An 1980s heavy metal band. Big hair, tight leather, and screaming fans. They were most famous for their song "The Final Countdown," but other hits of theirs included "Carrie," "Rock the Night," and "Prisoners in Paradise."
Vocals: Joey Tempest Guitar and background vocals: Kee Marcello Bass guitar: John Leven Keybords and background vocals: Mic Michaeli Drums and background vocals: Ian Haugland
A fantastic place to visit as a backpacker, Europe offers a wide array of different cultures and scenery inside a small area.
It contains such great party spots as the Greek Islands, Amsterdam and Prague.
There's also a great deal of impressive architecture and historically significant places like The Colosseum in Rome, the Acropolis in Athens, the still blackened Dresden, and the various concentration camps such as Auschwitz in Poland and Dachau in Germany.
And no writeup on Europe would be complete without reference to Vatican City, which houses the world's largest church in its smallest country. A walk through the Vatican Museum to the Sistine Chapel could take up the best part of a day. It's that impressive.
Oh, and visit Prague and see it by morning. It will take your breath away.
In recorded history, Europe has been the world's primary technological, economic, and military power during two different time periods. The first period extended from the rise of classical Greek civilization in about 900 BC to the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 A.D.. Europe then entered the so-called "Dark Ages", a period of economic depression fueled by a minor ice age and decreased interest in the secular world associated with the rise of Christianity. The second period of dominance began in approximately 1500, during the time known as the Renaissance. Warriors returning from the Crusades had been bringing back tales of the advanced science and culture of the prospering Middle East for some time, but only as the 15th century came to a close did Europe's achievements (discovery of the New World, the science of Copernicus and Descartes, the paintings and sculptures of Renaissance Italy, etc.), begin to eclipse those of the Middle East and India. What followed was hundreds of years of unbelievable prosperity and discovery, coupled with some of the most violent warfare in the history of mankind, as nations, ideas, and religions clashed. This warfare eventually brought Europe's second era of world dominance to a close in the early 20th century, whereupon the two superpowers emerged to its west and east. Although devastated by two world wars, the rise of the totalitarian state, and the loss of virtually all overseas colonies, most of Europe recovered relatively quickly and the continent remains one of the most developed and prosperous regions of Earth.
It's surprising to see nobody listed all the countries on the old continent. The format is <common English name> - <common local name> - <two letter country code>:
There are also four special cases: countries the territory of which is both in Europe and in Asia:
The border points for the above list were approximately the Atlantic Ocean, Arctic Ocean, Ural Mountains, Ural River, Caspian Sea, Caucasus, Black Sea and Mediterranean Sea.
This is a list of political entities and many of these are arguable. Language poses an additional problem. If you disagree with something or wish to correct an error, please /msg me and I will take note and add to this writeup.
For a list of other names for Europe, see http://www.geonames.de/land.html#eur
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