Sweden control of Scania, Blekinge, Bohuslän, Trøndelag, and the island of Bornholm. Charles X Gustav quickly regretted not having ruined Denmark and in August 1658, he launched a second attack on Denmark, conquered most of the Danish islands, and began a two-year-long siege of Copenhagen. King Frederick III actively led the defence of the city, rallying its citizens to take up arms, and repelled the Swedish attacks. The siege ended following the death of Charles X Gustav in 1660. In the ensuing peace settlement, Denmark managed to maintain its independence and regain control of Trøndelag and Bornholm. Attaining great popularity following the war, Frederick III used this to disband the elective monarchy in favour of absolute monarchy, which lasted until 1848 in Denmark.
Denmark tried but failed to regain control of Scania in the Scanian War (1675–1679). After the Great Northern War (1700–21), Denmark managed to regain control of the parts of Schleswig and Holstein ruled by the house of Holstein-Gottorp in the 1720 Treaty of Frederiksborg and the 1773 Treaty of Tsarskoye Selo, respectively. Denmark prospered greatly in the last decades of the 18th century due to its neutral status allowing it to trade with both sides in the many contemporary wars. In the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark traded with both France and the United Kingdom and joined the League of Armed Neutrality with Russia, Sweden, and Prussia. The British considered this a hostile act and attacked Copenhagen in 1801 and 1807, in one case carrying off the Danish fleet, in the other, burning large parts of the Danish capital. This led to the so-called Danish-British Gunboat War. British control of the waterways between Denmark and Norway proved disastrous to the union's economy and in 1813 Denmark–Norway went bankrupt.
The union was dissolved by the Treaty of Kiel in 1814; the Danish monarchy "irrevocably and forever" renounced claims to the Kingdom of Norway in favour of the Swedish king. Denmark kept the possessions of Iceland (which retained the Danish monarchy until 1944), the Faroe Islands and Greenland, all of which had been governed by Norway for centuries. Apart from the Nordic colonies, Denmark continued to rule over Danish India from 1620 to 1869, the Danish Gold Coast (Ghana) from 1658 to 1850, and the Danish West Indies from 1671 to 1917.


Denmark (Danish: Danmark, [ˈtænmɑk] (listen)) is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the most populous and politically central constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands and Greenland in the North Atlantic Ocean. European Denmark is the southernmost of the Scandinavian countries, lying southwest of Sweden, south of Norway, and north of Germany.
Spanning a total area of 42,943 km² (16,580 sq mi), it consists of the peninsula of Jutland and an archipelago of 443 named islands, of which the largest are Zealand, Funen and the North Jutlandic Island. Denmark's geography is characterised by flat, arable land, sandy coasts, low elevation, and a temperate climate. As of 2022, it had a population of 5.91 million (1 July 2022), of which 800,000 live in the capital and largest city, Copenhagen. Denmark exercises hegemonic influence in the Danish Realm, devolving powers to handle internal affairs. Home rule was established in the Faroe Islands in 1948 and in Greenland in 1979; the latter obtained further autonomy in 2009.
The unified kingdom of Denmark emerged in the eighth century as a proficient maritime power amid the struggle for control of the Baltic Sea. In 1397, it joined Norway and Sweden to form the Kalmar Union, which persisted until the latter's secession in 1523. The remaining Kingdom of Denmark–Norway endured a series of wars in the 17th century that resulted in further territorial cessions to the Swedish Empire. Following the Napoleonic Wars, Norway was absorbed into Sweden, leaving Denmark with the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. A surge of nationalist movements in the 19th century were defeated in the First Schleswig War of 1848, though the Second Schleswig War of 1864 resulted in further territorial losses to Prussia. The period saw the adoption of the Constitution of Denmark on 5 June 1849, ending the absolute monarchy that was established in 1660 and introducing the current parliamentary system.
An industrialised exporter of agricultural produce in the second half of the 19th century, Denmark introduced social and labour-market reforms in the early 20th century, which formed the basis for the present welfare state model and advanced mixed economy. Denmark remained neutral during World War I but regained the northern half of Schleswig in 1920. Danish neutrality was violated in World War II following a swift German invasion in April 1940. During occupation, a resistance movement emerged in 1943 while Iceland declared independence in 1944; Denmark was liberated in May 1945. In 1973, Denmark, together with Greenland but not the Faroes, became a member of what is now the European Union, but negotiated certain opt-outs, such as retaining its own currency, the krone.
Denmark is a highly developed country with a high standard of living: the country performs at or near the top in measures of education, health care, civil liberties, democratic governance and LGBT equality. Denmark is a founding member of NATO, the Nordic Council, the OECD, OSCE, and the United Nations; it is also part of the Schengen Area. Denmark maintains close political, cultural, and linguistic ties with its Scandinavian neighbours, with the Danish language being partially mutually intelligible with both Norwegian and Swedish.


A nascent Danish liberal and national movement gained momentum in the 1830s; after the European Revolutions of 1848, Denmark peacefully became a constitutional monarchy on 5 June 1849. A new constitution established a two-chamber parliament. Denmark faced war against both Prussia and Austrian Empire in what became known as the Second Schleswig War, lasting from February to October 1864. Denmark was defeated and obliged to cede Schleswig and Holstein to Prussia. This loss came as the latest in the long series of defeats and territorial losses that had begun in the 17th century. After these events, Denmark pursued a policy of neutrality in Europe.


