Europe is one of the oldest regions in NationStates, and as such has a long history, stretching deep back to before the official site launch^[1]. Any state’s history is important to its present, and I feel an understanding of Europe’s history to be of equal import. As such, I have endeavored to bring to you the fullest version of Europe’s history I can manage. (And yes, I know about IA’s history page^[2]. But just as multiple historians may write about the history of Europe in the real world, so I feel there ought to be the opportunity for multiple historians to write about Europe’s history in the world of NationStates, and my writing style is sufficiently different from IA's.)
This is not what I had intended to be the completed product, but I will not be writing any more of it.

We begin, as all good stories do, at the beginning. The earliest record of Europe’s existence is of October 2002^[3][4], when the region had but eleven residents. That was the month when Europe got its first delegate: the Holy Empire of Bananas. However, Bananas was not delegate for long: early in November, a triumvirate was formed by Hysteria, Grated cheese, and Chlamydia, aiming to elevate Hysteria to the delegacy, with the promise of making the position more democratic by having the Delegate vote in the UN (the predecessor of the World Assembly) according to the will of the populace. Although initially unsuccessful, with Aaronistan securing the delegacy before them, Hysteria’s popularity in the region grew, until about a week later they finally claimed the position.
Hysteria now had the delegacy, but keeping it would prove difficult. Saidera challenged Hysteria, and by December a number of nations were all trying to get the post, with Saidera constantly only one or two endorsements away from securing the delegacy. A compromise was finally reached in mid-December, whereby all the hopefuls would withdraw, and Grated Cheese would become the new delegate.^[3]
By this time, Europe had grown to around 500 nations – a massive increase from the original 11.

Grated Cheese’s delegacy was the first period when there was an undisputed delegate, and a large population. As such, many improvements were made to the region. On the 10th of January 2003, the “EU Constitution” was written, and five days later the EU was established along with Europe’s first forum. The EU was Europe’s first parliament, though whether it was specifically a roleplay organisation, or if it had responsibilities with regional management, I cannot say - it survived into 2008 in the forums, but - so far as I am aware - held no sway whatsoever over the nationstates.net side of Europe.^[5][6] The region by this time already seems to have had a strong roleplay community, with the official regional history mentioning a roleplay “Kingsport crisis” taking place between 24th and 27th January, which eds with the “establishment of a demilitarized zone”. The end of this crisis seems to have prompted the community to properly establish each nation’s borders, as Europe’s first regional map was posted by Webdesign (a forum moderator) on January 27th - and although the very first one does not survive, the May 2003 version does - and given Webdesign appears on it, it may be assumed that the basic geography has not changed too much.^[18] The first European Football Championship, the spiritual predecessor of Dizgovzy’s and Outer Sparta’s football leagues, was held in Liechtenistan, possibly during February, and the victor – Mangalese – was announced on March 1st. The first Web Archive record of Europe^[7] comes from around this period, and confirms that Grated Cheese had implemented the promises they, Hysteria, and Chlamydia had made back in November 2002, with the World Factbook Entry proclaiming Europe had “…a democratic Delegate system, where the Delegate votes on issues based on a concensus [sic] of European UN Members.”
The remarkable stability of Grated Cheese’s delegacy was not just attested from within. "The Bruce" on the 1st of June 2003 wrote an article on the state of Nationstates in forums of Wysteria, they remarked upon how Grated Cheese’s Europe was a particularly stable region.^[8]

