History of Poland

Poland has remarkable history of heroic resilience and tragedy, and delight in the charming character of its cities. The oldest of Poland's national symbols is the White Eagle. The name of Poland comes from the name of the Polanie tribe or people tilling land.

• VIII century BC -earliest settlements in Biskupin had a population of around 1,000 -1,200 people.
• 966 - Poland become a country. Mieszko I, ruler of Poland, founds the Piast dynasty with capital in Gniezno.
• 999 - The Poland adopted Christianity
  
• 1025 - the coronation of the first polish King Boleslaw Chrobry (Boleslaus the Brave)
• 1138 - Boleslaw III Krzywousty divided Poland divided Polish Kingdom into five parts , one for each of his sons
• 1364 - King Kazimierz Wielki (Casimir the Great) established a university in Krakow, (those days the capital of the Kingdom of Poland). It was the second university to be founded in Central Europe, after Praguethe University
• 1543 - Mikolaj Kopernik (Nicholas Copernicus) publishes "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" and defends the heliocentric theory. Kopernik figured out that the sun is the center of our solar system
• 1569 - The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth stretched from the Baltic Sea almost to the Black Sea. The Commonwealth was the largest state in Europe, before Russia .
• 1772 and 1795 Partitions of Poland . The territory of the Kingdom of Poland was divided between Prussia, Russia and Austria (Galicia, Krakow). At this times there was no separate Polish state at all.
• 1794 - Polish hero Tadeusz Kosciuszko starts a rebellion for Polish independence, but Russia and Prussia invade the country
• 1807 - Napoleon defeats Prussia and creates a Duchy of Warszawa (Warsaw)
• 1865: after a failed pro-independence uprising, Russia turns the kingdom of Poland into the Vistula Province, forbids the use of the Polish and Lithuanian languages and persecutes the Catholic church. The 19th century was the time of industrial development and more than a million people emigrated from Poland, mostly to North America.
• 1914 - 1918 The First World War. In 1918 Poland regained its independence as a Second Polish Republic.
• 1926 - Josef Pilsudski proclaims himself dictator of Poland
• 1939 - 1945 The World War II. Poland was attacked by Nazi Germany and the Stalin's Soviet Union and divide the Second Polish Republic between them. The Nazis murdered about 90% of the Polish Jews and more than a million of Catholic Poles in the death camps at Maidanek, Birkenau, and Auschwitz . The Soviets also murdered a comparable number of Poles, many others experienced to concentration camps in Siberia.
• 1945 - The post-war Potsdam conference set new borders. Poland loses territory to the Soviet Union but gains some from Germany. Poland lost a third of its pre-WWII area which was taken over by the Soviets
• 1947 - Poland becomes a Communist People's Republic. The elections are denounced by the US as undemocratic.
• 1956 - More than 50 people killed in rioting in Poznan over demands for greater freedom.
• 1970 - Food price riots in Gdansk. The protests are suppressed, hundreds are killed. Edward Gierek becomes party leader
• 1978 - the Polish cardinal Karol Wojtyla becomes Pope John Paul II, first non-Italian Pope in centuries
• 1979- Pope John Paul II visits Poland and supports the anti-communist movement
• 1980 - reform movement, Lech Walesa of Solidarnosc leads Polish workers in a strike
• 1989 - communist government and Solidarity during the talks Round-table agree to share power. Partially free elections see widespread success for Solidarity, which helps form coalition government.
• 1990 - Walesa elected president of Poland. Market reforms, including large-scale privatisation, are launched.
• 1997 - a democratic Constitution is ratified by the Polish parliament
• 1999 - Poland joins NATO.
• 2004 - Poland as a one of 10 countries , joined the EU.