European History
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This Week in History/June 2026/Week 4
The Assassination That Started World War I, June 28, 1914 On June 28th 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was next in line to the Hungarian throne, and his wife, Duchess Sophie of Hohenberg, were killed while visiting Sarajevo. The killer, Gavrilo Princip, was a 19-year-old member of a group called Young Bosnia that wanted independence.…
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What If the Mongols Conquered Western Europe?
What if the Mongols Conquered Western Europe? The Mongol Empire was really big. It was the land empire ever. In the century Mongol armies moved across Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. They beat some powerful states. By 1241 they had beaten the armies of Poland and Hungary. They seemed ready to move into…
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This Week in History/June 2026/Week 3
The Battle of Waterloo and the End of Napoleon, June 18, 1815 The Battle of Waterloo, fought on June 18, 1815, was one of the most important battles in European history. It was fought near the present-day Belgian border and ended the Napoleonic era that had defined the political map of the European continent for…
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This Week in History/June 2026/Week 2
The Mysterious Death of the King of Bavaria On June 13, 1886, King Ludwig II of Bavaria was found dead in Lake Starnberg near Munich. Ludwig II, Ludwig Otto Friedrich Wilhelm, ruled Bavaria from 1864 to 1886 and was known for his passion for art, music, and architecture. A devoted patron of the composer Richard…
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This Week in History/June 2026/Week 1
June 6, 1944 – The Remarkable Normandy Landings That Opened the Road to Victory On June 6, 1944, Allied forces launched the largest amphibious landing operation in military history, known as D-Day or the Normandy landings. This operation is considered the beginning of the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s occupation during World War…
