[Normal_gaussian]

From the article

Since World War Two, Europe has been relatively peaceful with major exceptions of the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s and various political suppressions during the Cold War. However, the 19th century was also a relatively peaceful time for Europe that ended with the start of World War I.

So no, the vividity of the world wars is popular but unconvincing.

[em3rgent0rdr]

> "However, the 19th century was also a relatively peaceful time for Europe that ended with the start of World War I."

Operative word: relatively. Still I see more than 18th century (although maybe severity of conflicts vary). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe#19...

[majewsky]

More data: https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace/

I would not want to draw a firm conclusion from this, though. It says that "in Europe the second half of the 20th century was extraordinarily peaceful", but that particular graph only counts wars between nations, not civil wars, guerilla wars and terrorism.

There's a lot of data in that page, though, so I can't really compress it into a HN comment.

[em3rgent0rdr]

Thanks, there is quite a bit of info with great visualizations. It seems 1751-1800 was a relative minimum of years of wars.

[maze-le]

Well, the wars in this time may be fewer by number, but not by impact. In this time period, the first truly global conflict was fought. The "Seven Years' War" (1756–1763) was a war between european colonial powers over maritime and colonial hegemony. Some historians call it the "true first world war", because battles took place on all colonial and native frontiers of the participating parties.

This was truly a change of paradigm, regarding the scale of conflicts, not unlike the real first world war.

Also, the two wars that really changed the world (on a ideological level) took place in this time: The American war of independence and the French revolution.

[Normal_gaussian]

And the 20th century also has a decent list after WWII

[ascorbic]

Most Europeans have known living relatives who lived under bombardment or occupation. We may have lived in relative peace since then, but that's largely because the cultural memory of it is still so strong. This is what the precursor of the EU was created to ensure.