Posted on May 9, 2019
Peace and unity in Europe!
Peace, prosperity, and partnership!
United in diversity!
Europe Day isn't actually about peace-after-World-War-II, although Victory in Europe Day and Liberation Day are celebrated on May 8 and 9 in various spots in Europe, commemorating the end of that awful war on the European continent on May 8, 1945.
Instead, Europe Day is about the formation of the European Union in 1993. But today is not the anniversary of the start up of the E.U. as we know it today. Instead, today commemorates the "Schuman declaration" on this date in 1950.
French foreign minister Robert Schuman gave a speech setting out his idea for cooperation in Europe. He suggested creating a European institution that would pool together and manage steel and coal production. A treaty creating this institution was signed less than a year later.
And this steel-and-coal management institution is the beginning of what has now become the European Union!
Like the United Nations, which was set up at the end of WWII, in the fall of 1945, the E.U.'s various cooperative institutions have been created with the hope that war between European nations becomes unthinkable when those nations are working closely together economically and otherwise.
Also on this date:
Birthday of author / illustrator Eleanor Estes
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Anniversary of the Consecration of Lincoln Cathedral
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