Climate and nature

Most of Europe has a temperate climate neither too hot nor too cold. The coldest places are in the far north and in the high mountains, where winter night temperatures can be as low as - 40 C. The warmest places are in the far south and south-east, where summer daytime temperatures can be as high as + 40 C. The weather is warmest and driest in summer (roughly June to September) and coldest in winter (roughly December to March). However, Europes weather is very changeable, and in many places it can rain at almost any time of year.

Coping with the winter

Wild animals in cold regions usually have thick fur or feathers to keep them warm, and their coats may be white to camouflage them in the snow. Some spend the winter sleeping to save energy. This is called hibernating.

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. and European brown bears live in the mountains, where they spend the winter sleeping.

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Many species of birds live on insects, small water creatures or other food that cannot easily be found during cold winter months. So they fly south in the autumn and dont return until spring. Some travel thousands of kilometres, across the Mediterranean Sea and the Sahara Desert, to spend the winter in Africa. This seasonal travelling is called migrating.
. and even flam ingos come to Eu

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Enjoying the spring and summer
When spring comes to Europe (March to May), the weather gets warmer. Snow and ice melt. Baby fish and insect larvae swarm in the streams and ponds. Migrating birds return to make their nests and raise their families. Flowers open, and bees carry pollen from one plant to another.

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meadow.

Trees put out new leaves which catch the sunlight and use its energy to make the tree grow. In mountain regions, farmers move their cows up into the high meadows, where there is now plenty of fresh grass.
Cold-blooded animals such as reptiles also need the sun to give them energy. In summer, especially in southern Europe, you will often see lizards basking in the sunshine and hear the chirping of grasshoppers and cicadas.

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Flocks of waders find food in

river estuaries.

People and the sea
The sea is important for people too. The Mediterranean was so important to the Romans that they called it Mare nostrum: our sea. Down through the centuries, Europeans have sailed the worlds oceans, discovered the other continents, explored them, traded with them and made their homes there. In the chapter A journey through time you can find out more about these great voyages of discovery.

Container ships

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Cargo boats from around the world bring all kinds of goods (often packed in containers) to Europes busy ports. Here they are unloaded onto trains, lorries and barges. Then the ships load up with things that have been produced here and which are going to be sold on other continents.
Andrew Ros/www.rspimages.co
Some of the worlds finest ships have been built in Europe. They include Queen Mary 2 the worlds biggest ever passenger liner. She made her first transatlantic voyage in January 2004.

Andrew Ro ss

The worlds bigg est passenger sh ip

Queen Mary 2.

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Europes seaside resorts are great places for a holiday. You can enjoy all kinds of water sports, from surfing and boating to waterskiing and scuba diving. Or you can just relax sunbathing on the beach and cooling off in the sea.

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Fishing

Fishing has always been important for people in Europe. Whole towns have grown up around fishing harbours, and thousands of people earn their living by catching and selling fish or doing things for the fishermen and their families.
Europeans eat m any kinds of fis h. Tuna is one of th e biggest!
Modern fishing boats, such as factory trawlers, can catch huge numbers of fish. To make sure that enough are left in the sea, European countries have agreed rules about how many fish can be caught, and about using nets that let young fish escape.

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Another way to make sure we have enough fish is to farm them. On the coasts of northern Europe, salmon are reared in large cages in the sea. Shellfish such as mussels, oysters and clams can be farmed in the same way.

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today (in An ancient Greek temple still standing Athens).
Some of the other things the ancient Greeks gave us include: wonderful stories about gods and heroes, wars and adventures; elegant temples, marble statues and beautiful pottery; the Olympic Games; well-designed theatres, and great writers whose plays are still performed today; teachers like Socrates and Plato, who taught people how to think logically; mathematicians like Euclid and Pythagoras, who worked out the patterns and rules in maths; scientists like Aristotle (who studied plants and animals) and Eratosthenes (who proved that the earth is a sphere and worked out how big it is).

