Our story begins long ago in Europe.
The START of the Iron Age proper is considered by many to fall between around 1200 BC and 600 BC, depending on the region.
Gaul (Latin: Gallia) was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age that was inhabited by Celtic tribes, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerland, Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands, Central Italy and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine. It covered an area of 190,800 sq mi (494,000 km2). According to the testimony of Julius Caesar, Gaul was divided into three parts: Gallia Celtica, Belgica and Aquitania. Archaeologically, the Gauls were bearers of the La Tène culture, which extended across all of Gaul, as well as east to Raetia, Noricum, Pannonia and southwestern Germania during the 5th to 1st centuries BC.
121 BC - 486 AD Roman Gaul
Rome began to take over Celtic Gaul about 121 BC. This included the time of the rule of the famous Julius Caesar (58 BC - 51 BC). Caesar was victorious at the Battle of Alesia in 58 BC.
Rome's rule ended with the Battle of Soissons in 486 AD. The French culture and language was influenced greatly by the Romans and the Latin language.
The word "Gallia" continued to be used in writing until about 760 AD.
962 - 1806 The Holy Roman Empire
It began (to some extent) with Charlemagne in 800 AD or per some accounts with Otto I in 962 AD.
Charlemagne, also known as Charles the Great (Latin: Carolus or Karolus Magnus) or Charles I, was King of the Franks. He united much of Europe during the early Middle Ages and laid the foundations for modern France, Germany, and the Low Countries. He took the Frankish throne in 768 and became King of Italy in 774. From 800, he served as the first Holy Roman Emperor, the first recognized emperor in Western Europe since the fall of the Western Roman Empire three centuries earlier. The expanded Frankish state which Charlemagne founded was called the Carolingian Empire.
In Gaul, Roman power was receding when Charlemagne came to power. It gradually faded until about 924 AD and was gone by the time of Otto I.
Otto I (23 November 912 - 7 May 973), traditionally known as Otto I the Great (German: Otto I. der Große), was German king from 936 and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire from 962 until his death in 973.
He has not been entirely forgotten, though other individuals garner more attention.
Otto I was selected as the main motif for a high-value commemorative coin, the EUR100 Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire commemorative coin, issued in 2008 by the Austrian Mint. The obverse shows the Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire. The reverse shows Emperor Otto I with Old St. Peter's Basilica in Rome in the background, where his coronation took place. Among others, three exhibitions in Magdeburg, opening in 2001, 2006 and 2012, have documented Otto's life and his influence on medieval European history.
This included territories from Italy to Denmark, but not westward to the Atlantic ocean. For the most part the area we know as France was not ruled by the Church.
The HRE lasted a long time and there were many important events in that time. Some of them indicated great discontent with the Church.
1279, 1290 Edward I of England (ruled 1272-1307) created a law to prevent estates from avoiding tax payment by bequeathing entire estates to the Church.
1483 - 1546 Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses in 1517 in Wittenberg, Germany.
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| Martin Luther's 95 Theses |
He called for individuals to pray directly to their God and distance themselves from the Roman Pope. This was in part due to what Luther saw as corruption in the Church, too much taxation, and the selling of relics which he saw as a fraud.
1521 The Church Excommunicated Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms
A short time after that Henry VIII of England had his own conflict with the Church.
1491 - 1547 Henry VIII of England (ruled 1509 - 1547)
He began the English Reformation in 1532 and he changed the "cestui qui" law along with many other things. His contempt for the Church related strongly to his own personal interests.
1536 The law of Edward I of England was avoided to some extent avoided with "cestui que", a law designed specifically to assist some people to avoid paying taxes.
1536 The Statute of Uses
Henry VIII modified the laws of 1279 and 1290 and did away with "cestui que" regarding estate bequeathment. The kind of law Henry VIII created still exists in the United States, though there are a variety of them across the nation. The British law was modified again as recently as 1964.
1538 Henry VIII was Excommunicated (as Martin Luther had been)
Interestingly, the HRE ended 250 years after Martin Luther's activities. Clearly the Church had a grip on some parts of Europe, even greater than that of the Romans before in Gallia.
The HRE control in Europe came to an end with Napoleon at the battle of Austerlisz in 1806.