World War I devastated the territory of what became the state of Latvia, and other western parts of the Russian Empire. Demands for self-determination were initially confined to autonomy, until a power vacuum was created by the Russian Revolution in 1917, followed by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Russia and Germany in March 1918, then the Allied armistice with Germany on 11 November 1918. On 18 November 1918, in Riga, the People's Council of Latvia proclaimed the independence of the new country and Kārlis Ulmanis was entrusted to set up a government and he took the position of Prime Minister.
The General representative of Germany August Winnig formally handed over political power to the Latvian Provisional Government on 26 November. On November 18, the Latvian People's Council entrusted him to set up the government. He took the office of Minister of Agriculture from November 18 to December 19. He took a position of Prime Minister from 19 November 1918 to 13 July 1919.
The war of independence that followed was part of a general chaotic period of civil and new border wars in Eastern Europe. By the spring of 1919, there were actually three governments: the Provisional government headed by Kārlis Ulmanis, supported by the Tautas padome and the Inter-Allied Commission of Control; the Latvian Soviet government led by Pēteris Stučka, supported by the Red Army; and the Provisional government headed by Andrievs Niedra and supported by the Baltische Landeswehr and the German Freikorps unit Iron Division.
Estonian and Latvian forces defeated the Germans at the Battle of Wenden in June 1919, and a massive attack by a predominantly German force—the West Russian Volunteer Army—under Pavel Bermondt-Avalov was repelled in November. Eastern Latvia was cleared of Red Army forces by Latvian and Polish troops in early 1920 (from the Polish perspective the Battle of Daugavpils was a part of the Polish–Soviet War).
A freely elected Constituent assembly convened on 1 May 1920, and adopted a liberal constitution, the Satversme, in February 1922. The constitution was partly suspended by Kārlis Ulmanis after his coup in 1934 but reaffirmed in 1990. Since then, it has been amended and is still in effect in Latvia today. With most of Latvia's industrial base evacuated to the interior of Russia in 1915, radical land reform was the central political question for the young state. In 1897, 61.2% of the rural population had been landless; by 1936, that percentage had been reduced to 18%.
By 1923, the extent of cultivated land surpassed the pre-war level. Innovation and rising productivity led to rapid growth of the economy, but it soon suffered from the effects of the Great Depression. Latvia showed signs of economic recovery, and the electorate had steadily moved toward the centre during the parliamentary period. On 15 May 1934, Ulmanis staged a bloodless coup, establishing a nationalist dictatorship that lasted until 1940. After 1934, Ulmanis established government corporations to buy up private firms with the aim of "Latvianising" the economy.


The name Latvija is derived from the name of the ancient Latgalians, one of four Indo-European Baltic tribes (along with Curonians, Selonians and Semigallians), which formed the ethnic core of modern Latvians together with the Finnic Livonians. Henry of Latvia coined the latinisations of the country's name, "Lettigallia" and "Lethia", both derived from the Latgalians. The terms inspired the variations on the country's name in Romance languages from "Letonia" and in several Germanic languages from "Lettland".


During the 19th century, the social structure changed dramatically. A class of independent farmers established itself after reforms allowed the peasants to repurchase their land, but many landless peasants remained, quite a lot Latvians left for the cities and sought for education, industrial jobs. There also developed a growing urban proletariat and an increasingly influential Latvian bourgeoisie. The Young Latvian (Latvian: Jaunlatvieši) movement laid the groundwork for nationalism from the middle of the century, many of its leaders looking to the Slavophiles for support against the prevailing German-dominated social order. The rise in use of the Latvian language in literature and society became known as the First National Awakening. Russification began in Latgale after the Polish led the January Uprising in 1863: this spread to the rest of what is now Latvia by the 1880s. The Young Latvians were largely eclipsed by the New Current, a broad leftist social and political movement, in the 1890s. Popular discontent exploded in the 1905 Russian Revolution, which took a nationalist character in the Baltic provinces.


The local government areas of county Cork and the city of Cork are administered by the local authorities of Cork County Council and Cork City Council respectively. The boundary between these two areas was altered by the 2019 Cork boundary change. It is part of the Southern Region and has five representatives on the Southern Regional Assembly.
For elections to Dáil Éireann, the city and county are divided into five constituencies: Cork East, Cork North-Central, Cork North-West, Cork South-Central and Cork South-West. Together they return 18 deputies (TDs) to the Dáil. It is part of the South constituency for European elections.