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Plato, one of th e worlds great thinkers.
The Roman Empire roughly 500 BC to 500 AD
(AD means after the birth of Christ)
Rome started out as just a city in Italy. But the Romans were very well organised, their army was very good at fighting and they gradually conquered all the lands around the Mediterranean. Eventually the Roman Empire stretched all the way from northern England to the Sahara Desert and from the Atlantic to Asia.
Part of ancient Rome and what the soldiers looked like. Roman
Here are some of the things the Romans gave us: good, straight roads connecting all parts of the empire; beautiful houses with courtyards and mosaic tiled floors; strong bridges and aqueducts (for carrying water long distances); round-topped arches which made their buildings solid and long-lasting; new building materials, such as cement and concrete; new weapons such as catapults; important laws, which many European countries still use today; the Latin language; great writers like Cicero and Virgil.

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A Roman aquedu ct still standing today: the Pont France. du

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a mythical ic showing oman mosa AR character.
The Middle Ages roughly 500 to 1500 AD
When the Roman Empire collapsed, different parts of Europe were taken over by different tribes. For example.
The Celts. Their descendants today live mainly in Brittany (France), Cornwall (England), Galicia (Spain), Ireland, Scotland and Wales. In these parts of Europe, Celtic languages and culture are very much alive.

Celtic art from

about the 700s AD.
The Germanic peoples. Not all of them settled in Germany: The Angles and Saxons moved to England and ruled it until 1066. The Franks conquered a large part of Europe, including France, between about 500 and 800 AD. Their most famous king was Charlemagne. The Goths (Visigoths and Ostrogoths) set up kingdoms in Spain and Italy. The Vikings lived in Scandinavia. In the 800s and 900s AD they sailed to other countries, stealing treasure, trading and settling where there was good farmland.
rs e such good sailo The Vikings wer d America (but they even reache !). didnt tell anyone
A battle scene fro m the Bayeux ta pestry.
The Normans, or Northmen, were Vikings who settled in France (in the area we call Normandy) and then conquered England in 1066. A famous Norman tapestry shows scenes from this conquest. It is kept in a museum in the town of Bayeux.
The Slavs settled in many parts of eastern Europe and became the ancestors of todays Slavic-speaking peoples, including Belorussians, Bulgarians, Croatians, Czechs, Poles, Russians, Serbs, Slovaks, Slovenes and Ukrainians. The Magyars settled in eastern Europe and founded the Kingdom of Hungary in the 900s AD. Their descendants today live in Hungary and other neighbouring countries.
During the Middle Ages, kings and nobles in Europe often quarrelled and there were many wars. (This was the time when knights in armour fought on horseback). To defend themselves from attack, kings and nobles often lived in strong castles, with thick stone walls. Some castles were so strong they have lasted until today.

Medieval

castles we re
built to ke ep out en emies.
Christianity became the main religion in Europe during the Middle Ages, and churches were built almost everywhere. Some of them are very impressive especially the great cathedrals, with their tall towers and colourful stained-glass windows.
ure (such as in Gothic architect a ral, France) was Chartres cathed Ages. of the Middle great invention
In southern Spain, where Islam was the main religion, the rulers built beautiful mosques and minarets. The most famous ones left today are the mosque in Cordoba and the Giralda minaret in Seville.
Part of the huge medieval mosqu e in Cordoba (S pain).
The Renaissance roughly 1300 to 1600 AD

During the Middle Ages, most people could not read or write and they knew only what they learnt in church. Only a few clever teachers in universities had copies of the books the ancient Greeks and Romans had written. But in the 1300s and 1400s, students began rediscovering the ancient books. They were amazed at the great ideas and knowledge they found there, and the news began to spread. Wealthy and educated people, for example in Florence (Italy), became very interested. They could afford to buy books especially once printing was invented in Europe (1445) and they fell in love with ancient Greece and Rome. They had their homes modelled on Roman palaces, and they paid talented artists and sculptors to decorate them with scenes from Greek and Roman stories, and with statues of gods, heroes and emperors.
One of the world s most famous statues: David by Michelangelo.
It was as if a lost world of beauty and wisdom had been reborn. That is why we call this period the Renaissance (meaning rebirth). It gave the world: great painters and sculptors such as Michelangelo and Botticelli; talented architects like Brunelleschi; the amazing inventor and artist Leonardo da Vinci; great thinkers such as Thomas More, Erasmus and Montaigne; scientists such as Copernicus and Galileo (who discovered that the earth and other planets move around the sun); beautiful buildings such as the castles in the Loire valley; a new interest in what human beings can achieve.

