EU - acc. PHILLIPS

The success of the Common Market inspired Europeans to work toward a closer political and economic unity, including a European executive body and Parliament.

The European Union,

c. 1992 CE-Today

In the post–World War II period, states in both Eastern and Western Europe increased their involvement in citizens’ economic lives. In the West this came through social welfare programs and the expansion of education, while Eastern European nations were heavily regulated in planned economies directed by the Soviet Union.

The Cold War promoted political and economic unity in Western Europe, leading to the establishment of a succession of ever-more comprehensive organizations for economic cooperation. In 1957, six countries formed the Common Market, which soon began to expand its membership to include other European states. The success of the Common Market inspired Europeans to work toward a closer political and economic unity, including a European executive body and Parliament. The founding of the European Union in 1991 at Maastricht included the agreement to establish the euro as a common currency for qualifying member states.

With the collapse of communism and the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the Western European democracies celebrated the triumph of their political and economic systems, and many of the former communist states sought admission into the European Union and NATO. By the late 1990s, it became evident that the transition from communism to capitalism and democracy was not as simple as it first appeared to be, with Western Europe experiencing difficulties because of economic recession and the extension of social welfare programs.

Immigration created large populations of poor and isolated minorities, which occasionally rioted because of discrimination and economic deprivation. As European governments tried to solve these problems, the apparently permanent presence of the immigrants challenged old notions of European identity.

The disruptions of two total wars, the reduction of barriers to migration within Europe because of economic integration, globalization, and the arrival of new permanent residents from outside Europe changed the everyday lives of Europeans in significant ways. For the first time, more people lived in cities than in rural communities. Economic growth—although interrupted by repeated wars and economic crises—generally increased standards of living, leisure time (despite the growing number of two-career families), educational attainment, and participation in mass cultural entertainments.

The collapse of the birth rate to below replacement levels enhanced the financial well-being of individual families even as it reduced the labor force. To support labor-force participation and encourage families, governments instituted family policies supporting child care and created large-scale guest-worker programs. Europe’s involvement in an increasingly global economy exposed its citizens to new goods, ideas, and practices. Altogether, the disruptions of war and decolonization led to new demographic patterns—a population increase followed by falling birth rates and the immigration of non-Europeans—and to uncertainties about Europeans’ cultural identity.

Even before the collapse of communism and continuing afterward, a variety of groups on both the left and right began campaigns of terror in the name of ethnic or national autonomy, or in radical opposition to free-market ideology. Other groups worked within the democratic system to achieve nationalist and xenophobic goals.

By the 1960s, the rapid industrialization of the previous century had created significant environmental problems. Environmentalists argued that the unfettered free-market economy could lead Europe to ecological disaster, and they challenged the traditional economic and political establishment with demands for sustainable development sensitive to environmental, aesthetic, and moral constraints. At the same time, a generation that had not experienced either economic depression or total war came of age and criticized existing institutions and beliefs while calling for greater political and personal freedom. These demands culminated with the 1968 youth revolts in Europe’s major cities and in challenges to institutional authority structures, especially those of universities. Feminist movements gained increased participation for women in politics, and before the end of the century, several women became heads of government or state. Women’s organizations and movements continued to advocate for other causes, such as equal pay, women’s health care issues, and increased child care subsidies.

During the second half of the century, immigrants from around the globe streamed into Europe, and by the new millennium Europeans found themselves living in multiethnic and multi-religious communities. Immigrants defied traditional expectations of integration and assimilation and expressed social values different from 20th-century Europeans. Many Europeans refused to consider the newcomers as true members of their society. In the early 21st century, Europeans continued to wrestle with issues of social justice and how to define European identity.

Source: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-european-history-course-and-exam-description.pdf

The EU and Russia

Objectives:

Explain how the formation and existence of the European Union influenced economic developments throughout the period following World War II to the present.
Explain how the European Union affected national and European identity throughout the period following World War II to the present.
Explain the causes and effects of changes to migration within and immigration to Europe throughout the period following World War II to the present.