Britain—before that, England—and Ireland had for a long time been sending their convicts across the Atlantic to the American colonies. That practice was ended with the Declaration of Independence by the United States in 1776. Britain decided in 1786 to found a new penal outpost in the territory discovered by Cook some 16 years earlier.
Captain Phillip led the First Fleet of 11 ships and about 850 convicts into Botany Bay on 18 January 1788, though deemed the location unsuitable due to poor soil and a lack of fresh water. He travelled a short way further north and arrived at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788. This was to become the location of the new colony. Phillip described Port Jackson as being "without exception the finest harbour in the world". The colony was at first to be titled "New Albion" (after Albion, another name for Great Britain), but Phillip decided to name the bay where the settlement was founded "Sydney Cove", after Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney. The official proclamation and naming of the Colony of New South Wales occurred on 7 February 1788, while the settlement (and later city) of Sydney itself was not officially named as such until the early twentieth century, with the name "Albion" persisting well into the nineteenth century; however in 1790, Phillip began occasionally shortening the references in his dispatches from "Sydney Cove" to just "Sydney". Lieutenant William Dawes produced a town plan in 1790, but it was ignored by the colony's leaders, and Sydney's layout today reflects this lack of planning.
Between 1788 and 1792, 3,546 male and 766 female convicts were landed at Sydney, many of them "professional criminals" with few of the skills required for the establishment of a colony. The food situation reached crisis point in 1790. Early efforts at agriculture were fraught and supplies from overseas were scarce. From 1791 on, however, the more regular arrival of ships and the beginnings of trade lessened the feeling of isolation and improved supplies.
The colony was not founded on the principles of freedom and prosperity. Maps from this time show no prison buildings; the punishment for convicts was transportation rather than incarceration, but serious offences were penalised by flogging and hanging. Phillip sent exploratory missions in search of better soils and fixed on the Parramatta region as a promising area for expansion, and moved many of the convicts from late 1788 to establish a small township, which became the main centre of the colony's economic life, leaving Sydney Cove only as an important port and focus of social life. Poor equipment and unfamiliar soils and climate continued to hamper the expansion of farming from Farm Cove to Parramatta and Toongabbie, but a building programme, assisted by convict labour, advanced steadily.
Officers and convicts alike faced starvation as supplies ran low and little could be cultivated from the land. The region's indigenous population was also suffering. It is estimated that half the native people in Sydney died during the smallpox epidemic of 1789. Enlightened for his time, Phillip's personal intent was to establish harmonious relations with local Aboriginal people and try to reform as well as discipline the convicts of the colony. Phillip and several of his officers – most notably Watkin Tench – left journals and accounts that tell of immense hardships during the first years of settlement. Part of Macquarie's effort to transform the colony was his authorisation for convicts to re-enter society as free citizens. Roads, bridges, wharves, and public buildings were constructed using convict labour and by 1822 the town had banks, markets, and well-established thoroughfares. Parramatta Road was opened in 1811, being one of Sydney's oldest roads and Australia's first highway between two cities – Sydney (present day city centre) and Parramatta.
Conditions in the colony were not conducive to the development of a thriving metropolis, but the more regular arrival of ships and the beginnings of maritime trade (such as in wool) helped to lessen the burden of isolation. Between 1788 and 1792, convicts and their jailers made up the majority of the population; in one generation, however, a population of emancipated convicts who could be granted land began to grow. These people pioneered Sydney's private sector economy and were later joined by soldiers whose military service had expired, and later still by free settlers who began arriving from Britain. Governor Phillip departed the colony for England on 11 December 1792, with the new settlement having survived near starvation and immense isolation for four years.


Sydney is made up of mostly Triassic rock with some recent igneous dykes and volcanic necks (typically found in the Prospect dolerite intrusion, west of Sydney). The Sydney Basin was formed when the Earth's crust expanded, subsided, and filled with sediment in the early Triassic period. The sand that was to become the sandstone of today was washed there by rivers from the south and northwest and laid down between 360 and 200 million years ago. The sandstone has shale lenses and fossil riverbeds.
The Sydney Basin bioregion includes coastal features of cliffs, beaches, and estuaries. Deep river valleys known as rias were carved during the Triassic period in the Hawkesbury sandstone of the coastal region where Sydney now lies. The rising sea level between 18,000 and 6,000 years ago flooded the rias to form estuaries and deep harbours. Port Jackson, better known as Sydney Harbour, is one such ria. Sydney features two major soil types; sandy soils (which originate from the Hawkesbury sandstone) and clay (which are from shales and volcanic rocks), though some soils may be a mixture of the two.
Directly overlying the older Hawkesbury sandstone is the Wianamatta shale, a geological feature found in western Sydney that was deposited in connection with a large river delta during the Middle Triassic period which shifted over time from west to east. The Wianamatta shale generally comprises fine grained sedimentary rocks such as shales, mudstones, ironstones, siltstones and laminites, with less common sandstone units. The Wianamatta Group is made up of the following units (listed in stratigraphic order): Bringelly Shale, Minchinbury Sandstone and Ashfield Shale.