The French Revolutions, Empires, and Republics
This time period came before the end of the HRE, but saw the end of that period and the beginning of the new modern Republic (based to a large extent on the American Revolution which was inspired in part by French and British ideas). This was a major change in the course of history since Europe had been governed by secular monarchs, emperors, and/or the Church since a time before Jesus of Nazareth. Where Martin Luther and Henry VIII of England had been ahead of their times, Napoleon Bonaparte and Hitler were at the center of this upheaval and change. Napoleon wanted to continue the old tradition and Hitler wanted to return to it.
1776 - 1781 The American Revolution -- Establishing a Modern Democracy
The Americans acted first to separate themselves from the monarchy of the King of England. It was perhaps easier since we were so far away and the King was preoccupied with other interests. The American military forces were a rag-tag group which didn't really win any battles, but they avoided losing and that was enough. The British tried to regain power in the War of 1812, but the Americans were stronger by then and again survived.
1789 - 1799 French Revolution
During the period of transition from monarchy to something new, Napoleon Bonaparte and the House of Bonaparte ruled for nearly seventy years. That ended in 1870 with Napoleon Bonaparte III. The imperial monarchy was succeeded by the 3rd French Republic.
1792 - 1795 1st French Republic
1795 - 1799 The Directory
1804 - 1814 Napoleon I
1815 Napoleon II
1848 - 1851 2nd French Republic
Achieved by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, who was an elected official.
A New Beginning
1870 - 1940 3rd French Republic
This ended the the rule of Napoleon II and the 2nd Republic.
It was ended by World War II and Hitler.
1894 - 1906 The Dreyfus Affair, which was about anti-Semitism, showed a major nationalist-Catholic versus secularist schism in France. But, in 1905 separation of Church and State became the law. Gallicanism ended.
1905 The state religion of France, Catholicism, was disestablished.
The Dreyfus Affair and the "disestablishment of state religion" were "nails in the coffin" of Church rule in France.
1917, 1922 - 1991 The Soviet Union of Russia and surrounding Countries
This time period also saw the overthrow of the Tsarist monarchy of Russia by Communists led by Vladimir Lenin (1917) and the establishment of the Soviet Union (1922-1991).
1921 - today Chinese Communism Began
Even in Asia the Communist movement was strong. They began with a single charismatic leader, Mao Zedong, and by 1949 they had consolidated their power.
1919 - 1933 The Weimar Republic of Germany
In Germany, officially Deutsches Reich, after World War I they were going through many of the same problems of transition from Emperors to elected officials.
1933 - 1945 Adolph Hitler, the Nazi Party, Germany, and World War II
Hitler rose to power during the Depression and when Germany was suffering economically. The people were desperate and this gave the Nazis great power. They abused it badly. It can easily be argued that Hitler wanted to return to an Imperial form of leadership, but this was not successful and the nation returned to a democratic-republican form of government which is still successful today.
1946 - 1958 4th French Republic -- Another New Beginning
1958 - today 5th French Republic, by Charles deGaulle
The first major change with this establishment was to end colonialism, something which has been involved in the European (and World) wars. Many of these nations established a Democracy or continued the Democracy the colonial power had in place. Some used dictatorships, but in the 1970s or 80s those began to also be replaced.
1991 The Fall of the Soviet Union
With the collapse of the Communist state in Russia and a beginning of evolution in China to greater individual rights, the East has also accepted a lot of the ideals of the West and the Modern Democracy (a democratic-republican form of government).
And then What Happened?
In Russia they established a new Democracy, but after the presidency of Vladimir Yeltsin, there came to power Vladimir Putin, the former head of the KGB of the Soviet Union. He was the chief spy.
There is this from his personal web-page about himself as a child in school, "From first and eighth grade, Vladimir Putin studied at School No. 193. As he recalls, he was a troublemaker, not a Pioneer."
"Even before I finished high school, I wanted to work in intelligence. Granted, soon after, I decided I wanted to be a sailor, but then I wanted to do intelligence again. In the very beginning, I wanted to be a pilot." --Vladimir Putin
"Even before he finished school, Vladimir Putin wanted to work in intelligence. He went to a public reception office of the KGB Directorate to find out how to become an intelligence officer. There, he was told that first, he would have to either serve in the army or complete college, preferably with a degree in law.
“And from that moment, I began preparing myself to enter the law department at Leningrad State University,” Mr Putin notes."
