[dude4you]

More about the progressive thinking if Frederick the great. Afaik the fist steam engine in mainland Europe was deployed in Prussia.

[JuettnerDistrib]

> mainland Europe

First time I here that phrase! A testament to the rise of China? The proper term is continental Europe.

Digging a bit further, Wikipedia's[0] article is titled "Continental Europe", but says "mainland" is also used.

Time to speculate: for the British speaking English, the "main" land are the British Isles, so they prefer the term "continental".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Europe

[dude4you]

while I am not a native speaker, I am a us citizen and it is a term that would be used by an uneducated American. but continental is indeed better.