Early Sydney was moulded by the hardship suffered by early settlers. In the early years, drought and disease caused widespread problems, but the situation soon improved. The military colonial government was reliant on the army, the New South Wales Corps. Macquarie served as the last autocratic Governor of New South Wales, from 1810 to 1821 and had a leading role in the social and economic development of Sydney which saw it transition from a penal colony to a budding free society. He established public works, a bank, churches, and charitable institutions and sought good relations with Aboriginal peoples. A gold rush occurred in the colony in 1851, and over the next century, Sydney transformed from a colonial outpost into a major global cultural and economic centre.
Over the course of the 19th-century Sydney established many of its major cultural institutions. Governor Lachlan Macquarie's vision for Sydney included the construction of grand public buildings and institutions fit for a colonial capital. Macquarie Street began to take shape as a ceremonial thoroughfare of grand buildings. The year 1840 was the final year of convict transportation to Sydney, which by this time had a population of 35,000, and the town was incorporated as a city on 20 July 1842. Gold was discovered in the colony in 1851 and with it came thousands of people seeking their fortune. Sydney's population reached 200,000 by 1871 and during this time the city entered a period of prosperity which was reflected in the construction of grand edifices. Temperance coffee palaces, hotels as well as other civic buildings such as libraries and museums were erected in the city. Demand for infrastructure to support the growing population and subsequent economic activity led to massive improvements to the city's railway and port systems throughout the 1850s and 1860s.
After a period of rapid growth, further discoveries of gold in Victoria began drawing new residents away from Sydney towards Melbourne in the 1850s, which created a historically strong rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne. Nevertheless, Sydney exceeded Melbourne's population in the early twentieth century and remains Australia's largest city. Following the depression of the 1890s, the six colonies agreed to form the Commonwealth of Australia. Sydney's beaches had become popular seaside holiday resorts, but daylight sea bathing was considered indecent until the early 20th century.


Sydney (/ˈsɪdni/ (listen) SID-nee; Dharug: Gadi; Greater Sydney, Dharug: Eora) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about 70 km (43.5 mi) on its periphery towards the Blue Mountains to the west, Hawkesbury to the north, the Royal National Park to the south and Macarthur to the south-west. Sydney is made up of 658 suburbs, spread across 33 local government areas. Residents of the city are known as "Sydneysiders". As of June 2021, Sydney's estimated metropolitan population was 5,231,147, meaning the city is home to approximately 66% of the state's population. Nicknames of the city include the 'Emerald City' and the 'Harbour City'.
Indigenous Australians have inhabited the Greater Sydney region for at least 30,000 years, and Aboriginal engravings remain within it. During his first Pacific voyage in 1770, Lieutenant James Cook and his crew became the first Europeans to chart the eastern coast of Australia, making landfall at Botany Bay. In 1788, the First Fleet of convicts, led by Arthur Phillip, founded Sydney as a British penal colony, the first European settlement in Australia. After World War II, it experienced mass migration and became one of the most multicultural cities in the world. Furthermore, 45.4% of the population reported having been born overseas, and the city has the fourth-largest foreign-born population of any city in the world after London and New York City.
Despite being one of the most expensive cities in the world, Sydney frequently ranks in the top ten most liveable cities in the world. It is classified as an Alpha global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, indicating its influence in the region and throughout the world. Ranked eleventh in the world for economic opportunity, Sydney has an advanced market economy with strengths in finance, manufacturing and tourism. Established in 1850, the University of Sydney was Australia's first university and is regarded as one of the world's leading universities.
Sydney has hosted major international sporting events such as the 2000 Summer Olympics. The city is among the top fifteen most-visited cities in the world, with millions of tourists coming each year to see the city's landmarks. Boasting over 1,000,000 ha (2,500,000 acres) of nature reserves and parks, its notable natural features include Sydney Harbour and Royal National Park. Built attractions such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the World Heritage-listed Sydney Opera House are also well known to international visitors. Central station is the hub of Sydney's rail network, and the main passenger airport serving the city is Kingsford Smith Airport, one of the world's oldest continually operating airports.


The Troubles were brought to an uneasy end by a peace process that included the declaration of ceasefires by most paramilitary organisations and the complete decommissioning of their weapons, the reform of the police, and the corresponding withdrawal of army troops from the streets and sensitive border areas such as South Armagh and Fermanagh, as agreed by the signatories to the Belfast Agreement (commonly known as the "Good Friday Agreement"). This reiterated the long-held British position, which had never before been fully acknowledged by successive Irish governments, that Northern Ireland will remain within the United Kingdom until a majority of voters in Northern Ireland decides otherwise. The Constitution of Ireland was amended in 1999 to remove a claim of the "Irish nation" to sovereignty over the entire island (in Article 2).
The new Articles 2 and 3, added to the Constitution to replace the earlier articles, implicitly acknowledge that the status of Northern Ireland, and its relationships within the rest of the United Kingdom and with the Republic of Ireland, would only be changed with the agreement of a majority of voters in each jurisdiction. This aspect was also central to the Belfast Agreement which was signed in 1998 and ratified by referendums held simultaneously in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. At the same time, the UK Government recognised for the first time, as part of the prospective, the so-called "Irish dimension": the principle that the people of the island of Ireland as a whole have the right, without any outside interference, to solve the issues between North and South by mutual consent. The latter statement was key to winning support for the agreement from nationalists. It established a devolved power-sharing government, the Northern Ireland Assembly, located on the Stormont Estate, which must consist of both unionist and nationalist parties. These institutions were suspended by the UK Government in 2002 after Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) allegations of spying by people working for Sinn Féin at the Assembly (Stormontgate). The resulting case against the accused Sinn Féin member collapsed.
On 28 July 2005, the Provisional IRA declared an end to its campaign and has since decommissioned what is thought to be all of its arsenal. This final act of decommissioning was performed under the watch of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) and two external church witnesses. Many unionists, however, remained skeptical. The IICD later confirmed that the main loyalist paramilitary groups, the Ulster Defence Association, UVF, and the Red Hand Commando, had decommissioned what is thought to be all of their arsenals, witnessed by former archbishop Robin Eames and a former top civil servant.
Politicians elected to the Assembly at the 2003 Assembly election were called together on 15 May 2006 under the Northern Ireland Act 2006 to elect a First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland and choose the members of an Executive (before 25 November 2006) as a preliminary step to the restoration of devolved government.
Following the election held on 7 March 2007, the devolved government returned on 8 May 2007 with Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Ian Paisley and Sinn Féin deputy leader Martin McGuinness taking office as First Minister and deputy First Minister, respectively. In its white paper on Brexit the United Kingdom government reiterated its commitment to the Belfast Agreement. Concerning Northern Ireland's status, it said that the UK Government's "clearly-stated preference is to retain Northern Ireland’s current constitutional position: as part of the UK, but with strong links to Ireland".