But the period of peace did not last forever. As nations learned how to endotart, Tadibabak seized the delegacy, although Grated Cheese returned to the position the following day.^[3] This turned out perfectly harmless, but showed how easily Grated Cheese’s delegacy could be toppled – and one nation determined to make full use of that.
Memelland emerged as Europe’s first major antagonist when they were discovered to have been “secretly trading endorsements” in an attempt to coup the region. This earned them the dubious honour of being the first nation ejected from Europe, following the creation of The Rejected Realms, on the 8th of May. However, the region quickly moved on to other events: following the establishment of “Founder” positions in User-Created Regions, the NS Moderators offered hitherto founderless UCRs the chance to elect one of their number as a founder. Thus, on the 18th, Schumania was elected as the first European Founder – except, due to an incompetent moderator who forgot “to type in his full nation title”^[9], it took some time before they assumed the position. (It should be noted that this is disputed by current NS Moderator Reploid Productions, who stated that Schumania was only a temporary founder, according to the Moderator Logs.^[10]) Europe would pay dearly for that mod’s mistake.
On the 28th of May, one day after Schumania should have become founder, Memelland struck. They had infiltrated Europe using a puppet, Shalom alechem, and now seized the delegacy from Grated Cheese. Every single resident was ejected – around 725 – and for the first time in its history, Europe was passworded. A prominent resident, Nendeln (owned by the same player as Liechtenistan, the nation which hosted the first Football Championship), founded the region of “New Europe”, which a great number of those ejected joined.^[3] The number of nations banned was so great that Lovisa, a long-time member of Europe, briefly became delegate of The Rejected Realms, due to the number of nations endorsing them who were also ejected.^[11]
Fortunately for Europe, such raids were at that time illegal. The NS Mods deleted and banned Memelland and his puppet, and lifted the password. But although nations came flooding back from both New Europe and The Rejected Realms, by the 2nd of June, the population was still only at 333.^[12] It wouldn’t be until December that Europe would once again reach its original size. The mods hastily appointed Schumania as Founder, and Europe returned to focusing on roleplay.^[3]
Grated Cheese’s page is first preserved on the Web Archive after when endorsement lists were shown on June 25th 2003. Their endorsement list is perhaps the earliest largely complete record of Europe’s UN-member population – listing a total of 71 nations.^[13] The only nation mentioned who is still prominent in NationStates today is the nation which controls our beloved founder, Myrth, now resident in The Pacific.
On the 22nd and 23rd of August, the region suffered from “griefer attacks”, and Schumania was advised by a NS Mod that the region should be passworded, as there was “a high probability another attack attempt will take place in the next few hours.” Fourteen and a half hours later, the password was lifted, as Schumania allowed the griefer to return on parole.^[14]
A thread^[15] in Europe’s forums from the 25th of August 2003 reveals much about the workings of the region. Schumania describes the delegate as “merely a figurehead” – one resident declaring “the existence of a founder makes the delegate that much more useless,” a statement which I’m sure many of today’s Europeans would viciously contest – and a hugely respected member of the community, being one of the founding members. Furthermore, Schumania says they believe Grated Cheese to be the longest-serving delegate in the game up to that point. However, there appear to have been a number of (needless to say, unsuccessful) attempts to challenge Grated Cheese on the grounds of their inactivity. Yet this inactivity is not much of a problem according to another resident, as the delegate would only need to be active to vote in the UN, an institution with which Europe was apparently disillusioned – “We simply don't care about the UN anymore, because we know how ineffective it is.” (This is interesting, given how powerful Europe would later become in the World Assembly, particularly under Alsted.)
One such nation challenging Grated Cheese’s delegacy was Pouland, who is noted as having a “decent chance” of securing the position. They seem to have wanted to try and boost Europe’s participation in the UN. The news bulletin on the Europe forums announced their perceived challenge on August 29th, and the day after the challenger was only twelve endorsements away from the delegacy. However, the challenger’s “political inexperience” led to their failure, as by the 2nd of September, it was clear Grated Cheese would remain as delegate.^[14] By October 10th, they were down from 67 endorsements to a mere 36.^[16]
Grated Cheese would remain as Europe’s delegate for another two months, but on the 9th of November was defeated by East colorado, a relative newcomer.^[3]

On November 20th 2003, Schumania disappeared. Europe was left, for the time being, without a regional founder – meaning the position of delegate suddenly became far more important.
Following that, East Colorado was forced to resign, after “intense criticism”, and moved region to South Pacific. Suspicion had been first aroused by his means of gaining the delegacy, as at that time “mass endorsement trading” was looked down on. More pressing, however, were his attempts to remove any opposition from the region. Multiple nations were challenging the position, including Federation of futurists, who had earlier withdrawn their challenge to support East Colorado and Nendeln, another challenger and prominent resident, who had founded the region New Europe during Memelland’s coup. Also running was Incorporated aartijke, but by the time they announced their candidacy, Nendeln was almost guaranteed the post.^[17]