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Great discoveries and new ideas roughly 1500 to 1900 AD
At the time of the Renaissance, trade with distant lands was becoming very important for European merchants. For example, they were selling goods in India and bringing back valuable spices and precious stones. But travelling overland was difficult and took a long time, so the merchants wanted to reach India by sea. The problem was, Africa was in the way and it is very big! However, if the world really was round (as people were beginning to believe), European ships ought to be able to reach India by sailing west. So, in 1492, Christopher Columbus and his sailors set out from Spain and crossed the Atlantic. But instead of reaching India they discovered the Bahamas (islands in the Caribbean Sea, near the coast of America).

Replicas of Chri

stopher Colu mbuss ship s.
Other explorers soon followed. In 1497-98, Vasco da Gama a Portuguese naval officer was the first European to reach India by sailing around Africa. In 1519-1522, another Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan became the first person to sail right round the world!
the first Vasco da Gama Europe to man to sail from India.

Meanwhile, back in Europe, scientists were finding out more and more about about how the universe works. Geologists, studying rocks and fossils, began wondering how the earth had been formed and how old it really was. Two great scientists, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Charles Darwin, eventually concluded that animals and plants had evolved changing from one species into another over millions and millions of years.
The modern world roughly 1880 until today
Other European inventions from the 1870s onwards helped create the world we know today. For example: The telephone 1875 Television and motorways 1920s The petrol engine 1886 Radar and the biro pen 1935 First radio messages 1901 Instant coffee 1937 Bakelite, the first plastic 1909 First jet aircraft 1939 Neon lighting 1912 First computer 1940s
Today, roughly a quarter of the people working in Europe are producing things needed for the modern world: food and drinks; mobile phones and computers; clothes and furniture; washing machines and televisions; cars, buses and lorries and lots more besides. About seven out of every 10 European workers have service jobs. In other words, they work in shops and post offices, banks and insurance companies, hotels and restaurants, hospitals and schools, etc. either selling things or providing services that people need.
The first telephon e invented by Scottishborn Alexander Graham Bell. To day, Europe makes the latest mobile phones.
Learning the lessons of history
Sadly, the story of Europe is not all about great achievements we can be proud of. There are also many things to be ashamed of. Down the centuries, European nations fought terrible wars against each other. These wars were usually about power and property, or religion. European colonists killed millions of native people on other continents by fighting or mistreating them, or by accidentally spreading European diseases among them. Europeans also took millions of Africans to work as slaves.
Lessons had to be learnt from these dreadful wrongdoings. The European slave trade was abolished in the 1800s. Colonies gained their freedom in the 1900s. And peace did come to Europe at last. To find out how, read the chapter called Bringing the family together : the story of the European Union.
t ). More than eigh anders (Belgium alone. ar cemetery in Fl Aw orld War ed in the First W million soldiers di
Forty famous faces, A to Z
Many of the worlds great artists, composers, entertainers, inventors, scientists and sports people have come from Europe. We mentioned some of them in earlier chapters. We cant possibly include them all in this book, so here are just 40 more names, in alphabetical order and from various European countries, with photos of some of them. We have left a blank space on page 29 for your own personal choice. It could be someone famous from your own country, or your favourite European sports team or pop group. Why not find a picture of them and stick it into the blank space, along with a few facts about them?