Since 1998, Northern Ireland has had devolved government within the United Kingdom, presided over by the Northern Ireland Assembly and a cross-community government (the Northern Ireland Executive). The UK Government and UK Parliament are responsible for reserved and excepted matters. Reserved matters comprise listed policy areas (such as civil aviation, units of measurement, and human genetics) that Parliament may devolve to the Assembly some time in the future. Excepted matters (such as international relations, taxation and elections) are never expected to be considered for devolution. On all other governmental matters, the Executive together with the 90-member Assembly may legislate for and govern Northern Ireland. Devolution in Northern Ireland is dependent upon participation by members of the Northern Ireland executive in the North/South Ministerial Council, which coordinates areas of cooperation (such as agriculture, education, and health) between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Additionally, "in recognition of the Irish Government's special interest in Northern Ireland", the Government of Ireland and Government of the United Kingdom co-operate closely on non-devolved matters through the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference.
Elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly are by single transferable vote with five Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) elected from each of 18 parliamentary constituencies. In addition, eighteen representatives (Members of Parliament, MPs) are elected to the lower house of the UK parliament from the same constituencies using the first-past-the-post system. However, not all of those elected take their seats. Sinn Féin MPs, currently seven, refuse to take the oath to serve the Queen that is required before MPs are allowed to take their seats. In addition, the upper house of the UK parliament, the House of Lords, currently has some 25 appointed members from Northern Ireland.
The Northern Ireland Office represents the UK Government in Northern Ireland on reserved matters and represents Northern Ireland's interests within the UK Government. Additionally, the Republic's government also has the right to "put forward views and proposals" on non-devolved matters about Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Office is led by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who sits in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom.
Northern Ireland is a distinct legal jurisdiction, separate from the two other jurisdictions in the United Kingdom (England and Wales, and Scotland). Northern Ireland law developed from Irish law that existed before the partition of Ireland in 1921. Northern Ireland is a common law jurisdiction and its common law is similar to that in England and Wales. However, there are important differences in law and procedure between Northern Ireland and England and Wales. The body of statute law affecting Northern Ireland reflects the history of Northern Ireland, including Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the former Parliament of Northern Ireland and the Parliament of Ireland, along with some Acts of the Parliament of England and of the Parliament of Great Britain that were extended to Ireland under Poynings' Law between 1494 and 1782.


Northern Ireland (Irish: Tuaisceart Éireann [ˈt̪ˠuəʃcəɾˠt̪ˠ ˈeːɾʲən̪ˠ] (listen); Ulster-Scots: Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom that is variously described as a country, province, territory or region. Located in the northeast of the island of Ireland, Northern Ireland shares a border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. In 2011, its population was 1,810,863, constituting about 30% of the island's population and about 3% of the UK's population. The Northern Ireland Assembly (colloquially referred to as Stormont after its location), established by the Northern Ireland Act 1998, holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters, while other areas are reserved for the UK Government. Northern Ireland cooperates with the Republic of Ireland in several areas.
Northern Ireland was created in 1921, when Ireland was partitioned by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, creating a devolved government for the six northeastern counties. Most of Northern Ireland's population were unionists, who wanted to remain in the United Kingdom. They were generally the Protestant descendants of colonists from Great Britain. Meanwhile, the majority in Southern Ireland (which became the Irish Free State in 1922), and a significant minority in Northern Ireland, were Irish nationalists and Catholics who wanted a united independent Ireland. Today, the former generally see themselves as British and the latter generally see themselves as Irish, while a Northern Irish or Ulster identity is claimed by a large minority from all backgrounds.
The creation of Northern Ireland was accompanied by violence both in defence of and against partition. During 1920–22, the capital Belfast saw major communal violence, mainly between Protestant unionist and Catholic nationalist civilians. More than 500 were killed and more than 10,000 became refugees, mostly Catholics. For the next fifty years, Northern Ireland had an unbroken series of Unionist Party governments. There was informal mutual segregation by both communities, and the Unionist governments were accused of discrimination against the Irish nationalist and Catholic minority. In the late 1960s, a campaign to end discrimination against Catholics and nationalists was opposed by loyalists, who saw it as a republican front. This unrest sparked the Troubles, a thirty-year conflict involving republican and loyalist paramilitaries and state forces, which claimed over 3,500 lives and injured 50,000 others. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement was a major step in the peace process, including paramilitary disarmament and security normalisation, although sectarianism and segregation remain major social problems, and sporadic violence has continued.
The economy of Northern Ireland was the most industrialised in Ireland at the time of Partition of Ireland, but declined, a decline exacerbated by the political and social turmoil of the Troubles. Its economy has grown significantly since the late 1990s. The initial growth came from the "peace dividend" and increased trade with the Republic of Ireland, continuing with a significant increase in tourism, investment, and business from around the world. Unemployment in Northern Ireland peaked at 17.2% in 1986, dropping to 6.1% for June–August 2014 and down by 1.2 percentage points over the year, similar to the UK figure of 6.2%.
Cultural links between Northern Ireland, the rest of Ireland, and the rest of the UK are complex, with Northern Ireland sharing both the culture of Ireland and the culture of the United Kingdom. In many sports, the island of Ireland fields a single team, with the Northern Ireland national football team being an exception to this. Northern Ireland competes separately at the Commonwealth Games, and people from Northern Ireland may compete for either Great Britain or Ireland at the Olympic Games.


