Europe (Sideways Earth)

Europe is the the name of the subcontinent in the 'center of the earth.' Located conveniently between the tropic of Cancer and the Equator mankind developed it's greatest civilizations there. Today it is divided into numerous nations, some new and some very old. The leading nations are the Scandinavian Union, Russia, Germany and Brittany. Other nations include Italy, Iberia, and Greece.

Ancient History
See main articles: Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome

On the rough but fertile terrain on the northern Great Sea, a thriving civilization had arisen on the island known today as Crete. It is thought that the island, being west of Egypt on the African continent, had borrowed much of its culture from the earliest days of its sea-faring ways. Others say that it was the Phoenicians that brought civilization there. Whatever the case, it was fate that destroyed it in the way of a massive earthquake. Raiders from the mainland, what we now call Greece, took advantage of the situation and built up their own infant civilization from the ruins. One young Greek would, in the days following the fall of the civilizations of East Asia, conquer lands as far north as the Himalayan foothills and down into Africa - including Egypt.

The campaigns of Alexander the Great, though, would fail to prosper long after his premature death. Within two centuries the empire would be replaced by possibly the most successful empire in earth history. Centered in Rome, a city-state that took advantage of its sub-tropic location between the Aegean Sea and the Great Sea (now called the Eastern Sea), the new empire would eventually control lands reaching south of the equator and west to Scandinavian peninsula. Isolated on the west by the mountain range known as the Alps, the Italian peninsula provided an excellent environment for a republic to arise. That republic became an empire about fifty years before a Jewish teacher arose in the East Asia whose quiet religion would change the empire in its waning days. Over all, though the Empire would last in some form for almost two thousand years. The southern Roman Empire, though, would fall in the fifth century of the Current Era (dated from the birth of the Jewish Messiah, whose religion had become the state religion of Rome).

The Fall of Rome in AD 476 would lead into a period known to some as the "Dark Ages." But it was not totally dark, as pockets of civilization flourished in both formerly Roman provinces (in which the religious leaders held sway) and among the Scandinavians which had contact with them. In the northern portion of the empire the Greek-speaking civilization around Constantinople flourished even as it came in contact with a new religion that arose in East Asia and spread west and south. Constantinople would fall in 1453 and with it the last of what had been known as the Byzantine empire. The Byzantine empire was at first comprised of Greece and much of turkey, but would eventually gain back much of Rome's territory only to lose it again.

The Scandinavian Empire
As hordes of Russian and Mongolian warriors were ravishing the western frontier of the Roman empire, the warriors of the tropical peoples known as Scandinavians or "Vikings" were prospering and expanding across the Southern Sea. Though close cousins to the Germans of Central Europe, the Vikings were isolated by water from the overextended Romans. Christian missionaries had flourished there even as the church at Rome floundered. However, the pagan ways of the warriors often prevailed as the superior ships sought resources along the coast of the South Sea. Though for a time terrorizing the southern coast and the Islands of Briton, the discovery of a vast island surprisingly close at hand changed their goals in the tenth century. Greenland and its nearby islands proved ideal for colonization, except for the indigenous peoples who would be subjugated in due time. By the time that the Britons had discovered West America, the Vikings had conquered Greenland and made inroads along the eastern coast of the continent.

The British Empire
Things had not gone well for the ancient Celtic peoples in the land of the three seas. And so, they migrated south across Europe until they could go no further. Eventually they ventured into the uncharted great Southern Sea to a group of islands straddling the equator. On the larger island they had found unfriendly natives, but across a narrow strait they had found a land that rivaled the fabled garden of Eden. This was in the days before Rome was founded, and so for almost a thousand years they thrived on the southern island, which is now known as Eire. In time, the Celts would invade the northern island, overpowering the more primitive Picts to take what is now known as Scotland. The Britons, on the eastern half of the island, would hold their ground for over a thousand years. Once the Vikings had moved on to exploring Greenland and beyond, the Britons, by this time allied to the Scots, would venture across the narrow strait back to the main continent from which they and the Celts had come a millennium before. The people of southwestern Europe had been weakened by years of feudal wars and were 'ripe for the picking.' In a series of raids in the mid eleventh century the Britons, having learned a lot from their Roman masters, began to take much of the lands of their ancient ancestors. In AD 1066 the warrior king of the Danes, named William, fell to British troops. The Empire reached to Iberia in the east and Germany to the north. The Danes were pushed back to the Netherland wilderness, never to regain any of the Frankish lands.

Iberia
more to come ...

The German Empire
more to come ...

The New Rome
more to come ...

Greece
more to come ...

The Russian Empire
more to come ...