Name Abba

tefan Bani
Nationality Swedish Slovakian British French German British Danish Irish British Polish Romanian
What they did Pop group: their songs were big hits around the world in the 1970s.
Inventor: he invented the parachute in 1913. Pop group: their songs were big hits around the world in the 1960s. Scientist: he discovered radioactivity in 1896. Composer: wrote a lot of great music. The Ode to Joy (the European anthem) comes from his ninth symphony. Inventor: he invented the World Wide Web, on which the Internet is based. Scientist: won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922, for his discoveries about the structure of atoms. Scientist: famous for his experiments on gases and the discovery of Boyles Law. Film director and one of the worlds funniest actors. His great films include Modern times. Composer and pianist: he wrote many piano pieces including his famous Preludes. Athlete: the first person ever to score full marks (10 out of 10) for gymnastics in the Olympic Games, in 1976. Scientist: with her husband Pierre she discovered radium a radioactive metal. They were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903. Artist: famous for his strange, dreamlike paintings in the surrealist style.

Tim Berners-Lee

The Beatles Henri Becquerel Ludwig van Beethoven Tim Berners-Lee Niels Bohr Robert Boyle Charlie Chaplin Fryderyk Chopin Nadia Comaneci

Nadia Comaneci

Marie Curie (Maria Sklodowska) Salvador Dal

Polish

Marie Curie

Spanish

Van Parys Med ia/Corbis

Name Marlene Dietrich

Nationality German
What they did Actress: she starred in many films, including the original version of Around the world in 80 days. Composer: his great pieces include the New World Symphony. Scientist: he discovered relativity in other words, how matter, energy and time are all related to one another. Film director: his great films, including La Strada, won him five Oscar awards. Film director: he won Oscars for his films Amadeus and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. Psychiatrist: he developed psychoanalysis a way of explaining how our minds work. Tennis player: she won a gold medal at the 2004 Olympic Games. Artist and writer: he created the Tintin adventures and many other comic book series Scientist: in 1888 he proved that radio waves exist. Scientist: in 1933 he put forward the Big Bang theory, explaining how the universe began.

Slavic Czech Polish Slovak Slovene Dobre rano Dzie dobry Dobr rno Dobro jutro
Its not hard to see the family likeness in these examples. But there are other European languages that are less closely related, or not at all related, to one another. Heres how to say Good morning or Hello in just a dozen of these languages. Basque Breton Estonian Finnish Gaelic (Scottish) Greek Egun on Demat Tere hommikust Hyv huomenta Madainn mhath Kalimera Hungarian Irish Latvian Lithuanian Maltese Welsh J reggelt Dia dhuit Labrt Labas Rytas L-Ghodwa t-Tajba Bore da
In the language of the Roma people, who live in many parts of Europe, Good morning is Lasho dyes. Learning languages can be great fun and its important on a continent like ours. Many of us enjoy going on holiday to other European countries, and getting to know the people there. Thats a great opportunity to practise the phrases we know in different languages.

A family of peoples

We Europeans belong to many different countries, with different languages, traditions, customs and beliefs. Yet we belong together, like a big family, for all sorts of reasons. Here are some of them. We have shared this continent for thousands of years. Our languages are often related to one another. Many people in every country are descended from people from other countries. Our traditions, customs and festivals often have the same origins. We share and enjoy the beautiful music and art, and the many plays and stories, that people from all over Europe have given us, down the centuries. Almost everyone in Europe believes in things like fair play, neighbourliness, freedom to have your own opinions, respect for each other and caring for people in need. So we enjoy whats different and special about our own country and region, but we also enjoy what we have in common as Europeans.

War and peace

Sadly, there have been many quarrels in the European family. Often they were about who should rule a country, or which country owned which piece of land. Sometimes a ruler wanted to gain more power by conquering his neighbours.

One way or another, for hundreds of years, there were terrible wars in Europe. In the 20th century, two big wars started on this continent but spread and involved countries all around the world. That is why they are called World Wars. They killed millions of people and left Europe poor and in ruins.