By the end of the war (during which the 1916 Easter Rising had taken place), most Irish nationalists now wanted full independence rather than home rule. In September 1919, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George tasked a committee with planning another home rule bill. Headed by English unionist politician Walter Long, it was known as the 'Long Committee'. It decided that two devolved governments should be established—one for the nine counties of Ulster and one for the rest of Ireland—together with a Council of Ireland for the "encouragement of Irish unity". Most Ulster unionists wanted the territory of the Ulster government to be reduced to six counties so that it would have a larger Protestant unionist majority. They feared that the territory would not last if it included too many Catholics and Irish nationalists. The six counties of Antrim, Down, Armagh, Londonderry, Tyrone and Fermanagh comprised the maximum area unionists believed they could dominate.
Events overtook the government. In the 1918 Irish general election, the pro-independence Sinn Féin party won the overwhelming majority of Irish seats. Sinn Féin's elected members boycotted the British parliament and founded a separate Irish parliament (Dáil Éireann), declaring the independent Irish Republic covering the whole island. Many Irish republicans blamed the British establishment for the sectarian divisions in Ireland, and believed that Ulster Unionist defiance would fade once British rule was ended. The British authorities outlawed the Dáil in September 1919, and a guerrilla conflict developed as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) began attacking British forces. This became known as the Irish War of Independence.
Meanwhile, the Government of Ireland Act 1920 passed through the British parliament in 1920. It would divide Ireland into two self-governing UK territories: the six northeastern counties (Northern Ireland) being ruled from Belfast, and the other twenty-six counties (Southern Ireland) being ruled from Dublin. Both would have a shared Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who would appoint both governments and a Council of Ireland, which the UK Government intended to evolve into an all-Ireland parliament. The Act received royal assent that December, becoming the Government of Ireland Act 1920. It came into force on 3 May 1921, partitioning Ireland and creating Northern Ireland. Elections to the Northern parliament were held on 24 May, in which Unionists won most seats. Its parliament first met on 7 June and formed its first devolved government, headed by Unionist Party leader James Craig. Republican and nationalist members refused to attend. King George V addressed the ceremonial opening of the Northern parliament on 22 June.
During 1920–22, in what became Northern Ireland, partition was accompanied by violence "in defence or opposition to the new settlement". The IRA carried out attacks on British forces in the north-east but was less active than in the south of Ireland. Protestant loyalists attacked the Catholic community in reprisal for IRA actions. In the summer of 1920, sectarian violence erupted in Belfast and Derry, and there were mass burnings of Catholic property in Lisburn and Banbridge. Conflict continued intermittently for two years, mostly in Belfast, which saw "savage and unprecedented" communal violence between Protestant and Catholic civilians (see Belfast Pogrom). There was rioting, gun battles, and bombings. Homes, businesses, and churches were attacked and people were expelled from workplaces and mixed neighbourhoods. More than 500 were killed and more than 10,000 became refugees, most of them Catholics. The British Army was deployed and the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) was formed to help the regular police. The USC was almost wholly Protestant and some of its members carried out reprisal attacks on Catholics. A truce between British forces and the IRA was established on 11 July 1921, ending the fighting in most of Ireland. However, communal violence continued in Belfast, and in 1922 the IRA launched a guerrilla offensive in border areas of Northern Ireland.
The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed between representatives of the UK Government and the Irish Republic on 6 December 1921. This created the Irish Free State. Under the terms of the treaty, Northern Ireland would become part of the Free State unless the government opted out by presenting an address to the king, although in practice partition remained in place.

As expected, the Parliament of Northern Ireland resolved on 7 December 1922 (the day after the establishment of the Irish Free State) to exercise its right to opt out of the Free State by making an address to King George V. The text of the address was:
Most Gracious Sovereign, We, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Senators and Commons of Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, having learnt of the passing of the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922, being the Act of Parliament for the ratification of the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, do, by this humble Address, pray your Majesty that the powers of the Parliament and Government of the Irish Free State shall no longer extend to Northern Ireland.
 Shortly afterwards, the Irish Boundary Commission was established to decide on the border between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. Owing to the outbreak of the Irish Civil War, the work of the commission was delayed until 1925. The Free State government and Irish nationalists hoped for a large transfer of territory to the Free State, as many border areas had nationalist majorities, leaving the remaining Northern Ireland too small to be viable. However, the commission's final report recommended only small transfers of territory, and in both directions. The Free State, Northern Ireland, and UK governments agreed to suppress the report and accept the status quo, while the UK Government agreed that the Free State would no longer have to pay its share of the UK national debt.