With the memory of Memelland’s coup still fresh, and with the region’s founder gone, Myrth – who was at that time an NS mod – appointed the new nation Eurofounder as the regional founder on the 1st of December 2003, to be controlled by two nations: Myrth themselves, and another prominent European, Erlangen-ansbach, who later resigned and gave Myrth complete control over the nation.^[19][9]
After the 1st of December, the original Regional History pages end, and the regional news is no longer preserved by the internet archives, so the next period is a relative blind spot in European history. What is preserved is the regional map, which provides a small insight into the community.^[20]
By June 2004, Europe seems to have definitely begun engaging in inter-regional relations, as a forum reorganisation notice mentions “Embassy Row” being “without a dedicated moderator.”^[21]
Nendeln’s delegacy was briefly interrupted on the 28th of July 2004 by the nation The human beings endotarting their way into the delegacy, then spamming on the RMB. They were banjected almost immediately by Myrth, although it took until the next day for Nendeln to reclaim their post.^[22].

The rest of 2004 was fairly quiet, until party politics (presumably within the EU) began to get out of hand in January 2005, to the point that Erlangen-Ansbach declared it to be “without doubt” a “crisis”, and the two halves of the region simply stopped speaking to each other. Erlangen-Ansbach started a thread in the forums to try and sort it all out, and given the number of replies within the thread, it seems to have been a fierce debate. Unfortunately, the wayback machine hasn’t saved the thread itself, so no more details can be found.^[23]
Nendeln’s delegacy ended in July 2005, following which was the short-lived delegate Arthuria-elizabetia, until August.^[12] Their successor, The county of worksop, is the next delegate to appear in a web archive snapshot – from November 2005 – from which it may be seen that the region has outwardly not fundamentally changed from Nendeln’s time. A regional wiki was opened some time in 2005.^[24]
Following February 2006, the web archive ceases to document the on-site region until 2008.

Worksop was followed by a succession of short-lived delegates: Bachir gemayel, who held the position in March and April 2006, and was eventually deleted by the Mods in August that year. Then from late April to late May was Byzantople, who was then briefly replaced by Monkecia for early June, who had been a forum moderator. After that was Kaihola, whose term began mid-June and ended around early August.^[12]
Assuming Monkecia is "Monk", they did not appear to have left the region on good terms. In October 2006, the regional forums were hacked, the prime suspect apparently being Monk. This led to the creation of a new forum.^[25]

Towards the end of August, the delegacy switched between Kaihola, The grey messiah, Short shorts, and Hexola, until Short shorts secured the delegacy for September to early December. Then came Gallantaria, whose delegacy was interrupted during May and June 2007 by Domhain.^[12] It is during Gallantaria’s second term, beginning in June, that the web archives again provide any light.

But before we delve back into the story, there exists a snapshot of the regional community from a recruitment post in the NationStates Jolt Archives, from October 2007.^[4]
This was written by The kievan people, who describes themselves as "a longtime member and moderator of the region nseurope." They affirm that the principle focus of the region continues to be on RP, and it appears that Europe's policy of neutrality reached its most radical around this time: not only does the region refuse to involve itself in inter-regional politics, it also does not participate in the United Nations (now the World Assembly), and is described as a separate world from the rest of NationStates.
The author also states that most of the regional population hails from Europe, and not necessarily from the UK; a sharp contrast from today, when the region seems to be dominated by people from Britain and the USA.
Although it obviously paints Europe in the best possible light, due to its nature as a recruitment post, it's still useful in that it is one of the few places where we see what the region thought of itself; the only comparable example I've been able to look at was that thread about the nature of the delegacy by Schumania.