The Berlaymont Building in Brussels, Belgium is the headquarters of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union (EU).

The European Council and Council of the European Union meet in the Europa building in Brussels, Belgium.

European Parliament, 2014

Membership

European states began to set aside nationalist rivalries in favor of economic and political integration, forming a series of transnational unions that grew in size and scope over the second half of the 20th century.
As the economic alliance known as the European Coal and Steel Community, envisioned as a means to spur postwar economic recovery, developed into the European Economic Community (EEC or Common Market) and the European Union (EU), Europe experienced increasing economic and political integration and efforts to establish a shared European identity.
EU member nations continue to balance questions of national sovereignty with the responsibilities of membership in an economic and political union.

Formed in the Cold War's wake in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, falling British support for the European Union led to the 2016 Brexit referendum to leave the EU. Britain's withdrawal from the European Union was finalized on January 31, 2020.

social media meme from 2016

The Eurozone

The expansion of cradle-to-grave social welfare programs in the aftermath of World War II, accompanied by high taxes, became a contentious domestic political issue as the budgets of European nations came under pressure.

Austerity measures adopted during the 2009 European Debt Crisis drew widespread protests. The recently adopted common euro currency was imperiled by sovereign debt crises in the troubled PIGS economies.

The COVID-19 pandemic in Europe began with Italy. When Italian hospitals were rapidly overwhelmed, Italy was the first nation to implement a near total lockdown in a country that usually receives over 62 million tourists per year. Like the rest of the world, Europe has suffered great loss of life and severe financial repercussions as a result of the pandemic.

European Identity

Increased immigration into Europe altered Europe’s religious makeup, causing debate and conflict over the role of religion in social and political life.
Because of the economic growth of the 1950s and 1960s, migrant workers from southern Europe, Asia, and Africa immigrated to western and central Europe; however, after the economic downturn of the 1970s, these workers and their families often became targets of anti-immigrant agitation and extreme nationalist political parties.

British anti-immigrant nationalist Enoch Powell gave his notorious 1968 Rivers of Blood speech during the debate over a race relations bill.

France's large Muslim population, largely descended from France's former North African colonies, has clashed with French police and with French nationalists who argue that Islamic values are contradictory to traditional French liberal and Christian values. French National Front leader Marine Le Pen won over 1/3 of the electorate in the 2017 French national election.

Conflicts in African and the Middle East led to a humanitarian disaster as a flood of immigrants crossed the Mediterranean into Europe during the 2015 Refugee Crisis.

Critics of the right-wing Alternative for Germany have accused the Islamophobic organization of neo-Nazism.

Russia and Soviet Successor States

Vladimir Putin has overseen a Russian resurgence with military expansion in the brief Georgian War, annexation of Crimea, and involvement in the Syrian Civil War.

Vladimir Putin has led Russia since 1999. During that time, Russia has lost many of the democratic gains it had won after the fall of the Soviet Union.

The rise of new nationalisms in Eastern Europe brought peaceful revolution in most countries but resulted in instability in some former Soviet republics.

Russia destroyed most of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, suppressing a Chechen independence movement in the 1990s-2000s.

The still under construction Moscow International Business Center is home to $12 billion of newly constructed skyscrapers. However, much of the office space sits empty

The EU and Russia

Separatists and Terrorists

Objective: Explain the causes and effects of mass atrocities in the period following World War II to the present.

Separatists

rally for Catalan independence from Spain held in Barcelona in 2012

Nationalist and separatist movements, along with ethnic conflict and ethnic cleansing, periodically disrupted the post-World War II peace.

National minorities have continued to fight for independent states, such as the Basque National Liberation Movement (ETA) of Spain, and the Provisional Irish Republican Army in the United Kingdom.

The Irish Troubles came to a negotiated end with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, but were followed by the terrible Omagh bombing carried out by elements of the Real Irish Republican Army who were unhappy with the peace deal.

A referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom failed in 2014. However, support for independence has dramatically increased following Britain's withdrawal from the European Union in 2020.

Terrorists

The 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 began the age of modern terrorism in Europe.