Fearing Russian expansionism, Romania secretly joined the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy in 1883, but public opinion remained hostile to Austria-Hungary. Romania seized Southern Dobruja from Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War in 1913. German and Austrian-Hungarian diplomacy supported Bulgaria during the war, bringing about a rapprochement between Romania and the Triple Entente of France, Russia and the United Kingdom. The country remained neutral when World War I broke out in 1914, but Prime Minister Ion I. C. Brătianu started negotiations with the Entente Powers. After they promised Austrian-Hungarian territories with a majority of ethnic Romanian population to Romania in the Treaty of Bucharest, Romania entered the war against the Central Powers in 1916. The German and Austrian-Hungarian troops defeated the Romanian army and occupied three-quarters of the country by early 1917. After the October Revolution turned Russia from an ally into an enemy, Romania was forced to sign a harsh peace treaty with the Central Powers in May 1918, but the collapse of Russia also enabled the union of Bessarabia with Romania. King Ferdinand again mobilised the Romanian army on behalf of the Entente Powers a day before Germany capitulated on 11 November 1918.
Austria-Hungary quickly disintegrated after the war. The General Congress of Bukovina proclaimed the union of the province with Romania on 28 November 1918, and the Grand National Assembly proclaimed the union of Transylvania, Banat, Crișana and Maramureș with the kingdom on 1 December. Peace treaties with Austria, Bulgaria and Hungary delineated the new borders in 1919 and 1920, but the Soviet Union did not acknowledge the loss of Bessarabia. Romania achieved its greatest territorial extent, expanding from the pre-war 137,000 to 295,000 km² (53,000 to 114,000 sq mi). A new electoral system granted voting rights to all adult male citizens, and a series of radical agrarian reforms transformed the country into a "nation of small landowners" between 1918 and 1921. Gender equality as a principle was enacted, but women could not vote or be candidates. Calypso Botez established the National Council of Romanian Women to promote feminist ideas. Romania was a multiethnic country, with ethnic minorities making up about 30% of the population, but the new constitution declared it a unitary national state in 1923. Although minorities could establish their own schools, Romanian language, history and geography could only be taught in Romanian.
Agriculture remained the principal sector of economy, but several branches of industry—especially the production of coal, oil, metals, synthetic rubber, explosives and cosmetics—developed during the interwar period. With oil production of 5.8 million tons in 1930, Romania ranked sixth in the world. Two parties, the National Liberal Party and the National Peasants' Party, dominated political life, but the Great Depression in Romania brought about significant changes in the 1930s. The democratic parties were squeezed between conflicts with the fascist and anti-Semitic Iron Guard and the authoritarian tendencies of King Carol II. The King promulgated a new constitution and dissolved the political parties in 1938, replacing the parliamentary system with a royal dictatorship.
The 1938 Munich Agreement convinced King Carol II that France and the United Kingdom could not defend Romanian interests. German preparations for a new war required the regular supply of Romanian oil and agricultural products. The two countries concluded a treaty concerning the coordination of their economic policies in 1939, but the King could not persuade Adolf Hitler to guarantee Romania's frontiers. Romania was forced to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union on 26 June 1940, Northern Transylvania to Hungary on 30 August, and Southern Dobruja to Bulgaria in September. After the territorial losses, the King was forced to abdicate in favour of his minor son, Michael I, on 6 September, and Romania was transformed into a national-legionary state under the leadership of General Ion Antonescu. Antonescu signed the Tripartite Pact of Germany, Italy and Japan on 23 November. The Iron Guard staged a coup against Antonescu, but he crushed the riot with German support and introduced a military dictatorship in early 1941.
Romania entered World War II soon after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The country regained Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, and the Germans placed Transnistria (the territory between the rivers Dniester and Dnieper) under Romanian administration. Romanian and German troops massacred at least 160,000 local Jews in these territories; more than 105,000 Jews and about 11,000 Gypsies died during their deportation from Bessarabia to Transnistria. Most of the Jewish population of Moldavia, Wallachia, Banat and Southern Transylvania survived, but their fundamental rights were limited. After the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, about 132,000 Jews – mainly Hungarian-speaking – were deported to extermination camps from Northern Transylvania with the Hungarian authorities' support.
After the Soviet victory in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, Iuliu Maniu, a leader of the opposition to Antonescu, entered into secret negotiations with British diplomats who made it clear that Romania had to seek reconciliation with the Soviet Union. To facilitate the coordination of their activities against Antonescu's regime, the National Liberal and National Peasants' parties established the National Democratic Bloc, which also included the Social Democratic and Communist parties. After a successful Soviet offensive, the young King Michael I ordered Antonescu's arrest and appointed politicians from the National Democratic Bloc to form a new government on 23 August 1944. Romania switched sides during the war, and nearly 250,000 Romanian troops joined the Red Army's military campaign against Hungary and Germany, but Joseph Stalin regarded the country as an occupied territory within the Soviet sphere of influence. Stalin's deputy instructed the King to make the Communists' candidate, Petru Groza, the prime minister in March 1945. The Romanian administration in Northern Transylvania was soon restored, and Groza's government carried out an agrarian reform. In February 1947, the Paris Peace Treaties confirmed the return of Northern Transylvania to Romania, but they also legalised the presence of units of the Red Army in the country.


