Age of Enlightenment French Revolution Napoleonic Wars Industrial Revolution Great Britain Western Europe world wars Soviet Union Cold War Iron Curtain NATO Warsaw Pact Revolutions of 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall dissolution of the Soviet Union continent
The Age of Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars shaped the continent culturally, politically and economically from the end of the 17th century until the first half of the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to radical economic, cultural and social change in Western Europe and eventually the wider world. Both world wars began and were fought to a great extent in Europe, contributing to a decline in Western European dominance in world affairs by the mid-20th century as the Soviet Union and the United States took prominence. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the West and the Warsaw Pact in the East, until the Revolutions of 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