. Europe in 1945

Could anything be done to stop these things happening again? Would Europeans ever learn to sit down together and discuss things instead of fighting? The answer is yes. Thats the story of our next chapter: the story of the European Union.
: Bringing the family togethern the story of the European Unio
The Second World War ended in 1945. It had been a time of terrible destruction and killing, and it had started in Europe. How could the leaders of European countries stop such dreadful things from ever happening again? They needed a really good plan that had never been tried before.

A brand new idea

A Frenchman called Jean Monnet thought hard about this. He realised that there were two things a country needed before it could make war: iron for producing steel (to make tanks, guns, bombs and so on) and coal to provide the energy for factories and railways. Europe had plenty of coal and steel: thats why European countries had easily been able to make weapons and go to war.

et Jean Monn

So Jean Monnet came up with a very daring new idea. His idea was that the governments of France and Germany and perhaps of other European countries too should no longer run their own coal and steel industries. Instead, these industries should be organised by people from all the countries involved, and they would sit around a table and discuss and decide things together. That way, war between them would be impossible!
Jean Monnet felt that his plan really would work if only European leaders were willing to try it. He spoke about it to his friend Robert Schuman, who was a minister in the French government. Robert Schuman thought it was a brilliant idea, and he announced it in an important speech on 9 May 1950.

Robert Schuman

The speech convinced not only the French and German leaders but also the leaders of Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. They all decided to put their coal and steel industries together and to form a club they called the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). It would work for peaceful purposes and help rebuild Europe from the ruins of war. The ECSC was set up in 1951.

The common market

The six countries got on so well working together that they soon decided to start another club, called the European Economic Community (EEC). It was set up in 1957. Economic means to do with the economy in other words, to do with money, business, jobs and trade. One of the main ideas was that the EEC countries would share a common market, to make it easier to trade together. Until then, lorries and trains and barges carrying goods from one country to another always had to stop at the border, and papers had to be checked and money called customs duties had to be paid. This held things up and made goods from abroad more expensive. The point of having a common market was to get rid of all those border checks and delays and customs duties, and to allow countries to trade with one another just as if they were all one single country.

Helping regions in difficulty
The euro is used in many EU countries.
Life is not easy for everyone everywhere in Europe. In some places there are not enough jobs for people, because mines or factories have closed down. In some areas, farming is hard because of the climate, or trade is difficult because there are not enough roads and railways.
The EU tackles these problems by collecting money from all its member countries and using it to help regions that are in difficulty. For example, it helps pay for new roads and rail links, and it helps businesses to provide new jobs for people.

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roads. for new lps pay he The EU

Helping poor countries

In many countries around the world, people are dying or living difficult lives because of war, disease and natural disasters such as droughts or floods. Often these countries do not have enough money to build the schools and hospitals, roads and houses that their people need. The EU gives money to these countries, and sends teachers, doctors, engineers and other experts to work there. It also buys many things that those countries produce without charging customs duties. That way, the poor countries can earn more money.

EC/ECHO

in food to people The EU delivers need.
The European Union has brought many European countries together in friendship. They dont always agree on everything, but thats normal. (Do people in your family always agree on everything?) What is good is that the leaders of EU countries sit round a table to sort out their disagreements instead of fighting. So the dream of Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman has come true: the EU has brought peace among its members. It is also working for lasting peace among its neighbours and in the wider world. For example, EU soldiers and police officers are helping keep the peace in the former Yugoslavia, where there was bitter fighting not many years ago. These are just some of the things the EU does: there are many more. In fact, being in the European Union makes a difference to just about every aspect of our lives.
Europe has its own flag and its own anthem the Ode to Joy from Beethovens ninth symphony. The original words are in German, but when used as the European anthem it has no words only the tune. You can hear it on the Internet: europa.eu.int/abc/symbols/anthem/index_en.htm

The Europea

n flag.
The European Union and its neighbours
Key The coloured countries are members of the European Union (EU). The striped countries are planning to join the EU. The other countries, including those shown by a small circle, are neighbours of the EU. The dots show where the capital cities are. Vatican City is in Rome. Some islands and other pieces of land belonging to France, Portugal and Spain are part of the EU. But they are a long way from mainland Europe, so we have put them in the box (top right).

