Humans have inhabited the lands of present-day Poland in the last hundred thousand years. In the sixteenth century, during the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, was the largest nation in Europe. Later there was no independent Polish structure. Poland regains its independence in 1918, after more than a century of government by their neighbors, but their boundaries are altered again after World War II. In the tenth century shows Poland as a nation ruled it a number of strong leaders who converted the Poles to Christianity, created a powerful kingdom and integrated Poland into the culture. Thanks to the cooperation of the two countries, Lithuanian and Polish armies defeated the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410. During several invasions of Russia (1605-1618), weakened by the Time of Troubles, Commonwealth troops took Moscow from September 27, 1610 to November 4, 1612, until in the eighteenth century the noble democracy gradually declined into disarray, making the once powerful Commonwealth vulnerable to foreign influences. Eventually everyone wanted a part of Poland, and obtained by deleting map Poland in 1795 they were expelled by the Russian patriotic uprising. The idea of Polish independence was kept. With the signing of the Armistice of Compiègne, Governor von Beseler ceded power to the Polish General Józef Piłsudski on 11 November 1918. This transfer of power marked the establishment of the first independent Polish state in more than twelve decades. After a Polish uprising in territories of Germany, Poland gained more ground. The Ukrainian People's Republic Polish gains recognized in the West, in exchange for support in the Kiev Offensive, 16 17 which sought to ensure the creation of a Ukrainian state with solid borders to the Bolsheviks. The start of the Polish-Soviet War did not produce the expected results: a Soviet counteroffensive Poles returned to their borders and beyond. Nineteenth century. On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Two days later, Britain and France declared war on the aggressor, initiating World War II in Europe. On September 17, began the Soviet invasion of Poland. The German and Soviet armies attacked each other is not, and divided Poland, as agreed in a secret clause of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. In August 1944, began the Warsaw Uprising. The Warsaw Uprising took place during the Nazi occupation of Warsaw during World War II. It was planned by the Home Army and Territorial Army, representing the constitutional government in exile. It was part of the so-called Operation Storm, which aimed to liberate Poland before the Soviet Union did. Polish troops held for 63 days the German siege, but the lack of allied support, were finally overcome by the much better-equipped German troops. The end of the war ended in Warsaw 250,000 civilians dead, most killed, and more than 85% of the city's buildings destroyed. In the late 1980s a movement of opposition to the government, led by the labor union Solidarność managed to jeopardize the communist regime, supported by the Western powers and the Catholic Church, who managed to influence the process, through their leaders, to secure the restoration of democratic freedoms and capitalism and the free market as the basis of the economic system. Changed its official name to Republic of Poland. Poland joined the European Union in 2004.
