It started with the Greeks.

It was really the Greeks that began the Europe that we know and culture that we consider today. In Ancient Greece, however, it was only the Western Coastline of the Aegean that was considered Europe and Eastern side was called Asia. 

Homer's Iliad and Odyssey show that the human story is one of migration. They're actually really good books - having studied The Odyssey in GCSE Classical Civilisation and also having begun reading The Iliad for kicks, more than anything, on Kindle on my phone (it was free to download, so, y'know - why not?) The British equivalent of these books would be Beowulf, which I know little about. I know it's something about a monster wolf thing... that's all I've got.

Anyway, many Ancient languages (e.g., Greek, Sanskrit and Hindi) all come from a root language, and from here all other languages have, essentially, evolved from here, showing how humans have migrated.

Greeks essentially mutated into Romans, or, alternatively, Romans were too lazy to come up with their own culture, focusing more on power and politics, and so just renamed Greek things and claimed them as their own (at least, this is how I like to look at it).

Greco-Roman civilisation was incredibly advanced, knowing (or at least theorising) things that we tend to think about as very modern ideas, such as fundamental particles (which, as an ex-physicist I find perfectly amazing). However, all these ideas were lost, as we well know, and the world was plunged into the Dark Ages. The Roman Empire became corrupted and, as Christianity grew in popularity, it essentially changed into the Church which found the theories and scientific teachings to go against the word of God and the ideas in the Bible, etc. So, to preserve their ideas, the decided it was definitely a very good idea to just destroy all the books and tablets and parchments that went against, close all the Schools of Philosophy and to burn, drown and generally kill (in horrible ways) anyone that went against them as they were heretics. This lasted, unchallenged, for around 1000 years. There were a few books saved specifically for monks to study, but these were hand-picked to preserve the Christian Church.

In the meantime, in the Middle East... (Batman music) culture flourished. Mostly because they weren't stupid enough to destroy all the books and ideas which had been brought over with trade and migration and, instead, built upon them. They seemed so much more advanced that the West thought that they had magic carpets and golden buildings… (I feel like watching Disney films now). Eventually, through trade and the such, this wisdom (but no magic carpets, unfortunately) was bought back to the West.

Anyway, back to Britain, where the only thing preserved was Aristotle’s idea of logic. Which was a bit rubbish, in a sense (at least, that’s what I think). It is a way of “categorising thought” and was one of the few things taught at university at the time. It was based on the process of syllogism – where a conclusion can be derived from to premises. He wrote:

“All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is a mortal.”

I’m sure, given enough time and effort, I could come up with a way of showing that this method doesn’t always work, but I’m ill and tired and it sounds like hard work. Anyway, this logic acted as a dogma, stopping all free thought and true knowledge of the universe as The Church forced the world to believe that its ideas were facts: the sun revolved around the earth, the earth was flat, etc. The Italian renaissance, therefore, was a challenge of authority of Aristotle, enlightening the world and liberating it from the limitation of axioms from only the Bible.

Also, just to depress everyone that's got this far (as a reward for reading everything) I think I just need to remind you all that we are indeed just "dust in the wind". Because we are. We're nothing. Our lives make almost no impact on the Earth (apart from killing off a few polar bears and trees), which makes no impact in the solar system (apart from littering in the area just outside the atmosphere with space junk), which does nothing within the galaxy which I really nothing special compared to the millions of others in the Universe. Our 100 years, give or take, on this Earth are also nothing if you think about the age of the Earth or the Universe. Not the hard-core Christian age of about 6000 years which, in my opinion, is clearly a load of rubbish (in the "cleaned-up" version of my opinions, at least). In Buddhism, the age of the Universe is about 12 epochs (1 epoch being the time taken for to erode the hardest granite mountain to sea level if a monk to climb up once a year to stroke it with the softest silk once each time and without the aid of natural erosion - so, quite long). Don't you feel important now?

On a separate note, I also learnt that Britain is, arguably, a new country as before the French Revolution, we were "quite foreign" in the sense that a lot of our ideas and culture, including Shakespearean plays, took its ideas from other parts of Europe. I'm not sure I agree, but I can understand the ideas behind it.

Right, I think that’s everything I learned… it’s certainly everything that I remember combined with all the notes I have (assuming, of course, I haven’t lost any in the bomb-site that is my desk… which is quite likely if I’m honest) Tune in next time for the next exciting, incoherent look into the past!