In the next archive regarding Gameside - from Galantaria's reign in 2008 - the World Factbook Entry remains virtually unchanged from Nendeln’s time, and much of it is still identical from Grated Cheese’s reign. This is somewhat confusing, as it would seem that despite multiple instances of nations from the region claiming the region takes no interest in the United Nations, this continuation of the WFE from Nendeln's time would suggest the opposite, claiming as it does that Europe contributes to the WA greatly.^[26]
Gallantaria’s delegacy appears to be long, stable, and largely uneventful, and remains so until its end, when Alsted became delegate. However, Alsted’s delegacy is a story unto itself, for which I would point to his recent interview with Regnum Italiae in Euronews. As that is also around the time the current forum was created, the game began to automatically log delegacies and embassies, and when RMB history began to be saved, Alsted’s ascension to the delegacy may be considered the end of Europe’s pre-modern history.

---

Sources

Many of the below links connect with each other, as multiple pages under the same website, or as the same page in a different time. While it is true that it would not be difficult for a reader to find the other links from within one another, I decided to put each as a separate source to provide some context of what the reader may find within each link. Each source will be accompanied by a short description of that source.

1. page=news/2004/11/13/index.html

The first announcements in the current NS Announcements, made two years to the day after the site was officially opened.

2. nation=imperium_anglorum/detail=factbook/id=483186

IA's "history of Europe". I unashamedly confess to have used it to find the different web archive pages for the Europe nationstates page. It's a good read if you're interested in the region's history, but I feel I've managed to fill in enough gaps to merit a separate dispatch. Go read his one.

3. https://web.archive.org/web/20031209061940/http://www.nationstates-europe.org:80/info/

The oldest known record of Europe's history, written by nations who were there to witness the events. There is another copy of it extending to September 2007, but after East Colorado's resignation, it deals purely with roleplay history. It may be found here.

4. https://nationstates.ermarian.net/jolt/1234/539615

The Kievan People's recruitment post. It's essentially propaganda, but is still a nice insight to the region's culture.

5. http://www.europe-game.eu/index.php?forums/european-parliament.56/
6. http://www.europe-game.eu/index.php?forums/european-parliament.55/

Sources 5 and 6 are the two European Unions, after the organisation split over internal divisions. They possibly merged again, but if they did it seems it happened right before their final death.

7. https://web.archive.org/web/20030504063510/http:/www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/pin=-1/page=display_region/region=europe

The oldest Web Archive record of Europe's NS page, showing Grated Cheese's delegacy pre-Memelland Coup. Note the absence of a founder.

8. https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/wysterianforum/the-nation-states-world-today-t101.html

The Bruce's observations on the state of NationStates. They propose that in general regions named after irl locations (e.g. Europe) tend to be less stable than other UCRs, but lists Grated Cheese's delegacy as one of the exceptions.

9. https://nationstates.ermarian.net/jolt/1223/297680

[violet]'s attempt to create a history of NationStates. Myrth posted Europe's history, mostly a copy-paste of the European history page on the regional forum (a link to which I have already provided), but Myrth adds the exact date of EuroFounder's appointment as regional founder.

10. viewtopic.php?p=29512132#p29512132

Moderator Reploid Productions's results from looking in the moderator logs for Schumania's appointment as founder. They claim Schumania's appointment was only temporary, but this seems at odds with the regional forum's history page.

11. https://rejectedrealms.com/viewtopic.php?p=10009032#p10009032

From the thread in TRR's regional forum compiling a list of regional delegates, in which Lovisa is noted as having been an illegitimate delegate following a mass ejection in Europe.

12. http://nsdossier.texasregion.net//history.aspx?region=europe&type=Exact&group=region&start=&end=

NS Dossier, which provides a list of delegates and regional populations from 28th May 2008. IA in his History of Europe regards this as "inaccurate (due to infrequent web scraping)", but this is still an invaluable resource so long as the reader is not looking for a specific date, as more than likely that date is not included.

13. https://web.archive.org/web/20030625020330/http://www.nationstates.net:80/cgi-bin/index.cgi/pin=-1/page=display_nation/nation=grated_cheese

The oldest Web Archive record of Grated Cheese's endorsement list.

