What were the important developments and cultural changes in Europe?

1) adoption of Catholic Christianity and leaving behind pagan cults in early Middle Ages, 2) Renaissance and Reformation, 3)integration of ancient wisdom of Greece and Roman to philosophy, 4) persecution of Jews, expulsion of Arabs from Europe, Greeks coming to Europe (after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453), 5) discovery and colonization of the New World and other parts of the Globe, 6) so-called Modernity with its scientific revolution in the 17th centurry, 7) Enlightenment with its various (political and scientific) including constitutionalism, 8) romanticism with its significant consequences in arts, philosophy and medicine (psychology), 9) Darwinism and social darwinism in the context of industrial revolution, 10) secularization of European societies, 11) both World Wars, 12) Cold War, 13)decolonization, 14) post-1990 information revolution and globalization of everyday life.

Explanation: globalization of European society started already in the renaissance and continued later on as well. I am excluding Russia from this development because Russia started (just in a very limited way) participating in European development at the beginning of the 18th century.

a phrase from a poem by ralph waldo emerson about the battle of lexington and concord. emerson's words read, “here once the embattled farmers stood / and fired the shot heard round the world.”