Short answers, pulled from the story.
The name Europe derives from the mythological figure of a Phoenician princess named Europa, whose name may originate from ancient Greek words meaning 'wide' and 'eye.' This mythological origin recorded in the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo predates the geographical reality by millennia.
The earliest hominin to have been discovered in Europe is Homo erectus georgicus, which lived roughly 1.8 million years ago in the territory of modern-day Georgia. Modern humans or Cro-Magnons arrived in Europe around 43,000 to 40,000 years ago, though recent evidence suggests Homo sapiens may have been present as early as 54,000 years ago.
Cleisthenes instituted the world's first democratic system of government in Athens in 508 BCE, establishing the Greek city-state or polis as the fundamental political unit of classical Greece. This political ideal was later rediscovered in the late 18th century by European philosophers.
The period between 1348 and 1420 witnessed the heaviest loss as the Black Death killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe alone. This figure represented a third of the European population at the time.
Germany invaded Poland on the 1st of September 1939, prompting France and the United Kingdom to declare war on Germany on the 3rd of September. This event opened the European theatre of the Second World War, which resulted in more than 40 million people dying in Europe.
Between 2004 and 2013, more Central European countries began joining, expanding the EU to 28 European countries. The United Kingdom withdrew from the EU on the 31st of January 2020, as a result of a June 2016 referendum on EU membership.