14. https://web.archive.org/web/20031005222920/http://www.nationstates-europe.org/

The oldest record of Europe's regional forum, and the only record of Schumania taking action as founder.

15. https://web.archive.org/web/20031010010149/http://www.nationstates-europe.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2197

A regional discussion on the value of a delegate, and of the high esteem with which Grated Cheese is held. One of very few snapshots of how the region perceives itself.

16. https://web.archive.org/web/20031010192736/http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/page=display_nation/nation=pouland

The only Web Archive record of Pouland, the nation mentioned in the first regional forum record as trying to gain the delegacy.

17. https://web.archive.org/web/20031126104605/http://www.nationstates-europe.org:80/

The second Web Archive record of the regional forum, with an article on the resignation of East Colorado

18. https://imgur.com/sCC3NaA

The oldest regional map we have, though some months later than the first regional map. Several prominent nations spoken of here are featured on it, together with their flags: Grated Cheese, Europe's first powerful delegate; Schumania, Europe's first Founder; Liechtanistan/Nendeln, delegate after Grated Cheese and East Colorado; Lovisa, who was briefly Delegate of TRR during Memelland's coup; Erlangen-Ansbach, who was one of the two owners of the EuroFounder nation; Myrth, the other owner, who still controls the nation; Monkecia, who allegedly hacked one of Europe's forums; Webdesign, who created the map; and Twente, who posted this map in Eurocord. Conspicuous in their absence is East Colorado, delegate after Grated Cheese, essentially confirming that they were a relative newcomer when they ascended to the delegacy.

19. https://discord.com/channels/181381786868252672/364889972823687170/516749822267490315

Information divulged in Eurocord by the nation Twente.

20. https://web.archive.org/web/20040507074554/http://www.europeanaffairs.co.uk/map.html

The regional map around a year later, during Nendeln's delegacy. The overall shape is the same, but there has been a massive turnover: many of the old nations, such as Grated Cheese and Schumania, have gone. A new island has been created just north of the International Research Islands for EuroFounder. A later regional map is preserved in the same archive, providing a glimpse at the development of the community.

21. https://web.archive.org/web/20040611000844/http://www.europeanaffairs.co.uk:80/

The home page of the regional forums from June 2004. None of the links work (save the map), but one of the posts mentions "Embassy Row", which I take to mean embassies with other regions - though I may be wrong, and this may simply be an internal roleplay feature. However, as Myrth calls Embassy Row "unimportant", I feel it is safe to assume that it denotes inter-regional embassies, the unimportance stemming from Europe's refusal to involve itself in inter-regional affairs.

22. https://web.archive.org/web/20040730213626/http://www.europeanaffairs.co.uk:80/

The home page again, this time from the end of July, recording an attempted coup by a spammer. A mildly interesting note regarding this is that the coup is recorded in the NS Dossier (a link to which is above), which records that on the 28th of July - the same date as Myrth's post stating they had banned a spammer after they couped - there was no regional delegate. This presumably means that the NS Dossier took a snapshot after the couper was banned, but before Nendeln recovered the delegacy at the next NS site update.

23. https://web.archive.org/web/20050204194050/http://www.europeanaffairs.co.uk:80/

The forum home page once again, this time from February 2005, recording the "crisis" whereby party politics split the region in two.

24. https://web.archive.org/web/20051102034322/http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/page=display_region/region=Europe

The final Web Archive record of Europe's nationstates page until Galantaria's delegacy, showing Worksop as delegate.

25. http://www.europe-game.eu/index.php?threads/wtf-happened.105/

A thread archived in the current regional forum which explains why moving forums was necessary, and alleges that Monkecia hacked into the previous forum.

26. https://web.archive.org/web/20080622153554/http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/page=display_region/region=europe

The penultimate Web Archive record of Europe using the display_region url, showing Gallantaria as delegate. Of interest here is an RMB post by Aatesieto, who says they are the ambassador from Nederland, showing that Europe had inter-regional embassies at this time. I've been unable to find any mention of Europe in their forums.