Al-Qaeda inspired bombings were carried out in Madrid and London during the early 2000s.

In 2011 Norwegian ultra-nationalist anti-immigrant right-wing terrorist Anders Breivik killed 77, mostly teenagers at a left-wing political youth retreat.

Paris suffered two devastating Islamic State inspired attacks in 2015. A mass shooting at the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine that had published offensive cartoons of Muhammad, was followed by terror attacks across the city that killed 130.

Separatists and Terrorists

Advanced Science and Technology

Objective: Explain how innovation and advances in technology influenced cultural and intellectual developments in the period 1914 to the present.

The CERN nuclear research lab in Switzerland houses the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator.

New communication and transportation technologies multiplied the connections across space and time, transforming daily life and contributing to the proliferation of ideas and to globalization.
Medical theories and technologies extended life but posed social and moral questions that eluded consensus and crossed religious, political, and philosophical perspectives.

From 1976 to 2003, the supersonic Concorde flew passengers across the Atlantic. With seating for up to 128, wealthy elites traveled from New York to London in a record 2 hours, 52 minutes, 59 seconds, or 1250 mph. Round-trip tickets cost $7,995 in 1997.

The successful cloning of Dolly the sheep in 1996 was a major breakthrough in biomedical science.

In 1977 the Florence to Rome route became Europe's first high-speed rail line.

In the 1980s and 1990s the TEN-R (Trans-European high-speed rail network) drew Europe closer together than ever before.

In the early 2000s, Finnish Nokia was the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phones and smartphones.

Artist’s impression of the Rosetta orbiter landing a probe on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

Green parties in Western and Central Europe challenged consumerism, urged sustainable development, and, by the late 20th century, cautioned against globalization.

The London Array was the world's largest offshore wind farm when it opened in 2013.

Science and Technology

Civil Rights

Objectives:

Explain how women’s roles and status developed and changed throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.
Explain how and why European culture changed from the period following World War II to the present.

Women's Rights

In 1979, "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first female prime minister.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor since 2005, has been described as the de facto leader of the European Union and the most powerful woman in the world.

The lives of women were defined by family and work responsibilities, economic changes, and feminism.
In Western Europe through the efforts of feminists, and in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union through government policy, women finally gained the vote, greater educational opportunities, and access to professional careers, even while continuing to face social inequalities.
New modes of marriage, partnership, motherhood, divorce, and reproduction gave women more options in their personal lives.
Women attained high political office and increased their representation in legislative bodies in many nations.

American comedian Conan O'Brien had a long running gag about his physical similarity to Finnish President Tarja Halonen and visited her when he did his show from Finland.

Many European women are choosing not to have children. Europe today has a negative birth rate, meaning not enough children are being born for natural population replacement.

Mary Robinson was the very popular President of Ireland during the 1990s.

LGBTQ Rights

62% of Irish voters said yes to legalize same-sex marriage in a 2015 national referendum.

Berlin hosts Europe's largest annual gay pride parade.

Various movements, including women’s movements, political and social movements, gay and lesbian movements, and others, worked for expanded civil rights, in some cases obtaining the goals they sought, and in others facing strong opposition.

Lili Elbe was the first person to surgically transition from male to female.

Michael Dillon was the first person to surgically transition from female to male.

Imprisonment of gay rights activists in gay concentration camps in Chechnya in 2017 drew worldwide protests.

In 2021, the Hungarian parliament passed a new anti-LGBT law by a vote of 157-1. Seventeen EU member states have condemned the law and called it a violation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

Civil Rights

Pop Culture

Objective: Explain how and why European culture changed from the period following World War II to the present.

Mass production, new food technologies, and industrial efficiency increased disposable income and created a consumer culture in which greater domestic comforts such as electricity, indoor plumbing, plastics, and synthetic fibers became available.
During the 20th century, the arts were defined by experimentation, self-expression, subjectivity, and the increasing influence of the United States in both elite and popular culture.
New movements in the visual arts, architecture, and music radically shifted existing aesthetic standards, explored subconscious and subjective states, and satirized Western society and its values.