The European Union countries
The countries are in alphabetical order according to what each country is called in its own language or languages (as shown in brackets). Flag Country Belgium (Belgi; Belgique) Czech Republic (esk republika) Denmark (Danmark) Germany (Deutschland) Estonia (Eesti) Greece ( /Ellada) Spain (Espaa) France (France) Ireland (Ireland; Eire) Italy (Italia) Cyprus ( /Kypros) (Kibris) Latvia (Latvija) Lithuania (Lietuva) Capital City Brussels (Brussel; Bruxelles) Prague (Praha) Copenhagen (Kbenhavn) Berlin (Berlin) Tallinn (Tallinn) Athens (A /Athinai) Madrid (Madrid) Paris (Paris) Dublin (Dublin; Baile Atha Cliath) Rome (Roma) Nicosia ( /Lefkosia) (Lefkosa) Riga (Riga) Vilnius (Vilnius) Population 10.4 million

10.2 million

5.4 million

82.5 million

1.4 million

11.0 million

40.7 million

59.6 million

4.0 million

57.3 million

0.7 million

2.3 million

3.5 million
Country Luxembourg (Luxembourg) Hungary (Magyarorszg) Malta (Malta) Netherlands (Nederland) Austria (sterreich) Poland (Polska) Portugal (Portugal) Slovenia (Slovenija) Slovakia (Slovensko) Finland (Suomi; Finland) Sweden (Sverige) United Kingdom (*) (United Kingdom)
Capital City Luxembourg (Luxembourg) Budapest (Budapest) Valletta (Valletta) Amsterdam (Amsterdam) Vienna (Wien) Warsaw (Warszawa) Lisbon (Lisboa) Ljubljana (Ljubljana) Bratislava (Bratislava) Helsinki (Helsinki; Helsingfors) Stockholm (Stockholm) London (London)

Population 0.5 million

10.1 million

0.4 million

16.2 million

8.1 million

38.2 million

10.4 million

2.0 million

5.2 million

8.9 million

59.3 million

(*) The full name of this country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but for short most people just call it Britain, the United Kingdom or the UK. Population figures are for 1 January 2004. Source: Eurostat.
How the EU takes decisions
As you can imagine, it takes a lot of effort by a lot of people to organise the EU and make everything work. Who does what?

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT OFFICES Office in Ireland European Union House 43 Molesworth Street Dublin 2 Tel. (353-1) 00 Fax (353-1) 99 Internet: www.europarl.ie E-mail: epdublin@europarl.eu.int United Kingdom Office 2 Queen Annes Gate London SW1H 9AA Tel. (44-20) Fax (44-20) Internet: www.europarl.org.uk E-mail: eplondon@europarl.eu.int Office in Scotland The Tun 4 Jacksons Entry Holyrood Road Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Tel. (44-131) 66 Fax (44-131) 77 Internet: www.europarl.org.uk E-mail: epedinburgh@europarl.eu.int
There are European Commission and Parliament representations and offices in all the countries of the European Union. The European Commission also has delegations in other parts of the world.
Europe: a beautiful continent with a fascinating history. It has produced many of the worlds famous scientists, inventors, artists and composers, as well as popular entertainers and successful sports people. For centuries Europe was plagued by wars and divisions. But in the last 50 years or so, the countries of this old continent have at last been coming together in peace, friendship and unity, to work for a better Europe and a better world. This book for children (roughly 9 to 12 years old) tells the story simply and clearly. Full of interesting facts and colourful illustrations, it gives a lively overview of Europe and explains briefly what the European Union is and how it works. Each chapter links to an online quiz (europa.eu.int/europago/explore/), and there are games on the Europa Go website (europa.eu.int/europago/welcome.jsp). Have fun exploring!

NA-63-04-359-EN-C