"In 1970, Vladimir Putin became a student of law department at Leningrad State University, earning his degree in 1975. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Mr Putin studied at KGB School No. 1 in Moscow."
A sailor? A pilot? An intelligence officer.
Photo from Vladimir Putin’s personal archive
"After graduating from Leningrad State University, Putin was assigned to work in the state security agencies. “My perception of the KGB was based on the idealistic stories I heard about intelligence.” " -- Putin
He married in 1983 and had two daughters.
"In 1985-1990, Vladimir Putin worked in East Germany. He served at the local intelligence office in Dresden. Over the course of his service, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and to the position of senior assistant to the head of the department. In 1989, he was awarded the bronze medal issued in the German Democratic Republic, For Faithful Service to the National People’s Army. “My work was going well. It was a normal thing to be promoted just once while working abroad. I was promoted twice,” Mr Putin says."
"After returning to Leningrad from Dresden in 1990, Vladimir Putin found new job as assistant to the rector of Leningrad State University, in which position he was responsible for international relations. “I was happy to find work at Leningrad State University,” he later recalled. “I took the job hoping at the same time to write my Ph.D. thesis and, perhaps, stay on and work there afterwards. That was how I ended up, in 1990, becoming assistant to the rector in charge of international relations.” "
Why was he no longer doing the normal work of the KGB? Had they reassigned him to the political world?
"Starting in June 1991, Putin began work as Chairman of the Committee for International Relations at the St Petersburg City Hall,..."
"After starting work at the City Hall, Putin sent in his resignation from the KGB."
The Soviet Union was dissolved on December 26, 1991.
In 1996, he and his family moved to Moscow, where his political career began.
"In August 1999, Putin was appointed Prime Minister of the Russian Government. The post was offered to him by then President Boris Yeltsin."
"“Two or three weeks before New Year [2000], Mr Yeltsin called me to his office and said that he had decided to step down. This meant I would have to become Acting President,” Putin recalled."
"Vladimir Putin was elected President of Russia on March 26, 2000, and was re-elected to a second term on March 14, 2004. On May 8, 2008, he was appointed Prime Minister by presidential executive order."
"Vladimir Putin was elected President of Russia on March 4, 2012."
His statement was translated by some as, "the collapse of the Soviet Union was the major geopolitical catastrophe of the century". This has a different meaning, that perhaps it was a very bad thing.
Considering the many difficulties nations have had during the transitions from one kind of political power to another, it could easily be considered a disaster for the people or a catastrophic event for the status quo, but whether these major transitions are bad or necessary is difficult to assess, especially in the moment. In any event, they seem to be inevitable.
Putin's behavior since has been belligerence toward the West (united States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, and other western European nations. In particular he has been critical of NATO and it's expansion of influence into nations which were formerly a part of the Soviet Union. Is this Napoleon or Hitler attempting to invade Russia again? He may have been irked most by the reuniting of Eastern and Western Germany because he was stationed in Eastern Germany at the time the Berlin Wall fell (that signaled the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union).
In Western Europe they have settled into their Democracies and have shown no aggression toward anyone.
The United States has been busy expanding opportunities for commerce on a global scale and opposing both religious militants/terrorists in the middle-east and nuclear terrorists everywhere.
Putin has announced a desire to create a New Russia and a couple of his efforts were to invade Georgia (formerly a part of the Soviet Union) and then Ukraine. He took the Crimean peninsula and a part of eastern Ukraine inhabited by Russian ethnic citizens.
He has been accused of killing or jailing his political opponents. It has also been said that the richest individuals in Russia are mere puppets of his and that his personal wealth is approximately $85 Billion. That doesn't make sense for a political figure.
Putin he has also taken previous Soviet efforts against the West to new heights using the Internet and other means. In America the intelligence community says he had the GRU and FSB interfere in and try to determine the outcome of our presidential election.
Today we have an American president, Donald Trump, who wishes to have closer ties to Russia and perhaps a weaker tie to NATO and the Western European nations. This is a startling shock to the American system.
Given the long history of Europe and of the gradual changes from tribes to Roman rule to the Holy Roman Empire and then to nation-states and finally to Democratic Republics, change seems inevitable and unpleasant, but usually for the better. What does Putin offer that is new and better? Is he only trying to become a modern Napoleon or Caesar? This is a very unsettling moment for the West. We don't know the future and the uncertainty bothers us.
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