Greek colonies established on the Black Sea coast in the 7th century BC became important centres of commerce with the local tribes. Among the native peoples, Herodotus listed the Getae of the Lower Danube region, the Agathyrsi of Transylvania and the Syginnae of the plains along the river Tisza at the beginning of the 5th century BC. Centuries later, Strabo associated the Getae with the Dacians who dominated the lands along the southern Carpathian Mountains in the 1st century BC. Burebista was the first Dacian ruler to unite the local tribes. He also conquered the Greek colonies in Dobruja and the neighbouring peoples as far as the Middle Danube and the Balkan Mountains between around 55 and 44 BC. After Burebista was murdered in 44 BC, his kingdom collapsed.
The Romans reached Dacia during Burebista's reign and conquered Dobruja in 46 AD. Dacia was again united under Decebalus around 85 AD. He resisted the Romans for decades, but the Roman army defeated his troops in 106 AD. Emperor Trajan transformed Banat, Oltenia and the greater part of Transylvania into a new province called Roman Dacia, but Dacian, Germanic and Sarmatian tribes continued to dominate the lands along the Roman frontiers. The Romans pursued an organised colonisation policy, and the provincials enjoyed a long period of peace and prosperity in the 2nd century. Scholars accepting the Daco-Roman continuity theory—one of the main theories about the origin of the Romanians—say that the cohabitation of the native Dacians and the Roman colonists in Roman Dacia was the first phase of the Romanians' ethnogenesis.
The Carpians, Goths and other neighbouring tribes made regular raids against Dacia from the 210s. The Romans could not resist, and Emperor Aurelian ordered the evacuation of the province Dacia Trajana in 271. Scholars supporting the continuity theory are convinced that most Latin-speaking commoners stayed behind when the army and civil administration was withdrawn. The Romans did not abandon their fortresses along the northern banks of the Lower Danube for decades, and Dobruja (known as Scythia Minor) remained an integral part of the Roman Empire until the early 7th century.


Human remains found in Peștera cu Oase ("Cave with Bones"), radiocarbon date from circa 40,000 years ago, and represent the oldest known Homo sapiens in Europe. Neolithic agriculture spread after the arrival of a mixed group of people from Thessaly in the 6th millennium BC. Excavations near a salt spring at Lunca yielded the earliest evidence for salt exploitation in Europe; here salt production began between the 5th and 4th millennium BC. The first permanent settlements developed into "proto-cities", which were larger than 320 hectares (800 acres). The Cucuteni–Trypillia culture—the best known archaeological culture of Old Europe—flourished in Muntenia, southeastern Transylvania and northeastern Moldavia in the 3rd millennium BC.
The first fortified settlements appeared around 1800 BC, showing the militant character of Bronze Age societies.


Romania (/roʊˈmeɪni.ə/ (listen) roh-MAY-nee-ə; Romanian: România [romɨˈni.a] (listen)) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and the Black Sea to the southeast. It has a predominantly temperate-continental climate, and an area of 238,397 km² (92,046 sq mi), with a population of around 19 million. Romania is the twelfth-largest country in Europe and the sixth-most populous member state of the European Union. Its capital and largest city is Bucharest, followed by Iași, Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara, Constanța, Craiova, Sibiu, Brașov, and Galați.
The Danube, Europe's second-longest river, rises in Germany's Black Forest and flows in a southeasterly direction for 2,857 km (1,775 mi), before emptying into Romania's Danube Delta. The Carpathian Mountains, which cross Romania from the north to the southwest, include Moldoveanu Peak, at an altitude of 2,544 m (8,346 ft).
Settlement in what is now Romania began in the Lower Paleolithic, with written records attesting the kingdom of Dacia, its conquest and subsequent Latinization by the Roman Empire. The modern Romanian state was formed in 1859 through a personal union of the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. The new state, officially named Romania since 1866, gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877. During World War I, after declaring its neutrality in 1914, Romania fought together with the Allied Powers from 1916. In the aftermath of the war, Bukovina, Bessarabia, Transylvania, and parts of Banat, Crișana, and Maramureș became part of the Kingdom of Romania. In June–August 1940, as a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and Second Vienna Award, Romania was compelled to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union and Northern Transylvania to Hungary. In November 1940, Romania signed the Tripartite Pact and, consequently, in June 1941 entered World War II on the Axis side, fighting against the Soviet Union until August 1944, when it joined the Allies and recovered Northern Transylvania. Following the war and occupation by the Red Army, Romania became a socialist republic and a member of the Warsaw Pact. After the 1989 Revolution, Romania began a transition towards democracy and a market economy.
Romania is a developing country with a high-income economy, ranking 49th in the Human Development Index. It has the world's 47th largest economy by nominal GDP. Romania experienced rapid economic growth in the early 2000s; its economy is now based predominantly on services. It is a producer and net exporter of machines and electric energy through companies like Automobile Dacia and OMV Petrom. Romania has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, NATO since 2004 and the European Union (EU) since 2007. The majority of Romania's population are ethnic Romanian and religiously identify themselves as Eastern Orthodox Christians, speaking Romanian, a Romance language. The Romanian Orthodox Church is the largest and traditional church of the country.